A Brooklyn-based designer has created a 3D-printed sculptural boob tube to spark social commentary on the state of privacy in a data-driven world—by making the top gradually more sheer.

X.pose's striking black webbed rubber structure was engineered using a Stratasys printer, molded to the body to ensure comfort and very much inspired by creator Xuedi Chen's previous work, Invasive Growth (moss-grown jewelry based on the parasitic cordyceps fungus). But underneath, its layers tell another story about our lack of control and veritable vulnerability when it comes to who uses our data, what for, and how much they take.

"By participating in this hyper-connected society while having little to no control of my digital data production, how much of myself do I unknowingly reveal?" asks Chen, who created X.pose in around three weeks with fellow artist Pedro Oliveira. "To what degree does the aggregated metadata collected from me paint an accurate portrait of who I am as a person? What aspects of my individuality are reflected in this portrait?"

The initial design was inspired by Chen's own struggle to track down the location data kept on her by Google. "Based on my activity logs, Google clearly knows where I am, where I've been and possibly even where I'm going," she says. "Yet when I wanted a log of my location history, I had to go through numerous steps to 'enable' tracking."

She decided to aggregate this data collected on her everyday, building a mobile app to do the job using Node.js and PhoneGap. X.pose is the result of those data points, which have been translated into an abstract geometric representation using 3D printing software Rhino. Under the mesh is an array of displays that can change in opacity according to which location you are in (mapped out into the design) and how much data you are giving up at any given minute, in real time. They are made from electrochromic film, which becomes transparent when a current is passed through at a specific frequency. The app doing the data calculations is driving that current, with the panels controlled by an Arduino and linked to the app by Bluetooth. Give too much away and you will be bare for the world to see.

"I wanted to quantify the data exposure physically because that's what people can see," Chen told Wired.co.uk. "Discussions about privacy concerns have been around for ages, but only when it's in your face do people really get a reaction."

"The transparency is dependent upon the location of the wearer. If I'm in a certain neighborhood, the corresponding patch of film will be very active as it fluctuates between opaque and transparent very quickly. The film does cover the whole piece and has some memory. So as you move throughout the day, it shows off a trail of your past locations. Most recent location is most transparent and fades over time back to opaque."

Chen is of course, like most of us, glued to the free services she uses everyday. It's this complicity that she wanted to comment on—we might talk about privacy concerns, but really how much has changed since the NSA blew the conversation wide open? How many people have given up Facebook or Gmail in protest at the dissolution of privacy and the epic reduction in conscious data donation. We are all giving up our personal vital statistics, everyday, without thinking enough about it.

"My devices make me an implicit participant in this cycle of data consumption. It's not that I think we shouldn't be using the services... Connectivity is great and has become the norm and almost necessary for some. I myself was pretty unaware of how much we're actually giving away by doing so.

"Most sites log some kind of metadata, so it seems unavoidable wherever you go online. So how exactly do we move toward better digital privacy? I'm still looking for that answer."

Although Chen is clear that this is a question-driving design—she is not telling us what to think about the multi-faceted concerns surrounding our digital privacy—she is definitely uncertain that these concerns will ever drive us to sacrifice free services that milk our data.

"I don't think much will change in the near future," she said. "Even if the system seems a bit twisted, it all 'works' and is providing so many free services to billions. Like I said, connectivity has become so necessary for some… maybe it outweighs the privacy concerns?"

This story originally appeared on Wired UK.