Fiona Carswell

The sMOKING JACKET 

The Smoking Jacket was a prototype created as part of a wearable technology series for my thesis at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Crossing a line between design and performance art, the goal of the thesis was to explore the boundaries at which someone's physical appearance could influence their behavioral choices. It explored the effect of critical design and art on behavioral change and health.

The prototype has a pair of plastic lungs on the front that are lined with white smoke filters. As the wearer smokes a cigarette, a valve in the collar sends the exhaled smoke through tubing into the plastic lungs. Over time, with exposure to the smoke, the interior of the plastic lungs darken and turn yellow.

Observers were invited to wear the jacket while smoking. Participants were at first eager: the appearance of the smoke in the lungs was interesting to look at and a conversation-starter with curious passersby.

Over time, as the smoke started to darken and yellow the lungs, the reaction from passersby was more negative and the wearers became more self conscious about their choice to smoke.

The project was featured in BBC News, Glamour Magazine, Wired, and Core77, LaPresse, El País, amongst others. Also featured in Siggraph’s Unravel Show 2007, and Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Science, Fashion, and Technology.

Fiona Carswell. The Smoking Jacket, 2007. Cloth, tubing, air filters, fan, electronics.