CCBTx ARS ELECTRONICA 2026
Maki Ueda “An Olfacto-Politics Project”
September 9 (Wed) – 13 (Sun), 2026
（Inside ARS ELECTRONICA 2026 Theme Exhibition）
Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] exhibits highlights from the Olfacto-Politics: The Air as a Medium project by 2025 artist fellow Maki Ueda at Ars Electronica Festival. Ars Electronica Festival is the world’s largest media art festival, organized annually by the eponymous cultural institution based in Linz, Austria.
Olfacto-Politics: The Air as a Medium comprises several elements: creating opportunities to learn through lectures and workshops, research using technology to measure and visualize of the sense of smell, and producing and exhibiting a spatial artwork that expresses the circulation of air. Through the medium of air, the project aimed to prompt reflection on biodiversity and biomes, leading to new perspectives on how we perceive the world.
The project embodies Maki Ueda’s research concept of Olfacto-Politics. Across various multifaceted projects, the artist reinterprets the air as a medium shared equally by humans, animals, and plants. In an era of growing uncertainty due to climate change and international conflict, Olfacto-Politics asks to what extent the sense of smell enables us to perceive invisible dynamics and relationships.
An Olfacto-Politics Project Overview
Date
September 9 (Wed) – September 12 (Sat), 2026, 10:00 AM –7:00 PM ; September 13 (Sun), 10:00 AM –6:00 PM
Venue
Ars Electronica Festival 2026
Ursulinenhof Dachboden & Hof, OK Platz 1 (Landstraße 31 4020 Linz, Austria)
* For event details and ticket applications, please check the official “Ars Electronica Festival 2026” website.
ARTIST PROFILE
Maki Ueda
Olfactory artist
Maki Ueda’s practice explores the relationships between smell, space, and movement through immersive sensory experiences. A pioneering olfactory artist and educator, her work has featured in major exhibitions worldwide, including The Ether, Smell It!, The Smell of War, and If There Ever Was. She was a 2025 CCBT artist fellow and the recipient of the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award 2024 and Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent at the Art and Olfaction Awards 2022.
ueda.nl
https://pepe.okinawa
https://ccbt.rekibun.or.jp/art-incubation/40467
EXHIBITION 1｜Olfactory Biome
Olfactory Biome is a participatory environmental installation that creates an immersive experience of smell in a nocturnal forest. Visitors engage in olfactory role playing through the chemical signals that constitute scent, experiencing the air as a medium of communication. Participants choose to be either a moth or bat, wearing scents that attract or repel. The soundscape shifts in response to movement, allowing visitors to experience the maneuvers that moths and bats execute in the dark using echolocation and evasion.
photo:Jumpei Saito
*The photo shows the venue of the exhibition Aerosculpture ver.2 Biome of Scent, held by Maki Ueda during her tenure as a 2025 CCBT Artist Fellow.
Date and Time: September 9 (Wed) – September 12 (Sat), 2026, 10:00 AM –7:00 PM ; September 13 (Sun), 10:00 AM –6:00 PM
Venue: Ursulinenhof Linz, Attic (Landstraße 31 4020 Linz, Austria) // OK QUARTER
* For event details and ticket applications, please check the official “Ars Electronica Festival 2026” website.
Collaborator
Yota Morimoto
Composer
Morimoto Yota’s work explores the materiality of sound and unconventional approaches to generating and transmitting sonic matter. He composes for musicians, ensembles, and public spaces, and has presented sound installations at such museums and festivals as Kunstmuseum (The Hague), Gaudeamus (Utrecht), Transmediale (Berlin), ISEA (Dortmund, Istanbul), ICMC (Belfast, Perth, Athens), SMC (Porto, Barcelona), and WeSA (Seoul). He is currently a visiting professor at the Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and an associate professor at Waseda University, Tokyo.
https://yota.tehis.net/
Kenichi Takahana
Art & Design engineer, Artist
Takahana Kenichi designs and builds products through multiple perspectives of product design, media art, and mechatronics. Member of invisi, ltd., a creative team with expertise in sound. He mainly focuses on designing kinetic products, interactive installations, physical devices, etc. He himself also performs live using instruments/software of his own creation, DJs, and creates digital instruments and art pieces as well. Kenichi is dedicated to designing products across multiple medium, regardless of hardware or software, from using a saw to programming, keeping in mind to be flexible and not restricted by the medium.
[ Credits ]
Concept, Direction and Scent Composition: Maki Ueda
Collaborating Artists:
Yota Morimoto (Sound Composition; sound artist exploring sound materiality through installation; Professor at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and Waseda University)
Ken’ichi Takahana (Lighting and Scent Diffusion Devices; artist working across woodworking and programming to create installations and perform with self-built instruments; member of invisi Ltd.)
Production Coordination: Kohei Kanomata
Technical Support: Katsuhiko Tabei (arsaffix Inc.)
Artist Assistant: Naoko Kusunoki
Documentation Video and Editing: Ryuichi Maruo
Photograph: Jumpei Saito
Production (CCBT): Rina Watanabe, Shiho Kato, Haruka Ito, Shumpei Inada, Tamae Kobori, Kentaro Sato, Yuki Sato
EXHIBITION 2｜Dog's Nose
What is that dog sniffing so happily? That question inspired this multispecies biologging work that records and reproduces a dog’s smellscape. Follow the dog’s route along the map, sniffing the red dots like a canine.
