I will continue telling you about Aimee Mullins (you can view her presentation called “12 pairs of legs” at tem.com). This is the third part of my summary (the two previous ones were posted earlier).
Aimee’s next adventure was participating in Matthew Barney’s film opus called “The Cremaster Cycle”. At this point of her life, she stopped trying to replicate the humanness of her artificial legs as the only aesthetic ideal. They made for her “glass legs” out of optically clear polyurethane (a.k.a. bowling ball material) and other legs that were cast in soil with a potato root system growing within and beetroots coming out the top. After that, they created another character – a half-woman and half cheetah with articulated paws, claws and a tail that whipped around like a gecko’s. Later, they collaborated on a new pair of legs that were similar to those of a jelly fish. The only purpose for all of these pieces of art was to provoke the senses and ignite the imagination.
Now, Aimee has more than a dozen pairs of prosthetic legs of different lengths and types. Thanks to this variety she was able to change her height and have an entirely new relationship with the terrain under her feet as well as door jams. She remembered that once she brought a new pair of legs with her and attended a very fancy party. With those legs she increased her height to 6’1’’ (instead of her normal 5’8’’). Another woman that had know her for years were stunned when she saw her and said that it was not fair that she could change her height whenever she wanted to.
At that moment, Aimee realized that when it comes talking about the disabled person, we should not be discussing only how to overcome their deficiency but rather concentrate more about their potential! People that society once considered to be disabled, can now be the architects of their own identities and help to design their own bodies. However, the most important thing is that now people can move closer to understanding our collective humanity by combining cutting-edge technology with age-old poetry,
Aimee is sure that we all have tremendous strengths and glorious disabilities and finished by quoting one of Shakespeare’s verses: “If you pick us, do we not bleed, and if you tickle, do we not laugh?” We all belong to the human race – beings that are extremely vulnerable and very strong at the same time!
P.S. I hope you managed to watch this video at ted.com and had an opportunity to think one more time about the human being and humanity, disability and superability…