Alex Dodge’s Sleep Talker
by Sara Hendren on 03/09/10 at 9:28 pm
Alex Dodge’s new Generative series was recently on display at Brooklyn’s Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. Featured are works like the Sleep Talker, an experimental prototype for social networking in your sleep—connecting users via “dream feeds.” “When the software detects synchronous or compatible dream sleep, it attempts to pair [it] with either a predesignated user over [...]
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 morespeculative machinery (ongoing series)
I’m looking for collaborators to propose new tools—speculative machines—that invert or transform or exaggerate an adaptive aid that already exists. Here’s a first design:…
read moreCan prosthetics be an unfair advantage?
Here’s Part I of a great discussion of the ways prosthetics—in their ever more sophisticated forms—are raising ethical questions about bodily augmentation and mechanical advantage. The image is of Oscar Pistorius, an athlete and bilateral amputee who’s been able to seriously compete against both able-legged runners and at the Paralympics.
read moreinternational lab coat symbol (ongoing series)
I’ve started a collaborative, public project designed as interventions in medical office waiting rooms, and I’m looking for partners. I’ve made these postcard drawings of lab coats, and I’d like collaborators to place a card in one of the magazines that sit in waiting rooms, leaving them for the next prospective patient. The dynamics of [...]
read morehappy accidents
From Mitchell Whitelaw’s Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life: “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 media art also [...]
read moretools for historical imagination: jury duty
Tools for Historical Imagination: Jury Duty Running Time: 7 min 35 sec I’ve been interested in judicial service for a long time—the daunting responsibility of it, the chance to look inside the justice system, the human stories at the center of any case. After serving on a case in 2003, I couldn’t shake the feeling [...]
read moresensory substitution
I’m collaborating with the Philosophical Psychology Lab at Gordon College, working with philosopher Brian Glenney on experiments with the vOICe, also known as the Seeing With Sound device. The tool utilizes a camera, embedded in a pair of glasses or goggles, and translates its intake into “readable” soundwaves through earphones—either assigning sounds to light and [...]
read moreLynn Bennett Carpenter’s haptic sensations
Lynn Bennett-Carpenter is a fiber artist based in Detroit. Her work is often interactive, often site-specific, and a number of pieces are wearable, neither proper clothing nor purely functional tools. I asked her specifically about pieces from her “Fittings” series, and from her “Elastic Experiment” works. image description: two women in active poses, one appearing [...]
read moreuseless/useful
From Flong Blog, Golan Levin on how new media artists, working outside the mandates of utility and traditional research, are often uncredited sources for novel, sophisticated technologies. Issues of copyright aside, it shouldn’t be news that artists work in ways that circumvent linear problem-solving, and may, in the process, create technologies that are very useful [...]
read moreWendy Jacob lectures on MIT’s TechTV
Artist and MIT professor Wendy Jacob talks about her recent work within her newly-established Autism Studio in the visual arts program there. Worth watching—she shows some recent work of her own, some of her students’ projects, and then a new collaboration with a young boy diagnosed with autism, working to create a novel way to [...]
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.
Follow ablerism on Twitter