D2ART: Transforming Disability Arts Through Digital Technologies

有身体障碍的艺术家在创作艺术作品时通常会遇到很大的困难和许多障碍。这些障碍可以通过使用头棒、嘴棒和定制设计的带有特殊握笔手柄的指针来克服。虽然这些辅助工具可以帮助使艺术过程更容易，但它们往往会导致不自然的动作在多个场合反复出现-这反过来又会导致其他身体问题，如严重的颈部拉伤和牙齿损伤。此外，如果在初始设置后需要进行任何调整，则需要支持人员来帮助艺术家。这种缺乏独立性和对他人的依赖可能会导致残疾艺术家的沮丧和乏味的经历，扰乱他们的创作过程。数字方法可以通过支持和扩展身体残疾艺术家的现有能力，在艺术自由和表达方面改变他们的创作机会，帮助解决其中许多问题。最近，随着几种创新且价格合理的传感器的发布，出现了一个新的机会，这些传感器有可能改变身体残疾人与计算系统的交互方式。例如，微软Kinect、Leap Motion、Touch+和Tobii EyeX等传感器和设备允许系统精确地跟踪真实的身体运动，使人们能够以新的方式与系统交互。这些传感器作为辅助工具具有很大的潜力，但迄今为止还没有研究明确探讨如何使用它们来创建支持、扩展和改变残疾艺术家实践的数字化工具。利用这些创新互动方法的数字化工具将改变残疾艺术家的机会，围绕其对实践的影响、创作过程的可视化、艺术身份、对真实性的看法以及观众/艺术家对作品的更广泛看法，提出许多重要而及时的艺术和人文研究问题。例如，这些传感器可以使身体受损的艺术家目前难以或不可能参与的传统艺术形式（例如为双截肢者或严重关节炎患者雕刻）更容易以数字形式获得和访问。这反过来又产生了新的混合艺术形式（例如，通过空中手势进行数字雕塑，数字模型的3D打印等）。因此，我们的长期目标是开发一套数字化工具，以支持、扩展和改变残疾艺术家的实践，并研究这对创作过程和产出的影响。为了成功实现这一目标，我们必须首先建立一个国际跨学科/行业网络，包括学者、执业艺术家、残疾人艺术和无障碍组织、慈善机构、开发商、艺术/文化组织和用户体验专家（在参与式用户设计方面拥有丰富的经验）。该领域的组织和领导者的这种组合将使我们能够从不同的角度探索这一领域，共同设计和开发创新的原型（针对残疾艺术家的需求），并有效地评估这些工具对艺术实践，身份以及对真实性和艺术声音的看法的影响。这些不同的视角也将使我们能够通过突出未来五到十年的优先领域来确定研究空间和制定研究议程。该网络还将确保在所有部门传播工作成果，帮助围绕该项目建立形象，并提高人们对残疾人艺术空间中数字化工具潜力的认识。

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.