Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is now twenty two days from launch. While we often see art imitate life, we have here an instance of life imitating art. Square Enix and CNN’s Courageous partnered to create Human by Design, a documentary about human augmentation.
The documentary opens with the story of Asem Hasna, a Syrian university student who left school to become a paramedic at the start of the revolution. On call to help two injured people, a bomb took his left leg. Obviously he has a vested interest in the advancement of prosthetics.
Another story was that of Catherine Disney. Born with an underdeveloped left arm, she now wears a prosthetic limb based on designs from Eidos Montreal’s upcoming game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Having never had a left hand to utilize, you can imagine how amazing the experience is for her.
The half-hour documentary takes us into the lives of ten other individuals involved in real life human augmentation. Some due to injury; others due to circumstances of their birth. One man voluntarily had his brain augmented with a device that allows him to perceive color as sound.
I highly recommend taking the half hour to check this out. A lot of the stories will touch the heart, especially if you know or have known anyone living with the challenge of limb loss, hearing disability or any other kind of challenge. Despite the tone of intolerance seen in Mankind Divided, the idea that people can walk again, feel again, or do whatever is inspiring to no end. When our reality catches up to Deus Ex, there will be people that augment themselves for selfish and or detrimental reasons just like other advancements we have today. Regardless, there will be countless who will be able to improve their quality of life and that is worth striving for.
“Human by Design” can be viewed at Amazon by following this link. It may be the best thing you see all day. Please enjoy.
