WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.680 --> 00:00:04.261
Vanessa Chang: Hi, my name is
Vanessa Chang. I'm Asian and

2
00:00:04.321 --> 00:00:07.983
white with shoulder length, dark
hair and a black top. I'm in

3
00:00:08.042 --> 00:00:11.585
front of a virtual greyscale
background with hemispheres at

4
00:00:11.645 --> 00:00:15.126
diagonal corners. And at the top
right, the words Leonardo

5
00:00:15.186 --> 00:00:19.028
CripTech Incubator. I am Senior
Program Manager at Leonardo, the

6
00:00:19.088 --> 00:00:22.690
International Society for the
Arts, Science, and Technology.

7
00:00:22.750 --> 00:00:25.692
I'm a writer, curator and
educator working at the

8
00:00:25.752 --> 00:00:29.054
intersection of art and
technology. So I was working on

9
00:00:29.114 --> 00:00:32.595
art and technology shows with an
exhibition and curatorial

10
00:00:32.655 --> 00:00:35.837
background that emerged out of
and was informed by my

11
00:00:35.897 --> 00:00:39.379
scholarship.  I realized there
was this gap in how we talk

12
00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:43.101
about art and technology, which
was part of a conversation my

13
00:00:43.161 --> 00:00:47.063
collaborator, Lindsey and I, had
been having since we met in grad

14
00:00:47.123 --> 00:00:49.944
school at Stanford. While
researching media and

15
00:00:50.004 --> 00:00:53.486
technology, I realized that the
history of technology is a

16
00:00:53.546 --> 00:00:56.968
history of disability.  I saw an
opportunity to create an

17
00:00:57.028 --> 00:00:59.970
exhibition from which CripTech
Incubator evolved.

18
00:00:59.300 --> 00:01:02.731
Lindsey Felt: Hello, my name is
Lindsey Felt, and I am a white

19
00:01:02.803 --> 00:01:06.663
woman with shoulder length,
blond brown hair, and I am

20
00:01:06.735 --> 00:01:10.739
wearing a sweater with navy blue
stripes. And my virtual

21
00:01:10.810 --> 00:01:14.313
background is a virtual
grayscale photograph with

22
00:01:14.385 --> 00:01:18.889
hemispheres at diagonal corners,
and at the top right the words

23
00:01:18.961 --> 00:01:23.179
Leonardo CripTech Incubator.  My
access needs are being met

24
00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:27.897
through the live caption feature
on Zoom. So in addition to being

25
00:01:27.969 --> 00:01:31.687
the Disability, Access, and
Impact lead for CripTech

26
00:01:31.758 --> 00:01:35.404
Incubator, I am a scholar,
curator, and lecturer at

27
00:01:35.476 --> 00:01:39.480
Stanford University where I
teach courses on disability,

28
00:01:39.551 --> 00:01:43.340
media, technology, and
communication. My research and

29
00:01:43.412 --> 00:01:47.416
curatorial work emerged in
response to my own experience

30
00:01:47.487 --> 00:01:51.634
and identification as a disabled
person who uses assistive

31
00:01:51.705 --> 00:01:55.637
technologies. I have been
profoundly deaf since I was a

32
00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:59.999
young child, and have been a
bilateral cochlear implant user

33
00:02:00.070 --> 00:02:04.002
since 2013. The cochlear
implant, which is a surgically

34
00:02:04.074 --> 00:02:08.006
implanted, neuroprosthetic
device designed for deaf and

35
00:02:08.078 --> 00:02:11.938
hard of hearing people has
fundamentally reoriented my

36
00:02:12.010 --> 00:02:16.514
engagement with technology. I am
particularly interested in the

37
00:02:16.585 --> 00:02:20.732
ways that disabled people hack
and remake technologies for

38
00:02:20.804 --> 00:02:25.093
their own ends (sometimes to
make them more usable, but also

39
00:02:25.165 --> 00:02:28.311
as a mode of creative
resistance). So access

40
00:02:28.382 --> 00:02:32.815
fundamentally informs the way my
body fits and more often than

41
00:02:32.886 --> 00:02:37.247
not, doesn't fit in this world.
So this framing of access and

42
00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:41.466
the rubrics by which it guides
such fits or misfits of the

43
00:02:41.537 --> 00:02:46.184
world and body-minds serves as a
motivating question for our work

44
00:02:46.256 --> 00:02:49.902
in Leonardo's CripTech
Incubator. So Vanessa, let's

45
00:02:49.973 --> 00:02:54.049
talk about why this is called
CripTech Incubator and most

46
00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:56.480
specifically what CripTech means.

47
00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.550
Vanessa Chang: Well, in art and
technology spaces, engagement

48
00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:01.220
with disability culture has been
limited to thinking about

49
00:03:01.220 --> 00:03:05.030
accommodation, or accessibility
as a form of compliance.

50
00:03:05.420 --> 00:03:09.170
CripTech Incubator instead
centers disability innovation,

51
00:03:09.410 --> 00:03:12.650
creating a platform for disabled
artists to remake creative

52
00:03:12.650 --> 00:03:16.760
technologies through the lens of
access. In other words, artists

53
00:03:16.760 --> 00:03:21.140
who crip new media can engender
new aesthetic paradigms, forms

54
00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:25.190
of representation, and
world-building. "CripTech" takes

55
00:03:25.190 --> 00:03:28.040
root in the Bay Area as the
birthplace of the disability

56
00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:30.740
rights movement, while also
bridging the history of

57
00:03:30.740 --> 00:03:33.830
technological innovation across
the bay in Silicon Valley.

58
00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:38.150
CripTech is a shorthand for the
way disabled people disrupt

59
00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:42.470
technology, access, and design,
and draws inspiration from Karen

60
00:03:42.470 --> 00:03:45.590
Nakamura's work along with other
disability scholars and

61
00:03:45.590 --> 00:03:46.370
activists.

62
00:03:48.790 --> 00:03:52.150
Lindsey Felt: Within disability
culture, the term "crip" itself

63
00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:55.750
recognizes disability as a
valued cultural and political

64
00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:59.740
identity and community; it
actively resists and challenges

65
00:03:59.830 --> 00:04:03.430
the medicalized discourse of
disability as pathology or

66
00:04:03.430 --> 00:04:07.480
deficit through the work of
disability justice. To cite one

67
00:04:07.480 --> 00:04:11.320
of our key partners, Kevin
Gotkin, "crip" marks a space of

68
00:04:11.320 --> 00:04:16.390
something emergent. It is the
incompleteness of disability,

69
00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:20.079
the conversation that will
happen when someone cringes at

70
00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:25.960
"crip", the ways we just need to
get it together. So we wanted to

71
00:04:25.960 --> 00:04:30.280
provide an overview of how we've
organized this conversation, and

72
00:04:30.280 --> 00:04:33.910
other ways to make transparent
this vibrant ecology we are

73
00:04:33.910 --> 00:04:38.020
cultivating and to bring this
lens to arts research practice,

74
00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:41.260
we have invited key members of
Leonardo CripTech Incubator's

75
00:04:41.290 --> 00:04:45.430
network to reflect on their
understanding of this work, and

76
00:04:45.430 --> 00:04:49.060
on their role in this emerging
ecology. We have organized our

77
00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:52.420
commentary to begin with this
video to model accessibility

78
00:04:52.420 --> 00:04:56.380
practices, but also to build in
multimodal forms of access

79
00:04:56.380 --> 00:05:00.220
throughout. Their reflections
are embedded throughout this

80
00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:04.090
commentary as both video and
text. Thank you.