1. A multimedia system comprising: a query module capable of generating a query in a plurality of media modalities; a database capable of storing data representing a plurality of media modalities; an object detection module capable of extracting a first plurality of object features from the query and a second plurality of object features from the database wherein the first plurality of object features and the second plurality of object features are extracted from media representing different modalities; a processor coupled to the object detection modules, wherein the processor is arranged to determine a correlation between the first plurality of object features and the second plurality of object features and to retrieve those items from the database which have a correlation at least equal to a predetermined maximum degree of correlation.