A new series of articles about the affects of technology on our bodies, our consciousness, and ultimately our species as a whole. *** Warning this post contains a poll.

An how-to guide on staying sane, real, and human in a technological world present and future.

Benedict Campbell on Sexy Cyborgs of the Future

I am starting investigations that have been inspired how my call for engineers of recreating my eye with a camera, went viral across the far reaches of the cyber-sphere. I found myself in a new landscape with looming questions and controversial challenges. Needless to say my persona has traveled the blogo-globe more than my physical body has – and I’d like to fill in the gaps.

I have been blogged about more that a simple one-eyed girl should (okay maybe I’m more complicated than I’d like to admit!); but really, a virtual woman with my name has made an insane amount of cameos throughout cyberspace carrying less characteristics belonging to me and more it seems of the blogger’s projections and to many this quantified composite cyber me is just as real as the real me.  This is why I’m telling it like it is  - to find my voice in the sea of other mes, to set the story straight from the source, not RT, Twitter, Facebooked, overheard, misunderstood, bastardized to sell papers, or to shock an audience.  No just a simple or not so simple one-eyed girls story on needing a metamorphosis.

With my bizarre Internet presence (go to http://personas.media.mit.edu/ to find your online identity,) so far several publications and hundreds of bloggers have speculated on what this means in the context of our time and what my impetus is for deciding to implant a camera in my ocular prosthesis – and I thought hey, who better to document then from the one doing it. Apropos to 1^st person P.O.V. of the eye-camera project.

Today’s persona: culture critic and auto-ethnographer, I propose to share with you the current process of building my bionic eye and the artistic process.   I will be publishing my research and findings; questions and frustrations. This is a partnership and the rules are to be civil, no more stupid comments about keeping the camera on in the girls locker room, will I keep it on while I go to the bathroom, or during sex – (Channel 5, I’m talking to you!) I’d much rather hear about new developments in bionic vision, funding, collaborations, exhibitions, video journalism, eye-deas!, etc. Let’s get a real dialogue going.

Body-Tech Critique, a series of articles about current trends in:

All told through my experimentation and interviews with experts in these areas.

This summer I presented my Camera Eye proposal to the MIT Media Lab. This is is launching a partnership with the Camera Culture Group who are currently developing many powerful and new cameras.  Although there are many hoops to jump, like funding, still having difficulty in sustaining this process — either way I am determined to move forward and build this damn eye already!

These are my words, my thoughts, with Moore’s Law and advancing rate of technology it is a trend sweeping our planet whether we know it or not. I’d like to be a part of this discussion as a participant – join me in my research, my questions, the conflicts, the ethics, and the response. It will surely promise to be a highly unusual ride.

I’ll leave you with a trailer for cautionary tale “We Live in Public” “Internet pioneer Josh Harris has spent his life implementing his unique vision of the future, where technology and media dictate human social interaction and define our personal identity.”:

Compare and Contrast: Friends and colleagues frequently send me info about bionic eyeballs …

NY Times

Burst of Technology Helps Blind to See

By PAM BELLUCK

via FAYE CHAO, photographer and new collaborator

AND…

WIRED
Microchip in the Eye Seeks to Restore Vision

By Priya Ganapati

via ANDY CAVATORTA, MIT Media Lab engineer and friend

Here’s how the implant works. The glasses that patients wear contains a coil that wirelessly transmits power to receiving coils surrounding the eyeball. The eyeball holds a microchip encased in a sealed titanium case to avoid damage from water seepage. The chip receives visual information and activates electrodes that in turn fire the nerve cells that carry visual input to the brain.

VS.

YouTube
“Miruko” the Wearable Eyeball Robot for Game System

via ERIC PELTIER, filmmaker and collaborator
When “Miruko” the video arrived in my inbox, the subject heading read: “if only it could be a bit smaller…” So true Eric, so true.

It somehow connects to an iPhone! Check it out:

“Miruko” is a wearble eyeball-shaped robotic game interface created by YUKAI-Engineering, in Japanese, ユカイ工学. http://ux-xu.com/

The main objective of the robot system is to extend our body and sensing ability.
The eyeball robot has a wi-fi module in order to communicate with host computer or with other devices and has a wireless CMOS camera embedded in the iris of the robot.

