Interim Presentation of the Design Beyond Disability Project at the domain Health of Industrial Design at TU Eindhoven: Watch the Clip here!
And here is their final project presentation. See!
In the same project (obviously another team) dis some user testing with prototypes for arm-connected (or: -substitute) sports-game-tool. Here we go!

Vilnius based Designer Mantas Lesauskas comes with a two topic-related objects.
The first one is called JIS IRGI STALAS (engl. = “It’s also a table”), in which he seems to draw a parallel between human and artificial disabilities, or rather shows a projection of human disabilities (and it’s social construction) into an artifact. How do we judge on an object that needs handicap-support? What’s the parallel of our judgement to prejudices we have against disabled people?

Lesauskas writes on notcot: “‘the work represents a struggle to talk about social problems through design objects. Former soviet countries experience a big problem with the integration of the handicapped into society.”

Lesauskas idea contains an interesting direction, since a table’s buttresses are usually called “legs”.

[Copyright: Mantas Lesauskas]

Another project of his is called WHITESTICK – a lamp made from a blind man’s stick:

[Copyright: Mantas Lesauskas]

Laboratorial Design Research goes into the Field. In August 2009 we organized the StreetLab* in Berlin Neukölln. Now, the documentary is ready. Watch it!

* StreetLab Background:
In an experimental and human-centered design approach we seek to understand young people in urban context. To enable the research about authentic experiences in every day live, we “moved” the laboratory onto the street, thereby combining a semi controlled environment with a situation of permanent field research. Thus our aim was loosen the borders between laboratory and field research as an experimental hybrid approach.  In view of growing diversification and the multi ethnic urban society in the global context, we focus our research on heterogenic urban neighborhoods. We look on how to employ mobile Information-Communication-Technology to facilitate creativity, understanding and social/environmental sustainability.

www.Street-Lab.info
www.DRLab.org

Last week, we went out on the street trying to find our way and find out more about being blind in public. We called it our selfexperience day, on which we explored orientation and navigation in Berlin with a white stick, and sunglasses to cover our eyes. In preparation for this day, we got quick instructions from a nice lady at the Allgemeiner Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverein Berlin e.V. who trains blind people in mobility, on how to use the stick properly, things we can easily try out and things we shouldn´t do at all.

One after another we walked arround blind, lead by the other by voice- or tactiledirection. Both worked fine after a while, getting adjusted to leading the other. Blind orientation on our own would not have worked at all! Amazing how blind people travel on their own to unknown places! Usualy a blind mobility training takes about 60 hours of training, there are so many things to learn when moving in public withought sight. Here are some impressions of the difficulties we had to deal with:

A great number of blind people use watches whose glass can be lifted so that blind people can know what time it is from the position of the needles, their fingertips slipping over the dial. But once the needles are shifted and even if they do it carefully the needles may be deformed if not broken, which increases the fact of making mistakes. …

See more at www.behance.net

From the 8th to the 15th of october, “the week of sight” takes place for the 8th time in Germany. This week ends on the 15th with the “day of the white stick”. Eight organisations want to inform nationwide about blindness and visually impaired people in germany and developing countries. The slogan for this campaigne this year is to “when eyes sight weakens”.

via: www.woche-des-sehens.de

and

www.dbsv.org

(in german only)

A research project of Neva Cherniavsky, University of Washington

The goal of the Mobile ASL project is to compress sign language video so that deaf users in the USA can communicate via cell phone. While the deaf community has welcomed new technologies such as the Blackberry and other PDAs, it is cumbersome to use text messaging when compared to signing, since the speed of sign language is equivalent to speech. However, with current compression technology and low mobile phone bit rates, real-time video transmission is not possible. The goal of this project is to make cell phones accessible by supporting real-time compression and transmission of sign language video.

The movie explaines and shows the phone in action.

Via: Universitiy of Washington

If we deal with sings to communicate among people that cannot hear or talk, we can also look at other creatures which need to communicate without talk.

Handspeak.com has a share about the ability of dogs communicate among each other by smell as well as by signs among each other and with human. Deaf people developed signs to make the world of animals accessible to animal scientists or researchers to make communication between dog and owner possible.

An owners comment: “… I learned many signs from discussions with other deaf dog owners. Also, I have modified ASL signs for one-handed communication, since it is difficult to hold a leash and sign at the same time. …”

Interesting how an ability or disability can add new insights about other species communications.

Via handspeak.com

The term calligraphy usually evokes an image of beautiful writing and lettering. The series in Jolanta Lapiaks photocalligraphy body of works called Photospeaking and/or Photowriting inspects the notion of calligraphy and deconstructs this notion.

“a splendid flash of concrete poetry”,
Photospeaking and/or Photowriting
by Jolanta Lapiak at www.i8media.com

The photocalligraphy series depicts a trace of text in Ameslan or ASL (American Sign Language). I translated a selected English text into Ameslan or ASL and captured the movement of ASL into a digital image. This process refers to Derridean arche-writing (all forms of writing or tracing) and grammatology (the art/science of writing).

Poetry Performance, Photospeaking and/or Photowriting
by Jolanta Lapiak, www.i8media.com

Jolanta Lapiak: “I explored the calligraphic element in ASL (which I called it “verbal calligraphy.”) I related it to Japanese/Chinese calligraphy, for sign language and Japanese calligraphy share visual-spatial modality. I compared calligraphy and choreography in vocal singing (beautiful writing on the air), manual singing (beautiful writing in the air), and dance-writing (beautiful writing on the surface), which people sometimes see Japanese calligraphy as dance-writing.”

 Via handspeak.com 

References: Jolanta Lapiak i8media.com

What´s your name?

My name… I can´t write it down anymore.

My first name looks like I´m putting something into my hair and saying my name without voice (very important!).

My last name looks almost like I´m rowing, also combined with saying my name without voice.

This time in our class in DGS (German Sign Language), we all figured out what our names could be in sign language. Deaf people don´t spell their name by finger alphabet when getting to know each other, only if misunderstandings come up. They come up with signs for names which they find mostly in facial characteristics, features or name relations to not have to spell each name in conversations.

Therefor it is important to become sensitive for visual details in other people and yourself. Last time we learned to describe visual details in a persons as neutral as possible. The next step was now to find these characteristics, not value them, but use them for further expressions, like finding our name.

Then we got to know and use different categories of mimic, gesture and signage to either question, negate or affirm a statement, which were:

- short head nodding, at the end of a sentence

- head nodding, within the sentence

- head shake, throughout the whole sentence

- image of your mouth

- finger alphabet

- eyebrow rising

Very difficult in this exercise was to coordinate all these categories the right way, to not say something completely wrong, which can easily happen if you mix up one of these categories. If you want to e.g. negate a statement, you have to repeat the statement the way it was signed and shake your head to say it is not so and maybe use the finger alphabet. Of course in practice deaf people shorten their signage to only affirm or negate a statement, but still you have to learn to combine signing, mimic, gesture, finger alphabet, image of your mouth, movement of your head and eyebrow rising to say what you want to say. It´s almost like learning a new sport…

At this point, sign language is oppositional, it offers a very complex and difficult structure for communication as well as in some aspects a very easy way of use and understanding.

That`s what my first talk with a deaf person looks like. Actually looks like!

In the long run, it would cost a big amount of paper and pens, and lost of patients to communicate that way. Lots of details get lost expressing yourself by writing down what you want to say in a conversation, but to look further, something remains.

Also, you become creative searching for solutions, finding new ways to run the talk. Time begins to play an important role. Writing takes time, you begin to find shorter versions of what you want to say. Writing, mimic and gesture begin to meld to complement one another.

Thats what Sprachlos/Speechless looks like in german sign language (DGS). I took pictures with the software of the “Wörterbuch der deutschen Gebärdensprache”. I´m not sure if the whole sign is recognizable in these pictures.

[pictures: Kestner Verlag]

Finally I got to install the “Wörterbuch der Deutschen Gebärdensprache”.

As recommended to us, it is really easy to use and gives a great overview on how substantial and complex the german sign language (DGS) is. Still, I found some really nice and easy to understand  signs for those words:

aus (ausschalten)/off: the signer actually turns a turning knob,

durch (hindurch und untendurch)/through: one hand/finger looks like its going underneath or through something,

Arbeitsunfall/accident at work: both hands have a crash, they bump together and apart,

Bruttolohn und Nettolohn/gross pay and net pay: looks like you get money eather onto the back of your hand (brutto/gross), or into your hand (netto/net), to me this sign actually looked like getting money “auf die nackte Hand”, as we sometimes say in germany,

Pleite/bankrupt: the sign shows empty trouser pockets,

Bakterie/bacillus: the sign looks like a lot of little insects come at you,

abschleppen/towing: one finger pulls the other.

All these signs are very much related to the words meanings. From my point of view, the visualisation or the signing for these words are very easy to understand, even funny.

Sydney-based digital artist Brian Walker creates scenes that meld illustration and fashion with an element of surprise. Stemming from a passion for illustration to depict his ideas and concepts of surrealist landscapes and characters, Walker uses photography as a tool to represent ideas of the impossible within the believable context of photography.

[Pictures: Brian Walker]

Walker: “I like the visual language of my images to appear hyper real, as if they could exist but a second take reveals something amiss or askew…”

Via arch102

DAISY means “Digital Accessible Information System” it characterise standards and technologies that are developed from all blind libraries in the world in cooperation with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) for the new digital audio book generation.
IFLA and DAISY-activities are based on the main declaration of the UNO-convention for the protection and right of disabled people, “Access to Information is a fundamental human right”.

DAISY has been developed to save large and navigate through audio books on one medium. Up to 40 hours audio books fit onto one DAISY-CD. The reader can flip through chapters and mostly in nonfiction books there is even a search tool.

There are DAISY Player navigation tools available to:
- Go directly to a specific chapter, heading, or page
- Set an unlimited number of annotated bookmarks
- Speed up or slow down speech whether listening to a recorded narrator or synthesized speech

via:
www.dzb.de
www.daisy2009.de
www.freedomscientific.com

Due to Louis Braille (04.01.1809 – 06.01.1852) 200th birthday, the “german central library for blind”, in Leipzig (DZB Leipzig) in cooperation with the “german blind- and visually impared alliance” (DBSV) came up with the “Initiative Braille!”. Posters, postcards and a booklet are informing sighted and sightless people about Braille´s font, to see how inalienable this reading and writing system for blind people is.

