Mari Velonaki
Greece, 1968
Mari Velonaki is an Australia-based artist who has worked at the meeting point of art and robotics since the late 1990s, creating interactive installations and robots that explore intimacy, trust and presence between humans and machines.
Artwork in the Encyclopedia of New Media Art archive
ScentDia – Memento 2026
About the artwork
ScentDia Memento acts as what Velonaki calls a ‘Perception Identity Marker’: a perfumed ceramic funnel that uses scent to capture, communicate and recreate the memory of a robot that is no longer present. It extends ScentDia, A Scent for a Robot (2025), the final chapter of the Diamandini series, a sequence of works centred on a humanoid robot that Velonaki has developed since 2011. In ScentDia, Diamandini responds to ‘her’ visitors and surroundings through movement, sound and, for the first time, scent. Created with perfume creator Manos Gerakinis and philosopher of science Luisa Damiano, it is the first custom scent developed for an interactive social robot. As the robot moves through the space, it leaves a trail of its own fragrance, making visitors aware of its presence. The memento keeps that presence alive through smell, once the robot itself has gone.
Artistic career: Mari Velonaki
Artistic practice and research
Mari Velonaki (Greece, 1968) is an Australia-based artist who has worked at the meeting point of art and robotics since the late 1990s, creating interactive installations and robots that explore intimacy, trust and presence between humans and machines. Her works include Fish-Bird and the Diamandini series. She is a professor at UNSW Sydney, where she founded the Creative Robotics Lab.