In other words, the medical field has some competition when it comes to the game-tech industry, for one thing I would much rather play with “Miruko” it is accessible and kid friendly. Did you notice how everyone was smiling? … and there were monsters, but not scary at all. I would be afraid to break one of those artificial retinas and have to pay for it, like my parents had to pay for the tainted merchandise when by accident I dropped hundred’s of multicolored gourmet rainbow candy when we were on vacation.

An oldy, but goody.

On July 29th, a muggy hot day in Cambridge I presented my story and camera eye concept to the Camera Culture group at the M.I.T. Media Lab. Challenging questions! But the good ol’ fashioned tough love helped me refocus my goals and clarify what my projects will be using my new camera eye. They are on board and enthusiastic — but in order to partner I need foundation support and BIG fundraising. (hint hint please visit the donation page .)

More updates to come…

(As an anniversary present to myself I decided to share this essay with you all. I wrote this last year.)

#21. grow a new eye

Last night I read that they cleaned off the matted dried blood from my face and the grass sticking out of my hair. Apparently I was repeating myself, “What happened? What happened?’ It didn’t make sense, so I asked again and again like an old woman with Alzheimer’s, and as the rescue angels swooped me up in their helicopter, all faded to black.

*

Cyclops, cyborg.. whatever I am now, I will never be the same. Then I tell myself snap out of it kiddo – the world doesn’t revolve around you, and besides you could have died, you should be happy that you’re alive.

Yesterday, I started working on my bucket list: I call it the Pausch list, named after the professor who died from pancreatic cancer 8 months after he delivered his farewell speech at Carnegie Mellon. I watched the inspirational video of his speech, about how to live and die well and how to achieve your childhood dreams. This video, by the way has four million hits on you tube. Online last words i.e. instant pausch-humous fame.

Things on my Pausch List:

1. sing in a band

2. study flamenco in Spain

3. own a vineyard

4. fall in love

*

In a restaurant in Mt. Shasta right after their entrees were served my parents got a call that I may not make it. I was being helicoptered to Redding, they drove and tried not to speed. The next call was that it looks like I will live, but I would probably have brain damage. My dad tells me that they had two cases of Crystal Geysers in the trunk and drank every last one before they got to the hospital. I guess when traumatized one becomes extremely thirsty.  To this day they keep the trunk packed with water, just in case.

This upsets me more than anything that had happened to me, the hell that my parents went through. Then they got the message, “Well, she may not have brain damage… but she’ll be blind.”

I woke in the hospital drowsy from the morphine, wiggled my toes, and then did a drugged out shimmy. Literally my first conscious thought was, oh good, I can dance. And they were wrong about being blind, I can see through my right eye just fine.

*

5.     go on a cruise

6.     help the disabled

7.     go on an archaeological dig

8.     learn to cook

*

Recently hired for a position that I had only dreamt of, a theater manager for my favorite struggling avant-garde theater space in the Mission. In the 70’s a bunch of artists / soon-to-be-burnt-out-hippies had squatted in the complex and now they run it. I worked my ass off to prove my worth – considering administration was never my thing. I was successful, the theatre’s golden child in a time of crisis. Weddings were looming in the fall and so I went on vacation.

Another test appeared suddenly and as shattering as an earthquake. I borrowed my dad’s jeep and it was packed solid, complete with bikes, coconuts, hoola-hoops, i.e. supplies for an adventure. Leaving my cousin’s wedding in Ashland to embark on my own single wild woman first time excursion to Burning Man. And afterwards the plan was, mad dash back home, then fly to Rome, and train down to Calabria for my oldest friend’s wedding. Then reluctantly go back to work a quick two and half weeks later.

*

“How has your accident changed you?” Pepe, one of the artists at the theater asks me, while he’s carving away at his humungous alien looking sculpture, the question I hate the most, also a question I desperately want to be asked. The crux of it is that it puts into focus that I have no answer. I stumble over my forced words. Try to brush it off. Or struggle to try to come up with something profound. But all I can think to say is, “I want to live more, I value everyday…” Trailing off, like it’s a question more than an answer.

