I am interested in the barriers that are created when we pair eyes with seeing, fingers with touching, ears with hearing, and feet with walking. How do these familiar pairings invisibilize the plethora of other modes of seeing, hearing, and moving? And in considering the transference of written language, spoken language, body language, or even the suggestion or traces of language and what transcends language, how could we possibly NOT include perception of a given language into this entangled web?

Perception is always subjective, political, and debatable

Senses are perceived, or at least understood, through many modes of perception. However, these pairings mentioned above leave little room to explore what literally makes sense for many individuals. This perpetuates the lack of fluency of pairings outside the unfortunate simplistic and essential pairings named. Perception is always subjective, political, and debatable. In this bootcamp I was interested in what enables and aids different kinds of perception. I also wanted to note the potential and vast variety of adaptive methods that culminate in understanding. These pairing norms begin a path that probes into the problematics of binaries. However, I wanted to instead work at making sense of the many modes that aid perception.

Exceptions to the rule

Many individuals with visible impairments are separated out as exceptions to the (simple pairing of hearing with ears and seeing with eyes, etc) rule. This is an unfortunate demonstration of ableist notions that position disability and impairment as a site of tragedy. The radical disability model proposed by AJ Withers insists, “The tragedy of disability is not our minds and bodies but oppression, exclusion and marginalization” (“The Radical Model” n.p.). From a radical disability model perspective, how can we think and rethink movement mobility? And from a critical perspective, who isn’t included in these conversations, who is left out? By grounding the exploration within a radical disability model I aimed to call into question this construct that leaves the onus on a given individual to assimilate into the provided status quo in order to reap the benefits of such a position. The reality is that the singular nature of these pairings are more likely the exception as opposed to the rule. There is an entangled web of factors that contribute to the transference of language.

Moving from one location to another

My practical goals:

In my experiment, I looked to transform and participate in moving between different modes of language. I hoped to glean insight into the need for trans-modal fluency when considering the entanglement of body language, spoken language, written language, intonation, and inflection.

In this bootcamp, I experimented with the following questions: Can I write something else? Can I transcend the use of other modalities and senses to trans-sense, or in a way trans-mode my writing? Can I use a logic more akin to data architecture and spreadsheets? Can I work with a non-linear architecture to create less predictable directories and connections? What kind of working practice can I develop where I can still write but use a method that is more in tune with an adaptive, connecting, shapeshifting (even “messy”) mode?

Given the barriers implicit within the process of normative pairings, my goal was to work at making sense of existing practices. What ingredients were necessary to make a more open understanding of perception possible or to enable the construction of altogether new pairings?  To accomplish this goal I needed to make sense of the following tensions: a) if and how adaptive strategies could aid in new pairings, b) what role tool(s) could have in fostering adaptive approaches, c) the role of translation and interpretation, and d) how de-familiarizing myself with these normative pairings might yield surprising results.

Consideration #1: Adaptive Approach

By embracing an adaptive approach, one that can lend itself well to trans-mode, trans-sense, trans-connection, and trans-communication, I hoped to better understand how to move from one mode to another.

Consideration #2: Tools

I wished to use tools in subversive ways, not merely take on tools and unwittingly aid and abet ableist assumptions of assimilation into the status quo. Instead, I wanted to move towards a better understanding of how to use tools as participating machines so that they can enable a mix and match, harm-reduction adaptive workflow. I mixed and matched via the use of a tools that enable the activation of an adaptive process plus an adaptive platform, if you will to move from one location to another.

Consideration #3: Translation and interpretation

Traditionally translators work with written words and interpreters with spoken words. There are a number of different ways that we move between spoken and written language and a variety of modes by which one can “hear” the spoken word or “read” the written word.

Consideration #4: De-familiarizing my process with ableist assumptions

In my experiment, I engaged in a sort of “how can I write something else?” approach. I looked to transform and participate in moving between different modes of language. When considering the entanglement of body language, spoken language, written language ,and their intonation and inflection, I hoped to glean insight into the need for trans-modal fluency.

I came to writing later than others and have always been against the philosophy that one has to learn the basics before you break the rules. These ideas of learning that are so entrenched in a linear framework have not stopped me in the past. When thinking about disability studies, my desire is to ground my research and program of study within a disability methodology, but can I write something else, something different than the norm, before learning “how” to write?

Bootcamp breakdown:

More specifically for this bootcamp assignment, I engaged a friend in conversation, using dictation software on both my computer and phone and hers in the other room. We typed our responses to one another through email and gchat. The result was a series of communication misfires and misinterpretations combined with some valuable, albeit circuitous revelations.

