[Synapse elist] Introducing myself

[ju90]

Thank you for inviting me - I'm really pleased to be here.

I'm an artist (and therefore naturally have various freelance jobs  
too) who works largely within the theories and traditions of the  
international Disability Arts movement. As such I am very much coming  
from the Social Model of Disability, where what disables us is not  
our impairments but society's responses to them. Alongside this is an  
acceptance of impairment as being i) a normal part of the human  
condition which we will all experience to some degree and at some  
point during our lives, and ii) something which will continue to mark  
human/animal life for all time, since it is inherent in our nature.

I see my body as deviating from social expectations, but not from  
nature; I have no desire or yearning for 'correction' because I do  
not believe there is anything 'wrong' with me. I also do not believe  
that science will ever possess this power of correction, and that  
society is currently suffering from a form of collective body  
dysphoria in thinking that it will - something which I've recently  
focussed on within my residency at the National Institute of Medical  
Research (see www.scientificmodelofdisability.co.uk).

I am however very interested in the cyborg/body augmentation  
discourse from both a disability and a feminist perspective, and  
first developed work around this in 1997 when I uploaded the site 'My  
Not-So-Secret Life as a Cyborg' (linked from my home page at  
www.ju90.co.uk). This documented my decorating a spinal brace and  
using this to explore social constructions of disability by 'doing  
disability' as performance art. (The site also discusses the adoption  
of a disabled identity from a Social Model perspective, and the  
concept of Disability Pride.) I'm also interested in ideas of leaving  
the flesh behind in cyberspace, which I began to explore in the  
mid-90s with the adoption of the online identity ju90 (see 'Who is  
ju90?' on my home page for further documentation).

I see the use of exo-technology to extend our physical abilities as  
being widely accepted in the 'developed' world, so am interested in  
why the use of technology by disabled people is seen as being  
negative and different. I am also interested in why domestic  
technology that would benefit all of us is not incorporated into  
living spaces because it is associated with disabled people - for  
example, my PAs love my through-floor lift because it saves them from  
carrying things up and down the stairs, and in the past 'dumb  
waiters' were common within domestic building design. Today, the  
technology is cheap and easy to fit if provision is made for it at  
the planning stage. Despite this, UK homes have gone from being built  
with no or one bathroom to three or more in the past 50 years, yet no  
provision is now made to enable a lift to be fitted easily if the  
occupants desire it. This makes most new-build homes more unsuitable  
for lift-fitting than older homes, and therefore domestic spaces are  
being created that will always fail to meet the needs of their  
occupants.

In a related field of interest, from 1999-2002 I was involved in the  
'Adorn, Equip' project and touring exhibition organised by the City  
Gallery, Leicester, which questioned why disability aids and  
technologies so often lack aesthetic and other design qualities. The  
project brought together disabled people and makers with the aim of  
creating 'couture' pieces to challenge this. I produced an online  
version of the project during a residency at Oriel Davies gallery in  
2001, which is at www.adornequip.co.uk. For my contribution I worked  
with Andrew Logan to produce a second decorated spinal brace, and  
used this as a costume for my film-dance work 'Fight' (linked from  
'Who is Ju Gosling?' on my home page).

As a part-time wheelchair user - I use chairs or scooters for all but  
short distances outside my studio/home - I am particularly interested  
in the stigmatisation of wheelchair use, which causes many people who  
would benefit from using a wheelchair to desist from doing so. In  
2003 I was commissioned by the Science Museum and Apples and Snakes  
to produce work in response to objects in the Science Museum  
collections, and chose to focus on the Wellcome collection of  
wheelchairs so that I could explore this stigmatisation further. The  
resulting performance, 'Wheels on Fire', is documented on my home  
page (including a script), and I will shortly upload a two-part video  
of the show to my website/You Tube.

Anyway, it's my birthday, so I will finish now and go off to the  
Serpentine Gallery, taking with me one of my favourite pieces of exo- 
technology, my mini-scooter. When I get back I am sure I will  
continue to play with the sample remote-controlled electrical sockets  
that I have just fitted, and to plan for full installation.  
Technological development of exo-technology continues to make  
impairment less and less relevant, at the same time as society  
becomes increasingly fixated on the impossible dream of eliminating it.

By the way, Lizbeth, I live in E16 and am therefore just up the road  
from you - I look forward to meeting you IRL at some point after  
meeting you first in Australian cyberspace!