Reflections: Design Meets Disability

This is one of the most enjoyable, out-of-the-box, unique books I’ve read for my academics. I couldn’t wait to share my thoughts on it, and yet, when the moment has arrived, I find myself at a loss for the right words and sentences to describe and do justice to this book! Anyone with a passing interest in design, engineering, interaction design, disability, art or even fashion would benefit from reading this book, or at least parts of it. It puts a completely different perspective into you, that you will start finding innovative approaches to intermingling disciplines that you thought should never ever be put together! I mean, engineering plus fashion?! Art plus disability?! Of course, the underlying thread here is that the reader should be able to empathize with (if not be impassioned about) helping to remove the stigma associated with the physically (and cognitively) challenged people in our society.

To start with, our notions of what constitutes as disability is very skewed. The World Health Organization has put forth that people cannot be categorically segmented into disabled and “abled”. Disability is a continuum like most variables and factors in our life. And almost all of us have varying levels of disability - in terms of our vision, hearing, and other bodily functions. We have our own medications and aids to resort to, our own difficulties and nagging complaints.

Put in such a light, it seems unfair that a person who has lost one limb, should be segregated from the rest with a stringent stamp of disability - right from the clothes they can wear, to the prosthesis they are given, with the attitude - “make the best use of what is given to you, and don’t expect more, for your condition cannot be ameliorated”. We don’t see that kind of culture prevailing in clinics and “shops” that give us a plethora of options to select the design, the color, the look and feel of the frames for our spectacles (now called as eye-wear), when wearing corrective lenses is one form of an augmentation similar to prostheses? I remember years before when wearing glasses to correct one’s vision was a stigma by itself!! Back in the day, the stigma was only further perpetuated through the glasses people had to wear. Glasses were only available in gargantuan, awkward square-shaped, thick black frames that hid half the face. The psychological scarring from this cannot be trivialized! Many women had to even compromise on who they could marry because of this stigma. Slowly, the infusion of a little bit of fashion, art and thoughtful design have resulted in sleeker frames, that complement people’s faces! Some people still choose to wear glasses over wearing contact-lenses. The point in case is that - people have options and have choices, respecting their preferences, and allowing them to express themselves. Eye-wear has become almost a fashion accessory. This has completely erased the stigma, the wearer’s lack of confidence, and the cultural and social issues surrounding it. It doesn’t seem ludicrous to aim for such a change in the culture of design of hearing aids, wheel-chairs, communication aids, speech-synthesizers, crutches and prosthesis, does it?

Medical and rehabilitation engineers often fail to factor in the cultural and social implications of giving people prostheses that are rigidly functional, but not aesthetically pleasing. Moreover, there is no choice in what they get. Engineers are prone to say - Why on earth should a prosthetic limb be aesthetic? Isn’t it a waste of time? Wrong. This dismissal that everything related to aesthetics, and look and feel is just too superfluous and cosmetic, is a very narrow perspective. It might help if we stretched our boundaries and considered aesthetics, design and fashion with a tolerant attitude. It’s not always shallow - our body is essential in defining our identity. What we wear and how we present ourselves, is a projection of our self-expression and identity. Besides, it is highly emotional. This thought might be derided by spiritualists and philosophers, but if you are a realist, you would realize the psychological necessities for being comfortable in your body and in what you choose to wear. In our perfectionist society, I agree that an obsession with the perfect body and looks, seeps into materialism and consumerism, and is definitely not healthy. But, there are limits to the austerity that we can advocate. People with physical challenges already face an immense psychological trauma of grappling with the changes in their life - if their challenges are exacerbated through “assisitive” augmentations that just widen the gulf between them and their social and cultural identities, it is extremely emotionally damaging. As one designer put it - if we can invest research and time into designing so many variants and flavors of toothpaste and toothbrushes to please a wide audience, shouldn’t we attempt to provide at least half as many choices in the design of assistive products that directly impact lives?

Graham Pullin powerfully makes the case for considering the social and cultural aspects of disability, rather than stereotyping and homogenizing an entire population’s “needs”. Designers and engineers must acknowledge that there is bound to be a diversity of needs and preferences. And the part of the book that I liked the best was Pullin’s suggestion to designers to look for commonality of needs across people. Regardless of whether one has hearing aids, wears glasses, or wears a prosthetic leg, there are bound to be some needs that overlap across the boundaries. Tap on these “resonant needs” to design products that are both accessible, aesthetic and functional to the majority of the population - so there is no label that Watch X is worn by the visually impaired versus Watch Y is worn by the hearing impaired etc... This is the sort of concept behind “Universal Design”, but Pullin takes it up by a notch through his examples that adopt a minimalistic and aesthetic approach, instead of trying to clutter the product with features and functionality  to accommodate a wide group of people. As Google and Apple have demonstrated - good design is simplicity personified in elegance and functionality. The design examples in the book are awe-inspiring (at least to someone from within the field!), and really broadens our thinking horizons.

