Episode 41: Alice Wong Takes a Trip to the White House

The podcast introductory segment is composed to evoke friction. It begins with the sound of an elevator crunching as it goes up. A robotic voice says “floor two.” Then music with a mysterious tone comes on. A series of voices define Contra. Layered voices say:

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Contra is friction… Contra is texture… Contra is questions…Nuanced…Collaborative…Contra* is world-changing…Contra is innovation, messy, solidarity, interdependence…Contra is thinking about design critically. Contra is a podcast.

 

Throughout, there are sounds of typing, texting and Zoom being opened. 

Then an electric guitar bass note fades into the sound of a digital call ringing and starting. The intro ends with the sound of a Facetime call ringing and then picked up.

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Hi, I’m Kelsie Acton, the project manager for the Remote Access Archive. The Remote Access Archive contains oral histories, like the ones featured in this season of the Contra* podcast. But it also contains some very cool documents. This is one of a series of mini-episodes sharing some of them with you. The documents I want to highlight today were sent to us by Alice Wong. Alice is the founder of Disability Visibility, and put together the writing collections Disability Visibility and Disability Intimacy. She’s also an incredible activist. And, once, I emailed her to ask for two more weeks to do some plain language work. She sent me an email that just said, good shit takes time. So she’s also wickedly funny.

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These documents are two articles about Alice’s trip to the Obama white house in 2015, via telepresence robot. At the time Alice was a member of the National Council on Disability. She was invited to a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even before the COVID pandemic, there were many reasons for some disabled people not to travel. Air travel companies are notorious for destroying wheelchairs and other assistive devices. This can, and has, resulted in people’s deaths. Travel which requires a lot of time in enclosed spaces with other people, has always been dangerous for immune compromised people. In this case, instead of excluding Alice, the White House offered her the option to attend through a Telepresence Beam Pro robot. Alice, describing her experience says, quote, “A telepresence robot looks like a computer screen attached to legs with a base and wheels. Using my laptop at home, I could see everything with their webcam and everyone could see/hear me as well. I could independently move around physical spaces by navigating the arrows on my keyboard. It was very simple to use”. End quote. In the Remote Access Archive we’ve got a couple of oral history interviews where people talk about when email was a new technology. Maybe someday, telepresence robots will be as ubiquitous as email, offering more remote access for disabled people.

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Thank you for listening. If this document touched you somehow - sparked your curiosity, made you angry, made you feel seen - you can find it in the Remote Access Archive at www.criticaldesignlab.com/project/remote-access-archive. Remember, remote access is disability culture.

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[Rhythmic pops. Strings ripple and play as Aimi speaks]

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Aimi Hamraie: 

You've been listening to Contra*, a podcast about disability design, justice, and the life world. Contra* is a production of the Critical Design Lab. This season's episodes draw on our recent project, the Remote Access Archive, created by a team of disabled researchers collaborating remotely. Learn about our projects, including the remote access archive at www.criticaldesignlab.com. 

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Spotify, rate and leave a review. 

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This season of Contra* is edited by Ilana Nevins. Kelsie Acton and Aimi Hamraie developed the episodes. 

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The Contra* Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial share alike International 3.0 license.That means you can remix, repost, or recycle any of the content as long as you cite the original source, aren't making money, you don't change the credits and you share it under the same license.

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[music fades out]

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