Anthony Ptak pointed me to this vintage cane camera—old school private-eye gear, from the 1920s, 30s, 40s. For covert spies of old, or for the collector.

The article lists both the 3D printed version’s alternative to visual sonograms and its capacity to model out abnormalities as twin goods brought about by the technique. But this material artifact points to plenty of political questions, too—some old, some new.

Aimi Hamraie: I’m so fascinated by the negotiation of fleshy bodies as plastic objects and “evidence” of future embodiment in this coverage of 3D printed sonograms. Mostly for reasons related to eugenics and the way articles like this one discuss supposed birth defects, I find the idea (for lack of a better term) creepy. Noting the predictive role of 3D sonograms as evidence, the article discusses the efforts of Jorge Roberto Lopes dos Santos, an industrial designer who is making it possible to print 3D sonograms:  

“We work mainly to help physicians when there is some eventual possibility of malformation,” dos Santos said. “We also work for parents who want to have the models of their fetuses in 3D.”

Tecnologia Humana designs the models with sophisticated programs that produce highly detailed simulations of a fetus’ anatomy that doctors can examine virtually.

They can swoop through the lungs and explore the cavities of the heart in search of problems that may require intervention. Prior journeys have found Down syndrome and cleft lip, dos Santos said in a recent paper.

This idea of imaging a supposed defect or malformation is not new, of course, and very much related to things like prenatal genetic testing for congenital disabilities. What is interesting, though, is the persuasive force of such images as predictions of future embodiment. I am reminded of a presentation I attended by Catherine Mills a few years ago at the Duke Feminist Theory Workshop about the role of 3D ultrasounds and fetal imaging in anti-abortion activism. In that presentation, Mills discussed the way that the technological capacity for imaging a fetus’s face renders it as a living child in such a way that anti-abortion activists can use 3D images as “evidence” of the fetus’s personhood status.

It’s interesting to think about what general kind of material “evidence” a plastic 3D model of a fetus can be, given that a fetus is already a strange materiality or precarious embodiment. In other words, what kind of knowledge about a potential body does a plastic object provide, as compared to other forms of material evidence, such as genetic material? How does the availability of a material object that shows potential supposed anomalies or malformations affect the way that doctors and others can make claims about disabled lives as not worth living?

Sara Hendren: The Mills argument makes sense, of course; I imagine that political tactic among anti-abortion groups is fairly universal, especially since advances in imaging are appearing all the time.

And yes, from a disability rights perspective, it’s interesting to think about a plastic 3D model as a stand-in, or a supplement, to genetic testing. We’re living in an era in which personal genomics has become more pervasive and affordable, and one in which the claims for genetic markings are commonly being taken as concrete explanations of our natures—our ancestry or ethnic background, for instance.

But just as these genetic outputs as markers of ethnic, cultural, or racial identity are arguably dubious, so too are genetic “diagnoses” about identity speculative at best—not least among chromosomal mutations like that of Down syndrome. A 3D model of a fetus with Down syndrome would look, in other words, largely like a fetus with a typical body, despite extra genetic materials on its every cell. What would it mean to have this embodied “normal” body in front of you, alongside the genetic information? After all, that extra 21st chromosome has unilaterally been marked a “syndrome,” with its overtones of pervasive, encompassing debility, even though there’s no direct etiology of disease associated with it.

AH: Yes, that’s a really good point about the limitations of medical imaging in showing certain traits.  I suppose that in the case of Down syndrome, 3D models would avoid some of the potentially eugenic pitfalls of genetic testing by not providing that information. I’m reminded of my own work on anthropometry in architecture and design, in which I’ve found that there is often a discrepancy between the type of evidence or information a visual representation of the body provides and the actual measurements underlying those representations.

All of that said, using models as haptic and spatial technologies for conveying information to people who can’t access images is also extremely important. 3D haptic models are used in museums, for instance, to convey information to folks with low vision, as well as to anyone who benefits from touching and spatially understanding phenomena. My favorite example, which you can read about in a blog post I wrote for the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center last summer, is a tactile model of the Big Bang that actually shows the expansion and contraction of matter over time. 

On the side of the image furthest from the viewer in this photo, the Big Bang begins and the bronze on the panel is relatively smooth, with small dimples and bubbles. As it moves to the left, the bubbles grow larger and more complex, demonstrating the way that matter in the universe became more complex over time. By feeling the contours of the model, as well as looking at its appearance, we get a very interesting story about material changes as the universe expanded. (There are a few other examples of the use of 3D models in museum design in that post, as well).

