Disability and participation – Getting digital

‘Getting In Touch’, a conference hosted in Brighton earlier this year by Lighthouse, brought together delegates from around the UK in an attempt to explore connections between technology, creativity and disability, explains Evelyn Wilson.
The conference was rooted in some pioneering work that was co-developed at the end of the 1990s by Lighthouse with digital artists and the South Downs NHS Trust, based at Chailey Heritage School in Lewes, East Sussex. The starting point was to provide opportunities for a group of young people from the school, all profoundly disabled, to participate in an arts project which would allow them to embark on a process of independent control and choice. This culminated in them creating art works with the support of a group of artists highly experienced in working with people with disabilities.

The real challenge was to enable, as far as possible, the independent production and creation of art works. Although this involved a painstaking process of consultation and investigation, the results were remarkable. Equipment was adapted for the students, and using devices such as Cyberlink they were able to do things such as control a camera. A far cry from traditional approaches to encouraging people with disabilities to make art the project threw away the rule book. It took away the hand of the teacher and let the students make their own work.

A lengthy process of research took place as the project drew to a close, in order to explore the nature of the partnership between technology, creative practice and disability, how it was evolving, and who was interested in pushing that agenda forward. The research concluded that there is, in the UK, a growing body of work in this area that is substantial and excellent. Detailed case studies have been drawn from over 20 arts projects that supported disabled people and artists to make new creative work – in visual arts, performance and sound related contexts. Many powerful messages came from the conference, which was held to celebrate the end of the first phase of the research. One of the most visionary came from Dave Everitt in his presentation focusing on ambient computing: “We need high bandwidth to handle the ins and outs. We need devices to be embedded in buildings right from the very start. We need custom software that we can control by inputting simple instructions so that we can control technology and we want technology to be wearable, either through implantation or by being light and portable.” This was all too poignantly subverted somehow by the revelation by one of the original Chailey Project participants, Ruth MacCormick, that she still didn’t actually own a computer. So while some of us are intrigued, motivated and inspired by the potential of the latest technological developments, the harsh reality for a lot of people with disabilities is that they don’t yet own or have access to even the basics.

Evelyn Wilson is Director of Lighthouse Brighton. t: 01273 384222; e: [email protected];
w: http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/chailey/index.htm; http://www.gettingintouch.org.uk. Lighthouse is currently seeking funds to develop and publish its research, and to develop its website as a portal for information, dialogue and projects.