Flocking Masks

Flocking Masks

A FACE-MAKING DATE WITH MY FLOCK

This spring I’m making a series of custom masks for my four closest friends that will respond to their facial gestures by activating features on the outside surface. This project is called the “Flocking Masks” and will hopefully yield some fun summer shenanigans later this year! Any hoo… the way in which I’m making these masks reactive involves a somewhat simple capacitance circuit that exploits the properties of the materials forming the circuit. Connected to my circuit are several copper pads; one to act as ground, the other two for sensing. The charge of your body effects the charge on the pads, so the amount of skin contacting the pad relates to a degree of capacitance, and can act as a granular trigger! While this works nicely in a bread board with some red LEDs, I need to mount these pads inside of a mask and test the viability of…

Flocking Masks

Flocking Masks

I grew up with a parrot. Over the course of my life, we taught one another how to communicate our feelings to each other using sounds, patterns of movement, and gesture. Now I have this rich private language with my bird. This makes sense, after all, birds distinguish who is in their flock by the familiar sounds they call out and repeat back to one another over a given distance. Birds that know the same head bob and chirp must be from your zip code, and are therefore your familiars. Your family. Your flock. Without noticing, over time I began enacting some of the mannerisms I’ve developed between me and my bird, with my human friends. I think most write off these acts as quirkiness, or ‘Sarah being Sarah’, but as I repeat them, invariably those who are closest to me begin mimicking these behaviors as well. As my closest…