Demonstrating a Hack
DIY Hacks
Engineering at Home
Sara Hendren and Caitrin Lynch
2016
71-year-old Cindy lost the full use of her limbs following complications from a severe heart attack. While waiting for her new robotic prosthetic, Cindy improvised 'object hacks' to help her with everyday tasks that she now found impossible. These adaptations to the most commonly used objects in her home allowed her to hold cutlery, play cards, brush her teeth, read the newspaper and much more.
Design educators Sara Hendren and Caitrin Lynch documented Cindy's hacks 'to illustrate new ways of understanding who can engineer, what counts as engineering, and this matters'. The project reminds us that the best innovations are not necessarily high-tech, and that technologies are valuable for their social function or ability to empower us, not just for their precision or sleek appearance.
[V&A]
Taken in The Future Starts Here (May to November 2018)
From smart appliances to satellites, artificial intelligence to internet culture, this exhibition brought together more than 100 objects as a landscape of possibilities for the near future.
[V&A]
Demonstrating a Hack
DIY Hacks
Engineering at Home
Sara Hendren and Caitrin Lynch
2016
71-year-old Cindy lost the full use of her limbs following complications from a severe heart attack. While waiting for her new robotic prosthetic, Cindy improvised 'object hacks' to help her with everyday tasks that she now found impossible. These adaptations to the most commonly used objects in her home allowed her to hold cutlery, play cards, brush her teeth, read the newspaper and much more.
Design educators Sara Hendren and Caitrin Lynch documented Cindy's hacks 'to illustrate new ways of understanding who can engineer, what counts as engineering, and this matters'. The project reminds us that the best innovations are not necessarily high-tech, and that technologies are valuable for their social function or ability to empower us, not just for their precision or sleek appearance.
[V&A]
Taken in The Future Starts Here (May to November 2018)
From smart appliances to satellites, artificial intelligence to internet culture, this exhibition brought together more than 100 objects as a landscape of possibilities for the near future.
[V&A]