Exposed Flesh: Crip Tech Iconographies of Posthuman Eroticism

Crip tech builds on earlier interventions in disability studies, particularly Robert McRuer’s book Crip Theory (2006), in which he brought disability studies into dialogue with queer theory by arguing that compulsory able-bodiedness operates alongside compulsory heterosexuality.¹ 1 - Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (New York: New York University Press, 2006). Against dominant Western medical and social frameworks that treat bodily difference as deficit, this lineage reframes disability as a mode of subject formation capable of exposing the norms that define it as lack. Within this context, the representation of the disabled body becomes a site of resistance to ableist structures. The Canadian multidisciplinary artist Panteha Abareshi, who grounds their practice in their experience of sickle-cell beta-thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes chronic pain, offers interesting insights into these issues. Through performances and installations, they intertwine their body with medical technologies — often in a sexualized way — to rethink the afflicted body as an active and sensual identity.