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| Computers Don't Have Hands Photograph |
"Touch is so powerful a healer that we go to professional touchers....Illness usually sends us to a doctor, but often we go just to be fussed over and touched." Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. Vintage books, pp 119
Statement:
With the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, there was a marked increase in the use of Telehealth services. It is easy to list the many benefits to this approach, but it is harder to quantify the potential negative impact that the loss of "touch" between provider and patient has had on physical and psychological health.
This photograph documents what it felt like to be a Covid patient, early in the pandemic, being asked to navigate the medical system via Telehealth.
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| Ask the Question Mixed Media 18" x 24" |
Statement:
Braille is found in some places, but not everywhere. It is a wonderful, but somewhat rigid system, that I expect is having a difficult time keeping up with our explosive visual culture. It is estimated that the number of photos taken every two minutes is more than the entire number of photos taken in the nineteenth century. The rate at which our culture is changing is astounding.
In the central panel of Ask the Question, the Braille pattern for the word "touch" is depicted, as a very mechanical diagram, rendered as 3D on a 2D surface, complete with vanishing points as a reference to distant vision. All of this information is obviously inaccessible to those who are visually impaired or blind. To add insult to injury, the raised panels spell Visual Culture.
It is dangerous to presume that the visually impaired community would want to be immersed in our increasingly complex, wonderful, and many times flawed visual culture. We should, however, Ask the Question and continue to develop technologies to allow access to those who wish to participate.
