Through their collaboration, Filippo Nassetti and Vincenzo Reale are changing the notion of prostheses — from medical devices to customised fashion products by radically rethinking the relationship between technology in the form of wearable objects and the human body. In the context of the current pandemic, their attention has been drawn to the urgent need for respiratory prostheses. Protective masks with microbial filters are increasingly becoming an essential device, a body integration required to engage with the urban environment and to allow interpersonal interactions. Beyond Covid-19, they foresee that further disruption of environment and climate change, such as air pollution and transformations in the atmosphere, would see protective devices become an essential extension of the human body. The mask as prosthesis of the respiratory system, that will be needed for longer than initially expected — not only as a medical device, but also as a fashion product — is a manifestation of new pandemic and post-pandemic identities.
