Electric Skin is a new tactile electronic material, capable of powering devices and made of a bold, new texture, that intrinsically evokes mindful living. Our material is essentially a self-charging skin. In this context, it is in the form of a living light, which takes the shape of a wall piece. Part art, part light, and a living centerpiece. It is not connected to any source of power, since it is powered by protein nanowires, embedded in the skin, that react and process electrical outputs from ambient air. 
 

Electric Skin is built on the work of Drs Lovely and Yao, scientists at UMASS who have been engineering electrically conductive protein nanowires by cultivating a specific strain of bacteria. The skin harnesses the properties of these nanowires and embeds them in a bioenvironment that facilitates this conductivity, and allows it to power a device.