. . . is Media. And media is how people express and communicate. Your voice is a medium, writing is a medium, art and video and. . . Yes, even poking someone repeatedly or jumping up and down or twitching your eyes in a pattern can be using a medium- your body- to communicate.
Everyone can use some sort of media. Before I get protests, I’m including pushing away unwanted things, fecal smearing, and tiny behaviors as well as examples of use of media. Sometimes our methods and medium is ignored or not understood, but that doesn’t make it less our medium. Sometimes we can’t even define exactly what we are communicating with our media yet, but it’s a process. Sometimes, figuring out what we mean- communicating with ourselves- is even more a part of using media than communicating with others.
When we are given the chance to be exposed to new media, new methods of expression, we are being given access to more opportunities to find the way to get it out right. To find communication. Eventually some of us do gain access to media that other people understand our use of. We learn to speak, or sing, or make music or videos. We paint, or sew, or costume; we write, decoupage, rearrange, and stack. We learn to dance, to write, and to find a new way to get the message across to that it is heard. Some of us aren’t given that chance, and some people even find that other people’s media aren’t for them.
When you are someone whose communication methods or media are ignored when you want them observed, it can be an opening to find a new medium to call your own. I learned to type, I gained those skills, and I suddenly had access to a much larger community than I had when speaking or shrieking or running away or stacking dolls gave me.
Indeed, the way that typing opened up writing to me was a better medium in the end for me than those I already had- my fluency writing now is better than my speaking was at the height of my verbal ability. I can use this medium, the medium of digitized writing by the hitting of keys, in times when I can’t even verbally speak at all, in times where my message as a kid might have been lost in other people’s reactions to my screaming wordlessly because I didn’t have the right words to speak any more.
Other people find other media. Some people won’t rely on their media the way I do. Some people might rely on it more.
How beautiful would a poem in just PECs, just the way they are handed, be?
Some media is painful, or dangerous, or scary- or even, in the case of Thich Quang Duc, deadly. Sometimes that can be powerful, while other times- like fecal smearing- it can be too alarming to observers and yes, dangerous, to get across anything, even your own distress. Sometimes the media we know isn’t sufficient to express what we mean- is your reaction to fecal smearing to recoil, maybe even freak out, or is it to find a way to figure out if someone is constipated? (If it’s the second one, I’m guessing you have a little experience with this cross media translation.)
In some cases, the solution is to find more ways to experience and express experience. Gaining new skills, or discovering alternatives. Other times it might be to just let other people react to you burning soundlessly.
The first time someone walked a friend through other signals for “my butt hurts” or that that type of pain is constipation, she nearly squeezed my hand off in joy.
Sometimes, a new medium is just a great way to accomplish something that you might not otherwise be able to do. Creating a more accurate and useful AAC device- even for less- or finding an easier way to collaboratively caption videos on the web. Applying dance to practical mobility difficulties or exploring how movements can be adapted to suit all types of bodies. Crafting tools to navigate difficult sensory environments or using virtual video distribution to share a larger message.
All media, in practice, in use, building and creating access, building and creating our futures.
What does it mean to build access together? What world can we envision when we apply love and justice to our media to find a world where we honor all people, regardless of ability, and their needs?
This summer, I and others will be attending the Allied Media Conference. It’s not a disability conference, or a topical conference. AMC is just brought together by people that believe that we can use a wide range of media to change the world. Within that larger vision, people with disabilities saw a vision for our justice, for a way to create access collectively.
Creating Collective Access allows us to make accessible the potential of media skill sharing, network, and vision planning that AMC promises to people who might not otherwise be able to be a part of it. PwD and our Chronically Ill brethren face access barriers beyond a lack of ramps and braille. Working together and treating access as a matter of community rather than individual “burden” allows us to be a part of building a world that includes us and the potential we can realize through media.
And in turn, we can make accessible the wider community- the world.
What does it mean to explore and honor our potentials, our media, our vision? What sort of world can we build when access is a part of what it means to build communities? When it is a natural part of the creation of change?
I invite others to write about what it means to you- personally or pon the grand scale- to access media. I also hope that you will help me and others by donating to CCA’s Indiegogo. We all came up with cool things to contribute to the returns. I’m contributing custom writing- poems for cheap but if you put in a lot an article or even ghost writing- and my mom is contributing reiki sessions and herbalist consults. Others are contributing zines, books, films, tarot readings, MCS friendly bath products, and even customized baking. You can find out more, including more details about CCA, on the CCA Indiegogo page.
Cracked Mirror in Shalott 