Politics of Inclusion and Lessons of Access from Disabled Artists

From automatic speech recognition to automatic scene and image descriptions, artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have increasingly been deployed to improve the accessibility of digital and everyday experiences for disabled people. Underpinning these stories of access is an evolving set of norms, values, and expectations of what is “includable” and who is included. I examine some of the pitfalls of framing access in terms of “inclusion” in narratives around assistive AI. I turn to critical disability theory to explore possibilities opened up by reorienting the analytical lens from terms of inclusion to crip traditions. By representing crip bodies as productive sites of difference, critical disability scholars have deconstructed stable categories and mapped out the contours of embodiments rooted in leaky boundaries. I follow these theoretical traditions in discussing the artistic practices of disabled artists Emery Blackwell, Jenny Sealey, and Tarek Atoui. I show how their works serve as counter-narratives to the dominant logics of binaries and fixities that often undergird AI rhetorics. These artists and their collaborators show that far from a diversity requirement to fill, access is an ongoing process, a form of creative labour, and a source for new ways of knowing.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Stacy Hsueh

Conference

Publication date: September 2021

Publication date (Print): September 2021

Pages: 45-51

Affiliations

[0001]Media and Technology Interaction

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm, Sweden

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM2021.6

SO-VID: 26c400de-9fe6-4488-89e2-74c1c9e7813b

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of Politics of the Machines - Rogue Research 2021

Conference acronym: POM 2021

Conference number: 3

Conference location: Berlin, Germany

Conference date: September 14-17, 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: debate and devise concepts and practices that seek to critically question and unravel novel modes of science

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/POM2021.6

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

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S. Ahmed (2012) On Being Included. Duke University Press, Durham.
A. C. Albright (1998) Strategic Abilities: Negotiating the Disabled Body in Dance Volume 37 (3): Disability, Art, and Culture (Part II).
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C. L. Bennett & O. Keyes (2020) What is the point of fairness? Disability, AI and the Complexity of Justice. ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing, 125, 1ââ‚¬“1.
C. L. Bennett & D. K. Rosner & A. S. Taylor (2020) The Care Work of Access. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 25-30 April 2020, Honolulu, HI,1ââ‚¬“15. Association for Computing Machinery, New York.
British Council (2017) The aesthetics of access. http://www.disabilityartsinternational.org/resouces/the-aesthetics-of-access/, (30 November 2021)
S. Broadhurst & J. Machon (2012) Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Chute (1979) 2006, DVD. Paxton, Steve and Smith, Nancy. Distributed by Contact Collaborations, Inc., USA, 2006.
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R. Debatty WITHIN (2016): Instruments that challenge the way we understand hearing. http://we-make-money-not-art.com/within- instruments-that-challenge-the-way-we- understand-hearing/ (30 November 2021)
S. Hendren (2020) What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World. Penguin, London.
L. Hickman (2018) Access Workers, Transcription Machines, and Other Intimate Colleagues: Disability, Technology and Labor Practices in the Production of Knowledge (1956-present). University of California, San Diego.
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A. Lepecki (2010) The body as archive: Will to re-enact and the afterlives of dances. Dance Research Journal, 42(2), 28ââ‚¬“48.
D. Lyon (2003) Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk, and Digital Discrimination. Psychology Press, Hove, East Sussex.
J. Mankoff, G. R. Hayes & D. Kasnitz (2010) Disability Studies as a Source of Critical Inquiry for the Field of Assistive Technology. In Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 25-27 October 2010, 3ââ‚¬“10. Association for Computing Machinery, New York.
A. McGuire (2016) War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
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C. J. Novack (1990) Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American culture. University of Wisconsin Press, Maddison.
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J. Sealey (2018) Reasons to be Graeae: A work in Progress. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.
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M. Whittaker, M. Alper, C. L. Bennett, S. Hendren, L. Kaziunas, M. Mills, M. Ringel Morris, J. Rankin, E. Rogers, M. Salas, et al. (2019) Disability, Bias, and AI. AI Now Institute, New York.
B. Williamson (2019) Accessible America. New York University Press, New York.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] G. Acogny (2008) Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice. In N. Jackson & T. Shapiro-Phim (Eds.) Dignity in Motion. Editoriale Jaca Book, Milan.

[2] S. Ahmed (2012) On Being Included. Duke University Press, Durham.

[3] A. C. Albright (1998) Strategic Abilities: Negotiating the Disabled Body in Dance Volume 37 (3): Disability, Art, and Culture (Part II).