Pullin encourages an inter-disciplinary approach towards designing products, technology and assistive devices for the physically and cognitively challenged. Engineers are rigorously trained to view everything as a problem that needs to be solved. The human elements are often lost in the solutions. Sometimes what is required is not a solution - but merely a different perspective, attuning oneself to a novel idea. Why not playfully explore solutions, or seek to redesign with the attitude of that of an eccentric fashion-designer or a furniture designer who think beyond norms to innovate a skirt or a chair? Put engineers, designers and people from fashion and art together in the same room - wouldn’t the outcomes be phenomenally creative, functional and aesthetic? Each discipline has something valuable to learn from the other and contribute to each others' way of thinking. While it might seem impossible to work together, the common cause should carry enough momentum to deliver sensitive, elegant and intelligent designs.

The book teems with inspirational design ideas that put a spin on one’s imagination and creativity. True to Pullin’s repeated assertion - his ideas really do make design for disability turn on its head. A brilliant read.

Reflections: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Everybody is likely to be proud and content of at least one of their attributes... and possibly worried of losing it someday. I for one used to be quite happy with my memory. It served me well for a little more than two decades of my life and I basked in the glowering warmth of those who dearly wished I would forget a few things. Perhaps I incurred far too many curses, for now my ability to retain much in my memory has been rapidly dwindling, causing me to resort to reminders for reminders. As I have rattled on previously, one's memory is far too precious in defining one's identity. My recent fear is me waking up in another twenty years (if at all) and wondering who I am. With such a strained panic, if some wizard were to materialize in front of me and ask me if I would make a trade to gain an expansive photographic memory which would be in tact no matter how old I aged, wouldn't I love to jump at the offer? Absolutely. But that's what nerds like me ask for...memory. If a vain teenager were asked this question, what do you think she would like to retain no matter how old she became? Wrinkle free-skin, luscious hair, a perky body. Beauty. Youth. To many, beauty and youth are the definitions of their identity... things that they cling onto with a crazed unimaginable fear of losing themselves one day. So, what if such a wish did come true? Would she have the world under her feet? Would she be the luckiest person in the world? Would she be comfortable with such vanity and superficiality and not let them taint her conscience?

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an incredibly interesting psychological experiment on the depths of human vanity. Oscar Wilde deftly explores how we define morality and conscience and what shape we give to our soul. Dorian Gray is an extremely handsome man with perfectly chiseled features. He inspires a painter to give life to his beauty through an exquisite portrait. Just as how Eve was hypnotically deceived and "poisoned" by the snake, Dorian's mind falls into a trance due to a cunning influence of a friend, and in a moment of frenzy he makes a feverish wish to give anything to preserve his beauty, while the lifeless portrait of him would instead bear the signs of his old age. And the wish comes true.

I received this book as part of a surprise parcel from my exceptionally generous and sweet friend, who just woke up one morning and decided to send me gifts! I really am lucky to have such friends! And being the mind reader that she is, all the books she sent completely appeal to me! And this book hit the bull's eye.

All our scriptures insist that any pursuit for the satisfaction of the senses leads us to misery. But an accompanying view is that human beings live on instincts. Our ancestors survived because they heedlessly acted on their senses. It seems to be discordant with our nature to rebel against our instincts, to suppress them and contrive the necessity to act rationally and in concert with what we have been taught as good and virtuous. Dorian Gray represents a man who was convinced that man achieves his highest sense of purpose and integrity, if and only if, he were to focus on pleasuring his senses, with very little thought or suppression. He turns into someone who awakens the "evil Mr.Hyde" from within him, and feeds him with his vanity, materialism and callousness. The pleasure of sadism corrupts him. But something in him that represents him, deteriorates due to this hedonistic life. With every sin, every materialistic hoarding, his portrait turned ugly, evil and aged. The horrific transformation that Dorian could witness is shown as a metaphor, mirroring the deterioration of his soul. As much as Dorian derives pleasure from its atrophy, he couldn't completely be blind to it. Wilde hints at how our conscience, even if it be made separate from our body, cannot be ignored. It is sure to haunt us, no matter how much we isolate ourselves from it.