Here we found helping aids for blind people to cope with everyday life to become a more independent. Some of them we saw in the exibition yesterday “Sechs Richtige, Louis Braille und die Blindenschrift” (Museum of communication, Berlin).

braillebookstore.com

We learned some more interesting aspects about sign language in our latest class in DGS (German Sign Language). One aspect was the grammatical setUp of subject-object-verb (in difference to german grammatic). That means, a typical sentence would be built like that:

Student – Mathematics – Learning

(instead of “Student learns mathematics”).

Talking about numbers, it is interesting, that the numbers in german sign language’s finger alphabet are being named like the german spoken words for numbers:

34 = “Vier-(und)-Dreissig” (Four-and thirty, instead of the english version thirty-four).

That means, that you first show the “four” and then the “thiry” with your fingers.

A computer based camera tracking system, that converts images into sound…

Another (german) documentary on synaesthesia. Amongst others, one whoman describes her experiences of being a synaesthetic person. For example, she learns indian language now, supported by her synaesthetic skillz. Or, listening to certain singers (no names!) makes her sick, because their voices create ugly pictures/colours in her mind…

Evan Grant demonstrates the science and art of cymatics, a process for making soundwaves visible. Useful not only for complex and beatifull visual patterns, but also for analyzing complex sounds.

For example in oceanography, a lexicon of dolphin language is actually being created by basically visualising the dolphins’ sonar sounds…

Evan Grant works with cymatics, the art of visualizing sound, and is the founder of the arts and technology collective seeper.

via TEDtalks

Blind woman, who now calls herself the “robo-chick”, has a lot of cables connected to her body and is able to “see” with her brain…

Short documentary in german about Synaesthesia. Looks like a home-maid documentary (bad video quality), but the protagonists gives a couple of good examples to explain his special perception.

E.g. waking up in the morning by a flashy yellow (!) sound of the alarm-clock.

He also describes some positive effects of synaesthesia, for example as a helping tool for learning or remembering stuff (“he had a blue name…!”).

Us-Documentary oabout hearing implants:

[Le therapie de Elodie; Graphic via milkandcookies]

This shall only be some kind of visual input to our thoughts on the corelation of “disabilities” and “abilites”, and re-inventing and re-evaluating the body.

Both pictures come from the amazing output of the belgium-based agency mildandcookies.
However they don’t belong together, since they both come from different projects.

Thematically, they are not even directly connected to our research project, but might somehow be a visual trigger for our discussions. Impressive to me in these examples is the poetic beauty of body modification and its appeal to the viewer.

[Les poèmes de Roger-Albert; Graphic via milkandcookies]
Milkandcookies give the following description to the picture above and the two below this text:

“Psychology is both an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. Psychologists study such phenomena as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including issues related to daily life family, education, and work and the treatment of mental health problems.”

UK documentary about helping devices for blind or visually impaired people:

Watch the clip:

How To Cope With Sight Loss (14:45 min)

via videojug.com

Google Tech Talk about a handheld device to help blind and visually impaired people to locate items in a grocery store:

here is the link to the video!

<embed id=VideoPlayback src=http://video.google.de/googleplayer.swf?docid=6060251287873854625&hl=de&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash> </embed>

We learned some interesting aspects about sign language in our latest class in DGS (German Sign Language). One aspect was the determination of different mimics in different context (e.g. question, doubt, command,…). On the bottom of this post you find an excerpt of the list (in german).
Besides we learned some geografic gestures (countries, cities, languages…), e.g. the gesture for “Sao Paulo” is a stylized gunshot against the head. We also learned some gestural descriptions for typical school subjects. I’ll try to describe some of them:

. Music (looks like conducting)
. Mathematics (reminds of those old-fashioned slide-rules/calculators)
. German (one finger on top of the head, reminds of the german/prussian spike helmet)
. Art (drawing in the air with the finger-gesture “K” (for “Kunst”, german word for Art))
. Physic (symolized +/- particles)
. Painting (looks like painting in the air)
. Writing (looks like writing)
. Reading (two bent fingers (eyes) scanning a virtual text an the other flat hand)
. Chemistry (looks like simultaneosly spilling two test-glasses)
. Biology (moving two circled fingers, reminds of either a stethoscope or the little moving things you see when you look through it )
. Geography (a globe formed by the two hands)
. Turkish (a halfmoon on top of the head).

And here is the list for the mimics, mentioned above (in german):

W-Fragemik: Leicht gesekte und zusammengezogene Augenbrauen, neutral bis gehobene Kopfstellung.

Ja/Nein-Fragemimik: In der Regel angehobene Augenbrauen, Kopf nach vorn und leicht gesenkt.

Verneinung: Kopfschütteln.

Bestätigung: Kopfnicken.

Bekräftigung: ausgeprägtes, wiederholtes schnelles Nicken.

Überraschungsmimik: gehobene Augenbrauen, manchmal offener Mund.

Zweifelsmimik: Stark zusammengekniffene Augenbrauen.

Befehlsmimik: Gesenkte Augenbrauen und einmaliges Nicken.

Stay tuned for our next lesson reports!

“Since each of us is or is going to become disabled if we live long enough, it is vital that notions of disability stay with us.”
— Tanya Titchkosky

I just listened to this interview with Tany Titchkowsky*.

As Disability studies is a discipline, that moves away from the medical model toward an examination of the social responses to disability, Tanya Titchkosky argues that disability can teach us about the disabling structures of society. She further talks about how cultures produce images of disability and asks: do we confirm, remake or resist these images?

Titchkosky argues that disability can and should be a ‘teacher’ to, and about, non-disabled or ‘temporarily abled’ society

Here you can listen to the whole interview (ca. 30 minutes)!

* Professor Tanya Titchkosky is an assistant DISABILITY STUDIES professor in the Department of SOCIOLOGY AND EQUITY STUDIES (Disability Studies) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. She is the author of these two books:

“Reading and Writing Disability Differently: The Textured Life of Embodiment
(University of Toronto Press, 2007)

and

“Disability, Self and Society
(University of Toronto Press, 2003)

Babyzeichensprache – mit Babys kommunizieren bevor sie sprechen können

The idea came from the USA in the 1980s. Scientists found out that hearing children from deaf parents were much earlier able to communicate than hearing children from hearing parents.

In the USA and England it seams to be an established offer for young parents, Au Pairs and specialists to learn baby-sign-language to communicate with babys they nurse.

Babys, able to communicate with those babysigns at the age of 14 month, are supposed to have a much richer vocabulary at the age of four years than others.

In studies of Susan Goodwyns, Ph. D. Psychologie Department and Linda Acredolos, Ph. D. Psychologie Department, University of California, they found those children benefit much in terms of selfperception, development and selfconfidence. Many of them show advance in writing, progress in language, reading, writing and intelligence up to the time they visit school.

It sais, Babys develop motor activity of their hands much earlier than the ability for speech. Therefore the baby-sign-language enables them to communicate their current needs at an earlier stage. The ability to communicate with the environment leads also to a much more satisfied baby in all.

The babysigns are simplified signs from the German sign language (in Germany).

Supporters of the Baby-sign-language further claim, that it has a positive impact on the cognition and emotional development of a child. It also leads to a holistic learning and experiencing the environment by their senses.

There has been pro- and contra-discussions going on for quite a while now. We are not the ones to judge on it, but we will keep an eye on the on-going research within that field.

via deaf-deaf.de

Earlier this year i did this interview with Paola Antonelli for the DesignResearchNetwork

We talked about the relationship between “making” and “thinking”, and that both these worlds seem to actually grow together especially in design research. We talked about the current status and change in society and how to anticipate human needs and behaviour. And about an interesting new role for the designer between “problemsolver” and “sensemaker”: The “problem maker”!

Our whole interview you find here!

Emmanuelle Laborit (actress) und Caroline Link (director)

Interesting to watch and listen to!

About names deaf people give each other and people hiding emotions and being explored by deaf due to their fine visual senses.

Yesterday I installed the software for the “Wörterbuch der Deutschen Gebärdensprache”

As soon I have time I will take a closer look on it.

I´m excited to find out more about this language through this media.

We found an interesting Article about “A blind Persons Interactions with Technology” in the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) by Kristen Shinohara and Josh Teneberg from the University of Washington.

The study is an in-deapth exploratory and descriptive case study about a blind person using various technology at home in everyday actions, such as the screen reader JAWS, a BrailleNote, Braille tape for labelling CDs or reading the time on a Braille watch, etc.

Other than in studying interactions in laboratories here you can get an insight on how and why or why not technologies are actually used in everyday life, leaving the artefacts in the context of use.

via:

Communications of the ACM, Volume 52 , Issue 8 (August 2009),Pages 58-66,

ACM New York, NY, USA

Excerpt of an interview with Carol Gill*:

Here is the link to the video!

*Carol Gill:
Director of Graduate Studies & PhD in Disabilities
Center Director, Chicago Center for Disability Research
Executive Officer, Society for Disability Studies Office

Bio
Carol J. Gill, Ph.D. is the Director of Graduate Studies & PhD in Disabilities and a clinical and research psychologist specializing in health and disability. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where she teaches and provides leadership in disability studies curriculum development. She also directs the department’s Chicago Center for Disability Research, through which she and colleagues conduct research, training and community service projects in the social sciences, emphasizing a disability studies approach and substantive direction by persons with disabilities at all levels. Since 1998, Dr. Gill has served as the Executive Officer of the Society for Disability Studies.

Research Interests
Dr. Gill’s research interests include disability identity development, health concerns and health service experiences of women with disabilities, disability bioethical issues and professional training. Her conceptual and research articles have been widely published in both professional journals and in the popular disability press.

“Eye vandalism” in real elapsed time, using a GRL MBU, two wireless broadband USB sticks, the mytobii eye tracking systems and custom software Zach.
Check this out:

EYEWRITER Video

(from james powderly on Vimeo).

