Re-Imagining Accessibility
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
Remix: Danger Mouse
![Promotional artwork for "The Grey Album" by Justin Hampton. This was not used for the actual cover, but appeared on the Danger Mouse website in 2004. [Source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200.jpg "danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200")
Will DJ Danger Mouse become the Che Guevara of digital sampling? Consider the case for fair use made by The Grey Album.Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.Disability As Praxis
I am a parent, homeowner, knowledge worker, and person with disabilities. Oppression is not my true word, but praxis is. In Paulo Freire’s transformative work, I find an affirmation deeper than ideology or political activism -- an affirmation of the dynamic role of disability in culture. I believe the daily praxis of making adaptations and negotiating accommodations represents a significant form of cultural production. Read Disability As Praxis.ADA 20th Anniversary
![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
On its 20th anniversary, pundits will debate what the Americans with Disabilities Act has accomplished. I still believe what I said in a TV interview after the ADA signing ceremony in 1990. “The ADA will not end disability discrimination overnight. But in a nation governed by the rule of law, getting it in writing is the place to start.” So what is the ADA's legacy? A Generation of Problem-Solvers.
a blind flaneur
Monthly Archives: April 2012
McLuhan’s Cameo Scene in “Annie Hall”
Marshall McLuhan plays himself in a cameo scene from the 1977 Woody Allen film “Annie Hall.” In the scene, Allen (center) argues with an academically officious film professor who cites McLuhan while waiting in line to get into a movie. McLuhan steps in from the wings to tell the pedant, “You know nothing of my work!” Continue reading
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Tagged accessibility, films, Marshall McLuhan, media studies, media_massage
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Marshall McLuhan’s Legacy – Wikipedia
According to Wikipedia: “After the publication of Understanding Media, McLuhan received an astonishing amount of publicity, making him perhaps the most publicized English teacher in the twentieth century and arguably the most controversial. This publicity had much to do with the work of two California advertising executives, Gerald Feigen and Howard Gossage, who used personal profits to fund their practice of “genius scouting.” Much enamoured with McLuhan’s work, Feigen and Gossage arranged for McLuhan to meet with editors of several major New York magazines in May 1965 at the Lombardy Hotel in New York. Philip Marchand reports that, as a direct consequence of these meetings, McLuhan was offered the use of an office in the headquarters of both Time and Newsweek, any time he needed it.” Continue reading