Flu masks: the next generation
December 1, 2009
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
STAFF REPORTER
Flu masks that change colour as you breathe. Flu masks that give you the flu.
Art, technology and pandemics have inspired two very different face masks, one as a fashion accessory and the other as a statement. What they have in common are creators who are Swedish.
Marjan Kooroshnia has created brightly patterned flu masks printed with thermo-chromic ink, which changes colour with a change in temperature. When your body temperature rises, the colours are supposed to change. The idea is to create a stylish early-warning system – at least for other people.
Kooroshnia explains that her work is designed to detect the "poetic and emotional potentials of textiles" by "mixing craft skills with new technology." Her work is featured on a website called Fashioning Technology that features smart fabrics and materials in designs.
Michel Bussien and Erik Sjödin, Swedish artist collaborators, have also been inspired by emotion and nature. Their design is called INFLU, a "flu-collector mask" with a battery-driven micro fan fitted over the mouth area to suck in as many germs as possible that "increases the prospect of getting the Swine flu or the regular seasonal flu by several hundred per cent."
Artists whose work looks at where art, technology and nature intersect, Bussien and Sjodin are trying hard to put their "invention" out there with as little evidence of their tongues in their cheeks as possible.
thestar.com
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