This, in essence, was Wilde's take on the philosophy of morality. Man's implicit conscience defines morality for him, no matter what religion, or era. Sins need not be categorized as applicable to the Victorian era, or the present era; the conscience always knows. As natural as it might sound to always act in tune with our senses, if the mind is totally cut off, our acts and decisions tend to run out of hand, and place us in scenarios wherein our senses can no longer help us, or benefit in any way. In a philosophical sense, Wilde seems to start with the hypothesis that the mind and the body need to be separate, but he crafts a clever tale to convincingly disprove the hypothesis, asserting that the mind (the soul/the conscience) and the body need to harmonize with one another. He also burrows into the ways and means through which man defines and values his identity. In reality, one's identity is deeper than what the body embodies. Personality is the result of the orchestration of many subtle factors emanating from our consciousness and self-awareness. It is difficult to give form, shape or color to them. But that is what Art tries to capture. A good artist is one who is perceptive to see through such ethereal aspects and is creative and imaginative to represent them through a physical, abstract artifact. In the context of such a discussion, Wilde also explores the meaning of Art and the role of an artist in capturing the abstract from a concrete physical form. Does Art mirror the artist or the inspiration? Or does it instead obscure the artist? What does Art truly represent? Or what should Art truly represent?

As dark and brooding as the book might appear, Wilde's masterful and contemplative writing is a treat. Despite the tragedies, the cynicism and the pessimism, the book encodes hope and optimism for humanity.

Evil Genius

All critics were floored by the cinematography, the acting, screenplay, and the original score of the movie... all these elements were so brilliantly rendered. But they also had to concede that the movie was morally repulsive. It presented a worldview that one race was the most superior, and that the members had the right to deride and mistreat humanity. Cruelty to the old was shown as necessary, and childless women were justified to be abused by men. Despite the movie perpetuating such horrendous injustices, some critics argued that it was a great work of art from the perspective of technological artistic rendition. Such innovative, praiseworthy techniques were employed that they felt that the movie should be released from a cinematic art standpoint. However to many, the message that the movie conveyed couldn't be separated from the medium through which it was conveyed, that they couldn't appreciate one aspect while utterly loathing many other aspects. Should the movie be exempted from being banned purely due to its artistic merits? Are the art enthusiasts right in citing freedom of expression of art? (Original Source: "The Pig that wants to be Eaten", Julian Baggini)

I have been mulling over this for the last few days, trying quite hard to step away from the apparent, nagging practicality of the issue. My greatest difficulty (as faced by the critics in the excerpt) is to tease apart the medium and the message. To me, it just doesn't make sense to call something a work of art unless both the concept and the technique come together holistically. The greatest artists of our times are lauded for not merely their technical merit... if so, there are tens of thousands of art students in accomplished universities who are flawless in their technical adroitness; artistic genius comes together through conception, and rendition of a concept that is clothed with technical brilliance.

However, on my recent pondering, I was reminded of a particular challenge in Food Network's Challenge series. The competition was to design and put together a crystallized sugar display that artistically depicted the theme of a literary classic. I love watching such challenges, and this particular competition really piqued my interest. However the results were a little disappointing to me. This is probably the only instance when I could differentiate the technical and artistic components from the theme/concept depicted. Of the 4 groups, there was one team whose display exhibited expert technical skills and was visually very aesthetic; however their depiction of the book's theme was not up to mark, and in fact I couldn't find much correlation in their design to the actual story of the classic... but the piece by itself was a beautiful abstract piece of art. On the other hand, there was another team whose depiction of the classic was expertly done, but they lacked in technical expertise and their piece did not come together with much visual appeal. The judges seemed to be in much deliberation, but finally the team with expert technical and visual representation won. I would have probably awarded another team which did reasonably well in both components, in spite of their not greatly excelling in each component.

Another example of a movie that faced a similar fate is the Hindi movie Khaagaz Ke Phool, directed by Guru Dutt. It has been documented that when the movie was initially released it was met with cold disapproval, for the concepts it explored seemed to be too revolutionary in the 1950s of Indian society. Many were deeply offended by its open exploration of "morally depraving" ideas such as infidelity. Despite its great artistic value from a technical, cinematic point of view, the movie failed to appeal. But in recent times, Guru Dutt has been posthumously acclaimed for the movie, and the movie is still hailed as a memorable work of art.