[4] A. C. Albright (2010) Choreographing difference: The body and identity in contemporary dance. Wesleyan University Press, Middleton.

[5] C. L. Bennett & O. Keyes (2020) What is the point of fairness? Disability, AI and the Complexity of Justice. ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing, 125, 1ââ‚¬“1.

[6] C. L. Bennett & D. K. Rosner & A. S. Taylor (2020) The Care Work of Access. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 25-30 April 2020, Honolulu, HI,1ââ‚¬“15. Association for Computing Machinery, New York.

[7] British Council (2017) The aesthetics of access. http://www.disabilityartsinternational.org/resouces/the-aesthetics-of-access/, (30 November 2021)

[8] S. Broadhurst & J. Machon (2012) Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

[9] Chute (1979) 2006, DVD. Paxton, Steve and Smith, Nancy. Distributed by Contact Collaborations, Inc., USA, 2006.

[10] E. Clare (2017) Brilliant imperfection. Duke University Press, Durham.

[11] C. Dââ‚¬™ignazio & L. F. Klein (2020) Data feminism. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

[12] R. Debatty WITHIN (2016): Instruments that challenge the way we understand hearing. http://we-make-money-not-art.com/within- instruments-that-challenge-the-way-we- understand-hearing/ (30 November 2021)

[13] S. Hendren (2020) What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World. Penguin, London.

[14] L. Hickman (2018) Access Workers, Transcription Machines, and Other Intimate Colleagues: Disability, Technology and Labor Practices in the Production of Knowledge (1956-present). University of California, San Diego.

[15] L. Hickman (2019) Transcription work and the practices of crip technoscience. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 5(1), 1ââ‚¬“10.

[16] A. Kafer (2013) Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

[17] O. Keyes (2020) Automating autism: Disability, discourse, and artificial intelligence. The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique, 1(1), 8.

[18] R. E. Ladner (2011) Accessible Technology and Models of Disability. In M. M. K. Oishi, I. A. Mitchell, H. F. M. Van der Loos (Eds.) Design and Use of Assistive Technology. Springer, New York.

[19] A. Lepecki (2010) The body as archive: Will to re-enact and the afterlives of dances. Dance Research Journal, 42(2), 28ââ‚¬“48.

[20] D. Lyon (2003) Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk, and Digital Discrimination. Psychology Press, Hove, East Sussex.

[21] J. Mankoff, G. R. Hayes & D. Kasnitz (2010) Disability Studies as a Source of Critical Inquiry for the Field of Assistive Technology. In Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 25-27 October 2010, 3ââ‚¬“10. Association for Computing Machinery, New York.

[22] A. McGuire (2016) War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

[23] D. T. Mitchell (2015) The biopolitics of disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

[24] C. J. Novack (1988) Contact improvisation: a photo essay and summary movement analysis. TDR (1988-), 32(4), 120ââ‚¬“134.

[25] C. J. Novack (1990) Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American culture. University of Wisconsin Press, Maddison.

[26] M. Oliver (2017) Defining impairment and disability: Issues at stake. In E. F. Emens & M. A. Stein (Eds.) Disability and Equality Law. Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames.

[27] A. Pearson (2018) Exploring the sphere of sound. http://www.mapping-access.com/blog-1/2018/8/6/exploring-the-sphere-of-sound-an-essay-website (30 November 2021)

[28] M. Ringel Morris (2020) AI and accessibility. Communications of the ACM, 63(6), 35ââ‚¬“37.

[29] J. Sealey (2018) Reasons to be Graeae: A work in Progress. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

[30] M. Shildrick (2019) Critical Disability Studies: Rethinking the Conventions for the Age of Postmodernity. In N. Watson & S. Vehmas (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies, Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames.

[31] H.-J. Stiker (2019) A History of Disability. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

[32] B. Tucker (2017) Technocapitalist disability rhetoric: When technology is confused with social justice. Enculturation. http://enculturation.net/technocapitalist-disability-rhetoric (30 November 2021)

[33] M. Whittaker, M. Alper, C. L. Bennett, S. Hendren, L. Kaziunas, M. Mills, M. Ringel Morris, J. Rankin, E. Rogers, M. Salas, et al. (2019) Disability, Bias, and AI. AI Now Institute, New York.

[34] B. Williamson (2019) Accessible America. New York University Press, New York.

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