Reco(r)ding CripTech on Ground Works
What is Reco(r)ding CripTech?
Reco(r)ding CripTech is a project to document the creative, interdisciplinary processes of the five artists
in residence with Leonardo CripTech Incubator in 2022-23. The Reco(r)ding CripTech documentation will live in an open-access archive on Ground Works.
We are working with the artists to center their practices, process, and preferred methods of documentation. The archive may include video- or audio-taped interviews and conversations; written, video- or audio-taped journals; images; notes; creative iterations; and more. The archive will meet the highest standards of accessibility. (Note that within disability culture, the term “crip” recognizes disability as a valued cultural and political identity. But “crip” also identifies an active practice whereby disabled makers and artists transform built environments or technologies to be more accessible.)
Why
We understand the CripTech Incubator as a distinctive research ecology-–one in which knowledge is produced by the often marginalized and under-represented disability community, through arts-based, collaborative, and interdisciplinary means. That knowledge is expressed through novel creations at the intersection of the arts and technology.
By framing the artists’ processes as arts-integrative research, this documentation will foreground disabled artists as producers of knowledge, and interdisciplinary works of art as expressions of knowledge. This intervention has implications for both the research enterprise and the disability community by upending the assumption of the scholarly article as the definitive site of knowledge production. Reco(r)ding CripTech centers disabled artists as knowers, witnessing and sharing their creative processes as means to understand this knowledge better.
How
Documentation is grounded in an ongoing listening process with the CripTech Incubator artists. Conversations are guided by cross-disability facilitation and meet the individual artists’ access needs. The artists have full control and agency over how their work is documented, and who can access that documentation. The Reco(r)ding CripTech team serves to support and provide options to the artists.
Documentation includes capture of artifacts of the creative process: rough drafts, notes, and iterations. It also includes reflection on the creative process. We will assemble the artists’ iterative and reflective artifacts in a radically accessible interactive multimedia archive on Ground Works. The archive will be available on the Ground Works platform so that other artists and scholars can access, engage with, and respond to it.
Who
a2ru and Ground Works have partnered with Leonardo/ISAST. Leonardo is a publication and think tank that serves transdisciplinary scholars, artists, scientists, technologists and thinkers. The Leonardo CripTech Incubator is an art-and-technology fellowship for artists with disabilities to engage and remake creative technologies through the lens of accessibility. The Ground Works staff, CripTech Incubator staff, and CripTech Incubator artists are working together on this project.
Ground Works:
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- Daragh Byrne, Platform Developer
- Elizabeth McLain, Cross-disability Facilitator
- Veronica Stanich, Managing Editor
- Luke Kudryashov, Digital Accessibility Consultant
CripTech Incubator:
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- Vanessa Chang, Director of Programs
- Lindsey Dolich Felt, Disability, Access and Impact Lead
CripTech Incubator Artists:
Reco(r)ding CripTech Advisory Board:
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- Johnathan Flowers
- Louise Hickman
- Petra Kuppers
- Crystal Lee
- Elizabeth McLain
- Stephanie Rosen
- Ashley Shew
Support
Invaluable support for Rec(o)rding CripTech comes from a2ru, Carnegie Mellon University, and Leonardo.
In addition, Reco(r)ding CripTech was awarded an ACLS Digital Justice Seed Grant in 2022 and a NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant in 2023.
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Digital Justice Grant Program is designed to promote and provide resources for digital humanities projects that aim to diversify the digital domain, advance justice and equity in digital scholarly practice, and contribute to public understanding of racial and social justice issues, especially those that elevate the interests and histories of people of color and other historically marginalized communities including Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities; people with disabilities; and queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people. The program is made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.