How Lady Gaga Just Reinvented Eye Contact [Video]

Lady Gaga’s weirdo Polaroid glasses are about to turn our faces into Facebook feeds and mood rings.

The glasses have two little screens in them. The unusual thing is that they face outward. You may imagine the scene as Polaroid’s suit brigade and accountants took the pitch from Gaga, stammering and wondering what they got themselves into and if they’d willingly let her take the company down together with her. It is senseless on first thought. OR DOES IT.

The history of science fictional and concept eyewear is suffering from ideas stacked on top of a straightforward basis: that eyes are for seeing. A Terminator’s vision let it see wartime meta data on enemies, terrain and weapons; augmented reality apps like google goggles and Amazon’s product search that works through a camera are already living in smartphones now. In its most general and obvious sense, eyes are for seeing, and the longer term of eyes is ready seeing better.

That is irrefutable. But there are two other things technologists and futurists often overlook when fascinated by the long run of human vision: That folk inspect each other’s eyes once they talk over with each other. And that eyes say an awful lot, powerfully and subtly, on their lonesome. Winking, rolling, smizing, crying, squinting, for starters. Gaga’s glasses take direct benefit of the way in which we lock gazes once we converse in person, but they style of throw a nuke down on the subtly of eye based body language. It’s more like they replace it, sunglasses betraying nothing, while user-selected, pixel precise messaging comes in the course of the screens. Ponder it as flickr or a facebook photo album to your face. Loaded with hamburgers if someone’s hungry, hearts if they’re in love, videos of thunderclouds rolling slowly in if someone is annoyed. The screens could output colors to compare clothing or moods. Anything is possible.

Maybe it won’t catch on. Maybe kids will go nuts with it. I don’t know! But I do know that this gadget dovetails perfectly with what the long run is beginning to smell like: Less the crisp clear world of touch interfaces with meta data on everything, everywhere. And more like the micro broadcasted one we contribute to each time we tweet, post or share.

Illustration by Contributing Illustrator Sam Spratt . Inspect Sam’s newly redesigned portfolio website and become partial to his Facebook Artist’s Page .

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This post is tagged: body language, first thought, history of science, human vision, hungry hearts, polaroid glasses, thunderclouds