*

I was extremely grateful for life, the days immediately following the tumble. It could have been from the euphoria from surviving an extremely close call combined with the morphine drip. These were life altering close calls. You can measure the close calls with millimeters. Whatever sliced the flesh between my eyebrow and my eye was millimeters from right eye-lid, my lens, iris, and pupil. Then it would have been a world of seeing eye dogs, brail, and darkness. I was millimeters away from knocking my frontal lobe on the dashboard so hard I would have had paralysis from brain damage or worse death. These millimeters I hold dear. They contain the space between life and death.

*

9. road trip across the U.S.

10. live on the beach

11. live in the country

12. own horses

13.  grow vegetables

*

After detoxing from the pain medication, my beloved elixir, a wonderful combination of vicodine and codeine I remember sobbing and shaking uncontrollably in my Father’s arms, finally sobering to the reality of my eye.

If my parents were a body, my Father would be the flesh, blood, and the heart. My Mother: the skeleton, spine, and the brain.

The way Mother copes is by cleaning. She’s not just a clean freak; she’s a cleaning Nazi. She sweeps through the house and no matter if it doesn’t belong to her it is thrown out. For weeks after, I received several sympathy flowers and cards wishing me well. I began to imagine creating an art piece, a sort of collage with hospital bracelets and dried flowers. After flowers wilt they transform into a slightly different color, the color of the inevitable and beautiful nature of death. This is what happened to my eye. It faded from blue to a milky sea green. It was dying and I wanted to make a memorial with the beautifully faded fragile flowers.

One morning I awoke and they were gone. She had thrown out every sunflower, every rose, and every tulip. Every single consolation flower gone. She said they died. That night in the attic of my parents Victorian, I dreamt I grew a beautiful dark rose from my dying eye. It opened and flowered.

*

My friends, coworkers, and community threw a benefit to help offset the medical costs. This paid for my artificial eye. I went back to work, but I wasn’t the same: not focused, unable to stay on task. Remedial necessary details, like the budget didn’t interest me, partially because I couldn’t compute the numbers. I was unhappy, biding time until I figured something else out. Then I was fired from the place that was like my outer skin. Pealing it off exposed all the internal damages that were left undiagnosed: depression and brain injury.

The three-year anniversary is next month. I have finished my counseling at the trauma recovery center, the neurological study that I was in was over. My hospital debt could have bought me a house. But I have a face, and the hell if I’m going to trade that in.

*

14. own and design home

15.  have a baby

16.  write a book

*

One day I was curled up on my parents couch and my sister came over, gave me a hug, and asked me how I was feeling, still lacking a way to articulate my feelings, I pointed to some lines from the book I was reading, “Sputnik Sweetheart” by Murakami…“… I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put it into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling…”

I have no idea which words to use to explain who I am now and what has happened to me. This is why I write; this is why I read Murakami. Like baking a rich pie for the right occasion and not knowing which fruit to use and what the occasion is and who will be eating the pie. Perhaps it’s a pie that needs much trial and error. And one I will be eating over and over all by myself.

*

17.  sail the Mediterranean

*

In the gloaming, my eyesight was stolen from me as the sun set; the darkness sealed my left vision. Borges, also blinded speaks of twilight and at the creeping of “nightfall the things closest to us seem to move away from our eyes.”

Like life, it dissipates, and now I have a gentle dark reminder everyday that death is in my face. When I wear my patch I wear it like a badge, that’s what a war wound is — a death badge, not only to show off, but a personal trophy. I have survived, and nothing will be the same again. I wear death in my face.

*

18. dance salsa in Cuba

*

I ran into a writing teacher of mine after a reception at the theater. He asked me how I was and after some dancing around, being tipsy, I blurted out that I wear death on my face. I was feeling very proud and strong it must have been the cuba libres, to say that. I mean you don’t go around telling people that kinda stuff; I don’t want to freak people out. His reaction wasn’t what I had expected. He said that hopefully one day I wouldn’t feel like that anymore.

I’m not done figuring this out. I’ve tried to be strong and callus. And there are more reminders than wearing death in my face. My memory escapes me; it’s like watching a fuzzy video with an overzealous editor, leaving what’s left fragmented and not cohesive. My relationship with my father is different now. My sister used to joke that my dad and I could talk or hours about the ocean. I’m not doing this anymore with him. I’m afraid to go there, that I don’t know how. Or maybe that I won’t see the beauty anymore. Instead I get irritated with him. Irritated with how damn feeling he is all the time. And I can’t.

