When thinking about the future, I felt pretty hopeless about both the state of America and the world. Between the decaying ecosystem, decreasing air quality, and the bloom of technology in our lives, I wanted to create a piece that could express all of those at once. I decided upon making a face mask that had integrated lights, using flower language to convey my thoughts of the future.
I had intended to make the flower pop out of the darkness, similar to hope out of darkness. The red and yellow colors of the flowers can also signify a warning or cautionary tale. I wanted to further play with the theme of hope and despair with the choices of flowers – the red mums signifying joy in some places of the world while being a flower of lamentation, adversity, and death for other places. Meanwhile, the yellow wormwood signifying absence. I think despite not knowing the flowers or the meanings behind them, the mask still conveys a sense of that, which I would consider a success.
I found it difficult to integrate the lights into the flowers – the light needed to dissipate through a light colored fabric, and I tried to use the palest yellow to achieve that effect. I also wanted the lights to react to the environment in a way, and had a hard time thinking how I could do so. I ended up adding a photoresistor (light sensor) to the mask and made the upper lights shine faster in darker environments, while making the flowers shine brighter in darker environments, adding to the “finding hope in darkness” theme. It turned out to be pretty ominous in the dark, which was an unintended surprise but pretty cool.
I also found it challenging to camouflage the microcontroller and battery on the side of the mask. If I had more time, I would’ve made a better pouch for the battery to hide it better and make it more secure.
Here are a few more photos of the mask on Rowlett:
Per ardua ad astra – from adversity to the stars