Why adorn equipment?
by Ju Gosling aka ju90
We
live in an age where we are surrounded by equipment and machinery that we rely
on to aid and extend our abilities, and thus to make life easier. Some of this
aids our most basic bodily functions, such as cooking and eating utensils, clothing,
seating and bedding. Some extends our domestic capabilities and conserves our
time, such as washing machines, dishwashers and hoovers. Some extends our mental
abilities, such as personal organisers and calculators. Some extends our ability
to communicate, such as mobile phones and pagers. Some extends our mobility,
such as bicycles and cars.
We take all of this equipment for granted, we think of it as
being "natural" - despite the fact that many people in the world are
without some or all of it, and that we can all survive without it. We also think
it is natural for this equipment to be designed well, and to be aesthetically
pleasing. And we think it is natural to have a choice of designs available to
us, because we all have different needs and tastes. For example, we think nothing
of the fact that we can buy a range of different covers for our mobile phones,
offering us a variety of colours and patterns to suit our different moods and
lifestyles.
Why, then, do we also think it is natural for any type of equipment
designed specifically to meet disabled people’s needs to be uniform, unadorned,
ugly, medicalised and unfashionable? Why do we take it for granted that disabled
people do not have the same range of tastes and desires as everybody else? Why
are those with the least uniform bodies treated as having the most uniform needs?
Perhaps one reason is that disabled people are often regarded
as being less than human - after all, we do not enjoy the same civil and human
rights - and therefore as not requiring the same consideration as other people.
But this is clearly ridiculous. The human "norm" is in fact non-existent.
Everybody is a unique mixture of strengths and weaknesses - emotional, physical
and intellectual - and these vary over time. Throughout history, it has been
as normal to be disabled as to be non-disabled: archaeologists continue to excavate
skeletons of warriors, chieftains and ordinary people who also happened to be
disabled.
Perhaps another reason is the impact of more recent history.
With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, equipment and
manufacturing was standardised to meet the needs of the "standard"
body, and people with "non-standard" bodies were excluded. Working-class
disabled people, who previously had always had a role to play in society, were
now regarded as useless if they could not access and operate standardised machinery
- despite the fact that many of them became disabled as a direct result of this
work. Meanwhile middle and upper-class disabled people were treated as "invalids",
a highly romanticised and desirable group, and could access equipment that was
tailor-made to meet their needs.
Then, in the 20th century, the introduction of the National Health
Service alongside state socialism set a norm of standardisation. The needs of
the "non" - or "sub-normal" body were categorised alongside
that of the "normal", so the response to those needs could also be
standardised. Doctors, too, categorised both impairments and disability aids
in a desire to understand the world through a "scientific" system
of classification, rather than accepting that everyone’s experiences of
impairment and the needs resulting from these are different. Meanwhile the 19th-century
producers of bespoke equipment for disabled people largely disappeared.
Perhaps another reason is punishment. Disabled people embody
truths that we find unpalatable in today’s society: we are all mortal;
and science’s ability to "cure" - to triumph over nature - is
very limited. It is easier to blame disabled people for failing to get "better",
or for sinning in the eyes of our gods. Certainly we use the language of punishment
when describing disabled people’s relationship to their equipment: we talk
about being "confined" to a wheelchair, or "forced" to use
a walking stick or spinal brace. Yet, as with mobile phones and bicycles, this
equipment is extending our abilities, and thus is liberating rather than confining.
As a society, we also subscribe to the myth of the "perfect
body", and perhaps we desire to punish or dismiss disabled people for so
obviously not having this. But our ideas of "perfection" are flawed:
we are all imperfect; or, to put it another way, we are all perfect. Acknowledging
this fact rather than continuing to aim for the impossible would make the 21st
century a happier place to live for all of us.
Certainly one reason is economic. Disabled people are the poorest
group within society, and have the highest daily living expenses. This means
that the majority of us rely on the state to provide us with specialist clothing
and equipment, either through the NHS or social services departments, with ownership
generally remaining with the state. This means that, while meeting the needs
of disabled people is a massive industry, disabled people themselves do not
have any consumer power. Meanwhile the state continues to accept the status
quo of poor design as being "natural".
Yet when we adorn our equipment, when it reflects our individuality
and our personality, when its design meets the same high standards as equipment
for non-disabled people, we ourselves are revealed. Not as abnormal, defective,
deformed, in-valid, incapable, genderless, asexual or deviant, but as people
with the same range of needs and desires as everyone else. Only when this is
done will others see the things that really disable us - the abuse, discrimination,
prejudice and poverty, the rejection, isolation and institutionalisation, the
excluding design of our environment - and realise that it is this, not our bodies,
which needs to change.
Why adorn equipment? The real question is: why not?
Ju Gosling aka ju90 is a
writer and multimedia artist.
Illustration: Handy Grips by Kelly Sant
© The City Gallery,
Leicester and the artists: 2001
This site was built by Ju
Gosling aka ju90 during an artist's residency at Oriel
31 in November 2001
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