At a time when memories are increasingly flattened into folders, feeds, and cloud backups, a new experimental device from MIT Media Lab proposes a far more intimate archive: scent. Developed by Cyrus Clarke, the Anemoia Device is a speculative yet functional prototype that translates photographs into bespoke fragrances using generative AI, inviting users not to view memories, but to inhabit them through the body.

The choice of scent as a medium is deliberate. Among the human senses, smell is widely understood to be the most directly linked to memory and emotion, bypassing rational processing and triggering vivid recall almost instantaneously. Unlike images or text, scent has the ability to summon atmosphere, mood, and feeling without explanation, making it a particularly powerful carrier for both personal and imagined memories. The Anemoia Device is built around this sensory potency.

Designer: MIT Media Lab

Referred to as a scent memory machine, the device operates on the metaphor of distillation. Memory is treated as something dense and layered that can be compressed into an essence. Physically, the prototype is organised as a vertical apparatus with three distinct sections. At the top, users insert an analogue photograph, a deliberate design decision that slows interaction and foregrounds tactility in contrast to screen-based memory consumption. The middle section houses an AI-powered computer that analyses the image using a vision language model. At the bottom, a series of pumps connected to fragrance reservoirs mix and release a custom scent.

Importantly, the Anemoia Device is not designed as a fully automated image-to-scent translator. Instead, it positions the user as an active participant in shaping the final outcome. After the photograph is interpreted, users interact with three tactile dials that guide the AI’s understanding. The first establishes a point of view within the photograph, which could be a person or a non-living element such as a tree, bicycle, or piece of fruit. The second situates that subject within a lifecycle. For people, this may mean childhood or old age. For objects, the range moves from raw to in use to decay. The third dial assigns emotional tone, shaping the fragrance through mood rather than literal accuracy.

Conceptually, the project draws on anemoia, a form of nostalgia for a time one has never personally experienced. While the device can theoretically transform any photographic memory into scent, its design places particular emphasis on unlived or inherited memories. Archival photographs, family collections, and fragments of collective history become interpretive starting points rather than records to be faithfully reproduced. This framing allows the system to move fluidly between the universal and the deeply personal.

Early trial sessions illustrate how this interpretive flexibility plays out. In one example, a participant uploaded an archival photograph depicting a couple eating fruit in a garden. By selecting the fruit as the subject, defining its state as in use, and choosing a calm emotional tone, the system generated a scent combining spiced apple, pear, and earthy musk. The participant associated the fragrance with autumn, demonstrating how scent can evoke emotional landscapes rather than literal scenes.

This range is enabled by a scent library of 50 base fragrances, spanning notes such as sandalwood, pine forest, leather, old books, and sand. Each fragrance is dispensed in one-second increments, allowing for countless nuanced combinations. While the system begins with shared cultural associations, user narrative and emotional framing often push the output beyond predictable or clichéd interpretations.

The Anemoia Device builds on Clarke’s longer-standing interest in making memory tangible. Before joining MIT, he founded Grow Your Own Cloud, which explored storing digital data within the DNA of plants. Across this body of work runs a consistent critique of contemporary memory practices, which externalise experience into digital infrastructure that is accessible but largely disembodied.

Looking ahead, the project suggests multiple future directions. The prototype could evolve into a desktop-sized device for personal use, allowing people to print memories at home, or into a remote service that translates mailed or uploaded photographs into scents. While it relies on advanced technology, its ambition is notably restrained. Rather than competing for attention, the Anemoia Device gestures toward a form of computing that encourages slowness, reflection, and sensory presence.

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