“We are living in an era of no rules; technology is corrupting nature’s ballot, forcing us to redefine our bodies’ limitations and boundaries,” says Lucy McRae, the skin-fixated artist and filmmaker whose cosmetic predictions are the subject of today’s film, Swallowable Parfum. “I have no doubt that we will be eating cosmetics and using color-changing skin technology. The fashion and pharmaceuticals market will merge, as fashion and technology is doing now.” Developed with synthetic biologist Sheref Mansy, the project explores the utopian possibility of a consumed capsule that synthesizes with the body to create a biologically enhanced scent. Individual to each wearer and reacting to stress, exercise or sexual arousal, McRae’s prototype provokes debate about the future of the body as a platform for technology. Below, the London-based artist, a former ballerina and member of the Philips Design’s “far-future” research program, shares her views on wild ideas and sexy scents.

Are you for or against genetically enhanced beauty? 
Lucy McRae: I get a huge kick out of dreaming up these ideas, absent of limitations, that allow people to imagine possibility and choose if they would want it or not. I'm telling speculative stories underpinned by the tools of science fiction and technology to render a world that’s believable.

What are the different base notes for stressed, pumped and sexy? 
LM: Stressed–the scent of an infinite horizon; pumped–the smell of an explosion in reverse; sexy–the aroma of brushing past a stranger.

What inspired the choreography? 
LM: Dancer Rachel Coulson has this incredible ability to reach shapes with her body that are beyond human. The choreography aims to simulate weightlessness, an underwater body moving within a particle atmosphere that is foetal, fluid, surrendering the body to science and technology.