Today we travel to a future where we can tattoo sensors right onto our skin.

What happens when you can get a live readout of everything from glucose to hormones to hydration levels built into a tattoo? What kind of privacy can you expect when your medical data is literally written on your skin? And what does any of this have to do with Inspector Gadget and René Descartes?

Full transcript available in site.

Guests:

• Ali K. Yetisen — researcher at Imperial College London
• Ace Tilton Ratcliff — disability activist, writer, co-founder of Harper’s Promise
• Eler de Grey — interdisciplinary artist & writer
• Quinn Grundy — researcher at the University of Toronto

Further Reading:

• Dermal Abyss
• Designing Smart Tattoos To Help Monitor Your Health
• Chaotic Moon Explores Biometric Tattoos For Medicine And The Military
• These tattoos only become visible when detecting cancer-linked disease
• Synthetic biology-based cellular biomedical tattoo for detection of hypercalcemia associated with cancer
• Clinical Trial Tests Tattoo Sensor as Needleless Glucose Monitor for Diabetes Patients
• Low-cost, μm-thick, tape-free electronic tattoo sensors with minimized motion and sweat artifacts
• What’s inside Motorola’s digital tattoo?
• BiostampRC
• How private is your mental health data? An empirical study of mental health app privacy policies and practice
• Data sharing practices of medicines related apps and the mobile ecosystem: traffic, content, and network analysis
• The body is not a machine
• On the body as machine
• The body made machine: On the history and applications of a metaphor
• The machine body metaphor: From science and technology to physical education and sport, in France (1825-1935)
• The Machine-Body as Contested Metaphor in Clinical Care

Actors:

• Maria — Cara Rose de Fabio
• Gaby — Eler de Grey
• Marquis — Rotimi Agbabiaka (check out his new solo show called Manifesto on June 21 at the African American Arts and Culture Complex as part of the National Queer Arts Festival.)
• John — Keith Houston (also check out his karaoke nights in San Francisco)