Every time I pick up my phone, I wonder why I don’t encase it in human flesh for maximum grossness. Thankfully, someone out there thinks the way I do, and they’ve invented the Skincase, a smartphone case that looks and feels like human skin. It’s such a close analog to human skin, in fact, that if you left it out in the sun too long, it would develop a sunburn.
Horrifying. Disgusting. Repulsive.
I want to touch it.
Created by designer Marc Teyssier in collaboration with the British Skin Foundation and telecom giant O2, the Skincase is meant to physically react to UV exposure as a way to raise awareness about sun safety and the importance of wearing sunscreen.
Doesn’t seem like something we needed. I did not need the shock of a smartphone case that could develop melanomas to remind me to put on some sunscreen before I leave the house, but maybe I need to start thinking outside of myself. Maybe there are people in the world who need the very specific kind of shock Teyssier says he’s trying to elicit: “Our phones are objects we don’t expect to change and to react in a human way,” he said in a statement, presumably mere seconds before shocking the Skincase with jumper cables to prove it can lose control of its bowels, too.
Maybe a good old-fashioned taxpayer-funded public health campaign to get the word out is really what we need. But in the absence of tax dollars being put to good use, we get this instead — phones encased in flesh prisons that can bake in the sun, acting as grotesque surrealist reminders to smear on your Hawaiian Tropic before taking the kids to the public pool.
Teyssier is no stranger to skin-based tech oddities. Back in 2019, he unleashed a tactile phone case that responded to strokes and pinches. This guy is blurring the lines between being a provocative conceptual artist and a pervert who wants to fondle a phone. But at least now you know you should be wearing sunscreen. Mission accomplished, I guess.
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