My body is a short-circuit that doesn’t need fixing: a disabled remediation of Zoom

Abstract

During COVID-19 lockdowns, I started doing watercolor paintings of the interface of the videoconferencing program Zoom. Because I have a neurological disability, Zoom feels horrible for me to use; painting focused me and helped me cope. Using disability and these painting “remediations” as methods, I argue that digital interfaces function by sensorially training users to smoothly integrate as part of their operation. Disability is merely a word for the failure of a medium to properly interpellate a subject into the orientation necessary to facilitate its smooth functionality. Instead of suggesting accommodating upgrades to Zoom, I refuse the ableist demands of increased productivity that Zoom turns into requirements, and that require Zoom in order to register as norms. Using Zoom as a case study, my goal is to push back against the expectation that bodies passively adapt to the roll-out of technical systems, and the norms they operationalize.