Starting to imagine alternative AAC futures together

We will introduce 'Imagining technologies for Disability futures' (itDfproject.org), a humanities-led research project funded by the Wellcome Trust. In this we will be exploring and prototyping alternative AAC futures. Our first step is to recruit 'mentors' (the term Colin Portnuff proposed to mean people with lived experience as our expert guides). AAC can feel stuck between a predicted future and a compromised present: recent advances in brain-to-speech interfaces are heralded as the 'solution' and that AAC will simply 'disappear' into cyborg bodies; yet the frustrations of living with AAC can make speculating about different kinds of AAC futures feel naïve and a waste of time. This workshop will involve collaging images to visualise thought-provoking yet everyday future scenarios, using an online collaborative space such as Mural. Afterwards, these provocations will feed into the itDf project and there will be an opportunity to participate further, for which honoraria would be paid.