Con(fuse)ing and Re(fusing) Barriers

Abstract

In "Con(fuse)ing and Re(fusing) Barriers", we activate the practice of coalescing to discuss and propose trans* and neuroqueer ways of refusing access barriers and normative expectations. Drawing from trans* feminism, crip technoscience, embodied experiences and our arts-design practice as MELT, we attend to ritual making as a crip and trans* site of resistance. Rituals are activated throughout the text as practices that reduce access barriers, change habits, slow things down, or enact community rites of passage. We refuse (as in: fuse again) and confuse (as in: reconsider assumptions) separability, and trace how materials unfold in our arts-design experiments: concrete and errors become soft, rituals disorder normative space, and cosmic rays embrace neuroqueer understandings of computing. This text is an invitation to share and embrace rituals and refusal as interrelated modes that can make space for other worlds.