In the digital world, data has taken the role of our hands. How can we preserve the language of our physicality, or rather, how can we reclaim the use of our hands in the digital age? We have already accepted that everything is united under the same code, that we live in a common environment, that we share the same language. Physicality is becoming more and more immaterial. How can we reclaim the use of our hands in the digital age?

In the digital world, data has taken the role of our hands. How can we preserve the language of our physicality, or rather, how can we reclaim the use of our hands in the digital age? We have already accepted that everything is united under the same code, that we live in a common environment, that we share the same language. Physicality is becoming more and more immaterial. How can we reclaim the use of our hands in the digital age?

One night in 1982, John Mumford was working on an avalanche patrol on an icy Colorado mountain pass when the van carrying him and two other men slid off the road and plunged over a cliff. The other guys were able to walk away, but Mumford had broken his neck. The lower half of his body was paralyzed, and though he could bend his arms at the elbows, he could no longer grasp things in his hands. Fifteen years later, however, he received a technological wonder that reactivated his left hand. It was known as the Freehand System. A surgeon placed a sensor on Mumford's right shoulder, implanted a pacemaker-size device known as a stimulator just below the skin on his upper chest, and threaded wires into the muscles of his left arm.