The term "disability" often implies a one-sided view of people with sensory or motor impairments and focuses on the idea of something lacking perfection. But what is usually called "handicap" is not only a physical or cognitive reality, it is especially a whole world of related emotions, exceptional experiences, and unique talents that can become the bridge between life and art. Stretched Boundaries offers the view of each disability as a work of art, and explores the uniqueness of differently abled artists who have either embraced their  missing functions with creative approaches and tools or realigned focus on other areas in order to perform.

For this concert, RPI's contemporary music ensemble Tintinnabulate, founded by Pauline Oliveros, features four artists: Neil Rolnick, Christine Sun Kim, Clara Tomaz, and David Whalen who explore and present different facets of some of these cultures. Composer Neil Rolnick suffered the loss of hearing in one ear. His piece MONO Prelude refers to how he now hears. Christine Sun Kim's work focuses on the vibrotactile perception and physical interpretation of sound through the vehicle of both performance and sound equipment. David Whalen is a visual artist who developed an ergonomic computer interface which is controlled by the mouth as an alternative to hand-controlled devices. Clara Tomaz's current work explores themes of cognitive and physical diversity, perception of disability and process of acceptance.

Participating artists include:

Neil Rolnick - music

Christine Sun Kim - sound art

Clara Tomaz - video art and singing

David Whalen - digital art performance with music by Deborah Egloff

Jonas Braasch - music and video

with the ensemble Tintinnabulate:
Julia Alsaraff-viola, Matt Azevedo-voltage controlled synthesizer, Curtis Bahn-dilruba/electronics, Jonas Braasch-clarinet, Sam Clapp-cello, Debrah Egloff-prepared piano/electronics, Daniel Fiekowsky-iPhone, Tom Kinstrey-keyboard, James McEntee- theremin, Pauline Oliveros-V accordion, Pete Schirmer-eBass, Doug Van Nort- iPAD

Thanks to the RPI Research Office for Seed Funding of research on technology for artists with disabilities.