Substrates via Accessibility
he social model of disability holds that disability is produced by environments, not by bodies — that when software fails to accommodate a person’s needs, the envi ronment is disabling them. We argue that the dominant organization of computing produces such interaction mis matches structurally: the commodity form of software requires a standardized consumer, and everyone whose needs diverge from this imagined subject is disabled by the software environment. The substrates research community has identified properties — disclosure, composability, mal leability — that would address this, but the commodity form actively selects against these properties because they dissolve the boundaries on which exchange value depends. This raises a question: how can infrastructure organized against the grain of commodity logic be made durable? We find a precedent in accessibility infrastructure — sustained not by patronage but by the organized counterpower of disability rights movements. Through Allio, a system for crossapplication augmentation built on accessibility APIs, we illustrate both what this foundation makes possible and where its limits lie. We argue that the accessibility case reframes the substrates programme’s central challenge as politicaleconomic: the question of who sustains substrate infrastructure, and through what social mechanisms, is as important as the question of what properties it should have.
Tue 17 MarDisplayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change
13:30 - 15:10 | |||
13:30 20mTalk | Substrates via Accessibility Substrates | ||
13:50 20mTalk | fluid.cell: A reactive implementation supporting malleable substrates Substrates Antranig Basman Independent Pre-print | ||
14:10 20mTalk | The Lopecode Tour Substrates Link to publication | ||
14:30 20mTalk | Interactive Substrates for Malleable Software Substrates | ||
14:50 20mTalk | Model |> View |> Self-Modify architecture Substrates Pre-print | ||