PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Leonardo CripTech Incubator is an art and technology fellowship for disability innovation. Encompassing residencies, workshops, presentations, publications, and education, this innovation incubator creates a platform for disabled artists to engage and remake creative technologies through the lens of accessibility. Employing a broad understanding of technologies, including prosthetic tools, neural networks, software. and the built environment, CripTech Incubator reimagines enshrined notions of how a body-mind can move, look, communicate.
A first-of-its-kind program in the field, the fellowship understands access as an institutional practice.
The inaugural 2022-23 cohort of CripTech fellows are exhibiting their projects at E.A.A.T. Experiments in Art, Access & Technology, running from 30 September 2023 through 13 January 2024.
CRIPTECH METAVERSE LAB
Immersive media, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and spatial audio, present significant access frictions and barriers for disabled users and creators. The inaugural CripTech Metaverse Lab, a collaboration between Leonardo and Gray Area, gathered 10 disabled creatives to collectively experience immersive artworks and generate collective aesthetic access. Convening in February 2023 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the lab imagined new creative pathways for experiencing metaverse artworks amongst participants and future audiences. The findings from this research lab will be published in the Leonardo journal special issue, Criptech and the Art of Access, and can also be found in the CripTech archive.
How We Understand Access
Access is a creative practice that goes beyond mere compliance. Access requires communication and collaboration from all parties, recognizing the disabled community is not homogenous and our needs are not identical or static. CripTech Incubator embraces access—and its frictions—as necessary interventions and learning opportunities. Access is process and progress, not perfection. Access is not limited by physical boundaries; it extends remotely and across space and time. Artists and curators can feel the weight when access fails occur for anyone, even as we continue to critically engage in the work of access informed by our predecessors. This access is art. And art is never enough.
PROJECT CREDITS
Lead Organizers
Vanessa Chang (Leonardo Director of Programs), Lindsey Dolich Felt (Leonardo Disability, Access and Impact Lead), Claudia Alick (Intersectional Design Specialist, Calling Up Justice), Jason Lam (Leonardo Program Coordinator)
CripTech Incubator is built in partnership with Thoughtworks Arts (San Francisco), RadMad Disability Lab (UC Berkeley), Beall Center for Art and Technology (UC Irvine), Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology, Ground Works with A2rU, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Arizona State University and publication with MIT Press. It is supported by the California Arts Council Intersections + Innovations grant.
Sponsors
Partners
