After attending Cynthia Bennett’s talk at our Criptech AI Lab I was eager to learn more so I looked up her paper and was delighted to diver deeper into her ideas. I found them very resonant with my own. I was struck by how the authors explore the power idea of “crip technoscience.” This isn’t just a academic term; it describes the incredibly innovative and practical ways disabled artists hack and reinvent tools to make their creative practice possible.

This isn’t about the clever hacks disabled folks do by necessity, but the underlying philosophy of entanglement and interdependence. The paper argues that for disabled creatives, accessibility isn’t a separate step you add to a finished creative process. It’s woven into the very fabric of how they create. The “how” and the “what” are inseparable.

This idea of co-constitution is so powerful. It means that the access need itself becomes the creative constraint that fuels innovation. Sheri’s changing eyesight didn’t just mean she needed a zoom feature; it actively reshaped her aesthetic, leading her to embrace vivid, high-contrast color palettes she could see. Her access need and her artistic style evolved together, each shaping the other.

This completely flips the script on traditional, often ableist, notions of the solitary, independent genius artist. Instead, it champions a model of creation that is deeply relational—with tools, with collaborators, with one’s own body and its changing needs. M Eilo’s work is the ultimate example of this. Their art isn’t just something they made despite their disabilities (memory, social interaction); it is literally made from and through them. The AI model is an interdependent partner, a technological prosthesis that allows a unique creative vision to exist. It’s a collaboration between artist, software, and their own neurology.

This framework of interdependence feels so much more honest and generative than the myth of total independence. It acknowledges that we all rely on networks of support, tools, and technologies to create and to live. These artists are just brilliantly explicit about it, making the invisible dependencies visible and turning them into the very subject of their art.

It makes me think that this “crip technoscience” mindset isn’t just for disability. It’s a blueprint for a more collaborative, adaptable, and ultimately resilient way of creating anything. It’s about building a world where we don’t hide our dependencies, but we design with them, honor them, and see them as a source of strength and innovation.

Painting with Cameras and Drawing with Text: AI Use in Accessible Creativity

Cynthia L Bennett, Google Research, United States, clbennett@google.com

Renee Shelby, Google Research, United States, reneeshelby@google.com

Negar Rostamzadeh, Google Research, Canada, negar.rostamzadeh@gmail.com

Shaun K Kane, Google Research, United States, shaunkane@google.com

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3663548.3675644
ASSETS ’24: The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, St. John’s, NL, Canada, October 2024