As a dog moves where its nose and fancy takes it, air samples are collected using Ricoh’s Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry technology, recording molecular patterns in real time. Dog’s Nose plays back scents and visuals chronologically in the style of augmented reality, while the animal’s route is recreated through scent printing on a map. The combination of temporal and spatial approaches allows visitors to vicariously and sensorially experience the smellscape encountered by the dog.
photo: Jumpei Saito
* The photo shows scenes from the “Chiyoko Walk,” conducted as research by Maki Ueda during her tenure as a 2025 CCBT Artist Fellow.
Date and Time: September 9 (Wed) – September 12 (Sat), 2026, 10:00 AM –7:00 PM ; September 13 (Sun), 10:00 AM –6:00 PM
Venue: Ursulinenhof Linz (Landstraße 31 4020 Linz, Austria) // OK QUARTER
* For event details and ticket applications, please check the official “Ars Electronica Festival 2026” website.
Collaborator
Katsuya Ujimoto
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
Future Design Center
TRIBUS Promotion Department.
Ujimoto Katsuya holds a PhD in engineering from the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka Prefecture University. At Ricoh, he developed gas and odor measurement technologies utilizing the Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry system. He has achieved real-time, portable gas measurement, which he has deployed across such fields as atmospheric environmental monitoring, occupational health and safety, digital transformation of sensory testing in manufacturing, and odor assessment for hotels and automobiles. In his work, he actively pursues real-world implementation for tech through joint research with government bodies and universities, aiming to create new value through gas and odor data. Ujimoto is the recipient of the Digital Olfaction Society Best Demonstration Award 2022 and the World of Safety and Health Asia Award 2025.
Dog (Linz Version)
Wim
Wim is a Greek-born dog artist based in Berlin and Linz. His practice centers on olfactory research: sniffing out interesting smells and conducting extensive fieldwork in green spaces. Off duty, he is a devoted companion who has never once refused a cuddle. At Ars Electronica Festival 2026, Wim serves as lead dog for Dog's Nose, a project by Maki Ueda and the Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT].
Photo: Fernanda Parente
[ Credits ]
Concept, Direction and Scent Composition: Maki Ueda
Collaborator: Katsuya Ujimoto (TRIBUS, Future Design Center, Ricoh Company, Ltd.; develops gas and odor sensing technologies based on FAIMS)
Production coordination: Kohei Kanomata
Interface Design: Masashi Atsumi
Technical Support: Katsuhiko Tabei (arsaffix Inc.)
Documentation Video and Editing: Ryuichi Maruo
Photograph: Jumpei Saito
Dog (Tokyo Version): Chiyoko Ueda
Dog (Linz Version): Wim
Production (CCBT): Rina Watanabe, Shiho Kato, Haruka Ito, Shumpei Inada, Tamae Kobori, Kentaro Sato, Yuki Sato
WORKSHOP｜Olfactory Biome: The Smell is the Message!
Create your own fragrance for the Olfactory Biome installation using pheromone-like compounds and scent molecules that function as attractants or repellents. By combining scents that subtly convey social signals, you can make olfactory messages that express yourself and your mood.
After blending your fragrance in the first 30 minutes, you are guided through the olfactory installation. Experience how invisible chemical signals shape our social interactions, perceptions, and sense of distance.
Date: September 11 (Fri), 2026
Time: 1:30 PM –3:30 PM
Venue: Ursulinenhof Linz, Gewölbesaal (Landstraße 31 4020 Linz, Austria) | Vaulted Hall // OK QUARTER
Duration: 60 min（30 min scent composition, 30 min guided tour）
Instructor: Maki Ueda
Capacity: 15 participants per session (Ages 18 and up; advance registration required)
Participation fee: Free
Language: English
Note: Fragrances will be used.
* For event details and ticket applications, please check the official “Ars Electronica Festival 2026” website.
[ Credits ]
Concept, Direction and Scent Composition: Maki Ueda
Production coordination: Kohei Kanomata
Documentation Video and Editing: Ryuichi Maruo
Photograph: Jumpei Saito
Artist Assistant: Naoko Kusunoki
Production (CCBT): Rina Watanabe, Shiho Kato, Haruka Ito, Shumpei Inada, Tamae Kobori, Kentaro Sato, Yuki Sato
ACCESS
Ursulinenhof Linz
(Landstraße 31 4020 Linz, Austria)
Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is a creative center for art and advanced technology founded by the city of Linz, Austria. For more than 40 years, Ars Electronica has hosted the world’s largest annual media arts festival, the Ars Electronica Festival. They have also established “Futurelab,” a center for research on the future of art and technology in collaboration with businesses, government, cultural, educational, and research institutions. It also includes the Ars Electronica Center, known as the “museum and school of the future,” and the Prix Ars Electronica, which is the world’s longest running international media arts competition.
Official Website: https://ars.electronica.art/news/en/
ABOUT US
“CCBTx” is a program designed to embody the mission of Civic Creative Base Tokyo (CCBT)—”Discovery,” “Co-creation,” “Development,” and “Collaboration”—by implementing initiatives in partnership with diverse collaborators from various fields, both in Japan and abroad, to propose creative models for society.
Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] is a hub where members of the public can explore socially engaged creativity at the intersection of art and digital technology. As an open lab for experimentation and creation, CCBT develops a wide range of programming to drive the transformation of Tokyo into a better city through creativity and tech.
