initial progress

Gathering Recordings

So far four lovely  people have shared their “healing is” recording with me! I am so honored to receive them. Each one has felt like a necessary reminder to myself, and it meant even more knowing it came from a friend. With my own recording, that brings me up to 5 now.

I’ve learned that the process of collecting recordings involves LOTS of file conversion so that they are all in the required mp3 format.

Arduino/Processing

My teacher recommended that I use a photo cell nestled underneath each rock instead of the break beam sensors I had thought I should use. With her help, I will create a program so that when the cell is uncovered by picking up the rock above it, a “healing is” recording is played.

My teacher showed me how to set up a test of photo cells on a breadboard.  Next week, she’ll teach me how to solder wires together so that I won’t have to use the breadboard any longer. She’s also letting me borrow a special drill bit she’s got that will allow me to drill small divots into the pockets of my display sculpture that the photo cells can fit down into. I’ll also have to drill holes all the way through beneath each divot for the wires to come out the other side.

As for the programming, my teacher has had to hold my hand through every step because I am completely utterly new at using Arduino and Processing. She sat down next to me and talked me through all the steps to setting up the code for getting the thing to work. I feel totally in over my head, but she has been very kind to show me step-by-step what I need to do.

Mobile Idea

I am getting more and more excited about the mobile/lamp idea that I mentioned before.

I created two simple shapes in Rhino: one an S-shaped curve and the other a nearly straight vertical line. The S-shaped curve I modeled from x-rays from my childhood, and the nearly straight vertical line I modeled from the most recent x-ray I have of my spine. They are both 0.25 inches wide (x axis) and about 9 inches long (y axis). I want to use Rhino/Grasshopper to autogenerate a series of shapes that would make my “before” and “after” spine shapes appear to gradually shift into one another. I attached a rough sketch to give you an idea of what I mean. I don’t know how to do this yet, but I hope to learn soon!

The shapes will be hung in a series from a circular frame as part of a mobile. For the frame that will hold the shapes, I want to laser cut the words THERE IS NO BEFORE AND AFTER onto a strip of poster board that I can glue into a circle to hang the shapes from.

I am interested in this topic because I believe that conceptualizing my body in terms of “before and after” has been harmful to me. Thinking about my life in terms of “before and after and after,” segmented by the spinal fusion surgery I had at the age of 14 and then the instrumentation removal surgery I had at the age of 26, centers my life around these surgeries. It also emphasizes loss for me. I begin to dwell on all that I lost after each surgery–how my life was different, and oftentimes worse, after each one.

I’ve also seen how before and after images can be harmful in other contexts as well. I’ve learned from body positive leaders like the hosts of the She’s All Fat podcast how “before and after” weight loss images can be harmful because they tend to perpetuate the false narrative that fatness is unhealthy, undesirable, and a state to be gotten out of as quickly as possible.

Additionally, I’ve seen how “before and after” medical gender transition imagery can be harmful when it is the only or dominate narrative of what it means to be trans. The monolith of “before and after” medical transition images can erase nonbinary people and can give a false idea that all “male” bodies must be hairy, muscular, and flat chested while all “female” bodies must be curvy, hairless, and have breasts. They perpetuate the idea that trans people are “born” as one gender and then choose to “become” another gender, rather than that they were assigned the wrong gender at birth, or that gender is much more complicated than a binary transition narrative.

For all these reasons, I’m getting more and more excited about pursuing this part of my idea.