Cripping_Computer_Graphics: Perspectives on disability representation in CG via community generated 3D asset library

Abstract

Digital media and interactive virtual spaces are increasingly relevant to our understanding of self. As disabled media artists, we use digital and networked mediums to explore our crip experience and point towards a more accessible technological future. Conceived in response to a distortion or absence of disability representation within computer graphics (CG), we started the Cripping_CG project. Cripping_CG is a digital archive of custom made 3D assets, avatars, motion capture animation, bespoke terms of use and expanded data collected from disabled people. It operates as a record of crip culture as well as practical creative resources with which new collaborative creative work can be produced. The project provides a platform to analyze digital creative tools and conventions through a disability lens, identifying inaccessibilities, ableist stereotypes, historical relevance, as well as room for a more expansive disability aesthetics within media arts and cultural archiving.