Expanding Norms, Negotiating Bodies: How Artists with Disabilities Perceive and Use Creative Tools

Abstract

This paper explores how and why artists with disabilities use, do not use, or modify tools in their creative practice.To inform the design of future creativity support tools (CSTs), we learned from 12 artists with a wide range of disabilities and mediums, including photography, theater, and drawing.Through their stories, we show instances of crip technoscience happening in the wild.We discuss how our findings may lead to expanded definitions of CSTs to include networks of interdependence and how artists with disabilities negotiate and foreground bodily boundaries in their practice.While our participants rejected the notion of adapting their tools, they did misuse existing tools when making art about their disabled experiences.Finally, we offer suggestions for CST designers to re-examine implicit norms around their tools' goals, input modalities, and if a new accessible tool is even needed in the first place.

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