Selected Papers of #AoIR2023:  

The 24th Annual Conference of the  
Association of Internet Researchers 

Philadelphia, PA, USA / 18-21 Oct 2023 
 
 

 

Suggested Citation (APA): May, E. (2023, October). Technological practices of refusal: 
Radical reimagination in M Eifler’s computational prosthetics. Paper presented at AoIR2023: The 24th 
Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Philadelphia, PA, USA: AoIR. Retrieved 
from http://spir.aoir.org. 

TECHNOLOGICAL PRACTICES OF REFUSAL: 
RADICAL REIMAGINATION IN M EIFLER’S COMPUTATIONAL 
PROSTHETICS 
 
Emma May 
Rutgers University 
 
The project will explore the connections between disability and practices of refusal as 
they relate to technology, building upon both Black feminist theory, critical disability 
studies, and feminist science and technology studies (STS) (Barabas, 2022; Benjamin, 
2016; Garcia et al., 2020; Hoffmann, 2021). An overarching objective of this work is to 
connect Black feminist theory and critical disability studies to feminist STS to challenge 
normative understandings of ableism in ways that consider race not as an addendum to 
such movements, but a central organizing principle. Additionally, this work extends 
Schalk & Kim’s (2020) feminist-of-color disability studies. Schalk & Kim write that a 
feminist-of-color disability studies maps the connections between multiple forms of 
violence, which underscore “unexpected points of affinity that might build coalition 
across categories” (p. 38). This essay explores artist M Eifler’s computational 
prosthetics (Eifler, 2022; Vargas, 2022) as technological practices of refusal. 
 
There is a growing body of literature that situates refusal as a framework to interrogate 
how sociotechnical systems both reproduce and are embedded in systems of 
domination that impede collective liberation. Barabas (2022) extends feminist 
understandings of refusal as a means to interrogate how sociotechnical systems, which 
are built upon systems of domination, reproduce inequities and further structural harms. 
According to Barabas (2022), refusal is “a practice of generative boundary-setting” (p. 
36). It is also a means to engage in a practice of radical reimagination, in Barabas’ 
words, “a framework for renegotiating the terms of engagement…refusal offers an entry 
point into a transformative process of becoming otherwise, to break free from 
overdetermined notions of the probable or practical in order to enact the possible” (p. 
50). Refusal is more than an outright denial or simply challenging harmful systems; it is 
about imagining beyond pervasive logics to build a better future. Extending the literature 
concerning feminist refusal and technology, technological practices of refusal 
additionally look toward Black feminist theory and critical disability studies to examine 



 

 

how technological practices are means to challenge normative logics and engage in 
collective world-making practices toward liberation and societal transformation. 
 
The concept of technological practices of refusal builds upon Campt’s practices of 
refusal. According to Campt (2017), refusal entails the “quotidian reclamations of 
interiority, dignity, and refusal marshaled by black subjects in their persistent striving for 
futurity” (Campt, 2017, p. 11). These practices are everyday radical reclamations of 
subjectivity that refuse dehumanization. 
 
Refusal is tied to the grammar of Black feminist futurity: “that which will have had to 
happen” (p. 17). Campt notes that “the grammar of black feminist futurity is a 
performance of a future that hasn’t yet happened but must…It is the power to imagine 
beyond current fact and to envision that which is not, but must be” (p. 17). Refusal is the 
radical imagining of a future that denies the continuation of the systems that preclude 
these possibilities. 
 
Refusal can thus be understood as both a pathway toward imagining previously 
foreclosed futures, and a movement-building framework wherein disability activists can 
illustrate the connections between ableism, white supremacy and capitalism. This is not 
a conflation of anti-Black racism and ableism, but rather, the point is to explore the 
connections between ableism and white supremacy as they are produced by 
intersecting systems of domination that devalue individuals based on white supremacist 
ideals of race, class, gender and ability. 
 
