New Exhibition Grounded in Disability Innovation Opens at UCI Beall Center for Art + Technology

Location: Beall Center for Art + Technology, 712 Arts Plaza, Irvine, CA

Date: September 30, 2023

Time: Sunday and Monday - CLOSED; Tuesday - Saturday - 12pm - 6pm

Leonardo/ISAST presents Experiments in Art, Access & Technology (E.A.A.T.), an exhibition premiering new work by artists Meesh Fradkin, Carmen Papalia, Josephine Sales, Andy Slater, and Olivia Ting. The multidimensional installations were developed in Leonardo CripTech Incubator, a California-based art and technology fellowship that includes residencies, workshops, and presentations wherein artists with disabilities reimagine creative technologies through the lens of accessibility. E.A.A.T. emerges from a broader program under Leonardo CripTech Incubator that links artists, communities, institutions, and ways of knowing through the full cycle of creative access.

Organized by curators Vanessa Chang and Lindsey D. Felt, with support from program curator Claudia Alick, E.A.A.T. will be on view at UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts’ Beall Center for Art + Technology (Beall Center) from September 30, 2023 through January 13, 2024.

An E.A.A.T. partner, Beall Center is free admission and open to the public during the academic year Tuesday – Saturday from 12 noon – 6 pm. Check here for holidays and other closures.

A first-of-its-kind program in the field, E.A.A.T. introduces innovative practices in art and technology that arise from—and viscerally embody— lived experiences of disability. Spanning spatial audio, surveillance technologies, gaming, software, haptics, auditory prostheses, and the built environment, E.A.A.T. artworks use the multisensory affordances of media arts to widen the horizon of access.

Since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, access has been defined by a model of compliance or legal accommodation. But in recent years, artists, activists, educators, and curators are reimagining access as a creative practice that is transforming how people encounter and engage with art and media.

E.A.A.T. is produced in partnership with UCI Beall Center for Art +Technology. CripTech Incubator is built in partnership with RadMad Disability Lab (UC Berkeley); Beall Center for Art + Technology (UC Irvine); Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology; Ellen Pearlman and Andy McWilliams from the former Thoughtworks Arts; Ground Works with A2RU; Gray Area Foundation for the Arts; Arizona State University; and publication with MIT Press.

Leonardo CripTech Incubator is supported by the California Arts Council Innovations + Intersections Grant; Ford Foundations’ Arts Futures Grant; Ability Central; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About Leonardo

Fearlessly pioneering since 1968, Leonardo serves to convene, research, collaborate, and disseminate best practices at the nexus of arts, science, and technology worldwide. Leonardo’s global network of transdisciplinary scholars, artists, scientists, technologists, and thinkers experiment with cutting-edge, new approaches, practices, systems, and solutions to tackle the most complex challenges facing humanity today. As a not-for-profit 501(c)3 enterprising think tank, Leonardo offers a global platform for creative exploration and collaboration reaching tens of thousands of people across 135 countries. Our flagship publication, Leonardo, the world’s leading scholarly journal on transdisciplinary art, anchors a robust publishing partnership with MIT Press; our partnership with ASU infuses educational innovation with digital art and media for lifelong learning; our creative programs span thought-provoking events, exhibitions, residencies, and fellowships, scholarships, and social enterprise ventures.

About CripTech Incubator

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.

Image Captions l to r:
Carmen Papalia - image credit: Kristin Lantz
Image alt text *: Against a blurry background of rocks and ocean, a close-up of an olive-skinned man with brown eyes, a dark, close-trimmed beard, and a gray hat.

Meesh Fradkin - image credit: Meesh Fradkin
Image alt text *: A mirror selfie of Meesh. She has brown curly hair tied up in a messy bun and is holding her phone with both hands.

Josephine Sales – image credit: Josephine Sales
Image alt text *: A self-portrait of a shadowed figure wearing camouflage surrounded by green foliage and blue sky seen through a pane of fractured glass.

Olivia Ting - image credit: Olivia Ting
Image alt text *: a headshot of a smiling woman with long straight black hair wearing a black floral top, with her hand on her head.

Andy Slater - image credit: Tressa Slater
Image alt text *: A white man with neglected sandy blond hair and a red and grey beard. He has blue eyes that are trying to make contact with you. He is partially smiling with his mouth closed. He has dimples. His mother says he looks like Beau Bridges.

* Alt text (alternative text) is a concise and descriptive text description added to images in digital content. Its primary purpose is to convey the visual content of an image to individuals who cannot perceive the image itself due to visual impairments, slow internet connections, or other limitations. Because art is a form of expression that should be accessible to all, alt text provides visual information, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can understand and engage with the content. Leonardo CripTech Incubator.

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