May 1, 2009
signage/billboards (ongoing series)
Representing disability is a challenge; representing cognitive or developmental disability may be more so. Here’s an image from a series of bulletin boards, created in late 2007 by the NYU Child Study Center. Designed as ransom notes, they were created as a public awareness campaign about various childhood neurological conditions, including the autism spectrum.Oct 12, 2009
Wendy Jacob lectures on MIT's TechTV
Artist and MIT professor Wendy Jacob speaks in this video 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 navigate through large open spaces.Oct 16, 2009
useless/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 indeed. I’d speculate that this kind of idea-hatching extends beyond the new media fields as well.Nov 18, 2009
Lynn 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.Nov 21, 2009
sensory substitution
Dec 6, 2009
happy accidents
From Mitchell Whitelaw’s Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life:Dec 7, 2009
Can prosthetics be an unfair advantage?
Dec 12, 2009
JooYoun Paek's polite umbrella
JooYoun Paek’s Polite Umbrella (see video!).Dec 14, 2009
accident-explanatory slings
So many directions you could go with these:Jan 5, 2010
braille-friendly banjo tabs
Jan 6, 2010
eric gunther's "organorgan"
Jan 22, 2010
Graham Pullin on disability and imagination
Feb 12, 2010
USB drive in your finger
Feb 22, 2010
BigDog: a robotic tank mule for the future
Feb 28, 2010
sleep suit for urban power nappers
Mar 10, 2010
LED eyelashes!
Mar 22, 2010
"Detectair" smart vest responds to air quality
Genevieve Mateyko and Pamela Troyer’s “Detectair” vest “contains sensors that detect the ambient air quality and displays the data on the garment itself by illuminating a pattern of embedded LEDs across the chest.”Mar 29, 2010
signage/wheelchair (ongoing series)
Apr 16, 2010
Action Trackchair
An offroad wheelchair model. Great options here. But is the BigDog the future?Apr 16, 2010
$3 device speeds up healing process
Apr 17, 2010
Adaptation, Part III: Art as Research (Braille tattoos! Socially-adept handbags!)
May 1, 2010
Adaptation, 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.May 11, 2010
physical touchscreen knobs
May 17, 2010
not 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:May 17, 2010
Adaptation, Part I: How the Eames chair came from leg splints, and why "disability studies" isn't just identity politics
May 18, 2010
the crutch pocket
May 27, 2010
gesture-based computing
Jun 1, 2010
rebecca horn's 'finger gloves'
Jun 4, 2010
"I am, rather, an impresario of scientists."
Jun 8, 2010
music for deaf "hearers"
Jun 15, 2010
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:Jun 28, 2010
the Wiicane
Jul 28, 2010
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!Aug 18, 2010
Marie Chouinard's bODY_rEMIX/ gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS
Aug 27, 2010
Bertolt Brecht, adaptive apps, and why the iPad isn't just for consuming content
Media theorists love Bertolt Brecht’s famous 1932 essay, “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication.” It’s a prescient call for participatory technology:Sep 4, 2010
Alex Dodge's Sleep Talker
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.”Sep 11, 2010
iPad use footnote: adaptive passivity?