M Eifler is an artist whose work explores the connections between hierarchies of value, 
knowledge production, and disability (Vargas, 2022). The artist’s computational 
prosthetics combine AR with physical experiences to interrogate dominant 
understandings of normalcy, ability, and disability. An example of Eifler’s computational 
prosthetic work is Masking Machine. The title of the work refers to the act of masking, 
wherein autistic individuals suppress certain non-normative behaviors or mimic the 
behaviors of those around them. The Masking Machine project utilizes wearable 
augmented reality technology to create and project various masks. Selfies of the artist 
are repeatedly fed into an algorithm, while being changed slightly each time. This 
repetitive refeeding process created distorted depictions of Eifler’s face, which are 
ultimately converted into AR masks. Eifler notes that this repetition uncovered the role 
of technology in the process, which is often rendered invisible. Inspired by the artist 
Krzysztof Wodiczko’s “Mouthpiece,” Eifler devised a wearable technology with a camera 
that records live video while they wear a screen in front of their face that 
instantaneously projects a mask of their distorted face. The screen blocks Eifler from 
seeing those with whom they interact, while it simultaneously simulates eye contact with 
its viewer. 

 
Despite what their naming might allude to, Eifler’s computational prosthetics are not 
concerned with “curing” disability. Rather, the project is concerned with assumptions 
regarding normative social interaction and behavior, relations around technology, and 
the connections between embodiment and knowledge production. In their own words, 
Eifler explains that their art practices explore how disability spurs various “ways of 
knowing” (ibid). Eifler’s computational prosthetics do not signify a techno-solutionist 



 

 

understanding of disability and technology, rather they gesture toward transformative 
practices that counter the hierarchal structuring of needs and exclusionary norms that 
govern social relations. 
 
Eifler’s project highlights how disabled people create and build relations through 
technology. These practices are more than simply technological interventions. Eifler’s 
work can be understood as practices of refusal that look beyond the exclusionary norms 
that govern social relations and knowledge production. They are technological practices 
that reveal possibilities to imagine and enact new ways of being. It is a radical 
restructuring that Campt describes as a “grammar of possibility” (Campt, 2017, p. 17). 
Technological practices of refusal therefore entail a refusal of the conditions that render 
not only disabled people’s humanity—but people proscribed by assumed pathologies—
as incomprehensible. 

 
Technological practices of refusal explore how disabled people reimagine new means of 
social relation despite the routine foreclosure of futurity. Refusal challenges systems of 
power that undergird racist and ableist pathologies, which determine how people are not 
only valued—but granted humanity—due to the ongoing legacies of colonialism and 
racial capitalism. Refusal, and the grammar of Black feminist futurity name the urgency 
of rejecting such logics. Technological practices of refusal underscore the role of 
alternative practices that work toward societal transformation. Refusal entails 
imaginative world-making practices that envision a future—a “crip vision of an 
elsewhere” (Kafer, 2013, p. 24)—against the systemic preclusion of such imaginaries. 
 
References 
 
Barabas, C. (2022). Refusal in Data Ethics: Re-Imagining the Code Beneath the Code 
of Computation in the Carceral State. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. 
 
Benjamin, R. (2016). Informed Refusal: Toward a Justice-based Bioethics. Science, 
Technology, & Human Values, 41(6), 967–990. 
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243916656059 
 
Campt, T. M. (2017). Listening to images. Duke University Press. 
 
Eifler, M. (2022). Prosthetics. BlinkPopShift. http://www.blinkpopshift.com/prosthetics 
 
Garcia, P., Sutherland, T., Cifor, M., Chan, A. S., Klein, L., D’Ignazio, C., & Salehi, N. 
(2020). No: Critical Refusal as Feminist Data Practice. Conference Companion 
Publication of the 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social 
Computing, 199–202. https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3419014 
 
Hoffmann, A. L. (2021). Terms of inclusion: Data, discourse, violence. New Media & 
Society, 23(12), 3539–3556. 
 
Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press. 



 

 

Schalk, S., & Kim, J. B. (2020). Integrating race, transforming feminist disability studies. 
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 46(1), 31–55. 
https://doi.org/10.1086/709213 
 
Vargas, E. (n.d.). Everyone Has Needs: Queering Technology through Disability. 
Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://cchange.xyz/m-eifler/