These closed and abandoned tanning salons, spas and studios made hay while the sun didn’t shine but sooner or later they (and their clients) felt the burn.

“Sun-Tan-Drews” may not have been the sunniest tanning salon in St Andrews, Scotland but it was by far the punniest. Note the “W” on the lettered sign had fallen off sometime in the past and was replaced by a slightly smaller version. Kudos to Flickr members Ian Macdonald (Ghiribizzo) and Jonathan Baldwin (artistry), and Panoramio member Richie W, all of whom captured the recently shuttered pun-tastic tanning salon in early 2007.

Smokeless

The sign on the door of this closed Bristol, England tanning salon states smoking inside is prohibited, assuring potential customers they won’t be burnt to a crisp for the sake of fashion. Another sign, hand-written this time, notes the business has moved to newer and more northerly digs. Shame they didn’t take the alluring window stickers with them when they moved. Flickr member Steve (Steve Lewis2009) snapped the abandoned Wells Road spa in May of 2010.

The Sun Isn’t There

This gloriously grainy photo of the late and unlamented “Sun Valley electric UV tanning salon” – in the words of photographer and Flickr member Boo (Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers) – was taken in early 2003 somewhere in Lancashire, northern England. Odd how many tanning studios there are in the UK, abandoned or not… then again, have you seen British people lately?

Hot Stuffed

The “Hot Staff” (yes, that’s its name) Tanning Salon in Naha, capital city of Okinawa, is a mass of contradictions. An information page states the salon is open year round but it’s “CLOSED” whenever you access the page. The salon’s website hasn’t been updated since 2011 but regardless… a tanning salon in Japan’s most southerly prefecture?? As for the spa’s curious name, well, typos are all in good fun until they create issues for employees.

One Lesstan

Founded in 2006, “Lextan” grew to become the biggest chain of luxury tanning salons in Wales with 16 locations. Erm, make that 15 – on the night of June 15th, 2016 the Lextan studio in Ebbw Vale (pop. 33,000) burnt to the ground and was totally destroyed in what local police have stated was an arson attack. Seems someone wasn’t happy with their tan lines or ended up looking like Tan Mom.

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Bar The Rays 15 Closed Abandoned Tanning Salons

In a new light art installation dubbed Sense of Field, Tokyo artist Hitomi Sato lets visitors simultaneously see, touch and shape shimmers of light all on sides.

The immersive experience is facilitated by thousands of transparent tendrils extending from two walls opposite one another. Each visitor walking between them,touches bristles on both sides, creating waves of motion that can be both seen and felt.

Perspective matters: observers outside the installation see it all from another angle, experiencing the setup differently primarily as a function of gleaming luminosity. Once engaged through physical contact, sensations multiply as clothing and skin brush beads of heat and illumination.

Of her work, the artist says that “when [she] sees the shimmer of light, images of various natural light comes to her mind. For example, ripples on the water’s surface, sunlight through the leaves of trees, rays from a break in the clouds, and the reflections on window’s glass.”

Tech Tats use conductive inks to create a circuit board right on your skin, providing a passive and unobtrusive alternative to standard wearables. Smartwatches and fitness trackers tend to stand out (worn on wrists or around necks) and need to be taken off and put back on daily, whereas these tats (while temporary) can be applied indefinitely.

The wearable can be used to monitor body temperature, blood pressure, stress levels and heart rate, then transmit data wirelessly to a mobile app or computer.

Lying effectively flat against the surface of your skin, these complete circuits are easy to conceal or reveal depending on whether or not you want to show off your ink.

The DIY-friendly design uses LED lights, a microcontroller and conductive ink – for now, the result is intentionally temporary, but permanently-inked versions could work as well.

The applications are numerous, starting with medical but expanding to financial as well as other identification-oriented use cases. A wearable wallet could be tied to your banking information, for example, or you could apply a Tech Tat to your child during an outing to a busy place, providing an easy way to track them in case you get separated. Chaotic Moon is currently developing both the wearable circuitry tech as well as related applications.

This project asks a question that goes to the heart of how we think of buildings, asking: what if architectural shapes and structures could be more than just stable but also smart, responsive and flexible?

Translated Geometries “is a performative prototype which exploits the Shape Memory Polymer (SMP) properties in order to generate responsive architectural behaviors” – it explores how heat, light, air and humidity can be utilized to deform and reform architectures. For instance, at higher temperatures the material is made more fluid, hardening into a new (or reverting to an original) shape when cooled.

A project of IAAC (the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) students, tutors and faculty, this origami-like demonstration model uses triangular modules and responsive intersections to expand a surface to more than four times its original area.

A very early-stage iteration to be sure, there are many possible applications yet to be explored, perhaps first in larger demo versions then eventually in architectural facades and structures. Imagine buildings (or doors), for instance, that opened up naturally by day and closed at night, or let in light and heat when cool but converted to passive cooling via wind when too warm.

Human bodies become exotic animals and crashed cars, or blend almost seamlessly into intricate backgrounds, with careful application of body paint and a bit of acrobatics. These 31 works of art turn people into living canvases, sometimes celebrating the graceful shapes and movement of their bodies, and at other times, disguising it.

Alexa Meade’s 2D Paintings on 3D People

Those aren’t two-dimensional paintings on a flat surface; they’re real, live people transformed into human canvases by artist Alexa Meade. “The models are transformed into embodiments of the artist’s interpretation of their essence,” says Meade. “When captured on film, the living, breathing people underneath the paint disappear, overshadowed by the masks of themselves.

Wallpaper People by Emma Hack

Painted models virtually disappear into patterned backgrounds in works by artist Emma Hack. The models must be painstakingly hand-painted to match up perfectly with backgrounds that are often very complex, and then remain perfectly still so the scene can be photographed. It can take as long as nineteen hours to apply the makeup for a single scene.

Human Animals by Gesine Marwedel

The graceful, flexible bodies of performance artists are an ideal medium for artist Gesine Marwedel, who uses paint to turn them into animals like flamingos, dolphins, hummingbirds and tigers. “Body painting is not just paint on a living canvas, it is picking up the body shapes in a subject and the painting on the body,” Marwedel told PSFK. “It is the transformation of a human being into a breathing, moving, living work of art.”

Painted Alive: Brilliant Work by Craig Tracy

Owner of the world’s first gallery dedicated to fine art body painting (located in New Orleans), Craig Tracy creates his own beautiful and surreal body painting portraits that blend human models into backgrounds or turn them into psychedelic works of art. Rather than hiding the models, however, Tracy celebrates the shapes of their bodies, often exaggerating them and using them for creative effect.

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Painted People 31 Works Of Art On Human Canvas