Konfirmation systemizing: Revaluing Autistic Thinking – Autism Research Centre residency

When is public art not public?

Portsmouth – Brighton – Portsmouth

March 28th

Wake at 5am to a lit room

Dreams linger as involving and intense but subtle in their reprocessed horror peek back at me

Up – Wash – dress – eat – tea – sort train

as I walk I tweet

Sun

shining

through

opalescent sky

teasing

my walking

with

warmth

Konfirm – RT

Take advantage of confined train time to work on KS project thinking and reflection on the weeks highlights and lows – head up I am distracted looking out the window so I tweet

Swan

conference

in empty

beet field

its crow

walked

ochre soil

warms

with potential

so lonesome

I could

cry

Konfirm RT

Look away internal to the coach – people do not shut the interconecting barn door – latest sits next to texting girl – distracted by the now couple opposite so I tweet

Train

deliberately

swaying

while

buff knitted

knees

swing ever

closer

to Badge Boy

with

excited

smile

Konfirm RT

Head down – I think process – performance – orders and systemize them in order – whilst through the chalk bored opening we arrive in Brighton – tidy – leave – walk – buy scone – buy midi Irig and arrive for meeting in the Book Palace

People arrive

Meeting good – Correlated discussion

Designated chair for public art discussion

Lunch time escape for tea with Arts Council friends – Correlated discussion

Relate conversation down to he heart of the matter

Meeting good – Correlated discussion

People leave

we have finished – solo chat – leave – buy Irig keyboard – walk – buy 2 mini Pork Pies and a packet of Percy pigs as present – walk – sit – train

Eureka moment: re-figure an inconsistent statement and text as question

Konfirmed reply

We leave – Head down working on the train but distracted before Hove by the sun shining clear through the carriage I look at shadows dancing so I tweet

Sit

in shade

on the train

while

the sun

makes

the

grass

look

greener

on the

other

side

of

the

tracks

Konfirm RT

Train starts and stops before reaching fields again I notice that

The swans are still there

looking like miniature or far off white painted sauropods

while crow disguised veloceraptors dance between them

Soon I am home – walk – tea – eat – sit – watch – research – 7 minutes out again – undress – bed – think – d

r

i

f

t

neurometronome ticks onwards – cycle will be completed in 4 hours and 23 minutes

‘No repeat is ever unessesary’

Portsmouth – Oxford – Portsmouth March 26th

Awake 3:40am 2 students with shopping trolly go-cart

snooze amongst trees

Awakened

saddened

by alarm

i

a m

o u t

b t t

a e o

t a a c f

h s a e

t t d

l e a v e

today is a big day

today in bowed listed easy session:

1. morning meeting: going to have me an ‘Aspiestaringcompetition’

2. Home – Bath – dress in smart shirt but forget tShirt – will regret this later

3. Train Station – Creditcard sticky so refused twice – dont panic – new machine retry

acceptance is everything

4. See H and stop to chat – same train as far as Cosham – chat City of Culture

inclusion

5. slip into travelling mode

6. Fast Cloud drilling in chalk by the creekside

7. tide nearly passed

8. ticket inspected at 1:50 pm

9. help girl with suitcase onto platform 3

10. look for copy of New York Times but fail – my event listed

alongside advice

for reviving dead mice

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/science/advice-to-researchers-and-reanimating-dead-mice.html?_r=0

