The itDf team presented at the 4th Annual NNMHR Congress. The 90 minute panel session “Technologies and (In)Visibility in Disability Futures” took place on Friday 23rd April 2021.
The panel showcased the current work of the project team as well as plans for the future. Across 90 minutes we presented our research and explored issues that surround the (in)visibility of disability technologies through the multi-disciplinary approaches and formats that reflect our expertise and interests. Ellie Wakeford, Stuart Murray, Amelia DeFalco and Luna Dolezal discussed questions of technological absence/presence as they write embodiment in contemporary speculative fictions, with a particular concentration on surveillance, biotechnologies and waste, Robots and ectogenesis. Katie Brown and Graham Pullin explored alternatives to contemporary assumptions that posit the ‘disappearance’ of future Augmentative and Alternative Communication, through brain-to-speech implants for example, in the context of co-constructed conversational interaction, the legibility of disability and disabled identities. Raymond Holt, Michael Szollosy and Tony Prescott focused specifically on emerging technologies, including the role companion robots and haptics can play in developing disability experience.
Introduction to telepresence
Michael Szollosy recorded this short video talk on telepresence for the Northern Network for the Medical Humanities Congress 2021.