Sep 14, 2010
But he does like Robo-Cop
From Jonah Campbell’s guest post about why the Terminator isn’t a cyborg, at Quiet Babylon:Sep 23, 2010
Steve Hoefer's Hand Lights
Sep 25, 2010
01Mathery's Extrasound
I know we’ve all seen plenty of blogs devoted to one thing a day [one recipe, one photograph, one new idea]. But 01Mathery keep inspiring me with their sheer energy and playfulness—they’re a team of two young designers, hacking and designing one new object every day.Oct 3, 2010
Medi-Speak
I’ve been thinking about a set of alternative hospital linens, and I’ve started with these pillowcases:Oct 11, 2010
Alien Staff: it's virtual, it's prosthetic
Jim Rossignol’s piece for Tim Maly’s recent project, 50 Posts about Cyborgs, includes this quote from Steven Shaviro’s 2003 work, Connected, or What it Means to Live in the Network Society:Oct 15, 2010
the adjacent possible
Oct 19, 2010
Nicholas Stedman's 'After Deep Blue'
Oct 22, 2010
it's a sign (part of the signage: wheelchair project, ongoing)
Second iteration of the accessible-access re-design coming very soon. I found this image last night at Boston Architectural College (otherwise a fine institution)—!Oct 26, 2010
Lauren McCarthy's Conversacube
Nov 3, 2010
the masticator: confront your repulsion
Nov 12, 2010
an "ethics of homelessness" (and a Der Spiegel publicity stunt)
If you don’t know Cabinet magazine, I humbly suggest that you rectify that fact. It’s a weird and wonderful mix of art, science, history, and mischief—and, naturally, hard to describe. Editor Sina Najafi does a great job, though, in his essay for the collection _What Is Research in the Visual Arts? _Nov 19, 2010
(so let's keep talking)
Dec 2, 2010
Jessica Field's Maladjusted Ecosystem
Dec 4, 2010
the terrorism of little changes
Scientific American recently blogged an account of Hugh Herr’s talk at Idea Festival. Herr, himself a double amputee, is among the most optimistic about the promise of the dramatic and sophisticated prosthetic limbs now available:Dec 12, 2010
"Letter on the Blind, for the Use of Those Who See."
Dec 24, 2010
olafur eliasson: your blind passenger
It’s hard not to love Eliasson’s work. Deceptively simple, immersive environments are where he shines. Currently up at the Arken Museum is Your Blind Passenger, a 90-meter tunnel, densely fogged. So visibility is minimal, and participants must use other instincts to find their way.Jan 20, 2011
morse code jewelry
Portland designer COATT has necklaces in Morse code. Words like “fine” and “dandy,” or choose your own:Feb 14, 2011
Hanna Ernsting's couch for all situations
This “Moody Couch” from Hanna Ernsting comes with 10 feet of extra fabric, so you can alter it to address your emotional state.Feb 20, 2011
what's wrong with "prosthetics porn"? (part I)
When I started Abler, I was excited about all the new prosthetic appendages beginning to make their way through design sites. And I remain so—excited about, intrigued by them. I’ve been collecting these images, sent on by friends and colleagues, and I’ve been glad to see much more attention to both practical and creative re-visioning of artificial limbs.Feb 21, 2011
icon adventures
Monday Feb 21: The project’s just been written up in the Boston Globe! How to get stickers: Use the contact form to the right to send me your address; I’ll send you 5 for free while they last.Mar 7, 2011
what's wrong with "prosthetics porn"? (part II)
Part I of this essay is here.Mar 24, 2011
the public amateur
Mar 26, 2011
urban camouflage
Mar 31, 2011
accessibility redefined
In this article in GOOD magazine, Alexandra Lange argues for the ways cities would benefit from taking parents’ interests seriously:Apr 7, 2011
a little to the left...
