Compose a blog post that reflects on some of the themes and ideas covered this week. Discuss:
- Who is an artist working in your field that has a disability? What language do you notice they use in talking about their disability? Does the language that the media use around them differ from that language?
I have recently learned about David Midell. David is a filmmaker in the US who identifies as being on the autism spectrum. He describes challenges and idiosyncrasies resulting from his unique perspective in an article from Talkhouse (Talkhouse 2021).
I connect with his anecdotal accounts of perfectionism (he prefaces this and other words with the less common word ‘perseveration’, which I quite enjoy) and heightened awareness of minutiae. These qualities run through my everyday life and affect nearly every action with contradictory results.
- To the extent that you feel comfortable sharing publicly, what is your experience of disability? How might this affect the art that you want to create, or the people you seek to work with?
The concept of disability is an empty one, in that it leaps from the state-capitalist’s handbook to empty the individual of ‘I’, their creative self-existence, and replace that with a sequence of commands and consequences imposed within through the subtle permeation of media and without by supervised coercion in a de-personalising role. What do I mean?
Ability language comes to be used in a society where capitalist functionality, i.e., worship of wealth, overshadows, supersedes and subsumes the individual, and even […] voluntary collectives, and where increasingly complex, specialised roles take the place of simple cooperation between unique species.
And so, entrenched in such a system, ‘Timothy Sommerlad’ as a world has its layers continually stripped back and shipped around as income, health, ability, intelligence, merit, reputation, sexuality, and political alignment – from apparently objective through to basically subjective measurements of worth, of value.
My autistic/ADHD/neurodivergent/eccentric/odd/contrarian/perverse characteristics, meaningless except for this filter of value through which they are constantly and mercilessly screened and condemned, take on a life of their own beyond ‘I’ and wreak havoc as they attach to the pre-set perceptions of others and entangle themselves with ‘my’ thoughts, ensuring their survival and extension throughout the world.
References
Storyblocks 2022, A creative montage of a side profile, Storyblocks, viewed 20 December 2022, <storyblocks.com>.
Talkhouse 2021, Being a Filmmaker on the Autism Spectrum Presents Challenges – and Opportunities – of a Lifetime, Talkhouse, viewed 5 December 2022, https://www.talkhouse.com/being-a-filmmaker-on-the-autism-spectrum-presents-challenges-and-opportunities-of-a-lifetime/.
Talkhouse 2021, David Midell receives an award, Talkhouse, viewed 20 December 2022, <https://www.talkhouse.com/being-a-filmmaker-on-the-autism-spectrum-presents-challenges-and-opportunities-of-a-lifetime/>.
