Source: Anninvitation.com
When our phones and computers run out of battery, we may become frustrated. While inconvenient, we likely forgive these technologies for failing us. These failures are transient, and ultimately forgettable. Forgivable, even — we carefully recharge our phones and tote them around, despite our previous squabbles. But what if our body fails us? Sprained ankles, weak lungs, chemical imbalances, limited hearing ranges, truncated visual peripheries, mobility impairments? The complexity of the human body is astonishing, and if there’s anything that the design process has taught me, it is that the more complex a design, the more likely a part – or the whole – is to fail.
Truly, it’s astonishing how many functions the body serves is supposed to serve. In my opinion, one of the most exciting aspects of living in the 21st century – as opposed to the 20th or the 19th or the 18th and so forth – is that there is no shortage of new technologies aiming to mitigate or altogether resolve some of these “failures”. That is, of course, only if somebody wants to utilize them.
From advances in pharmaceuticals to advances in hardware for bone fortification, it’s interesting to see the world’s formal and informal design and engineering community look at the body as a design inspiration. From rectifying our inabilities to “stand up straight”, to lessening the impact of Alzheimer’s on a patient, it’s interesting to think about what we consider assistive technologies today, and to ponder – or even dare to project – what these technologies will look like in the future.
With complicated designs come complicated solutions, and the body is the most complicated design of them all. It would be interesting to pick a part of the body on a kinesiology chart and think about how to protect, fortify, or amplify its power and potential. I feel so lucky to be a part of a course that empowers us as blossoming designers and engineers to think of the gifts of the body, and how to improve the “human experience.” After all… “it’s the only place [we] have to live.”
Source: Jim Rohn, motivational speaker and entrepreneur.
The top chart you have in your post is very interesting, and I look forward to seeing how things actually progress. The idea of “augmented human ability” is powerful, and I often times wonder where the line should be between “correcting” impairments, and “improving” upon an individuals current abilities. As technology progresses I think we are going to be faced with some very interesting moral/philosophical dilemmas about how we use our technological gifts.