Highway to the Sky (2022)
2 February 2023
Speakers:
Eleanor Perkins
Micheal Noble
Alexandra Hill
Isabelle Asford
Watch the recording
Duration: 0:08:30

Eleanor Perkins
Didn’t Richard Branson already go into space this year? They’re talking about doing trips to the space station like that. That’s just for the rich at the moment, but I would love to do it but I don’t think I’d ever have enough money to do that. Ever.

Elon Musk talking about colonising Mars. Like, that sounds scary, like there’s no water there. Why would you want to go to a planet with no water. You need water to live.

Isabelle Asford
Earlier this year we ran a workshop for a group of people from the neuro-divergent community, that was focused on their experience of travel and transport, and what that would look like in the future. What do you need to have a really pleasant experience of transporting yourself to different places?

Eleanor Perkins
If I’m going to the city, I need a couple hours before so that I can prepare.

Isabelle Asford
So you need a lot of leading time to be able to acclimatise and adjust.

So we started the workshop by asking them what their experience of travel and transport is currently.

Michael Noble
I don’t leave the house without phone, keys, and earphones. They’re the three major things that I have on me at all times. And I feel almost naked without them. I do like driving. It’s so freeing to be able to control yourself, when you wan to go, where you want to go.

Eleanor Perkins
Even though I don’t like being around people on public transport, I deal with it because that’s the only option I have.

When I travel, on all modes of transport, I like to listen to music on my headphones. I have a very eclectic music taste. Music from Disney, I have a lot of music from Disney. Mongolian music, Celtic music. I do have auditory processing disorder. I can only process a certain amount of things. I think it’s to do with my autism and ADHD as well.

If I have my music I can focus on the music and not every other sound around me. Recently I got a pair of the in-ear earbuds, and I absolutely love them. They’re like this big and I keep them in my bra. They’re noise cancelling as well. I don’t think I’d function so well in public without these. It’s not just for public transport, I take them everywhere I go.

Isabelle Asford
For the second part of the workshop, we asked the group what they were finding challenging in their travel and transport experience.

So see if you can focus in on some of the things you don’t like about your experience, because that’s going to help us lean into what might we improve?

Eleanor Perkins
The bus is running late, I’m going to be late, and I get anxious.

Isabelle Asford
It sounds like one of the things you sort of do to adapt that is to do Google maps.

Eleanor Perkins
I trust Google maps most of the time. Because it is fairly accurate. Even when I’m listening to music on sportify it’s always running in the background.

 

Isabelle Asford
For the final part of the workshop, we got the group to create and explore what they would like to see differently in their travel experience in the future.

If you were given the power yourself, to be able to create a perfect way for you to be able to travel around, what might travel look like?

Eleanor Perkins
Horse, I always write horse riding.

Isabelle Asford
Going back to that slower way of living.

Michael Noble
Everything would just smell like shit, though.

Eleanor Perkins
How is that different from now?

Isabelle Asford
So true! Better than petrol?

Eleanor Perkins
I mean I like the small of petrol.

Isabelle Asford
No, it’s so true they’re the things you have to think about.

Michael Noble
I think everyone should get their own private helicopter.

Eleanor Perkins
If everyone had a helicopter, there would be a lot more accidents in the sky.

Michael Noble
That’s true. But if it was like an AI controlled helicopter –

Eleanor Perkins
A bullet train.

Isabelle Asford

So, stick with the idea that you feel is going to work well for you and we’re just going to give it space to explore.

Arts therapy is an evidence based psycho-therapy, which can offer the outlet to explore untapped and hard to express emotions and experiences.

So we get the group to utilise all the creative modalities that are at their fingertips, to express what they’re feeling. And that can include visual arts, drama, movement, music and sound.

Eleanor Perkins

Hey Mikey, do you like my reverse cycle air conditioning?

Alexandra Hill

Skating on the sand at the beach. Cause these are special skates that you can skate on sand with. And go wee, and gliding and skating on the sand and having fun and everything. And the sea’s just there and then the sun’s coming up from the sea.

Eleanor Perkins

I had several ideas but I mixed two of them together. So, it’s a bullet train, but inside the train there’s individual travel pods. If you want to be alone and listen to calming music you shut the door, and it’s like you can hear next to nothing. And since it’s a bullet train, you get to where you need to go fast.

I had it so you can change the walls to something that you like. So I did one in my favourite colour, which is purple. And one wall that was the beach, because nature calms me. Being in nature calms me and it’s a happy place.

Michael Noble
I made a stop motion animation, so everyone has their own personal private jet.

Isabelle Asford

So you don’t go hiring,a nd getting apps and all that.

Michael Noble
No, no, no, you’ve got your own jet power, you just have to maintain it and look after it.

They’re powered by your PTSD. No, cause everyone’s got to – no, that’s a bit stupid. More shit you’ve got to work through in your life, the fast it will go and the more beneficial it is.

No, I guess you would have to have some sort of navigation system as well. So, you’ve got like a GPS system as well.

Eleanor Perkins

Maybe in your helmet you could see where you’re going, like iron man.

Michael Noble
That’s good as well.

Isabelle Asford

One thing that really stood out was, there was a sense of needing to be cocooned, or on their own in their experience of travel and transport. So, a sense of independence, and a sense of control in their environment.

Michael Noble
Driverless cars are unsafe. The thing that would worry me about driverless cars, I suppose, was if everyone has one it’s fine. When there’s AI mixed with human control, then it could potentially clash.

Eleanor Perkins

I personally think there are already too many cars in the world, and we don’t need to keep making cars because it’s just excessive. The inequity and the impact on the environment, that’s the things that bother me. Because I live on this planet too. I feel like I can’t make a big difference, but those big companies, those multi-million dollar companies, they can make a difference but they’re not going to. They won’t because it will hurt their end profits.

Michael Noble
I guess there’s also the Wall-e factor as well. If technology takes over then humanity becomes extremely lazy. Like yes, it’s a life of luxury, but it’s not a healthy life. There is inequity on our planet with the wealthy and the powerful. And they get their wants and needs taken into consideration before the impact on the environment, or the less fortunate would. It’s disgusting and I hate it.