Humans are perpetually worried about robots one day taking over their jobs, but we never thought tattoo artists were in danger. French designers Appropriate Audiences made a custom attachment for a MakerBot 3D printer that turned it into a mechanical tattoo artist.

The group first used the MakerBot to create the attachment that would allow the 3D printer to perform a new trick. They installed, tweaked, and tested the automated tattoo machine. They experimented with skin tension and other variables to be sure that, when the contraption was tried out on a human, it wouldn’t horribly maim or dismember that human.

When the team worked out all of the details, a very brave member of the group stuck his arm into the machine and allowed the modified tattoo gun to permanently imprint his skin. The tattoo was just a simple circle, no doubt due to the newness and untested nature of the contraption. In the future, though, we can definitely imagine more complex tattoos being drawn by machines.

The post Evil Geniuses Turn 3D Printer Into Robotic Tattoo Machine first appeared on Gajitz.

Ask any serious musician and they will tell you that their instrument of choice feels like a natural extension of their own body. For media artist Dmitry Morozov, that is true in a literal sense. He created an instrument that reads a tattoo on his arm as a musical score. Along with a device that mounts onto his arm, the tattoo makes Morozov into a kind of cybernetic musical instrument.

The Tattoo Sound Controller consists of a handle and two rails, along which move sensors. The sensors “read” the black shapes of Morozov’s tattoo and translate them into sounds that remind us of a garbage truck, or perhaps someone hitting piano strings with a wrench.

The tattoo is specifically designed to leave the maximum amount of time between “triggers” so that the instrument is as flexible as possible. The speed, direction, and step length of the sensors can all be adjusted so that, according to Morozov, there are an infinite number of variations on the sounds.

A Wii controller in the handpiece allows Morozov to move his hand in three dimensions and create new and interesting sounds simply by changing up the speed and angle at which the sensors read the tattoo. According to the artist, this creative hybrid of human and machine represents the melding of the artist and his instrument.

The post Cybernetic Instrument Reads Arm Tattoo as Musical Score first appeared on Gajitz.

Who doesn’t love a good temporary tattoo? Even when you’re a grown-up, it’s hard to resist those cute little cartoon characters and know that you don’t have to live with them on your skin for the rest of your life. Tattoos Alive is bringing the temporary tattoo into the digital age by adding a layer of augmented reality.

The tattoos come in six different characters and look just like any other temporary tattoos. After applying to the skin with some water and half a minute or so, the tattoo will look like the perfect temporary skin adornment. But load up the Tattoos Alive app and scan that tattoo, and suddenly you’re wearing an animation.

The app works some kind of magic to make the tattoo come to life on the screen. Whichever character you’ve chosen – the cool sax-playing dude, the guitar-playing turtle or any of the four other designs – does a little dance right there on your screen as if it is standing right on your skin. They’re all adorable, but we’re partial to the robot that does the robot.

The post Impermanent Art: AR Temp Tattoos Shake it On Your Skin first appeared on Gajitz.

Having a limb amputated can be one of the most traumatic and life-changing experiences of a person’s life. After the operation, amputees often feel out of place and conspicuous. Artist and special effects expert Sophie de Oliveira Barata helps amputees reduce those negative feelings by creating incredible prostheses that reflect the personalities of their owners.

While Sophie does make shockingly realistic prosthetic limbs, her bespoke alternative limbs are where she really shines. She gets to know her clients, taking their personalities, hobbies, and imaginations into account when designing their new limbs. Her practice is known as The Alternative Limb Project.

The goal of these very noticeable limbs is to stop hiding amputees’ disabilities and highlight them in a positive way. The artist wants to draw attention to what her clients do have, not what they have lost.

The artistic prostheses give power back to amputees by letting them display their personalities in a way that is completely unique and will never be duplicated. They are wearable pieces of art that are, quite literally, part of the wearer’s body.

Most of Sophie’s clients have natural-looking prostheses that they wear on a day-to-day basis. The artistic creations are worn on special occasions, much like an expensive dress or an eye-catching piece of jewelry. They can be fantastic talking points and give the wearer a sense of confidence and beauty that they may have not felt after becoming disabled.

The post Unique Prosthetic Limbs Highlight Wearers’ Personalities first appeared on Gajitz.

It seems like everyone is basically attached to their cell phones lately, but a new patent application from Nokia aims to take that concept from hyperbole to reality. The company wants to patent their concept for ferromagnetic ink that, when applied to skin, would vibrate to alert users to phone calls or texts. Although the patent application doesn’t go into much detail regarding how the system would work, exactly, the gist of the idea seems simple enough. The ink would be demagnetized, applied to the skin and then re-magnetized.

When the re-magnetized ink is exposed to magnetic changes or cell phone signals, it will vibrate – creating a totally silent and private notification system. Presumably, there would be different vibration patterns to indicate different callers or different types of alerts. The patent application mentions that the application of the ink could be either temporary or permanent, so it could be painted on or actually applied permanently like a tattoo. Both methods have their benefits and drawbacks, but we’re guessing that vibrating tattoos would have an even higher incidence of buyer’s remorse than the non-vibrating kind.

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