Along with Sara Hendren’s All Technology Is Assistive and Web Design for Neurodiversity. I watched Christine Sun Kim’s Closer Captions video.
I really loved reading and watching these; I think most of all, I love Hendren’s point of “Invisibility is Overrated”. It represents not only neurodiversity and disability becoming less stigmatized, but something beautiful and artistic. I think it’s something that should be applied to many things, even unrelated to neurodiversity and disability. For example, “Starface”, an acne patch brand, was one of the first companies to develop acne patches that stand out. Prior to that, just like hearing aids, artificial limbs and other medical technologies, they were always designed to look as “normal” and invisible as possible, when as Hendren highlights, “normalcy” is just a harmful set of cultural measurements that hold no truth when predicting wellness and healthy relationships. I believe as artists we’re already more aligned than most towards these ideas. Normalcy never creates amazing art; uniqueness and boldness does, and that’s what many neurodiverse and disabled identities are.
Christine Sun Kim’s Closer Captions was also a beautiful watch. As a hearing person, it’s difficult to imagine what impact bad closed captions can have on a hearing-impaired person until you experience them yourself without sound. So often, thinking and innovation around disability and impairments are restricted to the scientific and medical field. Why shouldn’t they, if they’re such a serious matter? But Closer Captions shows why the arts, writing, and design are just as important in these issues. They’re just as intertwined with non-able-bodied quality of life as medical technologies and science are.