Autism in the Wild: Bridging the Gap Between Experiment and Experience

Abstract

Traditional accounts conceive of the autistic individual as being locked in his/her own world due to difficulties in social interaction, communication and imagination. Historically, the capacity for rich inner life and creativity in autism has been dismissed by many with imagination associated with deficit. The paradoxical association between autism and creativity is one of the reasons the condition causes such fascination and yet remains an enigma. This chapter draws upon practical research to explore new insights into the imagination and perception in autism through the multisensory multimodalities of drama and performance, which, it is speculated, offer a space for ‘encounters’ with autistic states of being. We draw upon our AHRC practice-based project ‘Imagining Autism’, which explores the phenomenology of autism through a series of immersive, multisensory installations, puppetry and interactive digital media, to facilitate communication and social interaction with 7–11-year-olds across the spectrum. These methods are developing new understanding of the richness and originality of the imagination in autism and how it may be differently inflected from neurotypicals. How can atypical experience be accessed through performance vocabularies? Does autism predispose to talents and if so, why? What is the nature of autistic creativity alongside neurotypical creativity? We reconceptualise the imagination in autism, challenging dualisms between the rational and the intuitive, the aesthetic and non-aesthetic and most crucially, imaginative creativity versus the recreative imagination. We draw upon cognitive neuroscience with particular reference to Philip Barnard’s conceptualisation of mental architecture as interacting visual, auditory and bodily subsystems. Two interactions between facilitators and children in the immersive and sensory performance environments of ‘Imagining Autism’ are analysed to evidence cognitive development via the autistic imagination at work. These examples suggest that the somatic interaction of body and the environment are as much part of cognition and the creative imagination as the brain and its functioning.

Appendix

Transcript

This is the transcript of the 2-minute 20-second exchange between Robin and Louis analysed above. See also Sarah Turner, Imagining Autism: Now I See the World, Routledge Performance Archive. http://www.routledgeperformancearchive.com/ 17.08–19.25.

Louis is standing on the trampoline and so is raised by half a meter. Practitioner Robin faces him. Practitioner Gemma is in the background. Behind Louis is the pod wall.

Preliminary Exchange

Louis pushes Robin down, R quickly falls.

L glances to side to watching practitioner.

Puts hands on trouser belt.

R gets up.

L puts hands out to R’s chest then brings them back up into the air as R reaches forward.

L then reaches over R’s outstretched arms to his chest and pushes him

Rhythmic Exchanges

• 1. L pushes and R flinches

• 2. L pushes and R flinches

• 3. L pushes and R falls

[L laughs, touches trousers, glances to side at practitioner but she has gone; he laughs as R gets up. L’s arms are outstretched in anticipation of R arriving]

• 4. L pushes and R flinches

• 5. L pushes and R flinches

• 6. L pushes and R falls

• 7. L pushes and R flinches

• 8. L pushes and R flinches

• 9. L pushes and R falls

R stretches out his hands to be pulled up

• 1. L responds but at once withdraws his hands

• 2. L responds but at once withdraws his hands

• 3. L responds but retains his grip and R gets up

One push and R falls.

• 4. L pushes and R flinches

• 5. L pushes and R flinches

• 6. L pushes and R falls

R on ground puts up 2 hands

• 1. interplay of catching and letting hands go

• 2. L pushes R’s hands away

• 3. L offers his right hand, R grasps it with his left and L puts his left hand on R’s wrist and pulls him up

• 4. L pushes and R flinches

• 5. L pushes and R flinches

• 6. L pushes and R falls

• 1. L pushes R flinches

• 2. L pushes R flinches

• 3. Palms together—R and L*

• 4. L pushes R flinches

• 5. L pushes R falls

[*Between 2 and 3 of the last encounter (the first ‘4’ part sequence we have had) there is a variation: L reaches out with his right hand, then turns both palms to the front and is palm to palm with R. Then he pushes his chest.]

• 1. L. right hand reaches down and grasps R. His left hand follows. The hands are dropped

• 2. R reached his two hands out, they are grasped and dropped

• 3. L reaches out both hands and grasps R. R. is pulled up

Dissolve.