Symbols of Disability

Exploration through automation to develop an understanding of Disability, the context within which it is presented in society and to reclaim the symbol in a form that better reflects my complex relationship and identity as someone who experiences Disability.

Using automated drawing machines and algorithmic simulations of growth to recreate new forms of the disability icon. The automation allowing exploration of a vast space of work, and centred on human reflection in finding interesting relationships between the symbol's meaning and aesthetic. Heavily influenced by Vera Molnár's approach to automated drawing: http://www.veramolnar.com/

The project was inspired by the presentation and contexts of the Disability icon that delimit the spaces I move through.

Wheelchair symbols
Leaning back
Leaning back
High arm position
High arm position
Unusal head shape
Unusal head shape
Thin arm and low position
Thin arm and low position
Downward arm position
Downward arm position
Thin lines
Thin lines
For something that is so important in enabling one to participant in society I feel the way the symbol is presented often reflects a lack of care or thought. This lack of thought often typifies design that creates Disability and a society through its behaviours and legislation that normalises it.
wheelchair sign stuck behind a pipe.
wheelchair parking space blocked by shopping trollies.
It also promotes stereotypes of inactivity and disability, something which the Accessible Icon project (http://accessibleicon.org) has explored. By finding new representations we can reframe how disability is seen.

Pictures generated through algorithms were drawn using a pen plotter, an automated drawing machine. This slowed down the automative process, leaving more time to reflect and think on the work. It also fits with my practice of using automation and programming to enable forms of expression that are difficult physically for me to perform.

Axidraw pen-plotter drawing with a red pen.
Axidraw pen-plotter drawing with a red pen.
Pen plotter drawing with a green pen over 2 hours, drawing a wheelchair grown out of organic like vines.

Materials

Pen plotter, Ink, OpenFrameworks & Inkscape.

Support

This project was made possible by the South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) and my time working as part of the Automation fellowship (https://www.swctn.org.uk/automation/).

