APOSEMA: Exploring Communicationin an Apathetic Future

Aposema is a wearable device that speculates on a near future scenario in which human face perception abilities have been compromised. In this world, everyone wears a device on their face that reads facial expressions and guides social interaction. The device is composed of three elements: The first is the sensory input from the face muscles, followed by a data analysis. The second is the physical output—a soft, colored, robotic inflation pattern. The colors represent the emotions corresponding to the facial expression, and the form change represents the emotional intensity. The third is an augmented reality layer that provides a decrypted emotional analysis to help guide interaction. Aposema is a personally customized device made of silicone and incorporated electronics. The fabrication process involves parametric design, 3D printing, hand casting, and physical computation. This design is proposed as a critical object and a provocation responding to the changing nature of communication in the digital age.