May 19, 2011
a "technology of distance"
I’m revisiting Ted Porter’s Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, probably 10 years after I first read it as his student in the history of science at UCLA. Emphasis throughout is mine:May 24, 2011
alison lapper pregnant
As part of the Fourth Plinth series of rotating public sculpture in Trafalgar Square, London, Marc Quinn mounted this large-scale work in 2005:Jun 2, 2011
tangible sound lab's "skintimacy"
Jun 12, 2011
talk-o-meter: so many, many uses
The Talk-O-Meter has made the tech rounds already, but I had to post it here. It’s so simple, and so good.Jul 19, 2011
sascha nordmeyer's "communication prosthesis," and more at MOMA
Sascha Nordmeyer’s prosthetic “smile simulator” tool will be part of MOMA’s Talk to Me, a show that opens today. Looks great—and there’s a blog where the curators have also cataloged their process of finding work to include. A whole database of interesting projects there, both under the checked tab and in the queue.Jul 21, 2011
monu / nerd nite boston
Aug 5, 2011
michael kontopoulos's "water rites"
Aug 23, 2011
all my geek dreams coming true
I really enjoyed meeting and talking with Christina Agapakis, who wrote about the Moveable Chair work for Scientific American’s Oscillator blog.Aug 31, 2011
deus ex: the eyeborg documentarian
Sep 13, 2011
mark shepard's CCD-me-not
This isn’t the first adaptive umbrella I’ve written about, but it’s certainly as timely, and there’s now a prototype in development. Mark Shepard is creating a Sentient City Survival Kit, “set of artifacts for survival in the near-future sentient city”:Sep 16, 2011
border town: beyond ramps [curitiba, brazil]
How does a bold, military-appointed, possibly technocratic architect-turned-mayor create a model universal-access transportation system, cheaply and effectively, and use it—along with other initiatives—to turn around the environmental prospects of the entire town?Sep 19, 2011
urban immune system research
Over at We Make Money Not Art, there’s a long and substantial interview with the Institute for Boundary Interactions and their various prototypes for a large and ongoing project, Urban Immune System Research:Sep 20, 2011
high-low tech
In the spirit of the public amateur, I’m going to document my way through a class I’m taking at the MIT media lab: Crafting Material Interfaces. It’s taught by Leah Buechley, with instruction and time in her lab to investigate materials and methods. The High-Low Tech group brings together digital and analog, futurist and traditional technologies, means, and cultures:Oct 1, 2011
antonio rezza
Oct 1, 2011
AGNES: the age suit
Oct 4, 2011
radicalism and "miniaturized music"
“We do not return to individualized or privatized emotions when we use the Walkman: rather the Walkman’s artificiality makes us aware of the impending presence of the collective, which summons us with the infallibility of the sleepwalker. What the Walkman provides is the possibility of a barrier, a blockage between ‘me’ and the world, so that, as in moments of undisturbed sleep, I can disappear as a listener playing music. The Walkman allows me, in other words, to be missing—to be a missing part of history, to which I say: ‘I am not there, not where you collect me.’”Oct 13, 2011
material interfaces, part ii
First, just quickly: I’m quoted in Monday’s Boston Globe article about the Awesome Foundation. I’ve sung their praises here before, of course.Oct 15, 2011
"curiosity is a vice"
“…that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy, and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. The word, however, pleases me. To me it suggests something altogether different: it evokes “concern”; it evokes the care one takes for what exists and could exist; a readiness to break up our familiarities and to regard otherwise the same things; a fervor to grasp what is happening and what passes; a casualness in regard to the traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential.Nov 1, 2011
EDGE lab
The Experimental Design and Gaming Environments lab, or EDGE lab, at Ryerson University, works—among other things—on adaptive tech for children with disabilities. Like the High-Low Tech media lab group where I’m taking a course now, EDGE researchers are committed to democratizing materials for maximum customization and replicability. Following the example of the Adaptive Design Association in New York (I’ll be posting about them soon!), they’re making good use of cardboard and soft circuitry for all kinds of low-cost tools. Torontoist has a profile post:Nov 10, 2011
the importance of being a cyborg ableist
