EYEBALL JELLO MOLD: The NARROW SMELLER

For a Design Fundamentals assignment, my classmates and I were given the task to design a product that one of the 50 character types described in Elias Canetti's Earwitness would want or need. I chose to design for the nervous character, the Narrow Smeller:
The narrow-smeller shrinks away from smells and avoids them. She opens doors cautiously, hesitating before she crosses the threshold. Half-averted, she stands there for a while, to smell with one nostril and spare the other. She sticks one finger into the unknown space and brings it to her nose. Then with that finger, she holds one nostril shut and sniffs with the other. If she does not lose consciousness immediately, she waits a bit. Then she puts one leg sideways across the threshold, but leaves the other foot outside. It would not take much more for her to dare it, but she hits upon a final test in time. She gets up on her tiptoes and sniffs again. If the smell does not change now, she fears no surprises and risks the other leg as well. She is standing inside. The door, through which she could save herself, remains wide open.

The narrow-smeller seems isolated wherever she may be, she has a layer of caution about her; other people watch out for their clothes when they sit down, but she watches out for her isolation layer. She fears vehement sentences that might pierce through, she addresses people softly and awaits answers just as softly. She does not come halfway to anyone; in the aloofness in which she remains, she follows the movements of other people: It is as though, separated from them, she were constantly dancing with them. The distance remains the same, she knows how to ward off any approach and certainly any touch.
So long as it is winter, the narrow-smeller feels best out of doors. She worries about the spring. The blossoms and fragrances will begin and she will suffer unbearable torments. She prudently avoids certain bushes, she goes her own, intricate ways. When she sees an insensitive person sticking his noses in lilacs far away, she becomes ill. Unfortunately, she is attractive and gets pursued with roses, she can save herself from them only with quick faints. People find this exaggerated, and while she dreams about distilled water, her admirers put their foul-reeking heads together and try to figure out to which flower scents they could convert her.
The narrow-smeller is regarded as noble because she avoids any touch. She is at her wits’ end with marriage proposals. She has already threatened to hang herself. But she will not do it, she cannot bear the thought of possibly having to smell the saviour who cuts her down.
My concept was inspired by the psychology behind and the aesthetics of Rubberist fetishism. I like the idea of a garment that disallows any peek at the wearer's body surface yet serves as a second skin: it conceals all epidermal details yet appears to reveal every contour of the physique.
I say "appears," because the materials often used (rubber, latex, vinyl) train the figure into something super-human. My approach was to take her exaggerated phobia and use it as a catalyst for super-villainy; I therefore designed a frightening-looking protective body suit with defensive,deadly motion sensors studding the garment. The motion sensors detect when a person approaches and give the Smeller time to warn him/her: if he/she persists, the detectors activate an incinerating shield that will reduce the offender to ash. I designed this suit to instill a confidence in the Narrow Smeller that would allow her to leave her house yet enable her desire to remain isolated from other humans. Her description mentions that suitors chase her around with flowers, so I chose to incorporate a floral element that is purely lethal. Furthermore, I want the abundance of floral decorative touches to give the message "I have enough flowers as it is, get your fucking flowers away from me."

Anyway, this was a fun project. Here are some dorky photos of the mask I made to represent the product. They are pretty low-quality, but you get the idea: