12. Skin Electronics¶
Research¶
Photo courtesy of Maker Camp
In this exploration, I am researching the emerging field of skin electronics — wearable systems that integrate sensors, conductive materials, or interfaces directly onto or near the surface of the skin. Unlike traditional wearables that are attached to garments or accessories, skin electronics function closer to the body, enabling new approaches to monitoring movement, touch, temperature, bio-signals, and interactive communication through flexible and lightweight materials.
What interests me about this area is how it merges textiles, body interaction, and soft technology, and how designers and researchers are rethinking electronics as materials that can move, stretch, breathe, and adapt with the human body. Skin electronics shift the relationship between technology and wearers — from rigid devices to intimate, responsive, and embodied systems. This raises both creative potential and important questions about comfort, safety, ethics, accessibility, and cultural meaning.
My inspiration for this research grows from my background in textile science and garment functionality, along with my interest in material behavior and human–body interaction. I am particularly curious about: • how conductive inks, films, and soft circuits are integrated on-skin • how designers address flexibility, durability, and skin compatibility • how these systems can support health, performance, communication, or expression • how culture, identity, and embodiment influence design decisions
I am also motivated by the creative potential of experimental, small-scale prototypes — where skin electronics are not only technical tools, but also explorative material experiences that allow students and makers to better understand the relationship between body, technology, and design.
References & Inspiration¶
Katia Vega is a designer and researcher best known for developing Beauty Technology, a field that transforms cosmetics, hair, nails, and skin into interactive electronic interfaces. Instead of placing technology on devices or garments, her work embeds sensors, conductive materials, and micro-electronics directly into beauty products and body surfaces, enabling subtle gestures — such as blinking, touching the skin, or moving hair — to trigger digital responses. Vega’s practice reframes beauty as a space of interaction, identity, and performance, highlighting how technology can be intimate, expressive, and culturally meaningful when it is designed to live on — and communicate through — the body.
Photo from CLOT Magazine
DuoSkin is a project developed by Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao and collaborators at MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Research that explores temporary metallic tattoos as on-skin electronic interfaces. Using gold-leaf materials and digital fabrication techniques, the tattoos function not only as decorative body art, but also as touch sensors, input controls, communication tags, and thermochromic displays that visually respond to temperature changes. The project treats the skin as both a cultural surface and a technological platform, drawing inspiration from body adornment practices such as jewelry and tattooing. DuoSkin demonstrates how wearable technology can be lightweight, visually expressive, and intimately connected to the body, opening new possibilities for interaction design that blend aesthetics, identity, and digital function.
Photo from MIT Media Lab
Tools¶
Process and workflow¶
My sketches are ...
This schematic 1 was obtained by..
This tutorial 2 was created using..
footnote fabrication files
Fabrication files are a necessary element for evaluation. You can add the fabrication files at the bottom of the page and simply link them as a footnote. This was your work stays organised and files will be all together at the bottom of the page. Footnotes are created using [ ^ 1 ] (without spaces, and referenced as you see at the last chapter of this page) You can reference the fabrication files to multiple places on your page as you see for footnote nr. 2 also present in the Gallery.
Code Example¶
Use the three backticks to separate code.
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}
Results¶
Video¶
From Vimeo¶
Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.