This article in H+ emphasizes the importance of embracing technology to further the cause of women’s equality in contemporary society. This is the kind of essay where you could almost swap out the feminist terminology for that of disability rights, with very few changes. Kyle Munkittrick lays out nicely the stakes for the cyber-feminist in the legacy of Donna Haraway:Nov 16, 2011
christine sun kim is unlearning sound etiquette
Dec 7, 2011
organs everywhere, and more news
My semester at Harvard GSD is winding down; I’ll be sharing some new work in the coming break. In January I’ll be taking a course at the Adaptive Design Association in New York and interning with Artists in Context here in Cambridge. And I’m looking forward to a residency at UC Irvine next June, part of the Critical Disability Studies group that’s funded by the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute.Dec 12, 2011
because someone's always said it both earlier and better
“I am not a cyborg simply because I wear an artificial limb. I see cyborg more as a subject position than an identity, and believe it is more descriptive of my position vis-à-vis the relationships of production, delivery, and use surrounding my prosthesis than my actual interface with it. In other words, if I am to be interpellated as a cyborg, it is because my leg cost $11,000 and my HMO paid for it; because I had to get a job to get the health insurance; because I stand and walk with the irony that the materials and design of my leg are based in the same military technology which has blown the limbs off so many other young men; because the shock absorber in my foot was manufactured by a company which makes shock absorbers for bicycles and motorcycles, and can be read as a product of the post-Cold War explosion of increasingly engineered sports equipment and prostheses; and because the man who built my leg struggles to hold onto his small business in a field rapidly becoming vertically integrated and corporatized. I am not a cyborg simply because I wear an artificial limb, nor is my limb autonomous. Amputees (and other disabled people using assistive technology) are not half-human hybrids with semi-autonomous technology; we are people.”Jan 3, 2012
unknown armature: body socks
For a couple of months now, I’ve been researching and testing some body sock prototypes, as part of a series of prosthetic research initiatives I’ve been calling Unknown Armature. I’ve mentioned body socks before; they’re wearable therapeutic tools for people with sensory processing disorders. You can’t find sensory processing challenges in formal diagnostic catalogs like the DSM—not yet, anyway—it’s a rangey and diffuse phenomenon, difficult to locate neurologically, and contested as to its real bio-medical and pyschological meaning.Jan 19, 2012
see yourself sensing
Black Dog sent me Madeline Schwartzman’s new See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception:Mar 5, 2012
recognizing openness
Apr 18, 2012
what is universal design?
I’ve been emailing a bunch with Aimi Hamraie, soon to finish her Ph.D. at Emory University. Aimi’s researching universal design and disability politics in the built environment, among other things. We have a lot to talk about, and I’m hoping to post a long exchange between us here. It was Aimi’s research that pointed me to one particularly striking example of new construction with elegant, considered, universal design: The Blusson Spinal Cord Centre in Vancouver, home to a large interdisciplinary research group called the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD).Apr 20, 2012
douglas irving repetto's 'foal'
Jul 1, 2012
amalia pica
Rhizome just alerted me to Amalia Pica’s show at Chisenhale Gallery:Jul 12, 2012
"a real form" (audre lorde)
In the most benign of social circumstances, I recently met a plastic surgeon. We talked. She was candid and unapologetic about her business: mainly in augmentations and reductions for women, of various kinds. She asked about my work—she's an avid art collector—and lit up when I told her I often work with prosthetics. "You might be interested in some supplies I have," she said.Aug 3, 2012
magic arms
Aug 6, 2012
artificial parts, practical lives
Sep 13, 2012
carla jaspers: "mainframe"
Carla Jaspers is a New York-based designer trained both in occupational therapy and industrial design, and possibly the first person to properly rant about the ridiculousness of walkers-with-tennis-balls:Sep 22, 2012
"sound is a character"
Alison O’Daniel’s film, Night Sky, is touring in North American cities for the next couple of weeks—and in it, O’Daniel says, “sound is a character.” There’s an extraordinary amount of play with music, associative and abstracted noises, and descriptive captioning in the work, all while weaving in and out of canonical story structures. See dates and times for screenings below, as well as the trailer.Oct 5, 2012
rhizome interview
Oct 8, 2012
what can a body do?
What can a body do? Curator Amanda Cachia has gathered a body of works taking up Deleuze’s famous question, opening at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery on 10/26.Oct 10, 2012
replacement parts
A friend sent along this Buzzfeed post featuring historical prostheses—and naturally, it belongs here on Abler. It’s another one of these photo-round-up posts, presented without comment, that make me curious again about what we’re getting when we consume these images.Oct 17, 2012
matthias gommel's "delayed"
Matthias Gommel’s Delayed places two participants in conversation via headsets–except their communications are postponed for five seconds. No instructions are given when you encounter this work; it’s a game of trials and tests and repeats. It’s striking to me that this piece originates from 2002, precisely when it would have registered most strongly around the can-you-hear-me-now ubiquity of mobile phones and their attendant stuttering rhythms. In one way, it’s a work located in that exact year. But in the museum context, like this show at SFMOMA from 2009, they become an additional performance as well.Oct 22, 2012
the facebook demetricator: un-count your likes.
I’m thinking again of Zadie Smith’s searing and much-discussed critique of Facebook from 2010, where she links the Hollywood biopic of Facebook and its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, to the larger limits of the platform:Oct 26, 2012
Leanie van der Vyver: "heels."
I’m always interested in prosthetics that create slowness, as opposed to speed; disruption, as opposed to efficiency. Like Sitraka Rakotoniaina and Harry Vermeulen’s Time Conditioning piece, or Jessica Field’s Maladjusted Ecosystem. So I also love these shoes by Leanie van der Vyver:Nov 7, 2012
lung-on-a-chip
On Thursday I’m heading over to the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering for a visit. The Wyss is a recent and unique model for a laboratory environment: where researchers, medical practitioners, and entrepreneurs come together to make “translational” technologies suitable for manufacturing. Not a lab for basic research, and not a business entity, the Institute functions in between those spaces.Dec 3, 2012
the exo
Dec 12, 2012
the linearity of spoken language
The New York Times explores a new development in sign language: new signs for common scientific terms.Dec 17, 2012
shock of the old
"David Edgerton’s [_The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900_](http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Old-Technology-Global-History/dp/0195322835) is the best kind of corrective for the innovation-crazed futurology that dominates talk about technology and design at the moment. Edgerton rightly shows how the language of futurology—the idea that invention outpaces our capacity to understand it, that scientists “have the future in their bones”—has been with us a for a very long time. But Edgerton’s book is more than that. It’s a reframing of technological study in general...Dec 19, 2012
ana rajcevic's "other side of evolution"
Ana Rajcevic’s collection, ANIMAL: The Other Side of Evolution, proposes a set of wearables that explore “animal anatomy, building upon existing skeleton structures to create a series of sculptural pieces that appear as natural properties of the human body.”Jan 16, 2013
tools for conviviality
Last year, Suzanne Fischer pointed to Ivan Illich’s Tools for Conviviality as a worthy guiding set of principles for critical making:_ _Jan 18, 2013
forest for the trees
Feb 4, 2013
liam's robohand
Feb 15, 2013
emergency notification
Feb 21, 2013
prosthetic imagination: brandeis lecture 2/28
Feb 22, 2013
ignorance in science
Feb 26, 2013
mickael boulay: transitional cutlery
A while back I wrote about a set of china from the Design for Dementia project, made to maximize independent eating for older users whose hand coordination is declining.Mar 19, 2013
jennifer crupi's "unguarded gestures"
Jennifer Crupi is externalizing body language cues—some iconic, some more insidious—with wearable armature. Largely made with sleek aluminum parts, these tools recall a medical grammar of the early 20th century: braces, stirrups, or dentistry tools. So the emotionality of their gestures comes as a gorgeous surprise:Mar 25, 2013
3D printing inside the ear canal
Mar 25, 2013
strategies and tactics
I came across a succinct and probing summary of Michel de Certeau’s ideas about strategies versus tactics _in Tim Cresswell’s _On The Move: _Mobility in the Modern Western World. _ This comparison—and the affirmation of the tactical—is referenced so often by artists, but usually without sufficient explanation as to why.Mar 28, 2013
an instrument for the sonification of everyday things
You might think of this project as a poetics of sensory substitution: swapping one capacity for another. There are a number of tools in development now that translate visual material into audible “colors,” or use tactile signals to “see” the environment—they create an artificial form of synaesthesia that’s meant to compensate for lost function in one or another bodily sense.Apr 3, 2013
nyu lectures
Apr 4, 2013
user-adjustable, upcycled lower leg
Yoony Byun’s prosthetic leg concept repurposes sneaker parts, making a user-adjustable, low-cost limb:Apr 22, 2013
audiowear
May 1, 2013
3D printed fetuses: picturing the real?
After io9 posted this story about 3D printed sonogram technologies, allowing prospective parents who are blind or have low vision to experience their developing fetus, I got to talking with Aimi Hamraie, assistant professor of Medicine, Health, & Society at Vanderbilt University, about all the interesting questions this practice might raise.May 11, 2013
cane camera
May 21, 2013
normal/abnormal in prague
Jun 4, 2013
hiding in plain sight
Soon after I posted an image of my project Unknown Armature: Body Socks—that’s another one, above—Duane McLemore pointed me to these “entoptic phenomena,” William Hundley’s photoset on Flickr:Jun 8, 2013
life in the edited city: update
Update: This work now has a life of its own: the Accessible Icon Project, and we’ve been getting some super press coverage lately. See stories on FastCo, Print/Imprint, among others. More to come!Jun 9, 2013
cohen van balen's "phantom recorder"
Jul 5, 2013
bodies at work
Jul 12, 2013
on boundedness: faqs about the accessible icon
I’m interviewed in this NPR story on the Accessible Icon Project. It aired on All Things Considered on Sunday, and the response we’ve gotten has been, once again, overwhelmingly positive. We love that our resources are open-access, and we’ve been glad to connect with so many likeminded people all over the world.Jul 26, 2013
two kinds of invisibility
George Estreich reports on his return from the recent National Down Syndrome Congress in Denver, where he notes “two kinds of invisibility” emerging in the news. The first has to do with the news of a genetic research team who’ve been able—in the lab, anyway—to use one inserted gene to “silence” the effects of the extra chromosome in the 21st position—the extra one responsible for some of the developmental challenges and heightened medical risks associated with Down syndrome. The claim is that this finding “could help researchers to identify the cellular pathways behind the disorder’s symptoms, and to design targeted treatments.”Aug 15, 2013
suited for space
Aug 27, 2013
burton nitta's "algaculture symbiosis suit"
The remarkable design duo Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta have created this wearable for sustenance—the Algaculture Symbiosis Suit. As part of their “After Agri” project, the suit allows its wearer, in effect, to eat sunlight—to feed on algae that would be grown inside the body.Sep 17, 2013
all technology is assistive technology
Sep 24, 2013
investigating normal, week 1: thoughtless acts
Last week was Week One of my new course at RISD, Investigating Normal: Adaptive and Assistive Technologies. About half the students are Industrial Design students, grads and undergrads, and about half are in the Digital + Media graduate program.Sep 27, 2013
the lift ware spoon
A technology editor at The Atlantic asked me to comment for their story on the Lift Ware spoon, a piece of sensing cutlery that eliminates up to 70% of a user’s hand tremor effect, making a smoother and easier passage from plate to mouth. The tool is bifurcated in the middle, so the back end can receive, sense, and respond to tremor, while the front end is stabilized.Oct 23, 2013
the vayu vest (investigating normal, week 2)
In Week 2 of Investigating Normal, Brian Mullen, creator of the Vayu Vest, came to speak to students about his wearable deep pressure prosthetic.Oct 23, 2013
di mainstone's "human harp"
Di Mainstone made a human harp: prosthetic for playing the strands of a suspension bridge, structurally so like the strings on the instrument. The wearer dons the piece and attaches retractable strings to parts of the bridge, recording its sounds and playing them back in a dance between the structure and the body.Oct 29, 2013
gianni renda's beer glass: drinking for the no longer young
Oct 31, 2013
perkins school for the blind (investigating normal, week 3)
Investigating Normal spent its third week visiting the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. Perkins is a famous and storied institution, with vast historical archives and a truly global contemporary influence. I wanted students to see both the archival tools and instruments that have been built there for over a century and a half; I also wanted them to glimpse the very latest technological and architectural changes to the school, to witness the response to its changing population.Nov 1, 2013
azra aksamija's nomadic mosque
Nov 4, 2013
jae rhim lee: furniture
Jae Rhim Lee is most well known for her Infinity Burial Project—a brilliant mix of mycology, environmental sustainability, and economic critique of the US funeral industry. It’s one of my favorite projects, and one I point young designers to all the time: an example of design work where the spokes of meaning are deeply layered and multiple.Nov 6, 2013
the white cane as technology
My conversation with Georgina Kleege is up at the Atlantic. I loved doing this interview, and our subjects went satisfyingly wide in their range.Nov 25, 2013
introducing abler at gizmodo
I’m happy to report that Abler will now be syndicated as a channel at Gizmodo: abler.gizmodo.com. Below is the first post I wrote to introduce myself to the readership there. If you’re following along here, you’ll still see all the content. It’ll appear here and there. I’m thrilled to be working under Geoff Manaugh, of BLDGBLOG, and most recently at Columbia University’s Studio X. Geoff is expanding the scope of Gizmodo to include more design, architecture, and urbanism, so I’m glad to join up there at this stage.Nov 26, 2013
taste map: synaesthesia and the tube
Nov 27, 2013
no one wins? basketball from every height
Dec 5, 2013
more than "better technologies"
Dec 9, 2013
a video game with nothing to see
Dec 20, 2013
page one
No one is more surprised than me that this follow-up story made it to the very first page of the Boston Globe last Saturday. Here’s the full story. The Accessible Icon Project continues to outpace all our expectations for it. In the Wildest Dreams files: it has just been acquired for the permanent collection at MOMA, in the Architecture & Design division.Dec 29, 2013
pretty ramp machine
Jan 6, 2014
sequencing and synecdoche
Jan 9, 2014
a suit of armor for your internal organs
German CGI design firm Viaframe imagined these sets of armature for a body’s fleshy inner parts. A solid casement for your heart, lungs, or brain.Jan 15, 2014
get your personal space: spike away
Industrial designer Siew Ming Cheng’s “Spike Away” is your commuter-dream-come-true: a wearable way to guarantee you won’t be up close and personal with the next person’s breath and music and perfume.Jan 21, 2014
inclined planes at nerd nite
Jan 31, 2014
backless, bicycles
I love how the Sartorialist just presents this without comment—tags are “backless” and “bicycles.” A gorgeous prosthetic limb is just part of the integrated whole.Feb 3, 2014
getting up
Feb 7, 2014
the collection
Feb 22, 2014
craft and code and point-of-view
I’m teaching Next Generation Wearables at RISD this spring; it’s being formed as we go, so it’s harder to share here than Investigating Normal. I’ll report as I can.Mar 5, 2014
against re-branding; against placebo politics
The Accessible Icon Project was the subject of the most recent episode of 99% Invisible, a podcast about overlooked design and architecture. I spoke at length to the super smart and thoughtful Lauren Ober about the project—its history and its aims—and I’m pleased that the show gave its famously perceptive treatment to the work.Mar 20, 2014
wearable workarounds for "defensive architecture"
Mar 26, 2014
walking social
The Firefly Upsee is a walking baby carrier, designed to give the experience of ambulation to children who have motor delays or mobility restrictions. It brings the child upright, anchored closely to a caregiver, while also leaving her hands free to explore and play.Mar 31, 2014
play, criticality, access
I’ll be at the University of Toronto next Monday night, speaking on The Edited City: Criticality, Access, Play. The history of science, skateboarding culture, the politics of amateurship, and the future of universal design. I’d love to see you there! I’m also looking forward to visits with Ryerson’s EDGE Lab and OCAD’s Inclusive Design Research Centre.Apr 1, 2014
supporting publics
I’ve been reading Shannon Jackson’s Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, _a much needed discussion of social arts practice, new genre public arts, or whatever you want to call such hybrid forms of expressive work. One of Jackson’s big claims is for works that do something other than _disrupt institutions, commonly accepted practices, the status quo—when notions of support, senses of care, are also critical to public life.Apr 30, 2014
power of ideas and some updates
I’m happy to be included in the May issue of Boston Magazine, themed around the Power of Ideas.May 15, 2014
knitting bones with fact and fiction: a conversation with design culture lab's anne galloway
May 19, 2014
empathy and education
Jun 5, 2014
speaking exchange
Jun 16, 2014
studio : lab : workshop
I’m happy to be joining Olin College next year, as a professor of design. Olin is an engineering school, all undergraduate, only 12 years old, with an enrollment of 350 students total. There are no departments! It’s a refreshingly unorthodox place. I can’t wait.Jun 24, 2014
adaptive hacks: a cane meets a bike
Jun 30, 2014
reprise
I read through some of the series of essays that set up the original mission of Abler, and I was struck again by the so-much-with-so-little that’s packed into this paragraph by Mitchell Whitelaw. It has staying power for describing the investigative or experimental or highly situated practices that can proceed from the arts, but also critical engineering, interrogative design, and much more. Worth reposting as a trenchant summary.Aug 1, 2014
the school for poetic computation: assistive tech, fall 2014
Aug 5, 2014
manipulate the social web all by yourself
Aug 6, 2014
slope : intercept in toronto
Aug 20, 2014
guiding principles for an adaptive technology working group
Aug 22, 2014
unintended consequences
Aug 25, 2014
disability / visibility
Aug 28, 2014
an alterpodium (design for one series)
Sep 16, 2014
open style lab
Sep 30, 2014
anna schuleit's "bloom"
Anna Schuleit’s Bloom is one of my long-held favorite installation works, and it’s a perfect Abler project. So why haven’t I featured it before now?Jan 5, 2015
beyond alt-text: the new "chief accessibility officer"
Jan 6, 2015
exoskel urban climber
Feb 11, 2015
corporeal anticipation
For a while I was running posts on a separate personal site, but I stopped and closed it down some time ago. Abler will be my only house for now. And I’ve decided to re-post some of those artifacts and ideas that still nourish me. Hope they might for some of you, too:May 26, 2015
update: alterpodium
There’s a full report coming about students’ work on the alterpodium, along with images of the final prototype (in carbon fiber!), but I’m just sharing with you this gif so you get a sense for the interaction, assembly and disassembly.Jun 25, 2015
a new icon site
Coming soon: a new home and new direction for the Accessible Icon Project. Next week! Thanks to a bunch of you for the exhortations we’ve needed to write more clearly about the work.Sep 15, 2015
carmen papalia at olin, 9/25-29, and more collaborations
This fall’s version of Investigating Normal will include several dream collaborators: Lacy Gillotti of NEADS, a service dog training organization, Alex Geller of Fathom Info, with whom we’ll be exploring disability and the school-to-prison pipeline, Mel Chua, a postdoc at Olin who is deaf, has spent her life “passing” as hearing, and will be getting a cochlear implant this fall, and Carmen Papalia, an artist who’s blind and has a complicated relationship to the white cane.Sep 16, 2015
3, 2, 1 at Eyeo
I’m so pleased my talk at Eyeo is now online, with closed captions available, and another version with audio description. Eyeo folks are super to work with, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to look back at my last ten years of work and identify the big themes and turning points.
May 2, 2016