Wearable technology is quickly becoming the norm. Between smartwatches, fitness trackers, and augmented and virtual reality headsets, there is plenty of wearable tech to go around.
These devices are, however, really only good at conveying information and not much else. But what if wearable technology could do other things beside handling data? What if they could produce food, energy, light and oxygen to keep us alive?
That's the idea behind a new concept line of wearable devices designed to augment human biological systems, with the designer, Neri Oxman, implanting synthetic microorganisms into custom-designed vessels.
There are a total of four devices in the line, with each attempting to model a different system in the human body: the digestive system, the nervous system, the skeletal system and the integumentary system.
Mushtari, for example, is the wearable modeled after the digestive system, and looks much like a corset. It is made out of 3D printed acrylic resin and has a number of channels of differing widths and lengths that allow it to recreate specific biological functions. Inside the device are cyanobacteria and E. Coli, which – with the help of light passing through the clear walls – photosynthesize and create sucrose that can feed the body. There is then another denser, reddish area of the wearable where the sugary substance collects and can be eaten.
"You're designing a 3D printed template which defines what type of biological functionality can take place in which location within the wearable," said Oxman about the shape of the device in an interview with FastCoDesign. "The design then becomes not only a wearable microbial factory, but also literally a second skin that can mediate between the external environment and the inner body."
Another wearable in the line is able to create calcium that strengthens bones; another emits fluorescent photons that can light up a pitch-dark room.
Of course the project is still more of a concept that exists between reality and fantasy — but Oxman herself hopes that it will lead to more research. The MIT-based team hopes to develop the 3D printed valves that are able to route fluids, as well as some of the membranes that can separate foods and fuels.
Eventually, Oxman hopes to integrate biological cultures into the printed material itself, rather than having to create 3D vessels embedded with the cultures. This would allow for fully organic and sustainable wearable devices.
