What creates the Alternative

This past week, I have begun to integrate the idea of designing for the alternative body in my other studio. I find the idea of a hierarchy of senses extremely interesting, and in my projects, I tend to design for the senses. To emphasize one over the other with the goal to invoke total body awareness of one's surroundings. The idea to design for one of the more secondary senses rather than the primary sense of vision; though one's sense of vision cannot go away entirely (though yes, it can, when thinking of blindness) there is an effort to change the natural hierarchy of the human senses.

In thinking about the senses and changing the hierarchy, I thought about what really creates an alternative body in society. Its fascinating to realize that vision is the main (if not entire) reason why there is such a thing as an alternative body. What categorizes people into the category of the alternative body is the shallow and distancing sense, vision. It is interesting to think about what the world might be like if everyone were blind, and what if we operated primarily on the other senses such as touch, sound, taste, smell (taste and smell could get kind of weird).

The sense of vision is one that observes life and objects from a very removed and distant perspective, not always "seeing" the entire picture. The other senses such as touch, sound, taste, and smell are a much more intimate way of observing objects and space and the fact that as a society we do not really capitalize on these senses really talks about why there is an alternative body or bodies. Vision by itself presents a lack of understanding and removal from wanting to understand it seems.