Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs
Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs -- she's got a dozen amazing pairs -- and the superpowers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height ... Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be.
TED never ceases to inspire and educate...and within its virtual goodie bag, it's nice to be able to re-visit inspirational work.
She is certainly an inspirational woman. The fact that she has so many prosthetic legs that don't try to mimic 'normal' legs is interesting. Jonathan Baldwin made a post on the design studies blog some time ago about a new prosthetic limb which looked nothing like the limb it was replacing, in fact it looked like an iLimb. I think Jonathan made the point that rather than trying to hide the fact that you may have a false limb by using a crude representation of a human limb it was better to have a functional yet still aesthetically pleasing limb. I think Aimee re-enforces that.
ReplyDeleteInspirational indeed, for me she is the epitome of the long established relationship between the body & the machine (i.e. cyborg) Also, from a media scholarship perspective discourses of 'celebrity' status come interestingly into play.
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