The four works understand accessibility not as a problem to be solved, but as a starting point for artistic innovation. They make visible how normative notions of "help" and "adaptation" often themselves become barriers—and develop against them idiosyncratic, poetic, sometimes also provocative counter-designs. In doing so, it becomes clear that creative systems of access are not only functional but always also political. They pose questions of power, demand redistribution of responsibility, and imagine other forms of being together.

In Mobility Device, Carmen Papalia replaces the white cane—that symbol of institutionalized disability that wanted to make him a certain kind of blind person—with a marching band. The musicians translate curbs, lampposts, and other obstacles on his way through the city into musical cues and transform public space into a collective soundscape. Papalia's performance symbolically makes visible the musicality inherent in the white cane while reversing its social function: instead of preventing others from helping, the band invites participation. Mobility Device is thus more than an alternative navigation method—it's a proposal for user-generated, process-based systems of access that don't institutionalize but celebrate interdependence.

RA Walden's Notes from the Underlands is a performative vision from the depths of queer crip culture. The text drafts both a future-oriented utopia of sick, disabled, and care-giving togetherness and an urgent call to action in the now. Walden perform through video, audio, large-format prints, and subtitles—thus questioning the notion that the body must be physically present (and able) to perform. The work makes clear: performance can also take place when the body is absent, fragmented, or mediated through technology. Access is not added afterwards here, but is the aesthetic basic structure itself.

Philipp Muerling's performance Am Haupteingang (Besuch am Schillerplatz) documents a radical confrontation. As the first wheelchair user in the history of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Muerling refuses to use the accessible back entrance. Instead, he repeatedly drives to the monumental grand staircase of the main entrance, lets himself fall from the wheelchair to the floor, and tries to pull himself up the steps—an undertaking that must fail every time. Muerling makes clear: the reference to the accessible back entrance available to him is not a solution but structural violence. Inclusion doesn't mean "somehow getting in," but being able to use the same entrance as everyone else—as a matter of course, not as a privilege. After 31 performances he loses patience: "I will repeat the performance until the requirements are met or my body fails. The latter is more likely." 

Christine Sun Kim's [Closer Captions] deconstructs the inadequacies of closed captions—that technical "solution" meant to provide Deaf people access to audiovisual media, but which usually functions catastrophically poorly. Kim, a Deaf artist living in Berlin, reveals a "not-so-well-kept secret": many conventional methods of audio description are completely inadequate ("they suck"). Instead of merely transcribing sound, Kim shows what captions could be—a creative, interpretive act that doesn't just describe sound but translates, contextualizes, emotionalizes it. Her self-produced and subtitled recordings make clear: language about sound is never neutral. Every description is an interpretation, every caption an aesthetic decision. Kim thus demands not better subtitles, but a fundamental redefinition of what access in the auditory realm can mean.

The four works follow a common principle: they reject normative, institutionalized forms of "adaptation" and instead develop idiosyncratic, artistic-political alternatives. They show that creative systems of access can be not only more functional, but also more beautiful, more radical, and more emancipatory than what institutions sell as "accessible." In doing so, they make clear: the responsibility for accessibility must not lie with disabled people. It's not Philipp Muerling's job to struggle up the stairs. It's not Carmen Papalia's job to make do with the white cane. The question is not how disabled people can adapt better, but when structures will finally change. Access first is not a nice-to-have, but a demand for radical redistribution of power, space, and possibilities.

The panel ACTIVISMS TO ACTIVATIONS focuses on initiatives, independent advocacy groups, associations, and actions by individuals who, through lived experience, draw attention to the living conditions of people with disabilities. In the discussion, representatives, activists, and artists talk about the necessity of actions, communities, and networks to dismantle barriers and promote equality, self-determined living, and cultural participation. The conversation also addresses the work behind these initiatives and the assessment of the current social situation for people with disabilities from the perspective of their representatives.

Participants include Julia Moser from the association Frauen* mit Behinderungen (Women* with Disabilities) — the first independent advocacy group for women* with disabilities in Austria; Ema Benčíková and Mikki Muhr talk about the OFFENE redAKTION. During the course of the project, spaces for meeting and negotiation are created for people with disabilities, with chronic illnesses, and without disabilities. The OFFENE redAKTION is an ongoing collective process, developed as a continuation of Eva Egermann’s Crip Magazine.

In addition, In addition, Jannik Franzen from the working group Barriereabbau und Gender Diversity (Inclusive practices and gender diversity) of the association dieRegisseur*innen talks about the activities of the working group. The panel is complemented by visual artist Philipp Muerling, whose film Am Haupteingang (Besuch am Schillerplatz) is screened as part of the festival. The actions documented in the film bring the discussion on equality and accessibility for students with disabilities at the Academy of Fine Arts into broader public awareness.

Carmen Papalia, a blind artist and activist from Vancouver, began using a white cane about ten years ago—a symbol that for him meant both access and institutionalization. The cane made the world experienceable differently for him, expanded his "map," but he also felt fixed by it to a certain role: to the blind person with the huge sunglasses, the piano tuner or masseur, who walks on predetermined routes and speaks about his blindness in predetermined ways. The one you never see but know exists.

