This is a multisensory experiment exploring calamansi through flavour chemistry, sound and generative art. Its complex aroma—bright lime and mandarin layered with green peel, florals, herbs, spice and woody depth—is translated from an invisible molecular composition into an experience that can be seen, heard and explored.
The experiment reconstructs the published GC–MS profile of calamansi juice. Each chromatographic peak represents an identified volatile molecule, revealing its chemical structure, abundance and organoleptic character. Molecular properties shape the accompanying artwork and determine how each compound is transformed into pitch, harmony, timbre, intensity and spatial position.
When peaks overlap or occur close together, their colours, structures and sounds begin to interact, forming modeled sensory “accords.” These moments explore an idea central to flavour: individual molecules rarely exist as isolated perceptions—their combination can produce an entirely new sensory impression. The resulting colours, sounds and inferred organoleptics are artistic interpretations grounded in scientific data, not measured sensory conclusions.
Science & artistic method
Data: Oe et al. 2024, Table S1 (mean normalized intensity ± SD, n=4). Peak widths, overlap geometry and emergent accords are modeled—not measured—and can be changed above. Sonic and visual mappings are interpretive, informed by sonification mapping research, odor–music correspondences, and multi-parameter perfume improvisation research, affect-mediated sound–odor matching, and configural odor-mixture perception. Its “accord” framing also nods to Smeller / Osmodrama, where odors are composed and sequenced as an art medium. The default sensory composition groups dense peak clusters into musical gestures instead of firing a chord for every compound. RI preserves left-to-right sequence and top/heart/base register; published peak area supplies chemical prominence; Good Scents strength data, where available, add a clearly labelled sensory-salience proxy; descriptors guide articulation, register, harmony and orchestration. Fresh/citrus material tends upward and brighter, warm/woody material downward and darker, camphoraceous material becomes more detached, and pleasant material receives lower harmonic entropy. Close modeled peaks share one envelope and form a unified timbral-harmonic blend rather than stacking unrelated notes. Structures: PubChem. The optional 3D view is a rotatable, graph-derived topology—not an experimentally measured or energy-minimized conformer. Functional-group motifs set the background geometry; selected Good Scents odor type, strength and substantivity set its sensory texture, contrast and reach. Expanded organoleptic profiles use selected entries from The Good Scents Company; other extensions are clearly identified as RI/class-based interpretation. GC–MS peak area is not odor activity value: without compound concentrations and matrix-specific thresholds, loudness cannot claim to reproduce perceptual intensity. Typical odor notes, sensory salience and inferred blends are contextual hypotheses, not sensory results from the source study.