SH: Right—I love the continuity between this printed fetus and the many models we can find in pedagogical and other informational settings for people with low/no vision. In Watertown, Massachusetts, not far from where I live, is the Perkins School for the Blind, an historic and prestigious school for blind and deaf-blind students. It’s where Helen Keller and other notable figures were educated. They have a whole technology arm, and they make both high end Braillers and user-designed low-cost adaptive tools for a wide population. But our conversation makes me think in particular of the older haptic models and materials that are on display from the school’s archive. Like this globe: 

The globe is really big to make its scale work right, and it strikes me, every time I see it, what you might learn about the relationships, size- and distance-wise, from approaching that massive thing as opposed to the tidy, desk-friendly globes I grew up with.

AH: Getting back to the 3D sonograms, these also make me think about the material culture of parenthood, and how these models have both diagnostic and aesthetic purposes. What becomes of the cultural importance of the first moment of “holding” a baby? Can printed plastic simulate weight and texture, as well as just general shape?

SH: What’s interesting, here, is that routine, non-medically indicated sonograms are actually not tied to better outcomes for mother or baby after 24 weeks gestation. Despite that fact, many parents-to-be opt for many ultrasounds over the course of a pregnancy, some of them for the high-def 3D ultrasounds, for a collection of close-up views. (It’s good to note that no work has been done on potential effects on the developing fetus from the use of these technologies, and it’s a culturally very recent phenomenon to “see” a fetus at such frequency at all.) It makes me wonder whether this material product is rather more or less reliable by comparison. And your questions about the affective qualities of holding these artifacts—who knows?

AH: I know a little bit about emerging, inexpensive 3D printers, like the RepRap, which prints its own components. I also understand that part of what dos Santos is doing is making it possible to translate 3D images into printable files. I wonder what increased access and availability of 3D printing will do to the way that we document life, bodies, and people. What new cultures of display will emerge from the availability of 3D sonograms and ultrasounds? Do you keep all of the models and show them to your child later to explain the process of development? Do you pass them around the table at your baby shower? Use them as cake toppers? Baby dolls?

 More at i09. Images 1, 2 from i09, the rest from Hamraie, Hendren.

Elasticbrand designers Arjen Noordeman and Christie Wright created this suite of sonic wearables.

The series is inspired by idiophone instruments—those which make sound primarily through the instrument’s vibration, without the use of strings or membranes—and aerophone instruments—those whose sound is produced by the vibration of air, again without strings or membranes, but also without the vibration of the tool itself. The designers combined these structural qualities with the acoustic quality of clay in mind, resulting in “a trumpet bracelet, a güiro cuff, a whistle necklace, a pan-flute collar, a rattle and xylophone bangles.”

“Designed in Rhino software,” the designers write, “the models were first printed on the ZPrinter 450.”

“Moulds were designed by splitting the models into parts and printing contra-mould parts for some more complex objects. After building the plaster moulds, all the instruments were slip-cast in porcelain.”

Here’s the fantastic process video below. You can see the full performance of the works at the Museum of Art + Design here.

More at the Elasticbrand site. At Y Not, via Seeing Sound.

Byun had in mind the common injuries that happen in landmine encounters—lower leg amputations sustained in parts of the world where landmines can linger, hidden, indefinitely. (78% of landmine injuries in Cambodia, for instance, are this “transtibial” kind.)

Byun’s model uses both the shoe’s sewn upper for its knee brace and the hard rubber treads for its foot—a simple design made to accommodate wet labor conditions without damage.

More at Byun’s web site.

via Universal Design Style.

I’ll be at NYU next Thursday and Friday, April 11 and 12. Thursday’s talk, “When Prosthetics Speak,” is with the NYU Council for the Study of Disability—5:30 – 7 in the Payne Room, 4th Floor Pless Hall, 82 Washington Square East.

On Friday, I’ll be speaking alongside Geoffrey Bowker in the Media, Culture, and Communication department’s PROGRAM series. Starts at 6:30 in the Great Room at 19 University Place. Say hello if you’re there!

Dennis Paul’s Instrument for the Sonification of Everyday Things externalizes the shape of multiple objects—in sound waves.  Like a morphological record player:

An Instrument for the Sonification of Everday Things from Dennis P Paul on Vimeo.

via @gabswolf.