In Mobility Device, Papalia replaces the white cane with a high school marching band. Accompanied by the Great Centurion Marching Band of Century High School in Santa Ana, he explores downtown while the musicians, under the direction of R. Scott Devoe, give musical cues: obstacles, objects, information that could be relevant for his navigation. As a musical piece, Mobility Device is an extension of the musicality of the white cane—it makes audible what the cane could touch at every opportunity. Curbs, lampposts, billboards become notes in the soundscape of a place.

But the work is more than an alternative navigation method. It proposes user-generated, process-based, creative systems of access—systems that don't institutionalize but put interdependence and collaboration at the center. Papalia describes his practice as resistance against support options that promote ableist concepts of normality. His socially engaged performances invite participants to expand their perceptual mobility and appropriate public and institutional spaces. Mobility Device shows: the white cane is not neutral—it's a symbol that prevents people from following their inclination to help. The marching band reverses this social function and turns access into a collective, sonic experience.

The film is a performative text from the depths of queer crip culture—simultaneously a future-oriented vision of a sick, disabled, and care-giving utopia and an urgent call to action in the now. RA Walden, transdisciplinary artists based in London and Berlin whose practice centers a queer, disabled perspective on the fragility of the body, perform the text through video, audio, large-format prints, and subtitles. This multiple presence challenges the notion that the body must be physically present (and able) to perform.

Walden's work examines our ability and failure to deal with corporeality, interdependence, and vulnerability—both communally and individually. World-making is understood here not as a visionary tool for an imagined future, but as an embodied method for the now. The work weaves sculptural, installation, and videographic elements with a socially engaged, research-based working method.

Walden's practice is deeply rooted in activist structures. They are connected to the Sickness Affinity Group, an artist and activist collective that addresses questions of illness and disability. Notes from the Underlands makes access the aesthetic basic structure: the work exists simultaneously in different media and formats so that it can be experienced in different ways—not as a supplement, but as a constitutive principle. Walden shows: performance can also take place when the body is absent, fragmented, or mediated through technology. The underlands are not just a metaphorical space, but the real place where sick and disabled people live—often invisible, often excluded, but with their own cultures, practices, and utopias.

Vienna, Schillerplatz, October 2022: Philipp Muerling drives his electric wheelchair to the monumental main entrance of the Academy of Fine Arts. As the first wheelchair user in the 354-year history of this institution, he faces a problem that is symptomatic: the grand entrance is not accessible to him. He lets himself fall from the wheelchair to the floor, straightens up to the first step, and tries to pull himself up by the stair railing. What takes others less than a minute becomes a torturous, doomed-to-fail action for him. After about 15 minutes, his strength gives out. He remains lying on the concrete steps.

Muerling will repeat this performance over 31 times—in cold, rain, and snow. It is artwork and protest, act of desperation and political statement. The Academy refers him to the "accessible" back entrance in Makartgasse—an arduous path that means several technical hurdles, steep ramps, heavy doors, and dependence on functioning technology. For security reasons, he must register at reception—which, however, is located at the main entrance, so he must traverse the entire building.

For Muerling, this "solution" is not inclusion but structural discrimination. "It's not just about accessibility, but about inclusion," he emphasizes. Inclusion means he can use the main entrance like everyone else as a matter of course—on equal footing, without detours, without special treatment.

His radical self-endangerment exposes a society that would rather watch a disabled person struggle up stairs than change its exclusionary structures. Muerling's body becomes proof of institutional exclusion. In the end, his realization: "I will repeat the performance until the requirements are met or my body fails. The latter is more likely." The video work documents this process of repeated failure and thus makes visible a structural problem that points far beyond a single institution.

The Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim thinks a lot about closed captions. And she lets us in on a not-so-well-kept secret: they suck. For Deaf people like Kim who depend on subtitles to consume audiovisual media, captions are often frustratingly inadequate—technically faulty, substantively flat, aesthetically careless.

In [Closer Captions], Kim shows what subtitles could be if understood not merely as a technical aid but as a creative, interpretive medium. With self-recorded and subtitled material, she demonstrates that the description of sound is never neutral. Every caption is a translation, an interpretation, an aesthetic decision. How do you describe music? How do you translate tone, irony, mood? What words do you choose for sounds? These questions touch on fundamental aspects of language, meaning, and perception.

[Closer Captions] is more than a critique of the status quo of subtitling. It's a proposal for a radically different practice: captions as creative, subjective, poetic acts of translation. Kim makes clear that the demand for "better" subtitles falls short. What's needed is a fundamental redefinition of what access in the auditory realm can mean—a definition developed by Deaf people themselves, not by hearing "experts."

With humor and critical sharpness, Kim shows that technical solutions for accessibility are never neutral. They always carry the perspective of those who develop them—and this perspective is usually not that of the people who actually need these tools. [Closer Captions] therefore demands not only better technology but a redistribution of authority: Who decides how sound is described? Whose aesthetic decisions count? How does technical access become creative self-determination?