Found via CreativeMomentum

or this one:

DEFEYES, some call him the world’s fastest sign rapper, does Eminem’s “Loose yourself”, signing to every word and fluently interpreting rap, in this one:

Bioethicist Tom Shakespeare talks about why reason doesn’t tell a good story:

Shakespeare underlines that people think in stories, narratives or images, rather than in statistics.

Found on newscientist

Students at Hochschule Darmstadt have been devoloping a concept for helping the Blind to navigate:

Mit dem Stock über Stein – Ein Navigationssystem für Blinde from Yvonne Lenger on Vimeo.

The award-winning ‘Talk’ portrays a society in which non-disabled people are a pitied minority and disabled people lead full and active lives. Jonathan Kerrigan, of BBC’s ‘Casualty’ fame, plays a business executive whose negative preconceptions of disability are dramatically shattered. Here is an excerpt:

For the subtitled and signed version of full version’s part 1, click here!
For the subtitled and signed version of full version’s part 2, click here!

As we already mentioned, we sometimes use capability simulation in order to think about interaction in terms of disabilty. That means, we try to (make people) experience certain “disabilities” in order to rethink concepts of interaction design. By systematically reducing abilities to interact with a product/system we help to empathise with the process of hindered product interaction.

To give you an idea of what capability simulation is about, take a quick look at this clip we found, of some students who were tasked with experiencing three different disabilities to inform them on how to design a universally accessible museum exhibit. The three disabilities they tried to experience were carpal tunnel syndrome, ADHD and chronic knee pain.

However, whether you use physical or software simulators, those can never truly model a live with a particular capability reduction on an everyday basis. As the guys at inclusivedesigntoolkit.com mention: “In addition, the decline in cognitive ability, and the effect of the user’s past experience cannot be meaningfully reproduced by simulation. Simulators are helpful to increase empathy with users who have reduced capability, but should never be considered as a replacement for involving real people with such losses.”

The german newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” published a review on Tobin Siebers’ latest book and on Christian Mürner’s and Udo Sierck’s Book about the “Krüppelzeitung. Here’s the article…

[For English see below!]

StreetLab Finisage – Eine Ausstellung des Zukunftslabors für mobile Kommunikation

Zum allerletzten mal öffnen wir die Pforten unseres StreetLabs für eine große Abschluss Ausstellung. Dort wird es viel zu sehen und zu erleben geben und wir werden die jeweiligen Workshops und Thementage noch einmal mitsamt ihren Ergebnissen vorstellen. So zum Beispiel auch die Handy-Prototypen aus dem “Deaf StreetLab”-Workshop, den wir in Kooperation mit dem Kinder- und Jugendclub der SINNESWANDEL gGmbH, der Berliner Gesellschaft zur Förderung gehörloser und hörgeschädigter Menschen, durchgeführt haben.
Außerdem zeigen wir Euch dann unsere kleine Film-Dokumentation über das StreetLab. Dazu gibt’s lecker Kaltgetränke.
Los geht’s um 19 Uhr. Wir freuen uns auf Euch!
Für alle gehörlosen Besucher ist einen Dolmetscher da, denn an der Kommunikation soll es nicht scheitern!

[English:]
Come and join our StreetLab Finissage on September 15!
Starting at 7 p.m. we will present to you exciting results of our StreetLab. Of course there will be drinks and food, too!

There will be Sign Language Translators for our Deaf Guests.

Nowt wrong with a bit of fun: Haven’t watched this movie for ages, but looking forward to doing so soon.
The unforgetable Gene Wilder (playing a deaf guy) and Richard Prior (playing a blind guy) running from mafia and the police after witnessing a murder, in this 80’s comedy:

For the 4th time, this june Basel (Switzerland) saw the Cultural Festival “Wildwuchs – Kulturfestival für solche und andere” (which could be loesely translated as “Proliferation – Cultural Festival for such and others”). An interesting festival between Art, Theatre, Media and Performance, that broaches the issue of social and aesthetic aspects of disability, transported via art & co.

We haven’t been there, but the video-clip about the last Wildwuchs (2007) gives as an idea about it. To watch the clip, click on the picture:

With interest we recently received a hint on some kind of “trend”, called webbed toe piercing. Some people with who have toes that are fused by soft tissue, do it. Apparently, this area is a very safe spot to pierce through. The type of piercing is chosen depending on the formation of the foot.

I found this interesting, since people might usually expect people with “deformed” bodies, to hide their “out-of-norm” bodyparts. But in this case we find both, a statement of pride in terms of individual bodies and the use of an obious advantage of body-deformation: the webbed toe enables you to pierce the body in a way, a majority of people is not able to.

picture found via: news.bmezine

Somehow disturbing, but still beautifull: Erik Mark Sandberg sees his illustrations as a counterdraft to glossy picture aesthetics of advertisement and magazines. With the “Hairy Children”, he broaches the issue of uniqueness of ‘abnormal bodies’.

The pictures can be seen at Berlin based Johanssen Gallery untill 30th September, 2009.

[Erik Mark Sandberg, 2008]

Just saw an interview with a hard of hearing tennis player, who claimed that he sometimes puts away his hearing aid during a match. Exluding noise influence (especially comments by the audience) helps him to deeper concentrate on the sport!

In our Sense-Parcour-Workshop (17 august 09), we discussed and experienced the “sense” with kids and teenagers, that actually don’t have visual or accustical impairment.
What is it like, when you can suddenly not hear or feel any more? How about orientation without seeing? How to “speak” without “talking”?

T0gether at first we explored the neighbourhood, partly with covered eyed or with special headphones, which temporarily make you almost deaf.

Back in the StreetLab, we tried out, how to submitt certain informations without speaking or hearing. E.g. via gesture, mimics, body Language…

Posted in

Our Workshop with with deaf Teenagers at the StreetLab (13 august 09) was interesting and fun. We had two Sign Language Translators to support us. We talked about specifics and properties of Deaf Life. What are typical problems for Deaf People, but also: What are the benefits of deaf communication. Interesting: The participants considered around 50% disadvantages and 50% advantages of being deaf!
Afterwards we collected first ideas and developed first concepts and rapid prototypes for wise products.
We are looking forward to repeating our workshop sessions with the people from SINNESWANDEL in octobre.

[One of our Sign Language translators in action]

[Claudia's Rapid Prototype for a 3D Sign Language Translator]

[Inara's Prototype for a phone to hang up against the wall, while your singing to the included camera. Not only Deaf People have the problem, that can not use their second hand to sign, because they hold the phone in the other hand!]

[Tom's prototype for a Sign-Translator-Puppet-Device. Different Status messages can be sent and received by being immediately translated into Sign-, written- or spoken language]

[Graphic of the lormhand icluding the touchpoints for the letters.
picture/source: taubblindenwerk.de]

By using their tactile – kinesthetic sense (= through Movement and Touch) blind and deafblind people can train to exchange information with their partners of communication with the help of tactile signs. One efficient way to do that is the Lorm-Method*, which is at least very helpfull for people who used to be sighted in their earlier days and who are therefore able to decode written language somehow.

* The Lorm-Alphabet was developed by Hieronymus Lorm in 1881.

More info: taubblindenwerk

Even in Berlin, about 200.000 people are illiterate.
Not really as a substitution, but in addition to written language we want to underline the importance of visual communication, symbolic language, alternative/augmentative communication etc. also for the context of illiteracy. One of the major topics we focus in the StreetLab project, is the (cultural and) language barrier in multiethnic regions, and how to overcome it or actually use it as a bridge, especially with the help of (mobile) communication devices…

[picture: J.Schubert; Illiteracy Advertisement ; Berlin Metro/Underground]

In the framework of our research, we have been doing several workshops with people with different abilities/disabilities (The latest one was with deaf people on august 13, the next one will be with hearing and sighted people on august 25). In order to transfer certain patterns to human-computer-interaction (e.g. multimodal systems) in information-communication-technology (ICT), we explore the different possibilities of human impression, especially:

. Gesture
. Mimics
. Signing/Sign Language
. Written Language
. Spoken Language and sound/tone
. view movement
. Body Placement/Movement/Language
. electronic help
. non-electronic help

[Foto: T. Bieling]

A little bit bored I zapped through the TV today. For a couple of minutes some stupid documentary about massaging got my attention. At least for one aspect:
It said, that when giving a massage with covered eyes, it would help to get a better sense of the hand pressure. Massage trainees, it said, often start their first sessions blindfolded.

[MITpress]

Chris Gondek interviews Graham Pullin, the author of Design Meets Disability.
(Besides an interview with Charlie Hailey, author of “Camps”).

Listen to the interview!

Yesterday we celebrated the opening of StreetLab.

Enjoy the trailer:

With his concept for ‘Siento’ (span.: I feel), Design Student Ufuk Yüksel of Fachhochschule Cobur Yüksel convinced the Jury in 2006.

We haven’t seen or tested it. And the only information we have, is the german description the design center stuttgart (see below).

[siento; U.Yüksel; Betreuung: Prof. Gerhard Kampe; FH Coburg]

“[... ] Siento macht Musik über Vibrationen am Körper wahrnehmbar. Das um den Hals getragene Hauptgerät rechnet die Musikinformation um und gibt sie über die beiden sog. Exciter in den Ausläufern an die Haut weiter. Ergänzend erhalten die beiden Satellitengeräte, ein Armband und ein Handschmeichler, dieselben Informationen per Funk. [...] Über Intensität und Dauer der Impulse und abhängig davon, wo die Reizung stattfindet, werden charakteristische Eigenschaften des gespielten Musikstücks erlebbar, auch von Gehörlosen und Hörenden gemeinsam [...]“

Via: Design Cente

To get a better idea about how blind navigation functions and how blind navigation systems or -interfaces should work, we are also interested in how sighted people people get trained to guide blind people. Certain patterns have been developed through the time, based on efficient ways of human-human-interaction. In order to develop concepts for human-computer-interaction, we should take a close look on such systems.