Noting the flaws in dictation software has been popular for at least a decade now and anyone who has ever had that voicemail feature that turned your answering machine messages into texts (all cap texts) has had a good laugh over the hilarity of lost-in-dictation and the ‘all caps’ that added extra emphasis to all dictation mistakes. Though dictation software is becoming increasingly better it can still be not completely accurate or reliable. In this experiment it often took two, three, or even five tries to get the software to pick up on what I was trying to say.

Trying to train a computer to interpret what I had to say often needed contextual phrases that weren’t relevant to my overall idea but helped the computer understand the specific word I was struggling to get it to recognize through relation. The conversation also helped reveal some curious assumptions about the software itself. Firstly, there were a surprising number of Christian-themed misinterpretations:

Cathartic was Catholic

Nope not the same, cathartic / Catholic = fail

Scriptor showed up as Scriptures = another dictation fail

Adam and eve, no children in need

adam and eve then became adamant me!

script again became scripture

I tried to write about Hire key, whoops no

Hired, no that’s wrong too.

Hierarchy!

And when asking out loud to the dictation tool, about it’s assumptions – assumptions was sunshine.

And then this one, questionably a Christian reference… but when saying advocate it showed up as etiquette.

A switch from the computer dictation software to the one on my iPhone revealed a slightly higher success rate, but by the end it also failed by inadvertently triggering Siri to join in on the conversation.

The dictation game of telephone between the phone and computer quickly disintegrated from several words to none in five passes.

1) Computer to phone > eyes seeing, fingers touching, ears hearing, feet walking

2) Phone to computer > Siri is hearing

3) Computer to phone >  or

4) Phone to computer > oh

…. and then there was nothing left

On the other hand, sometimes it picked up on my frustrations in pretty perfect and poetic ways.

On the fifth time of me trying to get it to write out “colloquial language,” it interpreted it as, “I will kill language,” which was pretty apt given how annoyed I was in that moment. And given how much coaxing the dictation software takes to get anything right, it’s surprising how kooky bootcamp still felt. My final “throw in the towel and give up” moment ended by me saying: “Well, this is not working,” which the dictation oh-so-boldly spat back out as “well, this is working.”

Bootcamp Reflections

My tool is Christian?

Yes, surprise surprise, your tool is a product of its environment.  An actually really helpful insight with a more ridiculous silver lining of being justified in saying that Jesus 2014 is hiding within our tools. Enabling the blind to see and the deaf to hear through new modes, a ‘gift of tongue’ some might say.

But more importantly, within this context, seeing and hearing might mean something trans-modal and different than you might think: there is a greater pull and call to never assume who sees with what and how or through what senses people hear.

The Church of Writing vs. adaptive processes

Or, Modernism vs. Postmodernism

The church of writing preaches the notion that one can simply learn to read and write from a blank slate. This blank page approach supports the more normative pairings and values and assimilates into the mode-prescribed match. A dictation tool and dictation method that fills the page with nonsense is actually what makes sense from a more post-modern perspective. All the lost-in-dictation utterances, all the white noise, can in fact enable a starting place of sorting and compiling, resorting, deleting and rewriting. Imagine if instead as students we were given exercises in dictation and copy-and-paste. Imagine if our reverence for flexibility and adaptive approaches was greater than our fear of plagiarism, or even worse, “self” plagiarism. Imagine learning the rules of sharing as opposed to the rules of assimilation.

Adaptive play as a means

There is no one way. Back and forth. Lost and found. Here and there. Instead of wallowing in the pits of lost-in-translation, I wonder if these exposures of the inherent preferences of our tools, their exposing mistakes, actually make them more endearing. So what if my computer has Christian leanings? I am interested in the way that we can mix and match the binary of sensations such as the non-normative pairing of the feel of music, reading through your ears, seeing or having a conversation through touch. Trans sense. How can we mix and match? Look at what happens when sound behaves like light. Is it light? Or is it sound? And lastly, what about the features in language such as silent sounds or silent letters that are not said aloud? All these supposedly fixed categories easily fall apart; in fact, it’s vitally important that they do!

What is my discovery through my experiment? 

Harm reduction. Translating is hard and time consuming. Translation requires a certain amount of knowledge or collaboration. Trying to fit something into a mode that you don’t know or understand is like poking around in the dark. Also, developing language is an exciting process that reminds me of a recycling sign; even though it isn’t going somewhere fast it is still moving to new ground.

Works Cited

Withers, AJ. “The Radical Model.” If I Can’t Dance, Is It Still My Revolution? n.p.

n.d. Web. Accessed 5 Dec 2014. http://still.my.revolution.tao.ca/radical