Trend Update // Dutch Design Week

Masque In the past few weeks we have researched five different trends, including Shifting Senses. Within this trend it is central to merging technology together with the human body. This allows certain senses to be expanded. This can be different for everyone; some people use it to enhance senses they lack, some use it to expand them.

Nowadays there are several possibilities to bring your breathing under control. Think of certain breathing exercises in combination with meditation and yoga. Through breathing the user’s mood can be controlled. The Masque is a wearable headset, which helps you to adjust your breathing. It is an interactive wearable and psycho-acoustic system that allows you to breathe differently by giving fake auditory feedback.

By wearing the mask, a digital chip which is placed under the nose, measuring your temperature, which then concludes what the breathing rate is. Synchronized breathing sounds are then routed through the headphones to the inner ear through the bones of the skull. This makes you breath in a different pace, which influences the feeling of the wearer.

Masque fits in within the trend Shifting Senses because the user of Masque hears the synchronized breathing sound as their own sound. As a result, their own breathing rhythm automatically adjusts to it. The perception of the wearer is adjusted and other moods can be created with the corresponding behaviour. This way you can force Masque to feel relaxed, excited or horny.

Design: Xin Liu and Gershon Dublon Seen at: Dutch Design Week , Strijp-S Veem, floor 9

Want to know more about Masque? Click here.