Short TV documentary about a project from marburg university.
[language: german]

Found this one. Source unknown…

Blind Hiker Erik Weihenmeyer tells us about
Hiking by Feel,
Hiking by Sound and
Hiking by Technology:

Remember the game from the childhood, where you would drew pictures on somebody’s back, who then had to guess what it was? This one here is quite similar…

Found these two clips about a location based audio-tool…

In 1978 the vienna based “Institut für soziales Design” developed this construction as a telephone for special needs…

[ISD, "Außer der Norm", aus: wien aktuell, Heft 6, Juni 1978, S. 12, 13]

We recently found a prior announcement to a lecture course by Prof. Dr. phil., Dipl.-Psych. Dietrich Eggert (Institut für Sonderpädagogik, philosophische Fakultät) at Leibniz University Hannover on the “Psychology of Uglyness”. We haven’t found any further information on content and results, yet. But it seems, that there are at least some parallels to our research topics, since Eggert’s lecture strikes some of the important questions about the aesthetics of disability, e.g.: Beauty and Uglyness as preconditions  for  judging on  other people. Or Disabling conditions in communication.

Since we are mainly focusing on the correlation, the impact and the relevance of demographic and socio-cultural categories (especially concerning aspects of disability) on form and practice of design (process), as well as its effects on usage and practical use of design within these categories, it is important to us, to define the relevance of the scientific approach of disability studies to design research (and vice versa).

In this context Carol Gill’s** answers to the FAQs on disability studies help a lot to summarize what disability studies are (and are not) about, which makes the parallels and tasks to our research project obvious and understandable.

Carol Gill’s thoughts about what disability studies is about, have been translated and summarized by Bifos e.V into german. In deep appreciation of their work, we would like to quote an excerpt:

“1. Grundlage von Forschung und Lehre der Disability Studies ist das soziale Modell von Behinderung. Behinderung wird hierbei nicht als ein festgeschriebenes individuelles Merkmal sondern als sozial verliehener Status verstanden.

2. Was Behinderung ist, wird in jeder Gesellschaft durch ein komplexes Zusammenspiel politischer, ökonomischer Kräfte und kultureller Werte festgelegt. Die Disability Studies sind interdisziplinär, d.h. dass die Konstruktion von Behinderung nicht nur aus dem Blickwinkel von Pädagog/inne/n oder Mediziner/inne/n sondern auch aus der Sicht anderer Fachrichtungen wie z.B. Soziologie, Jura, Geschichts-, Literatur-, Wirtschafts- und Kulturwissenschaften untersucht wird.

3. Auch wenn sich manche Disability Studies Untersuchungen möglicherweise auf eine bestimmte Art von Behinderung konzentrieren, arbeiten die Disability Studies (als Schlussfolgerung aus dem sozialen Modell von Behinderung) grundsätzlich mit einem behinderungsübergreifenden Ansatz.

4. Der Fokus liegt in erster Linie nicht auf dem Individuum selbst sondern auf dem sozialen/politischen/ökonomischen/kulturellen Kontext in dem Behinderung steht und der die Erfahrungen und das Leben von Menschen mit Behinderung prägt.

5. Das Ziel von Disability Studies liegt nicht in der Vermeidung, Verbesserung oder Heilung einer Beeinträchtigung sondern in der kritischen Analyse der sozialen Prozesse von Behinderung. Diese Analyse soll nicht zu Erkenntnissen über die Korrektur des behinderten Menschen oder seiner Körperlichkeit führen sondern Wege aus unterdrückerischen, ausgrenzenden sozialen Systemen und Prozessen aufzeigen.

6. Disability Studies thematisieren die schon lange währende soziale Unterdrückung der Gemeinschaft behinderter Menschen, und sollen sowohl die Verbände behinderter Menschen wie auch einzelne Betroffene stärken. Forschung und Lehre müssen die Sichtweisen behinderter Menschen in ihren Mittelpunkt stellen.” *

In the same Article it is being defined, what disability studies is NOT.
Again we would like to quote on the german translation of Bifos:

Demnach werden Forschung, Lehre und/oder Projekte dann nicht als Disability Studies bezeichnet,

“1. wenn der Zustand oder das Funktionieren eines Menschen stärker im Blickfeld der Auseinandersetzung steht als der sozialpolitische Kontext in dem der behinderte Mensch lebt.

2. wenn das Ziel der Forschung / der Veranstaltung / des Projektes eher in der Heilung, Verhinderung oder Veränderung einer Beeinträchtigung als in der Veränderung behindernder Sozialsysteme oder –strukturen liegt.

3. wenn die Arbeit eher körperliche oder psychische Aspekte als Forschungsgegenstand herausgreift statt die komplexen Beziehungen zwischen dem Phänomen der Behinderung und beeinflussenden gesellschaftlichen Faktoren zu betrachten.

4. wenn die Sichtweisen behinderter Menschen keinen Einfluss auf die Arbeit haben.” *

* The two lists we cited, were found on disability-studies-deutschland.de, a project by bifos.org

**The lists have been summarized and translated (by bifos) in orientation to: Gill, Carol: Disability Studies: Looking at the FAQ`s. In: Alert. Newsletter of the Institute on Disability Studies and Human Development. University of Illinois at Chicago. Volume 9 (3), Spring 1998

Almost we forgot to upload Sarah’s report of our second lesson at the sign language course.
There it is:

We got so far that time, Raoul could tell us a joke at the end of the lesson. It took a while, he needed very much space, but most of us understood without knowing every word he signed, what he was talking about. We laughed…

Before that we went deeper into learning how much we have to watch out for precisely signing, precisely mimic and how precisely we have to move our mouth as if we would actually say the word or express the feeling of the word what we want to sign.

In german signlanguage (DGS – Deutsche Gebärden Sprache) we deal with 4 parameters:
- form of hand/hands
- positon af hand/hands
- area of where hand is/hands are
- movement/action

There were mainly four things I recognized this lesson.
One is how different words or actions are related to each other in both languages.
Some words in DGS are related to each other which are not related in german spoken language at all.
That could lead, from my point of view now, to a different understanding about relations of words, feelings, things and actions in our world.
The verb “eating”, for example, needs the same form of hand as “buying”. The position of the hand, the area it is carried out and its movement though differ and make the difference between those two words.

Another thing I also recognized as very important in DGS is the dimension of speed of the handmovments. Words become the right or more significant meaning according to the speed they are accomplished. They only become meaningful when they are accomplished in the right speed or slowness. The speed also expresses and emphasises – very clear to our common way of communication by physical expressions, not knowing much about sign language – what is meant by the sign or movement.

The third thing that came to my mind while learnig and watching our teacher Raoul was the continuous expression of exert and relaxing. Once a word is signed, the signer needs to unmistakably show the word or sentence is ending, and a next may come. So beginnings and endings have to be signed out.

The last thing – for this session – I found special about DGS is the actually playing and expressing of feelings when only “talking” about them.
Facial and physical expressions are important to make words meaningful and unmistakebly understandable.
Deaf people have to imitate feelings by mimic highly to say what they want to say, even if they are not actually feeling it.
These implementation of real feelings is much different to our way of “only” using words to talk about feelings or saying words that describe feelings using “only” our voice to express them, give them more tragic, make them more funny or whatever felling we want to describe.
Also, the four parameters explained above, sometimes relate to areas of the body, which in common use are understood as areas where those feelings take place. For example the sign for “being disappointed” takes place in front of the heart, with a movement just like someone is breaking together.
Right now the part of implementing real feelings by playing or expressing them while signing a word seams to me a very difficult thing to do. It feels to me as if I am showing something from deep inside of me. Obviously I am not a good actor. It is a kind of playing a role for a very short moment, and then move to another. I guess it is a question of getting used to it. What I learned from that is facial- and physical expressions is important and (actually)shows me to new impressions of feelings and words.
I wonder how that works when one feels very sad and has to talk about happiness. Or what about lying? Is it not shown in facial expressions? How hard could that be?

Therefore we have to learn how, where, when and how fast we sign our words with hands body and our whole face expression.
Now I found DGS even more interesting for us to learn and may transfer to other communication patterns.

To be continued…

On thursday, 13th of august, we will do a co-design-workshop with deaf kids at the StreetLab.
Together in playfull workshops, we are going to explore the properties of deaf communication. Furthermore we will develop expedient and sensible product- and service ideas.

The workshop takes place in collaboration with SINNESWANDEL (Berliner Gesellschaft zur Förderung gehörloser und hörgeschädigter Menschen).

Download Deaf StreetLab flyer!
Check out the full programm of workshops on www.street-lab.info!

Our yesterday’s kids-workshop on navigation and (mobile) communication by different senses (see post below!) was awesome:

We had a full day outdoor workshop with kids between the age of 3 to 12 years. It was difficult to count them, but we guess during the whole day it was roundabout 70 of them or so.

Together we explored how you navigate without seeing, how do you communicate without spoken language, we discussed the potential of visual communication and symbolic languages, and in the workshop “touch- and feel-mobiles (“Fühl-Handy”)” the kids produced little prototypes that dealt with the topic of sensitive surfaces: (“How should your mobile feel like, if a certain person calls you” or “How do ‘Heat’, ‘Sadness’, ‘Rain’, ‘Fun’ or ‘Beeing Bored’ feel on your mobile?”)

Here’s some impressions:

“Audio-Memory” (“Hör-Memory”):

In this game the kids got an idea of what it is like to use other senses then the usual ones. Unlike a classical “memory-game”, where you visually have to find pairs of similar pictures, in this game the kids had to listen (and also feel, weight and maybe even smell) in order to find the right pairs:

[Listen, weight, touch, feel, smell - the multisensoral memory game!]

[with these glasses you could not see a thing!]

“Visual Communication / Symbolic Language”:

In this workshop the kids explored the idea of communication without written or spoken language. Together we tried typical sentences and words you (or actually: the kids) normally use on your phone, like “How are you”, “The sun is shining”, “I am tired”, “Shall we go outside?”, “My brother is repairing his car?”.
In a first step, we asked them to draw little icons for certain sentences/words (“i feel good/bad” etc…).
In a second step the kids drew little icons and the others (including us) had to guess, what they wanted to tell us.
The kids thereby got an idea of what the job of a communication- or information-designer is about – in this case: by using small space and and single color to make complex situations understandble and bring them to the point:

["I am happy / I am feeling good!"]

["Let's play football!"]

["I'm going for a bycicle ride!"]

["Let's go swimming!"]

["Friends!"]

["I changed the color of my hair!"]

["Somebody annoyed me, so that i cried!"]

We also had pictures like these:

.

“Touchable! Feel your Mobile” (“Fühl-Handy”):

In this workshop the kids produced little prototypes that dealt with the topic of sensitive surfaces: (“How should your mobile feel like, if a certain person calls you” or “How do ‘Heat’, ‘Sadness’, ‘Rain’, ‘Fun’ or ‘Beeing Bored’ feel on your mobile?”).
Therefore they tried out different material and haptics, which lead to amazing results. For example some had the wish/idea that different (favorite) partners of communication or functions should have different buttons, that feel different:

.

The Workshop was called “Schärfe Deine Sinne” (”Sharpen your senses”).
These were only a few impressions of it. We’ll do more stuff at the StreetLab in august.

Less than two weeks before we start the StreetLab, we and our colleagues take part at this nice open-air festival in Berlin called PLATZSPIELE, where we provide several workshops with kids (28.7., 30.7., 2.8, 4.8.).

On thursday july 30, we do a workshop on navigation and communication by different senses: How do you navigate without seeing, how do you communicate without spoken language,…

The Workshop is called “Schärfe Deine Sinne” (“Sharpen your senses”). The (german) description goes like this:

“Erlebe Deinen Körper völlig neu: Wie ist das, wenn man auf einmal nichts mehr sehen, hören, fühlen kann? Kann man mit verbundenen Augen besser schmecken? Wie kann man sprechen, ohne zu reden? Von der Blindenschrift bis zur Geheimsprache: Wir tauchen ein in die Welt der Sinne!”

In our third lesson in Sign Language, we learned some more basic words, we learned how to “mirror” geometrical forms, played “silent post” (”stille Post”) – of course only by signing – which was again pretty fun. We furthermore got more skillz in certain mimcs (e.g. “in love”, “angry”, “bored”…), we learned numbers (1 – 100), we learned about the differences between subjects and verbs (chair – to sit; airplane – to fly) and practiced our skillz in “Finger Alphabet”.
This time we noticed:

• similar signs (hand-movement) can mean different things, depending on what you do with e.g. your head, your eyes, your mouth etc.
• means: context based body movements in different combinations open the space for a bigger word pool

Please, check out our other lesson reports above and below this one!

Sarah has already written a report on our second lesson and will publish it soon here.

After Dortmund on Tuesday (Dialog im Stillen), we went to the “Dialog im Dunkeln” (Dialog in the Dark) exhibition in Hamburg today. Interesting experience and fruitfull discussions – we’ll post some of our impressions here pretty soon.

We are excited to visit the unsicht-Bar (german wordplay between “invisible” and “Bar”) in Berlin tonight, a restaurant where you sit, eat and drink in completely darkness.

Yesterday we went to Dortmund, to visit the DASA exhibition “Dialog im Stillen” (Dialog in Silence).
We will report from that soon!

[exhibition flyer; DASA; dialog-im-stillen]

We haven’t checked out Jonathan Glovers Book yet. We will soon:

Glover, Jonathan
Choosing Children: Genes, Disability, and Design

Oxford University Press, 2008
ISBN (13): 978-0-19-923849-1
ISBN (10): 0199238499
120 pages

The publisher describes it as follows:
“A philosophy guide that explores the ethics of disability and genetics.”

content:
Introduction; 1. Disability and Genetic Choice; Disability and Human Flourishing; Eugenics?; 2. Parental Choice and What We Owe to Our Children; The Boundaries of Parental Choice; Two Dimensions of Ethics; What do We Owe to Our Children? A Decent Chance of a Good Life; What do We Owe to Our Children? Respect for Identity and Autonomy; 3. Human Values and Genetic Design; The Genetic Supermarket, Inequality, and Entrapment; Should We Defend a Central Core of Human Nature?; The Further Future

[book cover; Oxford University Press]

 In his talk “Design Barrierefrei” at the Accessible Media 2006 (11 october), tomas caspers stated, that: “Behinderung ist die mangelnde Fähigkeit, mit schlechtem Design umgehen zu können”, which can be loosely translated as: “Disability is the lacking ability to deal with bad design”! 

Tobin Siebers names LeCorbusier’s “Modulor” as an example for a political unconscious architectural theory. Siebers recognizes here a basis of what Rob Imrie (also known as the co-author of the book: “Inclusive Design: Designing and Developing Accessible Environments“) calls the “design appartheid”* of the modernist architectural practice. A practice, that unavoidably leads to (at least temporary) exclusion of (e.g. young, old,…) people. 

[LeCorbusier's Le Modulor - Body Proportions as a benchmark: 6 feet high, male, musculous, without evidence of bodily or mentally impairment]

___
Imrie’s term “design apartheid”, dealing with building form and design in western culture that are inscribed with the values of an able-bodied” society, is further described in:

* Siebers, Tobin: “Disability Studies”, Michigan Press ,2008; pg 86

* Imrie, Rob: “Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment” in:
Shakespeare, Tom: “The Disability Reader”, Continuum, 2000; pg 129

The latest SZ Magazin (of Süddeutsche Zeitung) portraits a whoman, that suffers of diabetic retinopathy and therefore is has been becoming blind.  The article hauntingly points out a person’s fear of losing sight. The protagonist in this article describes her wish (and at the same time the impossibility) of compiling a “inner photoalbum”, where she could try to virtually remember important things. More important than e.g. buildings and places (“Unimportant! These can all be described by others!”) are people (“parents, sister, brother, her own face in the mirror…”) or situations (“An autumn’s morning, the view from east to west from warsaw bridge in berlin”).
But, she can not discipline her brain, and therefore has to accept: “The pictures just disappear”.

[Benetton; Food for Life; Campaign 2003 ]

We have been discussing the corelation of “disabilities” and “abilites”, as well as it’s perspectives for practical use, mis-use and re-use of body and material for quite a while now.

Well, the picture above, taken from the 2003’s benetton- and world-food-programme – campaign, comes with a different context and message, but still perfectly fits into our discussion on reinventing and reevaluating body (and its relation to certain functions or artifacts).

[Photo by Juan Carlos Noguera]

A social design project on wheelchairs from Guatemala recently caught our attention. Read the whole article on design21…

The korean designers Son Seunghee, Lee Sukyung and Kim Hyunsoo came up with an idea for a camera for samsung, that has been awarded with the 2008 red dot best concept (category: life science). The concept is based on the polaroid technology. The difference here: An integrated printer produces a picture made of braille-dots. The idea is to enable blind people to grasp and conceive pictures, they can not actually “see”.

The Berlin based photographer Oliver Möst uses his visual impairment (short-sighted) as an actual visual power and transfers it to a special technique of photography: He reconstructed his AGFA CLACK, by attaching his own eyglass lens (strength: 6 dipotrine), wich deeply blurs any picture. In a recent interview with the berliner TAGESSPIEGEL, he states, that seeing the world in a blurry mode, makes it somehow more relaxed. It makes it also more comfortable to concentrate on things, e.g. listening to music (“macbeth at the opera was beatiful – beatifully blurry”).

 
[picture: Oliver Möst, Clackastigmat 6.0; peperoni books 2009]

On July 17th, he will present his new book CLACKASTIGMAT 6.0 at 25books (19h, Brunnenstraße 152 | 10115 Berlin; www.25books.de). The exhibition will go from 17.07. – 12.08.2009

[self potrait by Oliver Möst]

More on www.olivermoest.de

The agency DDB Nova Zelândia produced this advertisement for a Foundation for the Deaf with a nice and simple animation…:

This argentinian print campaign has been sponsored by various companies. It reads: “A person without rights is not a person”. The subtitle can be loosely translated as: “If you are disabled, make your rights count. Get legal advise and denounce”.

 

[pictures: fundcion par]

The Norwegian Association of the Blind aims to make people aware not to disturb guide dogs…

[Advertiser: Norwegian Association of the Blind; Agency: Try, Oslo; Copywriter: Oystein Halvorsen; Art Director: Karin Lund]

[picture: soundAMP; AppStore]

iPhone’s App Store recently added soundAMP, a hearing aid application available for $9.99.
The app basically takes everything that reaches the phone’s microphone, and makes it louder.
Manually adjustment and choose from different equalizer settings are possible. It also includes a replay of the last five seconds of everything you’ve heard.

As we have read so far, i does not seem to really substitute a real proper hearing aid, but not least for the hearing people, it might be a fun toy, since it somehow gives you the impression of a superhuman hearing. And for sure it could be helpfull for more casual use – e.g. for listening to a quite speaker in a lecture.

By now, one of the soundAMP’s major deficits could be ambient noise (e.g. background voices, a fan, air-conditioning, electronicl devices etc), that can become irritating at higher levels. But this should be something to possibly be solved in future versions.

[StreetLab; Berlin]

(German):
Neukölln (Berlin) wird vom 10. – 30. August zum Zukunftslabor für mobile Kommunikation – Kinder und Jugendliche gestalten die Zukunft der mobilen Kommunikation gemeinsam mit Design-Forscherinnen und Forschern der Technischen Universität Berlin Ort: Wildenbruchstrasse 88.
Im Rahmen der ca. 20 kostenlosen Workshops wird es auch Angebote für blinde und gehörlose Kinder und Jugendliche zusammen mit hörenden und sehenden Kindern geben. Hier sollen unter anderem die Wahrnehmung der Sinne sensibilisiert und der Dialog gefördert werden. Mehr infos auf www.street-lab.info

(English):
Free creative workshops for and with youg kids and teeanagers around the topic fields communication, perception, (social) interaction and design will be featured at the StreetLab (august 10 – 30). Some of the workshops have a special focus on the dialog between deaf, blind, hearing and sighted kids and teenagers. There is still enough space for participants. Feel free to conact us!
more info: www.street-lab.info

[by Godisa]

Some might know this product from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s DESIGN FOR THE OTHER 90% exhibition. The solar-powered hearing-aid by godisa comes with:  

• Charge battery with free solar power
• Fully charged in 2 – 5 hours
• Recharged battery lasts up to 4 days
• Reuse one battery up to 400 times
• Fits most #13 and #675 rechargeable batteries

…well, we do not want to promise too many book reviews…, but anyway:
we are looking forward to take a closer look on this one:

Disability/Postmodernity
Embodying Disability Theory
Edited by Mairin Corker and Tom Shakespeare

In Tobin Siebers’ Paper we mentioned earlier (see also the description of our colloquium’s talk in the dates section)

, he gives an introductory definition of Disability Aesthetics:

“What I am calling disability aesthetics names a critical concept that seeks to emphasize the presence of disability in the tradition of aesthetic representation. Disability aesthetics refuses to recognize the representation of the healthy body— and its definition of harmony, integrity, and beauty—as the sole determination of the aesthetic. It is not a matter of representing the exclusion of disability from aesthetic history, since such an exclusion has not taken place, but of making the influence of disability obvious. This goal may take two forms: 1) to establish disability as a critical framework that questions the presuppositions underlying definitions of aesthetic production and appreciation; 2) to establish disability as a significant value in itself worthy of future development.”

(Siebers, Tobin. What Can Disability Studies Learn from the Culture Wars? Cultural Critique – 55, Fall 2003, pp. 182-216)

As Tom Shakespeare (PEALS, University of Newcastle, UK) mentioned in his talk at Vienna University (9 may 2008), the www offers various opportunities for social integration to bodily or mentlly impaired people. The communication through the internet offers chances of communication free off prejudices and other social barriers, which enables a lot of people to foster autonomy and empowerment.

In our research we lay one focus on the imagery and reprasantation of disability in virtual reality (as well as in the world of mass media and pop culture), to figure out different reasons for and relationships of showing and hiding disability.  

we therefore collect and analyse images in advertisment, movie, literature, but also in computer gaming and virtual worlds such as SECOND LIFE….

[picture: second life; found through: net.educause.edu]

Since we want to learn more about deaf communication, my colleague Sarah and I attended our first lesson at a basic course in sign language. We will, from now on, report from our experience there:

In our first lesson (with our deaf teacher Raoul), we learned some basic words, geometrical forms, played “silent post” (“stille Post”) – of course only by signing – which was actually pretty fun. We noticed:

• Sign Language requires high concentration
• Sign Language requires (as any other language) a clear articulation
• The partners of communication really  (have to) focus on each other   
• Minimalism and efficiancy – Sign language seems to cut off unnecessesary gadgets
• intersting + obvious word combinations
• Reduce-to-the-max
  e.g.: “What’s your name” in sign language is more like “Your-Name-What?”
• images, metaphores and mnemonic hooks and tricks:
  e.g.: sign for “german” reminds of a prussian spiked helmet; sign for post reminds of a post horn; the hand shaking, when counting the numbers 13-19 reminds of a shaking after having 13-19 coffees ;- )

We are looking forward to our next lessons. The course is being provided by “Gehörlosenverband Berlin” http://www.deafberlin.de

In November 1998, many hearing-impaired people – and an equal amount of those who could hear just fine – made their way to the Prater der Berliner Volksbühne to witness a process as part of a series of events called ‘Gehörlose Musik’ (music for the deaf or ‘soundless music’), initiated by “Freunde guter Musik” (friends of good music). 

The deaf music project was an experiment by the berlin based music-media-art-performance-combo “Die tödliche Doris” (translates to “Deadly Doris”), who travelled across many music-and-art borders in the 1980’s.

Now this DVD, released by Edition Kröthenhayn, brings the music of this legendary, long unavailable LP from 1981 back to life – in the guise of gestures, signs, interaction and movement.

[picture: DVD cover; Edition Kröthenhayn]

In November 1998, Wolfgang Müller, founder of „Die Tödliche Doris“, decided to re-release the band’s sought-after and long unavailable first vinyl LP. However, not as sound, but as a gesture: Sign language interpreters Dina Tabbert and Andrea Schulz translated and reshaped the lyrics and music of “                ” using nothing but signs and gestures. The result of this transmutation is a ‘soundless’ music, expressed entirely within and through the body, gestures, movements, interaction and facial expressions.

via: Edition Kröthenhayn

DVD Box: 
Die Tödliche Doris
“Gehörlose Musik in gebärdensprachlicher Gestaltung”.
(“Deaf Music: Die tödliche Doris in signs and gestures”).
Verlag: Edition Kröthenhayn

As a learning- and teaching-tool, the berlin based BGDBB (Berufsverband der Gebärdensprachdozenten Berlin/Brandenburg e.V.) prepared a collection of common and helpfull signs (DGS – Deutsche Gebärdensprache =  German Sign Language) with little Bears as protagonists.

A small collection of the “Gebärdenbärchen” can be downloaded here.

As  a food for thoughts on the general discussion on accessibility, we like to share this poster with you. The poster is part of the latest campaign by AKTION MENSCH (dieGesellschafter.de)

StreetLab, a summer project of the Design Research Lab,  offers free workshops for and with youg kids and teeanagers from 10th to 28th of august in Neukölln (Berlin).

The workshops will contain creative examinations around the topic fields communication, perception, (social) interaction and design. The young people will have the chance to experience, formulate and “design” various forms of communication.

Some of the workshops have a special focus on the dialog between deaf, blind, hearing and sighted kids and teenagers.

There is still enough space for participants. Feel free to conact us! 
(There will also be a website available soon!)

[sound as sight - sight as sound]

[sound as vibration - vibration as sound]

In the bsd project on designing adaptive environments, the project team base some of their architectural planning thoughts on language and sound communicated at multiple scales.  These scales range from the smallest of finger movements or the slight movement of the lip line to the larger movements that are choreographed within the environment on a daily basis. 

In this context, the project team  reaches back on a quote taken from David Wright’s “DEAFNESS: An Autobiography” *, referring to non-deaf people, can easily immerse ourselves in the deaf experience by understanding the sensorial shift experienced when one person’s sense of hearing is hindered.  Wright explaines that “something as simple as a subtle breeze that disrupts a once static setting allows a deaf person to interpretate sight as sound.  As the breeze moves it gathers leaves and disrupts the daily activities of the forest creatures exposing a world of noise as a world of movement and particpatory interaction.” 

We agree with the bsd project team claiming from a conceptual standpoint that Architecture has the ability to become a catalyst for this type of seeing enviroment.

* “DEAFNESS: An Autobiography”:

Perenial, 1994: ISBN 9-78-00609-7616-3

d-Vision (Israel) comes up with this USB fed Ebook for the blind or visually impaired. As the company claimes, it will ”allow scrolling through text and switching between different files stored in it’s memory, as on any flash memory stick.”

In their project on designing adaptive environments, the Beverley School for the Deaf has collected a series of simple diagrams illustrating the DEAF experience.  These aim to mediate ideas of communication, interaction, education, interface, ethics, etc. 

“The first four address the interaction of individual and group and how a visual communication’s success is derived mainly from simple ideas of visibilty and a renewed approach for space making.”

So far, we have only found articles, that seem to copy the blog-entry on yankodesign aobut this  samsung project for a camera for the blind. So let’s hear, how yanko cites the samsung designer Chueh Lee:

“Touch Sight is a revolutionary digital camera designed for visually impaired people. Simple features make it easy to use, including a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch their photo. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others–and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.”

Usually digital clock devices operate with sound to communicate the time, thus inhibiting the user from checking their watch unnoticed. Chavez’s braille watch instead displays a real-time readout in Braille, to be scaned with the fingers to check the time. 

more info: dexinger

[Elephant's Memory - Alphabet]

Since we are also interested in altervative and augmentative communication, we still kind of like this KHM project, called The Elephant’s Memory. A pictorial language consisting of more than a hundred and a fifty combinable graphic elements (pictograms and ideograms), primarily meant to be a learning and exploration tool towards children, concerning the concept of language.

["Seeing elephants shot by men makes me cry"]

["I am so happy that you are pregnant"]

Although it is not as elaborated as BLISS, and it seems to contain typografical confusions concerning the line weight/stroke width or the reading direction, it still enables users (e.g. children, their families and educators) to encourage dialogue and creativity. A project to bridge cultures, and build transitional spaces between “natural” languages.

In her recent TED talk, record-breaking Aimee Mullins (paralympic games 1996), who is also known as an actress and model, talks not only about how her high-tech legs are giving her super-powers, but takes that as an example to a discussion about technolocial effort that is giving us potential to even be superabled, to become architects of our identities or change our identities. A discussion about what the body can be…

(Here is her talk from 1998).

Supported by the initiative Enabling Access of the Internet Society, the Real-Time Text Taskforce (R3TF) is getting started. Refering to the RFC 5194 they are working on a text-over-IP-extension, that enables deaf and hard of hearing people, to experience text communication in real time….
Read the full article (in german)!

A blind man shocks researchers with what he sees….

…and Seed Mag wrote an article about it!

John Pezari brings us the award winning idea of restoring images through brain stimulation:
Check this article about it on scienceblog!

Or find deeper info in his paper:
Pezaris, J. S. & Reid, R. C. (2007). Demonstration of artificial visual percepts generated through thalamic microstimulation. PNAS doi: 10:1073/pnas/0608563104. [Full text]

Also interesting in this context is this article about Channelrhodopsin restores vision in blind mice.

Here’s the first 10 minutes of a documentary called Extraordinary People: The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes. It’s about Ben Underwood, a blind teenager from Sacramento who uses echolocation. 

Believe it or not – this documentary called “Extraordinary People” portraits a guy who uses echoes to determine the positions of objects, and began to develop a “six sense”. The video shows him, riding a bike, skateboard and playing computer games.

Whether that is a hoax, an urban legend or not. Here you can watch the rest of The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes on You Tube.

