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Karten Design

February 15, 2012 by · Comments Off on Karten Design 

Karten Design, Oh, this is much worse than you think. The Epidermits toy is the Karten Design firm‘s bizarro, conceptual end of several current trends in the toy/gadget industry, like personalization, fuel cell engineering, and animatronics. It is the scariest concept design I’ve ever seen. It’s not even close.

As part of their Cautionary Visions project, KD designers wanted to focus on how gadget design can get off track when the focus on real human interactions (and values) is lost. So they came up with a few gadgets that would be obscene, but also feasible. The Epidermits blurs the boundary between taste and innovation to ‘confuse kids and rob them of any remaking sense of the natural.’

A human-like tissue organism covers the robotic thing, which also runs on fuel cells for energy. In theory, you are supposed to be able to program it to move around and act as your kid’s nightmarish companion. But that’s not all:

They require minimal maintenance, can be stored in state of forced hibernation in standard refrigerators, and are customizable with different body, skin and hair selections and through tanning, tattooing and piercing.

A real-life version of the Epidermits made its debut at a MOMA show in
NY, but there’s no word if people actually tried to pet it. Would love to know if someone did.

Karten also came up with a Spit + Handshake Security System, and a ‘Full Baby Pacifier’ that is essentially a pair of display-embedded sunglasses that brainwash (or educates!) your baby while you’re out partying. Clearly, the moral of the project is that the future is bright.

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