Unless you just crawled out from under a rock you’ve probably heard of that somewhat profoundly gifted, brush-slingin’ fiery headed sensei of an artist Vincent Van Gogh. But you probably haven’t heard about his condition synesthesia, and the kind of superpower that came with it–in laymen’s terms, a person’s senses are joined when they have synesthesia. So if you had this condition you might be apt to smell chocolate when Passafire came on the radio amidst a hot sublime, sunlit summer afternoon. That would be tight, right? Unfortunately, only 4% of humans have this condition, which leaves most of us shit outta’ luck..unless Aerospace engineer Zachary Howard’s able to mass produce his new synesthesia-simulating mask.
Yes, you read that right. Howard’s a genius who fueled his inventive exploits on what I imagine was a severe case of FOMO. His mask uses a color sensor, microprocessor, and essential oils to simulate the trippy effects of synesthesia. Further, Howard’s mask infuses a finger worn-sensor to a computer chip on an armband, which then allows for any object’s color scheme to be picked apart into three primary colors that tap directly into three differing scent ‘reservoirs.’ The info’s then synthesized (see what I did there) within your synesthesia mask, which contains fans that release the flow of different scents based on what you are seeing in real-time.
The best news about all this Sci-fi level futuristic noise? Howard says the components necessary to build a copy of this color trippin’ mask can be purchased at your local hardware store. Boom.
[H/T: Discover Magazine]