…at least, that is what Madelaine Fortin of the Université de Montréal and her colleagues claim:
Together with 19 blind participants and 19 sighted controls for their study they have been researching on blind and sighted spatial orientation. Here you a short article about the experiment and its conclusions…

(for further info, see: Fortin, M. et al (2008). Wayfinding in the blind: larger hippocampal volume and supranormal spatial navigation. Brain 131: 2995-3005. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awn250)

Thanx to my colleague Fabian i can shut down my computer with a smile now.
He just sent me the following pic:

 
In their design study the conceptioners of the B-Touch claim to develop a feature of a touchscreen display that caters for Braille, thanks to blind touchscreen technology and a combination of voice systems as well as programs to make it fully functional as a standard handset. Other features crammed within include a navigational system, an e-book reader and an object recognizer.
Designer: Zhenwei You

Take a look at the video!

via yankodesign and ubergizmo

(Picture from Bruce Conner’s video for Devo’s “Mongoloid”)
———————————————————————-
“Yes, the doctor told me, boy, you don’t need no pills.
Just a handful of nickels, the juke box will cure your ills.”
Carl Perkins, disabled rockabilly pioneer
———————————————————————-

As in Art, Literature, Movie or else, Disability as a topic has also a long tradition in music. Anthony Tusler has now compiled a CD entitled: “Disability: Songs, Singers & Songwriters”. Some good stuff on it. Here is the annotated tracklist:

1. T.B. Blues • Otis Spann*, 4:12
Muddy Water’s long-time band mate and pianist died of TB.

2. I Have Had My Fun • Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee*, 3:33
Since 1939 Brownie and Sonny have been instrumental in bringing country blues to mainstream audiences. Sonny lost most of his sight in early childhood.

3. Wade In The Water • The Blind Boys Of Alabama*, 3:34
Singing in the blind school and gospel traditions this Grammy winning group has enjoyed mainstream success.

4. Bess, You Is My Woman Now (excerpt) • William Warfield, 1:56
Goat cart-using para celebrates love, romance, and intimacy.

5. My Little Tune • Joni Eareckson†, 4:01, Joni’s Song, Pop
The Christian author sings about her relationship to her disability and God.

6. In the Disability Rights Movement • Jeff Moyer†, 2:11
Heart-felt, earnest folk music recognizes the struggle for Disability rights.

7. In Northern California (Where the Palm Tree Meets the Pine) • Danny O’Keefe, 3:19
Able-bodied folkie describing a one-night-stand with a braced and crutched woman. (“Creepiest song I’ve ever heard.” Anthony Tusler)

8. Little Crippled Girl’s Prayer • Marsh Family, 3:31
Does this mean that heaven isn’t accessible?

9. There’s a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere • Elton Britt, 2:48
World War II had its own plucky disability candidate.

10. Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town • Kenny Rogers
Ruby has it all — politics, anger, self pity.

11. Daddy Come and Get Me •Dolly Parton, 1:79
Forced institutionalization rears its unexpected head in this country weeper.

12. Disabled People Do It! • Jane Field*, 2:53
Wheelchair-using folk singer tries to convince us that crips are sexy.

13. The Letter • The Medallions†, 2:49
“I was a very lonely guy at the time. …14 years old, …and I walked with crutches,” Vernon Green, lead singer.

14. Save the Last Dance for Me • The Drifters, 2:30
The wheelchair-using Doc Pomus wrote this for his fun-loving, ever dancing, able-bodied wife.

15. All Is Lonlieness, Moondog*, 1:20
The Viking of 6th Avenue tell it like it sometimes can be (disabled or AB).

16. Johnny’s Blues • Johnny Crescendo and the P.O.P. Squad†, 3:44
The U.K.’s Disabled flag bearer and his Piss on Pity Squad

17. What’s In a Name • The Cripples†, 4:12
They should know.

18. Takin’ Retards to the Zoo, • Dead Milkmen, .48
What can you say? But why the crash?

19. Cretin Hop • The Ramones*, 1:18
Joey Ramone’s OCD viewpoint adds another politically incorrect song title and lyrics to the genre.

20. Spasticus (Autisticus) • Ian Dury & The Blockheads†, 5:11,
The Disabled author of Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll writes a BBC banned anthem for the 1981 International Year of the Disabled.

21. Mongoloid • Devo, 3:45,
Easier to rhyme than Down’s Syndrome.

22. Santa’s In A Wheelchair • The Kids Of Widney High†, 3:13,
Widney High is the Los Angeles area special school.

23. Beautiful People • Marilyn Manson*, 3:38,
Marilyn’s early years in the hospital informs this dig at the mainstream.

*=disability identity (AT determined)
† = disability identity (self)

Nothing wrong with a bit of fun. That is why we also want to share Klara Jirkova’s (UdK, Berlin) idea of the Braille Tatoos with you.
And here is, how Jirkova describes the realization:

“implants creating embossed text in braille placed under skin, can be read by touch / stroke by blind people. it could be either bead-style implants (in this case the size of the beads should be a bit bigger than the standardized size of braille text. too small beads will sink in the muscles and they will not be embossed) or transdermal implants – placed partially below and partially above the skin
the implants are made of silicone (or surgical grade stainless steel /316L/ or titanium)”.

Talking about cross-functional concepts, in context of bodily impairment, the Braille system is already a good example:

Developed by Louis Braille in 1821, the orginal task was to develop an existing system to enable Napoleon’s soldiers to reliably read documents in the dark without opening a light and alerting the enemy to their position. 

Napoleon lost the war, but the Braille system has altered the lives of millions of blind people ever since then. (Which by the way once again vitalizes the discussion on the ambivalence of innovation in context of war).

Samsung’s “Touch Messenger”, a mobile handset featuring a Braille touch pad, features 12 Braille buttons which enable the user to read and write messages.  The Touch Messenger comes with a 3 x 4 button grid keypad and a lower Braille screen that can be used to read the text messages received.

Found via PDA Live + samsunghub + softpedia.

From Hong Kong Polytechnic University comes a set of shoes and glasses that have an embedded computer, which can locate objects within close range through echo-location followed by a vibrating warning signal that is sent to the one wearing those shoes and glasses.

“Ultrasonic waves are sent out and when they bounce back they are interpreted by a receiver.” Research Institute of Innovative Products and Technologies director Wallace Leung Woon-fong was quoted telling the Sunday Morning Post. “Once an obstacle is detected the shoe will vibrate, perhaps increasing in intensity as the obstacle gets closer,”

The shoes make use of GPS (Global Positioning System) to inform the wearer about his position and the direction he is heading to.

The discoveries are based on the award winning “electronic bat ears” sonic glasses developed by the university’s Professor He Jufang, which use similar technology to transmit to the wearer information such as size and distance of an object.
However some visually impaired people were a little skeptical about it and expressed reservations about the inventions.

via: techshout.com

 Inventors from Carnegie Mellon have come up wit this glove namede Handtalk, that is intended to convert hand movements into text.
The glove senses the movements through the flexor pads which detect dhe different patterns of motion and the way the finger curls.
Currently the device can convert 32 words.

via: techshout.com

As one of five rather poetic projects for blind people, italian designer sovrappensiero presents this one. Diaspon is supposed to “translate” sunlight into sound. How and if that works, he does not really tell. We still find it worth it, to show and inspire the discussion on tangible sound and sight…

Shelley Lynn Tremain:
Foucault and the Government of Disability (Corporealities: Discourses of Disability) (University of Michigan Press)

This one looks pretty interesting to us. We hopefully will prepare a short review on it, soon!

Tobin Siebers:
Disability Theory (Corporealities: Discourses of Disability) (University of Michigan Press, 2008)

“blurb”: 
Intelligent, provocative, and challenging, Disability Theory revolutionizes the terrain of theory by providing indisputable evidence of the value and utility that a disability studies perspective can bring to key critical and cultural questions. Tobin Siebers persuasively argues that disability studies transfigures basic assumptions about identity, ideology, language, politics, social oppression, and the body. At the same time, he advances the emerging field of disability studies by putting its core issues into contact with signal thinkers in cultural studies, literary theory, queer theory, gender studies, and critical race theory.

Tobin Siebers
Zerbrochene Schönheit: Essays über Kunst, Ästhetik und Behinderung (Transcript Verlag, 2009)

Klappentext:
Je mehr wir in der Moderne ankommen, umso stärker wirkt die Gleichung zwischen Kunst und Behinderung – bis Kunst kaum mehr ohne den Schatten der Behinderung wahrgenommen werden kann. Tatsächlich ist diese Gleichung so stark, dass wir Schwierigkeiten haben, Kunstwerke der Vergangenheit nicht nach Maßgabe moderner Bilder von Behinderung zu sehen.
Die Essays von Tobin Siebers konzipieren dagegen Kunst als einen Bereich, in dem Behinderung einen eigenständigen ästhetischen Wert besitzt.

Über den Autor
Tobin Siebers ist V.L. Parrington Collegiate Professor und Professor für englische Sprache und Literatur, Kunst und Design an der University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

Markus Dederich:
Körper, Kultur und Behinderung: Eine Einführung in die Disability Studies (Transcript Verlag, 2007)

Klappentext:

Dieses Buch ist die erste deutschsprachige Einführung in die Disability Studies aus einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Perspektive. Es beleuchtet Prozesse der Hervorbringung, Repräsentation und Transformation außerordentlicher Körperoe im Rahmen historisch und kulturell bedingter Deutungsmuster, Wissensformen und institutionalisierter Praktiken. Es lädt zu interdisziplinären Erkundungen in einer anspruchsvollen und spannenden Theorie- und Diskussionslandschaft ein und veranschaulicht seine Thesen u.a. an medizinhistorischen und literaturwissenschaftlichen Beispielen.

Anne Waldschmidt & Werner Schneider (Hrsg.)
Disability Studies, Kultursoziologie und Soziologie der Behinderung:
Erkundungen in einem neuen Forschungsfeld (Transcript Verlag, 2007)

Klappentext

Erstmalig für den deutschsprachigen Raum findet in dieser interdisziplinären Anthologie eine Begegnung der Kultursoziologie mit der Soziologie der Behinderung statt. Hierzulande dominiert noch die rehabilitationswissenschaftliche Sichtweise auf ¿Behinderung¿. Dagegen ermöglichen es die aus den USA und Großbritannien stammenden Disability Studies, Behinderung als soziale und kulturelle Kategorie zu verstehen und soziologische Schlüsselbegriffe wie Wissen, Körper, Macht, soziale Ungleichheit, Interaktion und Biografie neu zu entdecken. Die Textsammlung leitet durch ihren Anschluss an die Disability Studies einen grundlegenden Perspektivenwechsel auf Phänomene verkörperter Differenz ein.

