FIXED takes a close look at the direction of emerging human enhancement technologies through the eyes of three people with disabilities: a scientist, a journalist and a community organizer.
Gregor Wolbring is a biochemist, bioethicist and disability and ability studies scholar at the University of Calgary, in Calgary, Alberta, who lectures worldwide on human enhancement technologies and ableism. John Hockenberry is an Emmy and Peabody award winning journalist, author, radio host (WNYC’s “The Takeaway”) and distinguished fellow at the MIT Media Lab, where he works to promote research into human-machine collaborations. Patty Berne works at the Center for Genetics and Society as the Director of the Project on Race, Disability and Eugenics, where she focuses on raising awareness about the ethical implications of emerging prenatal screening technologies.
These three individuals — a scientist, a journalist and a community organizer — share a personal experience with disability and a passionate engagement in the debates around human enhancement technologies, yet what they are each fighting for is quite different. Through their unique experiences of both living with a disability and being experts in their field, a textured debate that tackles some of the most pertinent social and ethical questions of today emerges.
Neuroscientist Ed Boyden, bionics engineer Hugh Herr, exoskeleton test pilot Fernanda Castelo, transhumanist James Hughes, robot scientist Rodney Brooks, disability studies scholar and performance artist Dominika Bednarska, futurist Jamais Cascio, disability lawyer Silvia Yee and bioethicist Marcy Darnovsky also contribute, deepening the issues and revealing the social tensions that underlie these emerging technologies in surprising ways.
Through a dynamic mix of verité, and archival and interview footage, FIXED challenges notions of normal, the body and what it means fundamentally to be human in the 21st century.
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WOW, As a person with a physical and mental health disability, a beginner disability activist, an artist and academic, I’m delighted to hear about your film project and can’t wait to hear more about developments as they come. I am just finishing my undergraduate degree at Emily Carr University in Critical and Cultural Practice and have been making collective and performance artworks around the topic of disability and social inequality for some time. I’ve also been doing academic theoretical and historical research into the disability rights movement, feminist perspectives on disability, disability arts and culture, trans- and post-humanist perspectives on disability and technology, and the evolution of assistive technologies over the 20th century for the past few years. I am going into a Cultural Studies MA program soon and have been honing my thesis project based on critiquing the popular notion that new technologies are the sole salvation for people with disabilities. I would just like to thank you all for making this project happen (and I’m going to let all my disabled friends online and offline know about it!)
Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for your comment. Sounds like you are doing great work! Please stay in touch: info@fixedthemovie.com
Best,
Regan
Hi,
Am really looking forward to seeing this when it is finally finished, I currently study Health Care Ethics and Medical Law in the UK but have a passion for advancing technologies in medicine, in particular those that are related to IVF and other Assisted Reproductive Techniques. I just hope I can find it in the UK!
Rowena
Hi Rowena,
Thanks for your interest in FIXED. Once the film is released (summer 2012) we will be selling DVDs from this website – and can ship to the UK, no problem! To join our mailing list so you’ll hear when the film is out, please sign up here: http://fixedthemovie.com/contact
Best,
Regan