Last Christmas my daughter got a doll for a present. Par for the course you might think. But this doll is a Makie. Which means that my daughter went online with her aunty, designed the doll from scratch, creating exactly what she wanted it to look like: her hair, her colour, her facial expression, her clothes. And then, the doll was printed. As in, 3D printed. It is a 3D doll.

When it came in by post and we opened the box, we all were a bit in awe. It felt like we were playing with toys of… aliens. However, it looks like these printer-like devices are not at all from Mars, but soon we’ll be able to buy them from computer shops and every time we break a glass or a plate we just press a button and voilà, print one off.

Only last month, in Wisconsin, US, a duck, which lost both of its feet to frostbite, was given a new lease of life after a secondary school technology teacher used a 3D printer to make him a new pair of webbed feet. Phillip the duck was fitted with bright orange limbs and, as you can see from the You Tube video, he was cheered on by the class while taking his first few steps in his new ‘boots’.

Technology is becoming more and more futuristic. Last week, The Telegraph’s digital fashion editor (fancy that: they have an editor specifically for digital fashion) wrote that we’re not that far off from being able to order something on the online fashion website Asos and print it out and at home “meaning you can go from browsing to wearing 3D clothes in 30 minutes”.

Of course, 3D clothes bring me straight to 7D coats. I stopped crunching my granola the other morning when I read that Ira was supposed to wear a costly 7D coat for her Eurovision performance. What on earth is 7D? I suddenly felt very ancient and out of the loop, so I asked the teenager at home. “Ira’s coat,” he said instantly. Yes but what does 7D do? “No idea,” he said – and he’s the techy of the house.

So far my mind can vaguely comprehend 5D, and that’s because I’ve been to that Malta-promo cinematic thing in Valletta. The five dimensions are the usual sight and sound, then there’s smell (you vaguely smell Maltese bread), movement (you vaguely feel the seat vibrate) and touch (you vaguely feel a snake slithering against your legs). So what would be the sixth and seventh dimensions, I wonder?

In the UK, you can watch some films in 4D, which means that seats vibrate so much while, say, Tom Cruise is chasing a baddie, that you can have your popcorn shaken all over you. It’s being called ‘a mix between motion and emotion’

I googled frantically and the only explanation I came across were dresses which changed appearances according to emotions. A Netherlands studio created the ‘Intimacy 2.0’ dress which becomes, um, transparent when you see someone you fancy; and a London studio made a similar dress called ‘Bubelle’ which was worn by Lady Gaga. Maybe herein is the link: Ira and Gaga have a common stylist after all.

I am not sure all this high tech makes our life easier or more pleasant. Take cinema. Am I the only one who can’t stand 3D movies? Every time I put on those cumbersome glasses, I know I’m going to watch a darker, scratchier, less brilliant version of a film. Still maybe I shouldn’t complain – in the UK they are going beyond that and you can watch some movies in 4D. Which means that seats vibrate so much while, say, Tom Cruise is chasing a baddie, that you can have your popcorn shaken all over you. It’s being called ‘a mix between motion and emotion’ but I think it’s more of ‘a mix of nachos and popcorn on your shirt’.

And if that is not exciting enough, there is also the rise of edible cinema nights. How does this work? In your seat, you find a tray of numbered cups and parcels. During the screening, an usherette sashays past and holds up corresponding numbers indicating what to open when. Apparently, the audiences love this pairing of film and food.

In the comestible screening of Pan’s Labyrinth, for example, when the young Ofélia and her mother are transported through the forest to their new home, the cinemagoer can open the packet of pine-scented popcorn which has a burnt woody aroma. When Ofélia’s mother is prescribed a sedative, they are prompted to reach for a pipette of medicinal-tasting gin cocktail, and so on and so forth. My mind boggles even writing about it.

But this brings me back to the 7D coat. So what was it going to be like? Was Ira going to have images of the Maltese seascape projected on the coat and the people in the audience would have suddenly started tasting the salt on their skin, felt the waves crashing against their thighs and everyone would be jolted into surfing movements? Or maybe the coat was going to emit wafts of Maltese bread baking in a wood oven, and it would have reached even the audiences at home through the television screens, hypnotising everyone to vote for Malta. Sadly, we will never know, I suppose.

I’ll just stick to getting my head round this 3D doll which, as I type, is staring at me from the top of the kitchen counter (she had breakfast with us this morning). I stare back: You dolly, how can you be printed?

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti