Aimee Mullins on the future and art of prosthetics
What is exciting me so much right now is that by combining cutting edge technology, robotics, bionics; with age old poetry we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity.
She took the words right out of my mouth.
Aimee Mullins is an amputee (you would never know in the video below) her redefining photo with Nick Knight has been a great inspiration to me (Right). Please listen to her speech it is exceptional and moving; it is about redefining disability, and understanding the depth of humanity. While I may not share her height or speed I share her artistic vision. And I dream that one day soon I will have my own bionic vision.
The conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. It is a conversation about augmentation. It’s a conversation about potential. A prosthetic limb doesn’t represent a need to replace loss anymore. It can be as a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is they want to create in that space so people that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities, indeed to continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place empowerment. What is exciting me so much right now, is that by combining cutting edge technology, robotics, bionics; with the age old poetry we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity. I think if we wanted to discover the full potential in our humanity we need to celebrate those heart breaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have. … I think of Shakespeare’s Shylock. ‘If you prick us do we not bleed, and if you tickle us do we not laugh.’ It is our humanity and all the potential within it makes us beautiful.
~Aimee Mullins from her speech “How my legs give me super-powers” at the Ted Conference 2009
#cyborg #DisabilitySuperability #techshic #Transhumanism #NickNight #robotics #augmentation #AimeeMullins #BodyTech #anthropomorphism #Prosthesis #bionics #womenintechnology