Deaf futurity: designing and innovating hearing aids.

Abstract

One of the tenets of a posthuman vision is the eradication of disability through technology. Within this site of 'no future', as Alison Kafer describes, the disabled body is merged with artificial intelligence technology or transformed into a prosthetic superhuman. These imaginative possibilities are materialised in a future-oriented mindset in contemporary technological innovation, including hearing aids and other devices-such as vibrating vests to 'feel sounds' or sign language gloves, what design critic Liz Jackson defines as 'disability dongles'-designed to bypass deafness that simultaneously provide a 'cure' and create a 'post-deaf reality'. Bringing together material culture with crip futurity, history of science, medicine and technology (HSTM), this paper investigates how hearing devices for deaf people have embodied futurity through design and technological features. While mid-20th century analogue hearing aids incorporated fashion through colour and style, 21st century digital hearing aids favour a sleek, industrial aesthetic borrowed from modern architecture, jewellery and automotive design. Yet discretion remains a persistent and common design feature, meant to diminish obvious symptoms of deafness. Applying what I refer to as the 'disabled gaze'-an autonomous claiming of identity that draws attention to, rather than camouflages, disability-this paper attempts to understand how expanding the breadth of hearing aid design beyond discretion will open possibilities for imagining deaf futurity to radically disintegrate ableist stereotypes and transform how disabled people are represented in society.