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The developer of the world's most advanced bionic leg says, "I don't see disability; I see bad technology."

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Hugh Herr is devoted to designing better prosthetics.

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And as part of CNN's new show called The Art of Movement, Nick Glass traveled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to learn more.

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Hugh Herr is a boyish 48-year-old professor of biomechatronics at MIT's Media Lab.

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He's helped develop something absolutely extraordinary, the world's most advanced bionic leg.

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So, can I actually see this new bionic leg?

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Sure.

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Both of his own legs are artificial.

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So, what you see here is a chunk of aluminum and titanium and silicone. It's powered; this is the battery.

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What happens is, when I walk, it powers my movement from step to step in the same way that your calf muscle is controlled by your spinal cord.

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So, we've actually captured the essence of how the lower leg works.

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In 1982, at the tender age of 17, Hugh Herr lost both his legs to frostbite, trapped climbing in a blizzard.

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I went back to climbing with specialized artificial limbs.

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And after a year, I was climbing better with the artificial limbs that [than] I achieved with biological limbs before the accident.

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And this was just an awakening, 'cause I realized that technology can heal, it can rehabilitate,

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and in my own case it actually could extend my physicality.

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Light and flexible, the bionic leg moves as elegantly as the real one, as if the wearer still had calf muscle and an Achilles tendon.

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Twelve sensors to measure force, position, speed. Three microprocessors tell the leg how to perform.

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And in the ankle, a device that behaves exactly like a muscle.

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When I go faster, it gives me more energy.

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When I go up a hill, it gives me even more energy.

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When I go down a hill, it takes energy out. It brakes automatically for me.

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I see an extraordinary beauty when that intimacy occurs between human and machine.

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They should be beautiful, but they need not have a human beauty, they could have a machine beauty.

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Some 600 amputees, many of them American soldiers, have been fitted with these legs.

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They aren't cheap. Hugh Herr's pair cost $120,000.

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People aren't disabled; technology is disabled. I just... I don't see disability at all. I see bad technology.

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If someone tapped you on the shoulder and said you can have your original limbs back, what would you say?

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Absolutely no, absolutely not. It's fun having a body part that you can freely manipulate.

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You know, from my knees down, I'm a blank slate. I can create anything.

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I can build legs with wings if I wanted to. That's a lot of fun.

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You look like you belong up there.

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I've climbed since I was six, seven years old. To me, it's as simple as walking.

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It's something balletic.

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Did I get a 10?