Bertolt Brecht, adaptive apps, and why the iPad isn’t just for consuming content
by Sara Hendren on 27/08/10 at 12:33 pm
Media theorists love Bertolt Brecht’s famous 1932 essay, “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication.” It’s a prescient call for participatory technology: “…radio is one-sided when it should be two-. It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. [...]
“I am, rather, an impresario of scientists.”
Stefany Anne Goldberg examines Jacques Cousteau’s life of exploration and discovers a big dreamer. Cousteau was a storyteller, and only able to gather support for his projects as long as he was able to ignite the interest of collaborators. “I am not a scientist,” Cousteau told The Christian Science Monitor in 1986. “I am, rather, [...]
read morerebecca horn’s ‘finger gloves’
Rebecca Horn‘s Finger Gloves, from 1974. I’ve included a video of the gloves in action below; you only need to watch the beginning to get a sense for how they work. In Barcelona as a young artist in the early 1960s, Horn was working with glass fiber without a mask. Unaware of any harm, Horn [...]
read moreAdaptation, Part I: How the Eames chair came from leg splints, and why “disability studies” isn’t just identity politics
In 1941, the husband-and-wife design team, Charles and Ray Eames, were commissioned by the US Navy to design a lightweight splint for wounded soldiers to get them out of the field more securely. Metal splints of that period weren’t secure enough to hold the leg still, causing unnecessary death from gangrene or shock, blood loss, [...]
read morenot Luddite but ludic
Svetlana Boym’s Off-Modern Manifesto describes her interest in “broken-tech art”—and this is very much at the heart of my collaborative work on sensory substitution with Brian Glenney: “Technology, we are told, is wholly trustworthy, were it not for the human factor. We seem to have gone full circle: to be human means to err. Yet, [...]
read moreAdaptation, Part II: hearing aid jewelry, chairs that give hugs, and the art of changing the question.
In Part I of this series, I wrote about the still-new territory that is true adaptive design. As shown in the case of the Eames chairs, we’ve only begun to explore the aesthetic-and-engineering innovations that may shift our cultural ideas about ability and disability, independence and dependence, normalcy and variation. Let me point to some [...]
read moreAdaptation, Part III: Art as Research (Braille tattoos! Socially-adept handbags!)
Read Part I of this essay here, and Part II here. New media art self-consciously reworks technology into culture, and rereads technology as culture. What’s more, it does so in a concrete, applied way; it manipulates the technology itself, with a nonindustrial latitude that admits misapplication and adaptation, rewiring and hacking, pseudofunctionality and accident. New [...]
read moresignage/wheelchair (ongoing series)
I rarely see this second image in use, but I was gratified to see it near the entrances and restrooms at MOMA when I visited this summer. 03/28/10: Found the newer image in use at Marshalls, in a shopping plaza here in Cambridge. Bargain-basement prices AND evolved design sense:
read more
Graham Pullin on disability and imagination
From an interview in Dwell magazine: Why do you think so few designers take up issues of universal design, or designing for disability? Is it a question of money, knowledge, a failure of the imagination? As we’re coming to money later, let’s talk about knowledge and imagination. Many of the designers I spoke with did [...]
read moreMarie Chouinard’s bODY_rEMIX/ gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS
Montreal’s Compagnie Marie Chouinard‘s 2005 work, bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS employs ten dancers who
“execute variations on the exercise of freedom. Often, the dancers appear on points: on one, two, and even four at a time. In a spectroscopy of the gesture, we also see them using different devices – crutches, rope, prostheses, horizontal bars, and harnesses – which [read more]
Emotiv’s EPOC neuroheadset
Tan Le and the Emotiv group’s neuroheadset was recently demonstrated at TED; video below, and worth watching! The headset is a customizable device that reads commands via thoughts—stunning. The end of the video also shows its relevance for wheelchair users. Thanks, Jennifer Grant, for the link!
the Wiicane
The Wiicane by Touch Graphics: “a system for promoting proper use of the long cane in orientation and mobility training for young children and others. WiiCane uses Wii motion tracking technology to provide real-time feedback as users walk up and down a 30′ long indoor course. By practicing with WiiCane, some users may learn to [read more]
the walklet
San Francisco’s REBAR group has a design that reclaims public recreation space from parking spots. Adaptation and accessibility written all over this:
They call it a “modular public park.”
via PSFK.
music for deaf “hearers”
This collar by German designer Frederik Podzuweit creates music for deaf people—through skin vibration. Apparently the transmission of electricity through the device to the neck, collarbone and shoulders creates a very rich experience of music—triggering the same parts of the brain, adapted for those who don’t hear with their ears—as those used for normative aural [read more]
gesture-based computing
More gadgetry that wasn’t created as adaptive tech, but could be used to extend accessibility for motor-impairments. I think we’ve seen this idea in the movies; these prototype gloves look promising:
“A pair of lycra gloves — with 20 irregularly shaped patches in 10 different colors — held in front of a webcam can generate a [read more]
the crutch pocket
This pocket from Crutch Buddies makes crutch use much more manageable.
And it comes in so many colors!
via Cool Tools.
physical touchscreen knobs
dsLabs is working on creating a richer experience with touchscreens, by adding physical-tool interfaces. These additions would make iPhones and iPads (and who knows what else?) significantly more accessible too:
Physical Touchscreen Knob from adam kumpf on Vimeo.
$3 device speeds up healing process
via Inhabitat, this device uses negative pressure to suction air from open wounds, speeding up the healing process. This MIT researcher has distributed it in Haiti; she’s working on a pocket-size version and headed to Rwanda next.
Action Trackchair
An offroad wheelchair model. Great options here. But is the BigDog the future?
More at Gizmodo.