Collection

White paper, green pen. A wheelchair grown out of plant like roots and vines, expanding to a perfect circle. The growth is quite dense leaving little white space within the circle
Restricted & constricted growth. Constrictive design creates disability that limits growth and engagement in society.
White paper, black pen. A wheelchair built out of scaffolding, slightly chaotic positioned and not very well thought out in structural soundness. The view is looking upwards, giving a sense of scale.
Disability as a Social construction. Scaffolding as material.
White paper, black pen. A wheelchair built out of 3D barriers, shaded with lines. Looks slightly like maze walls looking down.
Barriers
White paper, blue pen. The wheelchair symbol constructed out of broken glass shards, the smaller scale of the fragments gives shape to the wheelchair symbol. The glass shards are losing form slightly in the corner.
Fractured spaces. The UK’s laws and policies on disability and the built environment, fractured, inconsistent and not enforced.
White paper, black ben. A perfect square tightly packed with circles, the small circles help develop the shape of the wheelchair symbol. It's intentionally hard to make out the chair in the dense packing.
Space to move. When your path through public space is blocked your visibility in society is lost.
White paper, red & brown pen. A wheelchair symbol created out of slowly constricting vein like growths from the centre of a circle to the edges. The veins are constrained by the circle and hit the edges and grow around the restriction.
Veins, light growth
White paper, red & brown pen. Vein like growth but much denser than previous image.
Veins, medium growth
White paper, red & brown pen. Vein like growth, extremely densely packed, leaving almost no white visible.
Veins, heavy growth
White paper, grey & black pen. A coral or boney spine like growth shapped into the wheelchair symbol. Shading implies a sense of 3D and light to the picture.
Chair and body. Exploring the relationship of the chair to the body and person.
Black paper, white pen. A 2d leaf like or vine growth tightly packed into the wheelchair symbol. The vines somewhat over grow the shape.
Grown
White paper, black pen. A tree branch like structure, creating the wheelchair symbol. The space between branches is large and it wheelchair symbol is almost not visible.
Body. The wheelchair is artificial, I see and feel it as an extension of my body, sometimes as my body. What is body and what is not body? Natural and artificial blur.
White paper, black pen. The outline of the disability icon is created from layers upon layer of words describing the conditions of our legal system that create disability. Enforcement by litigation by private individuals and being place at a disadvantage by the system and actions we seek to challenge.
Our systems & laws are responsible for creating the disability we experience.
White paper, black pen. 28 wheelchairs is a grid with the only difference between them being different arm positions. The arm positions follow a full 360 rotation from the shoulder.
Angles of activity. A visual study of activity through arm position and wheelchair. What activity does the arm suggest? How much does the chair play in that conclusion? How might the symbol feel different if it was not in the static arm position.
White paper, black pen. A wheelchair symbol made from tiny circles, the shape is coming apart slightly near the edges and the circles get slightly larger as they leave the wheelchair shape.
Grains of sand.
White paper, black pen. A wheelchair symbol made from tiny circles, the positions are more chaotic almost making the wheelchair hidden in the noise.
Grains of sand, visibility being lost.
White paper, brown/red pen. The shape of the wheelchair symbol, with layer upon layer extruding to the edge of the page. The shape becomes exaggerated and ribbon like with each layer around the symbol. Almost looking like a cross section of a tree trunk. The arms become raised slightly and the feet turn into ribbons.
Arms held out. The start of a question about the meaning and symbolism of arm position.
White paper, black pen. Electrical like chaotic lines all over the page, they form closer on the left page making the wheelchair symbol. The wheelchair is not complete, there are broken connections. This is a very personal piece and expresses my experience of nerve pain.
Nerves and pain.
Black paper, white pen. A building or town like blueprint, with intersecting rectangles. The density increases in the middle making the shape of the wheelchair symbol.
Societies that create disability. Invisible obstacles and design that hide in our cities enforcing barriers. If we do not see it, there is no thought to change it.
White paper, black pen. The wheelchair symbol without any hard edges, instead constructed out of sharp lines and rectangles with various density throughout the symbol.
Construction. If disability is a social construct, what does it look like? What attitudes, policies, laws and societies shape it. Inconsistent design, adhoc modifications, lack of thought?
Black paper, white pen. The shape of the disability icon but created out of a spider like web. Lacks the cohesion or geometry of the spiders web feeling slightly messier and stretched.
The strength & toughness of disability. Modelled on the growth of a spiders web
White paper, black pen. A flower or cauliflower like growth with 5 large flower like parts. The picture is heavily shaded creating a sense of 3D.
Organic shapes created through applying Differential growth to the ♿️ icon.
Black paper, white pen. A wheelchair where sharp edges grow outward in multiple lines. Feels almost bacteria like or mould in the growth pattern.
Organic growths, influenced by a heightened sense of the invisible and having to wash your wheelchair every time you wash your hands.
White paper, black pen. Two waves that intertwine but never intersect. The waves are created from the disabled icon, slowly rotating with many overlaps.
Exploring a sense of freedom, activity and motion, often seen wrongly as a contradiction to disability.
Cream paper, black pen. Many wheelchairs spirally up and down the page where their shape is drawn in each position they would occupy. Like motion lines through time capturing every position.
Wheelchairs in motion
Black paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol layered with strokes of white pen, continuously growing outward. Creates harsh, sharp joins where there are angles in the original symbol.
The layering of micro-aggressions of access
Black paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol created through layers of outlines but they distort and crack with each outward layer. Looks very glitched and sharp.
The layering of micro-aggressions of access and the increase in effect
Cream paper, black pen. Wheelchair symbol constructed from inward moving outline strokes. Creates the effect the wheelchair is decreasing in size with each layer.
The layering of micro-aggressions
White paper, black pen. Wheelchair symbol created out of a single chaotic line wildly moving from left to right and back again. The chair is barely visible and almost feels like its being held back in its movement.
The effort of having to ask for access
Black paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol created from vertical line chaotic structured, moving downwards. The symbol is just visible, but it has a chaotic unstructured feel to it.
The effort of having to ask for access
Black paper, white pen. The shape of the disability symbol is created through straight lines which turn into stairs when they reach the edges of the symbol.
Stairs & drops. Design that creates disability.
White paper, black pen. Wheelchair symbol constructed out of diagonal lines all pointing in the same direction.
Slopes
Black paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol created out of dust like particles. At the front it looks like those dust particles are blowing away in the wind.
Deconstruction & reconstruction.
Black paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol constructed out of dust like particles.
Deconstruction & reconstruction.
Blue paper, white pen. A glitched form of the wheelchair symbol, the wheel is broken with sharp diagonal lines and the positions mis-aligned
White paper, black pen. Wheelchair symbol constructed out of broken shards of glass.
Shards. Exploring the creation of disability as a social construct. Built out of broken design that cuts.
Cream paper, white pen. Wheelchair symbol in a branch like pattern where all growth starts from the head of the wheelchair symbol. Density of branches creates the wheelchair shape. Growth is in a perfect square.
Centered in the individuals experience
White paper, black pen. Wheelchair symbol where the wheel is missing and the person as been whirled around drawing motion lines, creating a wheelchair.
Body & wheelchair.
Black paper, white pen. A grid of 70 different glitched wheelchair symbols.
Generative pattens deviating from the ♿️ symbol.
Black paper, white pen. A grid of 98 wheelchair symbols, each one showing the progression of a single glitch. Kind of creates an animated, flip book feel.
Glitched
Black paper, white pen. A line of 8 glitched wheelchair symbols, starting with the original symbol and each one after adding a glitch.
Glitched
Black paper, white pen. A grid of 35 glitched wheelchair symbols in progression of adding a glitch each time.
Glitched
Black paper, white pen. 4 large glitched wheelchair symbols.
Glitched