12. Skin Electronics¶
Research¶
This week's exploration is about Skin Electronics, an interesting approach to electronics in which we abandon the rigidity of circuits and integrate them in the body in an almost imperceptible manner.
What if skin could also connect, what if electonics could stop being cold and structured, to become warm, soft, intimate; a circuit that beats with movement, a bridge between body and machine.
Skin electronics is the design of electronic components that can bend, stretch, and adapt to organic surfaces, like human skin. This includes sensors, actuators, anthenas and flexible printed circuits. For this week I will design two separate projects, one based on the NFC technology and the other one I want to work with gold leaf circuits printed directly on the skin.
Inspiration¶
The first time I read/heard about E-tattoos was from this video from 2013 which mentions tiny sensors that could monitor different health indicators like stress levels or even heart rate, they are disposable and efficient, stick easily to the skin and confortable. And the technology has evolved tremendously in such short time, for example the glucose measurement devices for people who suffer diabetes are minimally invasive, they even connect to your devices to inform the patient of the current status. Working with different techonlogies i can only wonder about the next generation of health monitoring, not a device you wear, but something so discreet, you forget it is even there.
Part I: NFC Tags¶
What is NFC? It means Near Field Communication which allows devices to exchange data when they are close together, through a wireless short-range radio field of 13.56 MHz. The NFC Tags are considered passive devices, because they don't have batteries, as they are powered by the reading device's field.
The first part is to design a cool Cyberpunk Tattoo which will surround the NFC tag, I was thinking of either octopi or spider themed, with a tech-aesthetic look. At the end I chose a spider's web with nodes and holes resresembling a circuit. I designed with the vector tools from Affinity Studio, and transformed it into a .png with the combine tool, and Export as PNG.
I'm using the Silhouette Portrait 3 vinyl cutter for the tattoo part, so I'm using the Silhouette Studio Software for controlling the machine.
I'm using blue vinyl for this tattoo, and the NFC tag will be in the middle of the composition.
The next part is to program the NFC Tag using an app called NFC Tools that allows us to read and write data on the tags, in this case i'm writing my personal url for contact. The app is very easy to use, and on the write tab we can do all sorts of tasks, like connect to a wifi network, link to a video online, go to a map in google maps or even a link to a bitcoin address. In this case i'm connecting it with the previous URL so it opens up my contact info when read.
Finally is time to merge both parts in an interactive tattoo.
