Morphace: An Integrated Approach for Designing Customizable and Transformative Facial Prosthetic Makeup
Sijia Wang, Cathy Mengying Fang, Yiyao Yang, Kexin Lu, Maria Vlachostergiou, Lining Yao · 2022
On-skin electronics are an emerging group of interactive devices, with challenges in both engineering functionalities and design aesthetics. One design approach that lacks extensive exploration is combining prosthetic makeup with transformative wearables that generate dynamic output modalities. We propose a design approach called Morphace that imbues prosthetic makeup with customizability and transformative properties, which allows wearables to ‘camouflage’ on the original face and transform it. We use a case study on the face for its rich affordance of expressions and high visibility, which emphasizes the appearance of epidermal electronics. We developed a three-step computational design and fabrication workflow that integrates the prosthetic makeup process to fabricate functional primitives. We further explore the utility of Morphace through interactive experiences in social communication, facial augmentation, and self-expression. We believe Morphace offers an integrative approach that enriches current wearable solutions and enables creative output modalities and affordances for designing future on-skin shape-changing interfaces.