Christian Riegel, PhD, is Professor of English at Campion College, University of Regina. He is Director of the IMPACT LAB (Interactive Media, Poetics, Aesthetics, Cognition, and Technology). His research interests include the study of contemporary poetry, Canadian Literature, Holocaust Studies, interdisciplinary collaborative research epistemologies, eye tracking applications, and the development of digital art tools for people with disabilities. He is a poet and digital media artist. Additionally, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (UK) in 2019.

“Disrupt/ability”, is an art-making installation that aims to challenge notions relating to the embodied nature of artistic creation through the use of eye tracking technology, custom software code, and digital screens. Questions invoked by “Disrupt/ability” relate to digital hardware and software as user interfaces relating to AI and disability, ableist assumptions about the need for functional limbs to create visual art, and the very nature of the creative environment. Ableism is generally defined as discrimination in favour of able-bodied people. Further key concerns relate to how data streams and digital tools typically used in scholarly research contexts can be adapted for art-making purposes, and to how such adaptations raise questions about the very nature of research discourses, the uses of data, and the potential of digital tools beyond conventional applications.