Messieurs... C'est L'heure!

Absinthe Dream:

Last night I walked into a room full of people and somehow started feeding back.
Everyone covered their ears and looked at me in horror.
Me: "What-at-at?? UHWUHWUHWUHWUUUH..."

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Tell the Bees

This is like a dream, every bit of it.
Really, it's so wonderful I can hardly believe it.

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The Present Prize: FINALIST

Ladies and gents, I am one of three finalists for The Present Prize!

THANKS to everyone who voted for The Beginning Was The End. I find popularity contests extremely awkward and do what I can to avoid them; if I win this one it will be a lifetime first. And lucrative, to boot.

A verdict is due in a couple of weeks, so in the meantime I am still up against a couple of formidable superstars... I will keep you postered! Enormous thanks again to all of you who have supported my work. You are the best.

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In My Own Language

"The previous part of this video was in my native language. Many people have assumed that, when I talk about this being my language, that means that each part of the video must have a particular symbolic message within it designed for the human mind to interpret. But my language is not about designing words or even visual symbols for people to interpret; it is about being in a constant conversation with every aspect of my environment, reacting physically to all parts of my surroundings.

In this part of the video, the water doesn't symbolize anything. I am just interacting with the water as the water interacts with me. Far from being purposeless, the way that I move is an ongoing response to what is around me. Ironically, the way I move when responding to everything around me is described as "being in a world of my own," whereas, if I interact with a much more limited set of responses, and only react to a much more limited part of my surroundings, people claim that I am "opening up to a true interaction with the world." They judge my existence, awareness, and personhood on which of a tiny and limited part of the world I appear to be reacting to. The way I naturally think and respond to things looks and feels so different from standard concepts or even visualization that some people do not consider it thought at all, but it is a way of thinking in its own right. However, the thinking of people like me is only taken seriously if we learn your language, no matter how we previously thought or interacted.

As you heard, I can sing along with what is around me. It is only when I type something in your language that you refer to me as having communication. I smell things. I listen to things. I feel things. I taste things. I look at things. It is not enough to look and listen and taste and smell and feel: I have to do those to the right things-- such as look at books-- and fail to do them to the wrong things, or else people doubt that I am a thinking being, and since their definition of thought defines their definition of personhood so ridiculously much, they doubt that I am a real person as well.

I would honestly like to know how many people, if you met me on the street, would believe I wrote this. I find it very interesting, by the way, that failure to learn your language is seen as a deficit but failure to learn my language is seen as so natural that people like me are officially described as mysterious and puzzling rather than anyone admitting that it is themselves who are confused, not autistic people or other cognitively disabled people who are inherently confusing. We are even viewed as non-communicative if we don't speak the standard language, but other people are not considered non-communicative if they are so oblivious to our own languages to believe they don't exist.

In the end, I want you to know that this has not been intended as a voyeuristic freak show where you get to look at the bizarre workings of the autistic mind. It is meant as a strong statement on the existence and value of many different kinds of thinking and interaction with the world, where how close you can appear to a specific one of them determines whether you are seen as a real person, or an adult, or an intelligent person. And in a world in which those determine whether you have any rights, there are people being tortured, people dying, because they are considered non-persons, because their kind of thought is so unusual as to not be considered thought at all. Only when the many shapes of personhood are recognized will justice and human rights be possible."
~A.M. Baggs

I recently returned to teaching experimental video to teens (and younger kids) on the autism spectrum. When I tell folks what I'm doing, most respond with some amount of surprise, and almost all say something about how incredibly difficult it must be. In fact, it's something I find extremely satisfying and it actually feels pretty durned natural. The reason for that, I'm finding, is that I empathize with these kids: I'm beginning to locate where I may lie on the spectrum myself.

Although there seems to be some controversy over the authenticity of A.M. Baggs' diagnosis, which is more than a tad perplexing, she's one articulate woman who I hope to have the chance to meet someday.

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