Crip Tech and Posthuman Eroticism: Panteha Abareshi's Performative Reclaiming of the Disabled Body

The article explores crip tech, a framework that reframes disability as a mode of subject formation, building on Robert McRuer's Crip Theory (2006). Canadian multidisciplinary artist Panteha Abareshi, who lives with sickle-cell beta-thalassemia, uses performances and installations to intertwine their body with medical technologies in sexualized ways, rethinking the afflicted body as active and sensual. Their work aligns with crip tech, as seen in performances like Unlearn the Body (2020–21) and videos (For Parts) (2020) and (This Is Not a Body) (2022). The article also references Australian performer Stelarc, feminist scholar Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985), and the "Crip Technoscience Manifesto" by Aimi Hamraie and Kelly Fritsch. It discusses how crip tech challenges technoableist ideologies and affirms disabled people as knowers and makers. Other artists mentioned include Alice Sheppard, whose performance DESCENT (2017–18) with Laurel Lawson reimagines Venus and Andromeda as a queer, interracial love story, and Bob Flanagan (1952–1996), who used BDSM to transform chronic pain. Abareshi's solo exhibitions Invalid Pleasures (2023) and Impaired Erotics (2024) center on crip porn and the eroticization of the disabled body through medical apparatuses. The article concludes by questioning the conditions under which disabled bodies consent to be seen.