A long time ago I pointed to Mitchell Whitelaw’s claim for the “non-industrial latitude” that artists enjoy when they stake claims to technology, media, data as their own. Deploying this latitude gives birth to tactics:  arts and design practices that defile, invert, or re-shape technologies from their ordinary functional uses. Practices that estrange us from the ordinary and force us to re-read technologies *as* culture. De Certeau, in 1984, anticipates the hacking impulse with revealing exactitude:

“Michel de Certeau, in The Practice of Everyday Life, enjoys the nomad metaphor. For him, power is about territory and boundaries—asserting what he calls a ‘proper place.’ The weapons of the strong are strategies—classification, mapping, delineation, division. The strong depend on the certainty of mapping. The weak, on the other hand, are left with furtive movement to contest the territorialization of urban space. The cunning of the nomad allows pedestrians to take short cuts, to tell stories through the routes they choose. These tactics refuse the neat divisions and classification of the powerful and, in doing so, critique the spatialization of domination. Thus, the ordinary activities of everyday life, such as walking in the city, become acts of heroic everyday resistance. The nomad is the hero(ine).

Tactics do not ‘obey the laws of the place, for they are not defined or identified by it.’ The tactic never creates or relies upon the existence of some place for its identity and power. The tactic is consigned to using the space of the powerful in cunning ways. The tactics of the weak are a form of consumption—never producing ‘proper places’ but always using and manipulating places produced by others. The world of production is thus confronted with ‘an entirely different kind of production, called ‘consumption,’ which is marked by ‘ruses,’ fragmentation,’ ‘poaching,’ and its ‘quasi-invisibility’—it shows itself not in its own products…but in the art of using those imposed upon it.’

Thus the tactic is the ruse of the weak—the mobile drifting through the rationalized spaces of power. The tactic is a nomadic art—an art that will ‘circulate, come and go, overflow and drift over an imposed terrain like the snowy waves of the sea slipping in and among the rocks and defiles of an established order.’”

image via.

From Wired Design:

“Lantos Technologies, a small startup spun out of MIT, has created the first FDA-cleared digital ear-canal scanner. While that may seem wildly specific, and maybe a little gross, it could dramatically improve your grandfather’s hearing aid, Lady Gaga’s in-ear monitor, and mission-critical communication devices used by the military.

The Lantos 3-D Ear Canal Scanner should be rolling out to audiologists by the end of the year and brings much-needed innovation to the 36 million Americans who suffer from hearing problems and spend $6 billion dollars on hearing aids annually.

“The current technology used in hearing aids is great, but we’re using 1950s technology for the molds,’ says Dr. Richard Kanor, a Brooklyn-based audiologist with over 30 years of experience. ‘The holy grail has always been a more accurate, faster 3-D representation of the ear canal.’”

See and/or hear the video for a more detailed explanation. And more at Wired.

Her “Posture Gauge—Chin“ measures chin placement and its associated degrees of extroversion or introversion—higher, up to + 3, for the more social among you, and lower, to – 3, for more solo types.

Her Ornamental Hand is made to position palm and fingers in the precise classical gestures of western figurative painting—an acquired repose.

And Crupi tackles some of the iconic body gestures and postures of guarded and unguarded moments. Even when we know these gestures as types, even when we modulate our faces and voices, these arrangements of limbs persist in universally betraying our emotions:

Unguarded Gestures—3.

Guarded Gestures—2.

This Power Gesture is ”an implement that requires the user to assume the authoritative ‘steepled fingers.’”

Unguarded Gestures—1.

And these posture-performers come with their own architecture, a home where they live when they’re not worn. But they’re never passive. Crupi writes that, at rest, “the pieces hang on frosted acrylic displays that resemble mirrors and have on their surface the dotted outline of a person assuming the same posture. The slightly reflective surface of the acrylic allows viewers to see their own posture, as they ‘fill in’ the outline form with their reflection. The warm tones of the frameless displays seek to evoke the character of the gestures as well.”

More at Jennifer’s web site. Thanks to Duane McLemore.

In this beautiful set of sculptural cutlery, Mickael Boulay provides an on-ramp for people developing motor skills for the first time—especially when those skills are already hampered by low muscle tone or coordination.

Or perhaps these would work at both ends of the life cycle, and for therapeutic skill-building times in between as well. “Transitions” morphs the knife, fork, and spoon from blunter objects that push food around to the refined spearing and scooping models of these familiar objects.

The video walks you through the design process with end users and an occupational therapist collaborator:

Transitions : the story (Updated version) from mickael boulay on Vimeo.

via The MEME.