*

19. be happy

*

My acupuncturist said that my chi was shattered. Remarkably, with my fake shell of an eye and all my reconstructive surgery I pretty much look like myself to the outside world, but inside my face bones have shifted, I have auxiliary titanium between my zygomatic bones or the cheekbones. I know you want to ask and no I don’t set off metal detectors at the airport. The nerves are still repairing themselves. I am told they grow a millimeter every six months, so the flesh above my right eye all the way to the top of my right scalp, the flesh above my left upper lip, and my left upper gums are numb. I have discovered that I don’t know when I have food in the teeth below my non-feeling gums. On the upside, my teeth are straighter than before. Five years of braces and several thousand dollars did nothing compared to a swift crushing of the jaw. Chewing is different. My nose was set after being broken, but it wasn’t set straight enough, it curves slightly to the left. I have a scar above my right eye. And the biggest shift of them all is in my left orbital cave. There are two eyes inhabiting the cave. The real one is dead; the fake is an acrylic shell sitting on top, like a mask it pretends to glance, to look, and to see. Tricking those who don’t know into thinking that it is real.

I know there are so many others out there that are also dealing with loss, trauma, psychological bull-shit that swoops us up knocks us down like Katrina, like Iraq, like a car wreck. And then maybe we’ll feel the same again, but for many we will never be the same. We might look the same, but there are invisible injuries weighing us down, and the process to receive any kind of aid from the government while in recovery makes you the slave to your own trauma. And what do we learn from all this? That shit happens? That we are more fragile than we could ever imagine? That even with bullet wounds, paralysis, brain damage and the complexities of the system on top of it all we are stronger than we can ever imagine? … That it does not define us.

I know when I refuse to feel and pretend I’m fine and normal, that I begin to build up steam faster, miss bus stops, yell at family members, and become more and more frustrated with absolutely everything. Pretending defeats the purpose of normalizing, so damnit I’m not normal, I’m a one-eyed swashbuckler. Yo ho ho!

So after big foot jumped in the middle of the road, the aliens zoomed down to my aid, they took my eye in exchange for my life, and somewhere out there my retina is cruising the universe. She is one step ahead of all of us, gazing into the beyond, into the afterlife.

I wonder what she sees.

*

20. meet the rancher who saved my life

]]> http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/21-grow-a-new-eye/feed/ 12 tanyavlach http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/glitz-glam-geek-when-did-tech-become-chic/ http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/glitz-glam-geek-when-did-tech-become-chic/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:24:19 +0000 Tanya http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/?p=579 ]]>

*Disclaimer – this is my lame attempt at actually blogging – hence the delayed posting (you wouldn’t know it, but I’m very shy). I skipped about 30 people in line (see below) because I had a media pass. With privilege comes responsibility, so… as a good blogger, therefore I blog.

Digital Summer - an event presented last Wednesday by Ubergizmo (consumer electronics blog) and Girls in Tech, and produced by Digital Seasons was overpopulated with lines of up to 2o minutes long, chaotic with unprofessional handpicking by organizers of the special people in line < just think Madeleine Kahn, from History of the World Pt. 1>

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES NO NO YES NO NO YES

Despite these unfortunate occurrences I had a lovely time and met some lovely people. (Whom all seemed too tall, too beautiful, and too successful btw – which is a purely objective statement and definitely not based on my 5′2” stature.) It was at Temple Nightclub, which is a “green nightclub” combining cutting edge technology and ancient philosophy. I am intrigued.

Digital Summer showcased a few different products, but I was most interested in Eye-Fi, a memory card that sends images and video wirelessly from your camera. I’m syked about Eye-Fi. I learned about their technology awhile ago and was hoping to connect with them about a possible partnership for my project. I met the founder, Ziv Gillat, a jolly and enthusiastic man who seemed genuinely interested in my project — and we will be talking soon. Crossing my fingers.

I believe due to my elaborate beaded dangly African necklace that I purchased for a couple of dollars at a garage sale; a few different people asked me if I was in the fashion show, while none offered their number or dinner — (why !@%&*? San Francisco why?) I will still consider this a compliment.

You might be wondering when the glam came in: look at this eye-candy below.

In my opinion at approximately 10:30 pm on the runway, a surprisingly handsome supermodel look-a-like, gracefully and without pretension won the glamorous award.

