Hydra Versus Cyborg

I have a strong fascination with body art. I have always been captivated by tattoos and to a lesser extent non traditional piercings. In part my interest stemmed from the stigma attached to both the disabled body and people who knowingly modified their body via tattoos. In the last twenty years society has experienced a veritable revolution in disability and body art. Today we people with a disability are protected by law, civil rights legislation known as the ADA. Indeed, we have had 40 years of progressive legislation all designed to empower people with disabilities. In body art, tattooing is now acknowledged to be a fine art. Tattoo artists and their customers are no longer restricted to bikers, sailors and other social outlaws. Today anyone and everyone seems to have at least one tattoo. I love this change and hate it at the same time. It is great people are more open to body art and always look forward to seeing art literally walk by me. However, I mourn the way tattooing has been commodified by television shows and mundane things like housewares and clothing . Likewise, some time I miss the old days when I fought an up hill and pitch battle for access and disability rights. Don't get me wrong, equal rights is still a battle for people with disabilities but an ever so polite one. How does tattooing and disability relate beyond the concept of stigma? How we perceive the body, the tattooed body, disabled body and modified body in the broadest sense of the term has undergone a radical transformation. We take for granted the incorporation of the body and technology. But how we define, value and perceive that technology is what captivates me. I think my wheelchair is the essence of cool. Others see it as the ultimate symbol of disability. I think my mother's prosthesis is also cool. Others look at the loss of a limb and not the technology that replaced it. This too adds a layer of complexity. The mixing of technology and the body, much of it from the health industrial complex is dependent upon how we value a given device. Cochlear implaints for instance are valued and an entire industry now exists around their usage. Do we value interpreters for the deaf? Not so much. How about hearing aides for the elderly. No this is not valued or covered by health insurance. Who cares if the elderly can communicate.

The thoughts above were prompted by a post by Wheelchair Dancer on February 27 entitled Crip Anatomies. She wrotte:

"I am beginning to be disturbed by the almost universal insistence that my body, my flesh body that is, disappears when I gain an assistive technology body part. I would rather begin to investigate myself and my movement potential as a kind of hydra. And I do mean hydra instead of cyborg. In cyborgs, the mechanical and the fleshly are distinct but fused into one humanoid and recognizably humanoid organism. There's no excess; technology replaces the flesh bits. Hydras seem to allow for the possibility of the technical and the flesh to continue to exist together, even if they organism they jointly create is now akin to that which traditionally has been relegated to the category of freak or monster."

I love the idea of hydras. Something about cyborgs have always bothered me. Perhaps it is my horror of Star Trek Borg like organisms or cyborgs from the Terminator movies or if you want to go farther back to Frankenstein. The essence of these cyborgs was the destruction of the creatures humanity. In some ways my wheelchair does the exact same thing--it destroys my humanity because all people seem to notice is the wheelchair and not the human using it. Hydras seem to incorporate both the human and technological component. Rather than seeing a freak or monster I see a unique human being, one that has done what we human beings have always done--adapt. I am paralyzed and I have adapted via my wheelchair. Blind people adapt via use of a guide dog. These sort of observations could go on and on. The point is we as a people have melded technology and the human body in ways never dreamed possible 20 years ago--roughly when the ADA was passed into law. What we are slow to change is not technology but how we perceive those advances and inventions. It is here where the problems lies. We value cell phones, computers, the internet, televisions and gaming platforms. One can access these technologies with ease. Why our choices are diverse and as varied as the colors of a rainbow. How important is this technology? Our economy would crumble without it. Now try and access the usage of a wound vacuum such as the one I used or purchase a wheelchair. All of sudden our choices are severely limited. Wound vacuums are not covered by insurance. Wheelchairs are covered but you get a stripped down model that will last a year or two. And we are talking about high priced items. Wheelchair can easily top $8,000 to $10,000 and more. Try and service a wheelchair in less than 24 hours and you are out luck. What happens if yoru cell phone or computer breaks? It can be serviced or replaced at a host of places. Just today I saw that happen when I bought a fancy new cell phone. This to me is an obvious social issue. One that requires a social revolution comparable to the technological revolution that has already taken place. I for one hope to see more hydras working on the problem.