At Dataland, it’s the digital that’s augmented by scent

David Hanau: How do you translate data into smell to create a Scent of Data? Where do you even begin, when the muse isn’t a flower or a memory, but an algorithm?

Véronique Ferval: “That was the whole difficulty, and the whole appeal, of this project: stepping out of our daily routine to work on sensations no one has ever felt. We created it as a pair. I’m head of scent design, Patricia head of scent science, artistic creation on one side, science on the other, and it’s from that meeting that this kind of sensation was born. For a perfumer, the challenge was to conceptualize a smell without representing anything figurative. Fortunately, our palette holds any number of molecules and raw materials that produce still-unknown sensations, ones we’re not used to working with, certainly not in these quantities. It was about projecting ourselves onto a conceptual idea, drawing on all of L’Oréal’s innovation and the perfumers’ ability to leave their beaten path.”

Patricia Soyer: “On that front, we went looking for the very latest molecular innovations. Musks first, for fluidity: something that flows, like data. Then very vertical, very vibrant materials: the new aldehydes, quite metallic, almost effervescent, with an inflection we call ‘vinyl.’ By overdosing these molecules, you get a very clean base and an extremely vibrant top note. That metallic vibration, that verticality, that almost vinyl quality, is what gives it its synthetic, data-driven feel. And we wanted to tie it back to nature too: under the accord, there’s an intense molecule, a little underground, an underground that can read as urban or as vegetal. What you smell in the Scent of Data is that vertical, metallic effect, but you stay anchored in something quite woody.”

VF: “It’s a black-and-white smell. Everything else in the exhibition is lush, saturated with color; here, we wanted black and white.”

DH: There are twelve imprints in all, drawn from the Large Nature Model, the museum Dataland’s proprietary AI model. How did you transpose the model’s outputs into twelve olfactory signatures, and how did you work with Refik Anadol’s studio?

VF: “That’s what makes this project an unprecedented experience: we worked very far upstream with Refik. He shared a great deal about his work as an artist, and together we defined the concepts, then the olfactory journey through the exhibition. With very strong choices, because here we’re not composing perfumes, but powerful, bold smells that trigger a strong emotion. The scents follow the museum route: a data section, a rainforest section, and a section tied to the canopy and its vibrant light. Plenty of references to nature, in short.”

PS: “We had natural anchor points from the start. To carry the visitor into the heart of the world’s rainforests, we wanted to evoke the Smell of Rain, but stronger, with a petrichor memoria, that very damp scent of earth. But we also went after flowers no one has ever smelled, like the Moonflower, which blooms only one night a year. We wanted to convey the smell of mycelium too, the fungus, which connects deep in the soil. We also looked for a green note, neon, chlorophyll to the extreme. And we enriched these olfactory experiences with unprecedented technologies. A year ago, almost to the day, at the first exhibition with Refik, I had presented Osmobloom, a technology exclusive to L’Oréal that captures the air of flowers, with no transformation at all: no heat, no solvent. You collect the air, concentrate it, pass it over a natural base. And when you smell that tuberose extract, you smell the flower, not a formula or a reconstitution: the nose, and the emotion, are transported straight into the flower. So what we have here are great signatures of nature, intensified with avant-garde molecules and technologies. We brought the ingredients, a design, a very human olfactory creativity, in constant dialogue with Refik.”

DH: In that process, where does the boundary lie between the algorithmic tool and the nose? What, in your craft, remains irreplaceable?

VF: “What remains irreplaceable today, and the future may tell us otherwise, is the capacity to smell and to feel. Emotion stays deeply human. And that’s where the collaboration becomes fascinating: we make the invisible visible. People often speak of humanity augmented by the digital. Here, it’s the reverse. It’s the digital that’s augmented by scent. Thanks to smell, it becomes alive, visceral, memorable. Hence this choice: composing the notes with humans, even though L’Oréal is a house that fully embraces AI. This time, it was the human and the digital in an unprecedented dialogue.”

PS: “Since the point was to create living scents here, almost living olfactory experiences, we went after the latest research, often driven by the digital. But the olfactory experience itself stayed human. AI helps us rework a formula, manage its power, secure the regulatory side. But creations never smelled before, like these, with these unprecedented blends, remain a human, artistic, creative act.”

DH: A perfume is usually fixed in a bottle. Here, it’s diffused live, and it reacts to the work as well as to the public. How does that change composition? Do you have to think in sequences, in layers, to avoid saturating one room after another?

VF: “We’ve worked on that a lot, even this week. The diffusion tool is remarkable: it diffuses dry air, so there’s no contamination or saturation. It’s both present and very respectful of everyone. Each visitor moves around in their own little scented bubble. We balanced the diffusion times and the blank times, the scent and the no scent, to give the brain time to acclimate. And each visitor lives a different experience, shaped by the sensor on their wrist: their heart rate, their temperature, determine the experience they receive.”

PS: “Just yesterday, with Refik, we were discussing diffusion length. The more surprising a smell is, the less sure you are you’ve smelled it the first time you encounter it: so you have to repeat it, without saturating the visual experience for all that. So we adapted the sequences to each smell and each room, and we made sure everyone can smell the scents at their best, without saturating the museum’s overall experience. It’s a true creative olfactory laboratory.”

DH: When you create a perfume that isn’t a product to sell but a museum work, does it let you do things that selective perfumery normally forbids?

VF: “Yes, because here we work on sensations, on flashes. Less on polishing the note; we’re after more power and impact. But the creation principle itself doesn’t change: once the perfumers and creators understand we’re no longer in a commercial setting, they go digging into their own unconscious and their own experiences, with the same kind of process. But here, we push back the limits of creativity. It’s a creation laboratory, and what we experiment with then lets us go further on the brands.”

PS: “We have that freedom internally too. At L’Oréal Luxe, it’s what we call the culture de l’écart, the culture of the gap: giving ourselves the right to run this kind of project. Because these scents will go on to inspire others, on our brands. It’s the beginning of something.”

VF: “Here, the formulas are shorter, more instantaneous: a photograph, in a way. We don’t work on wear on the skin. A real perfume involves other constraints: diffusion, sillage, technical demands.”

PS: “Here, we’re more in the realm of ambient scent. It’s also what we’re exploring with a brand like Margiela: a whole ecosystem of applications that extends the fragrance to the home, to the linens. We’re getting closer to that.”

DH: To echo that, my last question is about the future. Do you see perfume taking on a new role beyond the bottle: in cultural venues, in retail, at events?

VF: “We’re seeing an explosion of perfume, across every category and all over the world, not just in the West. It crosses the boundaries between categories, as well as between the commercial and the institutional. We imagine many more events like this one, cultural, institutional, but commercial as well. Perfume today is moving past its traditional limits.”

PS: “It’s a whole new gesture. Perfume is such a vehicle for emotion that, in a more digital world, we need it all the more.”

VF: “Young people most of all. Among Gen Z, and even Gen Alpha, this need to smell, to reconnect with the world, is very present.”

DH: In an increasingly digital environment, we need to come back to the senses, to the essential?

PS: “Exactly. To feel, in every sense of the word. Refik’s project is precisely that: experiencing something that is, on the face of it, irrational. We’re not in the rainforest, but we smell it…”