UX designer Wen Li took a break from pushing pixels to create a new series of popsicles based on cacti and killer diseases. Wei Li
UX designer Wen Li took a break from pushing pixels to create a new series of popsicles based on cacti and killer diseases.
Li writes that "before tasting with your tongue, you first taste with your eyes and mind" and her goal is to challenge palettes with the spiky physicality of cacti and the pseudo-suicidal act of running your tongue over HIV. Wei Li
Li writes that "before tasting with your tongue, you first taste with your eyes and mind" and her goal is to challenge palettes with the spiky physicality of cacti and the pseudo-suicidal act of running your tongue over HIV.
Li studied many species of cacti and created hybrid designs that would evoke their spiny nature while remaining easy to produce. Wei Li
Li studied many species of cacti and created hybrid designs that would evoke their spiny nature while remaining easy to produce.
Li built models using 3-D design tool Rhino and printed them on an Objet Connex 500 3-D printer. Wei Li
Li built models using 3-D design tool Rhino and printed them on an Objet Connex 500 3-D printer.
Liberties were taken with the cacti to make them easier to mold, but Li made every attempt at scientific accuracy with the viruses. Wei Li
Liberties were taken with the cacti to make them easier to mold, but Li made every attempt at scientific accuracy with the viruses.
The 3-D models were cast in food safe silicone. Wei Li
The 3-D models were cast in food safe silicone.
Great care was taken in formulating sugar water solutions, the color of which would help accentuate the designs. Wei Li
Great care was taken in formulating sugar water solutions, the color of which would help accentuate the designs.
Don't ask what's in the garbage bag. Seriously. Wei Li
Don't ask what's in the garbage bag. Seriously.
Li counts a wide range of artists as influences, including iconoclasts like Yayoi Kusama, Leigh Bowery, and David Lynch as well as minimalist Muji-art director Kenya Hara and lyrical landscape shaper James Turrell. "I like almost all art forms and that’s also the reason I don’t limit myself to a specific media," she says. Wei Li
Full instructions on how to produce Li's popsicles of mass delight are available at Instructables. Wei Li
Designer Wei Lei poses a challenging, and fascinating question: Would you lick a delicious treat that resembles a prickly cactus or a deadly E. coli virus?
The Chinese designer’s collection of sweets, Dangerous Popsicles , transforms frozen sugar water into colorful spiny treats inspired by cacti and scary deserts that invite you to suck on magnified versions of the chicken pox, E. coli, and influenza viruses. “Before tasting with your tongue,” she writes, “you first taste with your eyes and mind.” Her goal is to challenge palettes by forcing you to get past the idea of sucking on a cactus or running your tongue over HIV.
Wei Li started her design career in tech, working on user interfaces for Lenovo and Microsoft in Beijing before earning a graduate degree at Stanford University, where she was a teaching assistant for Ideo founder David Kelly. She recently stepped away from the world of pixels to focus on the series of designer popsicles intended to provoke thought and delight taste buds.
From left to right, the germ pops represent: MRSA, Influenza, Chicken Pox, E.Coli, and HIV. Wei Li
“I think design is not only a tool for problem-solving, it can also be speculative, to ask questions and challenge conventions,” the Chinese designer says. “And to me personally, it’s a way of externalizing my own dreams and fantasies.” She believes that design isn’t necessarily about creating a “better” experience, rather, it’s about pushing the boundaries of what an experience can be.
Li took artistic license with the cacti to simplify the molding process, but she was fastidious about which diseases were turned into desserts. “The germ collection has to use real-world examples, since otherwise people won’t have direct associations,” she says. “I have two criteria in choosing which germ to use: the germ or the disease associated with it is commonly known; its shape is interesting and different enough from other germs.”
Ebola has been in the news non-stop, yet Li decided to skip it to keep her work from appearing to be a parody or, worse, an attempt to cash in on the epidemic.
The reactions have been largely positive with a lot of excitement about the concept and the unique sensory nature of the designs. “For me it’s most interesting to observe how people actually ‘eat’ the popsicles,” says Li. “I was hoping that people will lick the popsicles and enjoy the sensations on their tongues, but many people actually bite through the popsicles very quickly, and are embarrassed to lick them.”
Li is an artist-in-residence at Autodesk in the midst of setting up the design studio Bold or Italic, so she has no plans to continue producing her microbial morsels. She has been working on a follow up series called Finger Licking Good candies, which attempt to make people uncomfortable in a similar fashion.
“I made hard candies in the shape of my fingers, and people are invited to suck, lick, and bite my fingers”, say Li who notes that many people who were happy to lick a confection shaped like E.Coli outright refused to eat her nummified knuckles. “It’s a very interesting yet slightly uncomfortable experience for myself as well, seeing people sucking on my fingers right in front of me.”
You can find instructions for producing Li’s popsicles at Instructables.
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