Backdating the Crip Technoscience Manifesto

Abstract

This essay considers experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin’s work as a lifelong process of technological activism and “knowing-making.” Using recent frameworks from Critical Disability Studies, Chamarette demonstrates how Dwoskin’s decades of activism parallel and in some cases pre-date the evolution of Disability Studies as it is currently situated. As an early adopter of digital and ‘cusp-of digital’ technologies (Hi-8 cameras, Mini-DV tapes, email, digital editing suites), Dwoskin’s creative work aligns with and backdates the “Crip Technoscience Manifesto” developed by Aimi Hamraie and Kelly Fritsch in 2019. Drawing on Dwoskin’s films and his archive, now housed at the University of Reading Special Collections (UK) Chamarette reframes Dwoskin’s late creative activity as tactics of technological adaptation, crip technoscience, and spheres of influence within digital and non-digital realms. These digital activisms ultimately give cause to reflect on the ambivalent, interdependent, friction-filled relationships between filmmaking, digitality and disability.