Right when DJ. Mrs. Blythe started to rock and people began to loosen up I really didn’t want to leave… but alas I reached my 2 drink max and it was a school night. So I was off. Yet I’m still confused on how this avant-garde, indy, artsy, non-profit gal could have such a smashingly good time at an event that could be compared to a hip and glitzy touring roadshow. Apparently fashion, technology, and photography is dangerous and seductive combo for this small town San Francisco Native.

]]> http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/glitz-glam-geek-when-did-tech-become-chic/feed/ 0 tanyavlach digitalsummer http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/i-am-not-a-starfish/ http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/i-am-not-a-starfish/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:39:33 +0000 Tanya http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/?p=552 ]]>

You breathe, you cry. You grow and smile. You build, you love. And then what? We are organisms and are destined to retire.

Body, flesh, microchips, networks — do these things go together?

What is the line, the boundary between life and machine… does it matter? How does it define us? Will it destroy us?

Is this the moment of Singularity? I am determined to implant a small machine into my prosthetic eye. Who will I be when it happens? What percentage human vs. machine will I be? What will it trigger – this act? What rights will I achieve? What rights will I relinquish? Is this the diversity that we strive for or is this the beginning of our Matrix demise?

After reaching the limitations of my biology – after all I am not a starfish, I cannot re-grow my eye. I have determined to recreate what was lost with technology that is now available. I have been called a Transhumanist, the Bionic Woman, Seven of Nine, an attention whore. I believe in transcendence and I believe in transformation, but to what extreme? I do not identify Transhumanist just like I have trouble identifying White. Because I am also Guatemalan, also Greek, also Irish, also German.

Transhumanism – I’m not really interested in living forever, too much pressure. I am anxious for the next chapter. And I am pretty sure there is something more. Not what is written in any scripture, but something that the flesh and spirit knows what came before.. we continue to be recycled into the dust of the universe.

This is my journey, this is my exploration of what it means to be human and to be alive. And while this is my personal manifesto, it is also a soft warning, a suggestive nod that this reconfiguration of body, of self; the blending of biology and technology will ultimately change us all. My closest friends and family are luddites and really don’t have a clue on why I’m doing this, but this is why I love them, it also reminds me to keep what’s important in perspective. To be clear I’m not advocating ignorance – I encourage debating the issues of self, rights, ethics, privacy, etc. when it comes to how this brave new world will change us; so we as Humans are not lost in the machine and find ourselves with no voice in the technological revolution.

Yuuichi Shibuya from Japan designed me a new eye-patch. I look forward to trying it out!

Update – it is definitely a fabulous stylish eye-patch. I now have several from Yuuichi. I am planning on a specific photo that will incorporate his patches, unfortunately it’s taking longer than I thought, I want it to be right.

What is exciting me so much right now is that by combining cutting edge technology, robotics, bionics; with  age old poetry we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity.

She took the words right out of my mouth.

Aimee Mullins is an amputee (you would never know in the video below)  her redefining photo with Nick Knight has been a great inspiration to me (Right).  Please listen to her speech it is exceptional and moving; it is about redefining disability, and understanding the depth of humanity. While I may not share her height or speed I share her artistic vision. And I dream that one day soon I will have my own bionic vision.

The conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. It is a conversation about augmentation. It’s a conversation about potential. A prosthetic limb doesn’t represent a need to replace loss anymore. It can be as a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is they want to create in that space so people that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities, indeed to continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place empowerment. What is exciting me so much right now, is that by combining cutting edge technology, robotics, bionics; with the age old poetry we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity. I think if we wanted to discover the full potential in our humanity we need to celebrate those heart breaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have.   … I think of Shakespeare’s Shylock. ‘If you prick us do we not bleed, and if you tickle us do we not laugh.’ It is our humanity and all the potential within it makes us beautiful.

~Aimee Mullins from her speech “How my legs give me super-powers” at the Ted Conference 2009

EyeWorld Magazine: March 2009

Posted using ShareThis

EYE CAM from Max Magazine in Italia. …    Will anyone translate?

MORE BIONIC EYES IN THE NEWS:

Bionic eye gives blind man sight from the BBC

Filmmaker plans “Eyeborg” eye socket camera from Reuters