D2ART: Transforming Disability Arts Through Digital Technologies

Artists with physical impairments typically have great difficulty and numerous obstacles they must overcome when working on their art. These obstacles can be overcome through the use of head wands, mouth sticks, and custom designed pointers with special grips for holding brushes. Whilst these assistive tools can help make the artistic process more accessible, they often result in unnatural movements consistently repeated on multiple occasions - this, in turn, can lead to other physical issues such as severe neck strain and damage to teeth. Moreover, if any adjustments are required after the initial setup, support staff need to be available to help the artist. This lack of independence and reliance on other people can result in a frustrating and tedious experience for disabled artists that disrupts their creative process.

A digital approach can help address many of these issues by supporting and extending the existing abilities of physically disabled artists, transforming their creative opportunities in terms of artistic freedom and expression. A new opportunity has recently emerged with the release of several innovative and affordable sensors that have the potential to transform how people with physical disabilities interact with computing systems. For instance, sensors and devices such as the Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion, Touch+, and Tobii EyeX allow systems to accurately track body movements in real time enabling people to interact with systems in new ways. These sensors hold much potential as assistive tools, but no studies to date have explicitly explored how they can be used to create digital tools that support, extend, and transform practice for disabled artists.

Digital tools that utilise these innovative interaction approaches will transform opportunities for disabled artists raising numerous important and timely arts and humanities research questions around their impact on practice, visualisation of creative process, artistic identity, perceptions of authenticity, and audiences/artists' broader perceptions of work. For instance, these sensors can make traditional art forms that are currently difficult or impossible for physically impaired artists to participate in (e.g. sculpting for double amputees or people with severe arthritis) more readily available and accessible in digital form. This, in turn, gives rise to new hybridised art forms (e.g. digital sculpting via mid-air gesturing, 3D printing of digital models, etc.) that have received no attention to date in the context of disability arts.

Our longer term goal, therefore, is to develop a suite of digital tools that support, extend, and transform the practice of disabled artists and to research the impact this has on creative process and output. To successfully achieve this goal it is essential that we initially build an international cross discipline/sector network of academics, practicing artists, disability arts and accessibility organisations, charities, developers, arts/cultural organisations, and user experience specialists (with extensive experience in participatory user design). This mix of organisations and leaders in the field will enable us to explore this area from different perspectives, to co-design and develop innovative prototypes (tailored to the needs of disabled artists), and to effectively evaluate the impact these tools have on artistic practice, identity, and perceptions of authenticity and artistic voice. These different perspectives will also allow us to lead in scoping out the research space and setting the research agenda by highlighting the priority areas over the next five to ten years. This network will also ensure that work will be disseminated across all sectors helping to build a profile around the project and will raise awareness around the potential of digital tools in the disability arts space.

There are five key beneficiaries of this research project:

Disabled Artists: This project will explore the social and cultural impact of new innovative tools for disabled artists, providing them with greater independence and increased opportunities to engage with traditional and new hybridised art forms. Furthermore, it will assist in encouraging their social inclusion within mainstream arts practice. The technology investigated as part of this project will be inexpensive sensors to ensure that they are accessible to a larger proportion of this practitioner group. An international network of disabled artists, academics, disability arts organisations, charities, and cultural organisations will also be developed thus creating social impact by encouraging a more cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative approach to work in this area that is enabled, rather than impeded, by co-developed artists' tools. The project will move us away from a "one size fits all" approach to accessibility.

Disability Arts Organisations: This research project will have a social and cultural impact on the working practices of disability arts organisations, such as DASH, by enabling them to offer and use new digital tools with their artists and, therefore, to work in new ways. Arts organisations (such as DASH) are key innovators in the support for artists with disabilities and this project will enable them to lobby and facilitate enhanced mentoring, access to cultural opportunities, and facilitate relationships with galleries and venues. Disability arts organisations therefore have a key role to play in making disabled artists aware of the opportunities available and in providing a cultural context to the work.

Charities, Accessibility Organisations, Special Needs Schools and Colleges: Assistive technologies have considerable potential for people with a range of physical impairments. The lessons learned through the project will be of clear relevance to a wide variety of charities, accessibility organisations, and special needs schools and colleges. This potential is demonstrated by interest in the project expressed by a range of these organisations. For example, SCOPE who have demonstrated their keenness to send representatives to project workshops and events, providing a clear avenue for cascading the results of the project and deepening impact.

Arts & Cultural Organisations: This project will focus on the social and cultural influence that new digital tools have on perceptions of authenticity, cultural identity, and the examination of artistic practice where disabled artists have previously been excluded from participation due to impairment. This will encourage arts and cultural organisations to challenge their assumptions of working with disabled artists - not just in terms of accessibility, but also around new forms of commissioning and curation due to the nature of new, emerging, hybridised art forms. As such, this project will facilitate cultural and social impact by increasing opportunities to exhibit new art forms co-developed with disabled artists, providing an improved offer which is based on content not access. In turn, an improved visitor offer will impact on the visitor economy.

SMEs: The use of new technologies in the disability arts space will create a new, untapped, commercial market. We anticipate that in the near future UK SMEs will want to develop products for the global market of disabled artists, as well as for able-bodied artists who want to adopt such tools. A recent visit to the ASSETS2014 conference (the leading international conference on assistive technology) in New York confirmed that no businesses are currently working in this area. As such, this project will have economic impact by providing significant opportunities for SMEs to lead the way in co-developing highly marketable tools for disabled and non-disabled artists.