We want to learn more about deaf communication. Therefore, as a first step, we will attend a basic course in sign language from mid of 2009 until autumn. The course will be provided by “Gehörlosenverband Berlin” http://www.deafberlin.de

The Design Research Lab at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories is currently seeking a competent and motivated Student Researcher on the research project “Speechless”, focusing on communication and perception with and amongst bodily and socially impaired people. A certain focus lies on products and services for blind and deaf people.

 English (Pdf 50 KB):
>> Announcement for Student Researchers.

Deutsch (Pdf 50 KB):
>> Ausschreibung für Student Researcher.

CV and portfolio should be sent to: tom.bieling[at]telekom.de.

Further details about the…

We unfortunately missed this exhibition of RNID, UK’s charity for deaf people and design magazine Blueprint  at Victoria & Albert Museum. Some of the futuristic hearing aids, that were shown at the exhibition called Hearwear, are still shown here. 

The concept products on display include Goldfish, based on the idea that goldfish only have 10 seconds of memory. The device instantly replays the previous 10 seconds of sound to the wearer in case they have failed to catch someone’s name.

 This device – by Tangerine – allows the user to define their field of hearing – close range in a noisy bar or zoom when listening for something in the distance.

 Designed by Priestman Goode, the Decibel protects the user’s ears in noisy environments while allowing certain sounds to get through – for example, a mobile phone, laptop or MP3 player.

 IDEO came up with the idea of linking a microphone to a conductive strip running around the edge of a table in a bar. Customers then buy inexpensive ear pieces from the bar so that they can converse in comfort.

 The Surround Sound – created by the Industrial Facility – hijacks the popularity of glasses and incorporates hearing technology into the arms. The wearer will only hear sounds from their direction of view.

 The thinking behind the Soundspace – designed by The Alloy – is to remove the need for a ear mould. It uses a unique mechanism to fit the product inside the ear. It incorporates sound amplification and connectivity to other devices.

 The Enhance looks forward to a time when hearing aids will be sold over the counter in a variety of strengths of amplification. Kinneir Dufort wanted to come up with an affordable solution – the hearing equivalent of reading glasses.

 

The Universal Hear-ring by Pearson Lloyd is a basic core which can house a variety of hardware – handsfree mobile headset, wireless MP3 headphones or digital hearing aids. The user can customise it by adding separate outer rings to suit mood, style or occasion.

At at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2006.
RNID image library. BBC pictures.

Via textually < BBC News.
Via WMNA

In 2005 Product designer Shane Kerwin has created a device that allows deaf people to “feel” music with their fingertips through an audio speaker.

With Vibrato, a speaker is connected to five different finger pads. When music is played, it sends different vibrations to each of the finger pads, allowing the wearer to feel the difference between notes, rhythms and instrument combinations.

“Whilst our ears can distinguish different sounds coming from a speaker, our fingers and bodies need more help — when feeling the vibrations of a regular speaker, it’s impossible to distinguish the sound of each instrument,” explains Kerwin.

Vibrato also allows users to create their own music. By connecting the speaker to a computer, budding deaf composers and musicians can explore a whole variety of instruments, rhythms, pitches and volumes.

via WMNA.

In 2004 researchers of Bond University in Queensland (Australia), declared that sending text messages via mobile phones is helping deaf people to interact with the hearing community.

Mobile phones put deaf people on the “same level playing field as hearing people” when communicating via SMS, declares Associate Professor Mary Power. “It’s not a disability to be deaf when you are texting.”

Deaf people can also use text to access services, such as calling roadside services, book tickets and things, or vote in reality TV shows. It just puts [deaf people] into the mainstream.”

Traditional technologies that deaf people use to communicate, such as using the telephone via a teletypewriter (TTY) system, in which a person can send written messages to another teletypewriter, are of limited use as hearing people wishing to communicate with them do not often have these technologies.

Besides, other technologies are not as cheap or easy to use as SMS texts, for example, email is less spontaneous and less mobile.

From Textually < ABC Online. Via WMNA

Although this project does not totally match with the main focus of our research topic, we still like to take a closer look to the iBot (Individual Balancing Optimized Transporter). As a four wheeled chair, it bumps up kerbstones. On two wheels it raises the user to the height of an able-bodied person and glides along the pavement at up to 10 miles per hour.

Six on-board gyroscopes sense the user tilting her/his body backwards and forwards to control the chair’s motor to climb up and down a flight of stairs. The electronic balance system is adapted to the user’s centre of gravity, allowing the device to constantly realign and adjust its wheel position and seat orientation.

Disability expert professor Martin Ferguson Pell (University of Alberta, Faculty of Rehabilitaion Medicine) states: “One of the big things this chair enables you to do is hold your own with everyone else – maintain height – order drinks without feeling different.”

Deafness in Disguise presents images, illustrations, advertising pamphlets, trade catalogs, patents, rare books and other material pertaining to mechanical and electrical hearing devices from the 19th and 20th centuries. Of particular focus in this exhibit are hearing devices that were designed for concealment or camouflage within everyday items.

The Deafness in Disguise exhibit was originally a collaborative project between Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) and the Washington University School of Medicine Bernard Becker Medical Library, incorporating hearing devices, archival material and rare books from their respective collections.

This photograph shows the Rhodes Audiphone in use. The model holds a flexible sheet of vulcanite, adjusted to a convex shape by means of cords, between her teeth. Sound was gathered through the fan area, then traveled via the upper teeth to the inner ear by bone conduction. The cords kept the fan under tension, providing for better vibration. The sound device on the model’s lap is a folding “Dentaphone,” a similar bone conduction hearing device.

We somehow still like this project of James Patten, that he presented with in collaboration with Mariliana Arvelo as part of a project about the deafblind community in Boston in 2005.  Patten and Arvelo created tactile photographic prints, produced through a CNC laser etching process, that removes the top portion of the wood. “The darker the image is at any particular point, the more wood is removed by the laser at that point” (Patten).

The result is a photographic relief that can be touched as well as seen.  “As people touch the images, the surface of the wood continues to wear, and people’s experience of the work becomes part of the work itself. [...] The most fascinating part of this work for me is watching the people interact with the images, and seeing the different ways that sighted, blind and deafblind people experience them”.

>>  See more images from the show! 

Rebecca McGinnis, Access Coordinator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), on art education for the blind and inclusive design in general. “Universal design is not a kind of ’one size fits all’-approach”…

The Voice Stick scans and then reads out the words. This concept seems like a good thought, although we are not sure about how a blind does know the orientation the paper, book or newspaper.  What about portraits? What about languages? What if the text goes upside down? We would love to learn more about this project…

 

This TED Talk by Evelyn Glennie has been recorded some time ago, but still is worth watching:

 http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html

Glennie, who has been profoundly deaf  (very limited hearing) since she was 12, talks about her self-taught ways of hearing with parts of her body other than her ears, and performing music.

In the the german newspaper DIE ZEIT, we found the inspiring article “Was siehst Du? Was hörst Du?” (engl.: “What do you see? What do you hear?”).

A blind woman and a deaf man meet each other for a double-interview and explain,  how our world has been changing:

http://www.zeit.de/2009/22/Blind-Gehoerlos
(The article is in german)

Definitions are dificult, yet it is important to find a basis for further discussions.
Therefore we would like to find and discuss different definitions, that are linked to our research field. 

As Michael Erlhoff and Tim Marshall state in their design dictionary , there are no definitions, no final versions, to fix design and it’s facettes. Everything is in a state of flux, everything is being permanently observed and discussed. Design is not static, but alive. It is being realized by use and permanent discussion.

Thus we like to collect and discuss descriptions and definitions, in order to open up perspectives and orientation. We might find different definitions on one topic, well, … even better!

Preferably we also mention the references: Who said what, when and where…

Lets start with some of these words:

. Disability
. Design Research
. Social Design
. Universal Design
. Inclusive Design
. Design for All
. Augmentative Communication
. Alternative Communication
. …

(Foto: DesignHelps, Merz&Solitude 2007)

Amphibia / Schriftentwurf / 2006
“Amphibia” is a font, meant to be read from both blind and seeing people. Although (at least for the seeing people) it seems not very usefull for body text, the concept is still worth mentioning, since the type combines both usual letters with Braille Dots. Similar approaches are at least conceivalbe for e.g. guidance systems.

We have not read this recent publication of Graham Pullin all through, yet. But if it is as interesting, as the table of content promises, we will give a review on it, soon. In advannce, here is what the publisher (MIT press) has to say about Design Meets Disability (Graham Pullin):

“blurb” (MIT Press):
Eyeglasses have been transformed from medical necessity to fashion accessory. This revolution has come about through embracing the design culture of the fashion industry. Why shouldn’t design sensibilities also be applied to hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, and communication aids? In return, disability can provoke radical new directions in mainstream design. Charles and Ray Eames’s iconic furniture was inspired by a molded plywood leg splint that they designed for injured and disabled servicemen. Designers today could be similarly inspired by disability.

In Design Meets Disability, Graham Pullin shows us how design and disability can inspire each other. In the Eameses’ work there was a healthy tension between cut-to-the-chase problem solving and more playful explorations. Pullin offers examples of how design can meet disability today. Why, he asks, shouldn’t hearing aids be as fashionable as eyewear? What new forms of braille signage might proliferate if designers kept both sighted and visually impaired people in mind? Can simple designs avoid the need for complicated accessibility features? Can such emerging design methods as “experience prototyping” and “critical design” complement clinical trials?

Pullin also presents a series of interviews with leading designers about specific disability design projects, including stepstools for people with restricted growth, prosthetic legs (and whether they can be both honest and beautifully designed), and text-to-speech technology with tone of voice. When design meets disability, the diversity of complementary, even contradictory, approaches can enrich each field.

About the Author
Graham Pullin is a lecturer in Interactive Media Design at the University of Dundee. He has worked as a senior designer at IDEO, and at the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering (UK).

In 2007, design student Sebastian Ritzler developed a concept for a cane full of features called Mygo. It contains a sensor-camera combo to measure the ground below it and give the user real time feedback via a wireless headset. The cane also ends in a small wheel that uses a steering engine that helps the user steer by providing feedback through the grip.
The Mygo is supposed to be height-adjustable, tough, and waterproof and runs on a lithium-ion battery (6 hours power).
We are not sure, whether it has yet gone into production. Sounds interesting anyway.

… a research blog of