Fixed: The Science/Fiction Of Human Enhancement

There is a growing buzz around the potential for science and technology to create significant "human enhancement" applications, such as bionic limbs, improved memory or cognition, or the ability to choose specific characteristics for our offspring. The possibilities stir the imagination and excitement of many, while for others the rhetoric and current research into human enhancement signals alarms of a new eugenics. And yet, for most non-scientists, this sounds like the realm of science fiction, a world awash in mystery and misunderstanding.

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A double amputee swimming.

Courtesy of American Public Television

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Lisa Bufano toured with AXIS Dance Company from 2006 to 2010 performing works choreographed by Victoria Marks, Joe Goode, Kate Weare.

Courtesy of Sonsherée Giles & this sweet nothing

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Candoco Dance Company is a contemporary dance company of disabled and non-disabled dancers.

Courtesy of Erato Tzavara

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A founding member, MC, musician and songwriter of Cleveland Heights’ Alternative Punk-Hop act Kounterclockwise, Deacon Burns helped to form the act over a decade ago in the heart of the South Bronx.

Courtesy of American Public Television

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An i-Limb prosthetic hand.

Courtesy of Rob Spence

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NPR radio host John Hockenberry. Hockenberry is a journalist and Distinguished Fellow at MIT Media Lab.

Courtesy of Bruce Petscheck

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Exoskeleton test pilot Fernanda Castelo.

Courtesy of Jamie LeJeune

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Bionics engineer Dr. Hugh Herr.

Courtesy of Bruce Petschek

"Fixed: The Science/Fiction Of Human Enhancement" features: NPR radio host John Hockenberry; MIT bionics engineer Hugh Herr; biochemist and ability studies scholar Gregor Wolbring; disability studies scholar Dominika Bednarska; disability justice educator Patty Berne; exoskeleton test pilot Fernanda Castelo; robot scientist Rodney Brooks; futurist Jamais Cascio, bioethicist and policy advocate Marcy Darnovsky; brain-computer interface study participant Tim Hemmes; philosophy professor Cressida Heyes; transhumanist James Hughes; reproductive rights advocate Sujatha Jesudason; and disability lawyer Silvia Yee.

With cameo performances by some of the world’s leading integrated dance companies, featuring disabled and non-disabled dancers and artists, including the Anjali Dance Company; Antoine Hunter (of Sins Invalid and Urban Jazz Dance Company); AXIS Dance Company; Candoco; Dancing Wheels; GIMP; Kounterclockwise; Lisa Bufano; Marc Brew; Remix Dance Company; and Sue Austin/Freewheeling.

Through a dynamic mix of verité, dance, archival and interview footage, "Fixed: The Science/Fiction Of Human Enhancement" challenges notions of normal, the body and what it means fundamentally to be human in the 21st century. © 2013 Making Change Media (USA). All rights reserved.

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