Megafone.net has developed thirteen projects with different communities: Taxi drivers from Mexico City 2004, young gypsies in Lleida and León (Spain 2005), prostitutes in Madrid 2005, Nicaraguan immigrants in Costa Rica 2006, motorcycle messengers (motoboys) in Sao Paolo 2007, displaced and demobilized people in Colombia 2009, young Sahrawi refugees in the Algerian Sahara 2009 and immigrants in Queens, New York 2011.

Three projects were developed with people with limited mobility in Barcelona 2006, Geneva 2008 and Montreal 2012, and another one in Barcelona 2010 with blind and visually impaired participants. In these projects, participants take photographs with GPS mobile phones to document the barriers that they encounter in the streets, as well as examples of good accessibility. These photos are geo-located on maps that are populated with their user-generated content. Obstacles are identified by tags which represent the themes that the participants have identified as most significant. The Megafone.net project visualizes the patterns of systemic discrimination against people with disabilities and physical impairments that have become rooted in the urban landscape. It denounces this lack of access and challenges political indifference to this vital issue.

The term prosthetics indicates an addition or extension. The word “prosthetics” was included in medical terminology in the 16th Century. Three centuries later, Marshall McLuhan wrote in his seminal book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man first published in 1964: Today, when we have extended all parts of our bodies and senses by technology we are haunted by the need for an outer consensus of technology and experience that would raise our communal lives to the level of a world-wide consensus. McLuhan also argued that ‘any medium whatever is an extension, a projection in space or in time, of our various senses. He postulated that while earlier technologies extended one part of the body (for instance the wheel extending the foot), the new electronic technologies extended the whole nervous system.

In an increasingly technologically mediated world the issue of what constitutes a prosthetics becomes crucial. It is important to note the evolving trans-disciplinary role of the artist in the design process and techniques, the process of innovation, scientific visualization and the process of developing and disseminating a prosthetic. The question remains: If designers, scientists and engineers are limited by a focus on restoring function, how can those who rely on prostheses benefit from advances in artificial intelligence, materials science, nanotechnology and other emerging discoveries? Rapidly emerging engineering technology and advanced materials have revolutionized prosthetics developments over the last decades. The most advanced apparatus can respond to instructions from the central nervous system, therefore these neural controlled devices are anticipated to forecast the future progress of prosthetics.

The presentation will briefly examine some of the issues related to prosthetics, such as history, material developments, ethical concerns, biological and evolutionary aspects, sports related issues and approaches by artists.