However, in contrast to Guru Dutt's movie, the one in the excerpt doesn't deal with merely revolutionary concepts that are currently hard for society to digest; neither does it offer much intellectual speculation on progressive changes in society. I doubt that in the coming hundreds of years, humanity would ever rationalize to go back on certain very basic virtues, such as treating women, elderly and the whole of humanity with respect and consideration. In all these thousands of years, humanity still abides by some very basic principles of living that have remained untouched by all our numerous societal revolutions. Putting aside the debates on artistic merits, it's obvious that the welfare and harmony of society come first. Any work of expression that vilifies human instincts in such negative ways should not be allowed to perpetuate. Such thoughts and ideas pander to extremely inhumane instincts, that the argument on freedom of expression of art is very trivial to me. And the elite art enthusiasts form such a very slim percentage that the movie is bound to reach a majority of audiences on whom the message will leave a stronger impact, than the artistic splendour. Finally, my definition of art is a representation which integrates a delicately beautiful thought in an aesthetically appealing manner; one without the other cannot be suitably called as art. I think the movie should be banned.

Picasso on the Beach

As Roy looked down from the cliffs, he saw a man drawing on the sands of the beach. He peered closely to take a look at the image and his heart jumped a beat as he viewed the emerging drawing that showed multiples angles of an extraordinary face. It seemed like a Picasso! He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and he was dazed as if he was in a dream, for the man drawing on the beach was Picasso himself! He was painfully aware that the high tides of the beach would soon erase an original Picasso and his thoughts were racing to find some means to preserve the work of art. Well, he couldn't try to hold back the sea, nor could he try to save all the sand holding the drawing. He could perhaps run home and fetch a camera to record the picture, which would anyway just be a record copy and not the original. But if he did try to run home, he would never make it in time to save the work from the waves. Perhaps the only thing he could do was to enjoy the experience of the work of a magnificent piece of art from the master himself. Yet, Roy had mixed feelings and didn't know whether to smile or cry (Source: "In a Season of Calm Weather" by Ray Bradbury)


It's obvious from the excerpt that this is not exactly a puzzle to be solved; there isn't really a solution to Ray's dilemma. I guess the essence of this hypothetical scenario is to reflect on our views on art, the immortality we tend to associate to visual arts, and probably how the spirit and essence of participating/experiencing art is often overridden by the materialistic significance attached to the physical form of art.


Is it trivial of us humans to try and preserve Art? If Michelangelo's, Picasso's, Monet's works were not preserved, wouldn't our generation be deprived of reveling in their splendor? If Beethoven's, Mozart's and Bach's musical notes were never recorded, I would acknowledge that it is indeed a loss. But at some level, is the real spirit of the original piece lost when there are reproductions of these master pieces? There can be millions of color prints of Monet's paintings, but none of those come close to the actual piece, or is it really so? Is our intent behind preserving master pieces a vain attempt to immortalize the artist and the work, in a denial to acknowledge our own mortality, and the inevitable mortality of the physical form of art?


I've always seen the preservation/restoration of Art as one way of passing on a rich heritage and culture to the future generations. Art evokes sensory and spiritual pleasures and it seems quite reasonable for us to want to cherish the sensory treats and expose the next generation to those. So in that regard, was it a tragedy that Ray could not find a way to preserve the Picasso on the beach? It is indeed a loss for millions of art enthusiasts and future generations, but what Ray experienced is priceless in comparison to the loss. Ray not only got to view a masterpiece, he was also privileged to experience it's creation. The Native Americans believe that a part of our soul and spirit fuses into our creations. In that sense, Ray participated in the creation of the art work, thereby experiencing a level of spiritual and visual treat incomparable to just viewing the physical proof of the work.


I've always craved to see an artist at work; observing a painter from their very first stroke, a composer humming the very first set of notes to weave together a musical piece, even a cook starting from the very first ingredient... experiencing creativity is something subliminally beautiful and awe inspiring....at least to me. Another aspect which is special about visual arts is our perception that the significance of their portrayal is immortalized, coagulated in time. Is it an attempt to not acknowledge our mortality? Well, I feel it is our acknowledgment of mortality that creates a sense of awe on the art piece that was not only present before our lives, but will probably be so, even after the end of our lives.


The following beautiful lines from John Keats' immortal poem, Ode on the Grecian Urn is what comes to mind.
".....

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' "