11. forget and change trains within 7 minutes

12. Sit in same seat B67 as last trip to private view

13. Read ‘Autism and tallent’

14. Tea trolly save Tea bag tag, stirstick and receipt

15. Engrossed – Spot Didcot power Station last looked up in Winchester an hour ago

16. here talk to inspector on the gate

rule change may no longer be able to keep tickets in one weeks time

17. Unable to use toilet as being cleaned says man stationed outside

18. Walk to O3 gallery exactly the same way I did the last time except

deviate to front door not rear

19. Here

20. Head out for tea at MAO with Jo from The Arts Catalyst there to see talk

21. MAO pleasantly people sparce – share tea and conversation whilst remembering

22. Hello to former ACESE relationship manager

23. Collect photographs of table top under saucer

24. Loo at last – warm water alleviation of chilled finger

25. Return to O3 Gallery – talk on a stick transferred and ready

26. Greet Simon at the door and he smiles

27. People start arriving

28. Notice temperature gradient between the bottom of the stairs and top

wonder what percentage per step

29. Prepared plinth acts as ‘advancing station’ for both our talks

28. We dance into position avoiding observations over our shoulder

29. Meet people in reality I have chatted to on twitter for an age

30. At 6:05 we start

31. Simon talks I empathise with the lego in the image

32. We swap I talk

33. Questions obeying the rules and patterns

34. We finish 7:17

35. Tired I say goodbye to scarfed Simon

36. Thank-yous with book and wine in net

37. We 3 rush to station and catch 8:01 without buying tea

38. I am 7 minutes adrift in my head leaving the train at Reading

39. Ponder Purpose and permissions in the dark

40. Buy chocolate at Guildford Station which is frozen solid – no spring

41. Join a full train sitting on lone newspaper

42. Passengers out a toilet stowaway hidden since Waterloo in desperate need

conductor takes over and takes him away

43. Close my eyes as I pass through the ‘phone dead zone’

44. Give ten minute warning 14 minutes before I get home

45. Late beans on toast

46. Bed with radio and cat

47. Close my eyes finally and collect today

• 
• 

The skin of normalness – pierced’

Portsmouth 24th March

Wake at 4:22am – dreams remembered till 8:23 then forgotten

Not a good night – party up the road with shouts in the street at unplanned for intervals – their patterns worry me as I snooze alongside the pain form a splinter unceremoniously given by plywood I cant dig out.

Today is a hoped for non-people day rest day – other than a man coming to mend the loo pull light I seem to have ‘destroyed’ the other night in one movement – i will stay out of view at the back of the House – not that this is totally ignorable.

Yesterday I made a mistake – I went out – 3 hours later due to traffic jams and people I was a minute away from meltdown on arriving home due to the mass and accumulation of social intrusion. Fear compounded by a ‘bright yellow’ van insisting on drawing up alongside me on the walk I took lottery hunting later in the evening

aspergers sometimes can bite

Today i can rest other than:

Make screen shots of the sound part of the project for report and evaluation.

Sort 3 DAYS emails into categories each labeled before I slip to far

Open the pile of letters on the dining room table and arrange in order of frightology

Sort the diary’s from Look About and pack for transport

Prepare this weeks work including the ‘Autism and art’ talk at O3 Gallery Oxford with Simon Baron Cohen

artist 247

lists needed

——————–hiatus——————

then

then I can

Sit and close my eyes

Sit and c l o s e my eyes

S i t and c l o s e my eyes

S i t and c l o s e my e y e s

S i t a n d c l o s e m y e y e s

K o n f i r m e d

‘A series of events that have led you to feel like this’

Portsmouth 24th March

Been so busy on this project this week – left to the last minute

tidying day have to get the studio presentable for visitors – open studio and book launch this afternoon – end up hiding materials under black cloths – studio is a ‘non digital pencil space’ – ideas – reworkings and quiet – radio allowed not computer – I do all the digital at the University or on the move.

hide in studio 21

precious

pencils

with stones

and paper

As the torn plastic at the sash window moves in the draft from a reasonably wide crack – i have time to sit and list – we are waiting for the first visitor to make their way to the rear of the old converted church.

anxious at others entering my space but accepted as part of the rules.

I list the improbability and connections leading to this project for the 896th time. Was this a series of accidents – a series of others mistakes or a series of planned opportunity? With the prospect of a book to tell the ‘aspergers’ story in hand I need to get it right. I trace and connect and refine the patterns – the what if I hadn’t done that – the slimness of last minute entry’s to competitive shows – the one word answer ‘yes’ that changes your life in a way unforeseen 20 seconds before hand.

paradox number 1 – do you plan in expert detail or accept on the spur of the moment and take the chance

paradox number 2 – weave in holistic life experiences as part of your landscape or separate and just draw what you see and depart from your landscape

Then visitors appear

An accompanied Mayor first – recognises me and the ‘Flags’ from the Torch Relay a summer and winter ago. Followed by a steady stream on known and unknown – talking drawing

Some people are excited by the maps that fill my space – wall and shelf – one excited to distraction offers and argues persuasively to roll naked on them – filmed for a project grant – a polite nod and embarrassed smiles in return knowing it wasn’t a hollow offer.

The wet grey slate roof outside my window disappears into night and we close for the talks at the end of the evening. mixing with fellow studio holders I am asked about this blog. One almost apologetic states:

‘I love the blog Jon but I don’t understand a word of it’

I really like that and reassure them I am fine with that

and smile

Konfirmed

‘A serpentine’d reminder’

Portsmouth 22nd March

wake 4:46am

sleep

—————– hiatus———–

sleep

woken by seagulls tearing

i f

i

r e s h u t

m y

e y e s

i a m s i t i n g

o n t h e l i z a r d

this moment will last me the day making in studio

without opening the window

—————– hiatus———–