Just when you thought you’ve seen enough innovative inventions, a design graduate in the Netherlands has created a gun that actually turns your tears into bullets. Shown off at Dutch Design Week, it works by collecting your tears as you cry, which then trickle down the brass tubes into the main body of the gun, where they are frozen into bullets by a small bottle of dry ice.
The gun was made by Yi-Fei Chen, a Taiwanese student at Design Academy Eindhoven, who reportedly created it after an “altercation” with her tutor, according to Dezeen. Chen says she created the gun as a “visual metaphor” for her struggle to speak her mind, rather than as a deadly weapon that gives new meaning to “eye power”.
Being Taiwanese, Chen found studying in the Netherlands a little difficult when it came to disagreeing with her tutors – which apparently is a habit expected in Dutch schools. As she didn’t feel comfortable doing so, her tutor set her to an unreasonable deadline and then admonished her for failing to meet her deadline – this upset her so much that she cried.
“I was too emotional to control myself, I could not hold my tears so I cried,” she told Dezeen. “I turned my back to the others, because I did not want people to see me crying.”
After that incident, Chen visualised her personal struggle to toughen up with a cool metaphor: use her shed tears as a weapon of protest. She then came up with the tear gun, and completed the project in time for Dutch Design Week. Not surprisingly, the unique gun art project went viral. Next time a teacher puts her on the spot, she will be ready to respond with equal force.
Chen was also allowed to shoot her tear gun at her tutor during her graduation ceremony, which she did. It’s safe to assume that the gun isn’t powerful enough to do any real damage, but nonetheless, it’s a pretty cool concept, and one that makes everyone want to cry.
More of how the gun works can be seen in this video from Yen-An Chen.
Tear Gun from Yen-An Chen on Vimeo.
