sonja bäumel

‘(IN)VISIBLE MEMBRANE:

life on the human body and its design applications’

2009

My project confronts scientific data and methods with fashion design in order to find a balance between individual identity and the surrounding local environment. By doing so, I want to create a new second living layer on our body based on the interaction between individuals and the surrounding.

What fascinates me is the human skin, the layer between the inside and the outside.  A second skin can be found on our skin. It is a layer full of life, which serves as a membrane for exchange.  This body membrane is made from the same substance as the world. The human body does not end with its skin, but it is invisibly expanding into space. The hidden membrane is something between our body and our environment. We enter this invisible micro level with a microscope and then enlarge it with design.

What happens if we make the micro world of the human body perceivable?   

I want to confront people with the fact that our body is a large host of bacteria and that a balanced perception of the body is closely linked with a balanced perception of the self.

The (In)visible membrane could give us the possibility to react to the individual body needs and create a more authentic relation with the surrounding. This relation would not be firmly defined but it would be an open living system on our skin which would be able to react autonomously in a flexible way to the local conditions and to individuals.

I believe that the symbiosis of fashion and science will bring new possibilities, aesthetics and issues. Fashion is a visual language; science is a language of facts and data. Fashion can give science visibility and science can give fashion scientific data and methods.

My vision is to make use of the invisible body layer, our knowledge over the individual skin bacteria population for the purpose of transforming it into a visible, functional and flexibly adapting membrane. I believe that this new clothing on our skin could change our interaction with the enviroment and have a healthy benefit for humans.