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Jolene Stockman may appear normal from the outside, but it's what's invisible that gives her a superpower. Jolene shares her life since being diagnosed with autism.  Jolene Stockman is an ultra-enthusiastic, multi-award winning Taranaki writer, who launched Braincandy, a media company specialising in transforming communication in 1998. She caught fire! Creating educational resources and supporting business growth through powerful writing and video - all fueled by humour and positivity. Jolene has gone on to publish three books for young adults, win media, education, and business awards, and become one of the youngest in the world to achieve the Distinguished Toastmaster Leadership Award. But Jolene was always the weirdest person in the room. She still is – and now she knows why. It’s time to rewrite normal. Jolene is a dynamic speaker driven by themes of identity, neurodiversity, and world domination. Prepare for fireworks!

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Being diagnosed with autism is often seen as a tragedy. But for Jac den Houting, it was the best thing that's ever happened to them. As an autistic person, concepts like the Neurodiversity paradigm, the Social Model of Disability, and the Double Empathy Problem were life-changing for Jac. In this talk, Jac combines these ideas with their own personal story to explain why we need to rethink the way that we understand autism.  Jac den Houting is a research psychologist and Autistic activist in pursuit of social justice. Jac currently holds the role of Postdoctoral Research Associate at Macquarie University in Sydney, working alongside Professor Liz Pellicano. In 2015, Jac was awarded an Autism CRC scholarship to complete their PhD through the Autism Centre of Excellence at Griffith University in Brisbane. Prior to this, they gained almost 10 years’ experience as a psychologist in the criminal justice system, with the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Corrective Services. Jac was identified as Autistic at the age of 25, and is proudly neurodivergent and queer. After participating in the inaugural Future Leaders Program at the 2013 Asia Pacific Autism Conference, Jac quickly became established as a strong advocate for the Autistic community. Jac is a current member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Australia and New Zealand (ASAN-AuNZ)’s Executive Committee, the Autism CRC’s Data Access Committee, Aspect’s LGBTQIA+ Autism Advisory Committee, and the Aspect Advisory Council.

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types of dissociation

in his powerpoint exploring autism and dissociation  Raymi Doyle talks about the various studies around autism and various types of dissociation individuals can experience.

Shakespeare (2006) disability defined as complex interaction between Self and society

• “People with autism are ‘differently abled’ rather than ‘disabled’ has not yet sunk in among the ‘neurotypical’ majority” Tito cited in Thielmann & KernStahler (2008 p227).

• Autists have tried to pass for neurotypical Kapp (2012).

• Females with ASD - more social pressure to cope with Zahn-Waxler (2006).

 • Mollon (2015) Feeling shame from feeling different.

• Winnicott (1966) Theory of false self.

• Mollon (2015) Concealing the authentic self and presenting an apparently normal self = structural dissociationhttps://www.bacp.co.uk/media/4430/oct18_cpdhub_ramidoyle.pdf

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personally on ocasion i experience dissociative tendencies in stressful situations, using the drone gave me an idea to  “What is dissociation?Many people may experience dissociation (dissociate) during their life.If you dissociate, you may feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal. Remember, everyone’s experience of dissociation is different.Dissociation is one way the mind copes with too much stress, such as during a traumatic event.Experiences of dissociation can last for a relatively short time (hours or days) or for much longer (weeks or months).”  the main types of dissociation i experience are the following:

Feeling like the world around you is unreal

You might:

feel as though the world around you is unreal

see objects changing in shape, size or colour

see the world as ‘lifeless’ or 'foggy’

feel as if other people are robots (even though you know they are not).

A doctor or psychiatrist might call these experiences derealisation.

Feeling like you’re looking at yourself from the outside

You might:

feel as though you are watching yourself in a film or looking at yourself from the outside

feel as if you are just observing your emotions

feel disconnected from parts of your body or your emotions

feel as if you are floating away

feel unsure of the boundaries between yourself and other people.

A doctor or psychiatrist might call these experiences depersonalisation.

Feeling your identity shift and change

You might:

feel your identity shift and change

speak in a different voice or voices

use a different name or names

switch between different parts of your personality

feel as if you are losing control to 'someone else’

experience different parts of your identity at different times

act like different people, including children.

A doctor or psychiatrist might call these experiences identity alteration.

Difficulty defining what kind of person you are

You might:

find it very difficult to define what kind of person you are

feel as though there are different people inside you.

A doctor or psychiatrist might call these experiences identify confusion.

What are triggers and flashbacks?

A trigger is a reminder of something traumatic from the past, which can cause you to experience dissociation or other reactions. It could be a sight, sound, taste, smell or touch. It could be a situation or way of moving your body. Many different things can be or become triggers.

In a flashback, you may suddenly experience traumatic sensations or feelings from the past. This might be prompted by encountering a trigger. You may experience the flashback as reliving a traumatic event in the present. A flashback may cause you to switch to another part of your identity.

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https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/4430/oct18_cpdhub_ramidoyle.pdf https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/29/reason-jump-autism-naoki-higashida-review

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on the subject of space whales how could i not mention Douglas Adams cult classic: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  “Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it. Ah … ! What’s happening? it thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?”

in yet another somehow in my head connection this inner exploration of ones self - and lack of understanding, and or questioning of ones self  is an issue which plagues many individuals on the autistic spectrum “ Right Hemisphere impairment leads to a dysfunctional self development in autism. Lyons & Fitzgerald (2013) Hsu & Xu (2014) Autistic individuals may have a reduced ability to perceive emotional prosody Bogdahina (2016) There is a resonance between fascination and loss of sense of self. ” (https://www.bacp.co.uk/media/4430/oct18_cpdhub_ramidoyle.pdf)

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Meanwhile, science fiction increasingly linked space exploration with psychedelic mind-expansion—a theme that fit with the implications of the new research on dolphin and whale communication. In 1971, Roger Payne and Scott McVay published the results of ten years of research into the patterns of humpback whale songs, and the public heard their recordings for the first time—the album of these recordings sold more than 100,000 copies on vinyl throughout the 1970s.

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/fantastical-allure-space-whale (via ben-hague-ba-photo-sketch-blog)

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to many people this would make absolutely no sense, yet somehow, to my mind, the leap from renaissance masters of the art world to 1970′s “space whales” somehow this makes sense…  albertian perspective is an attempt to create a realistic approximation of the world, through which the viewer of said recreation can explore. the key concept is the ability to create a realistic “stage” to play out the composition of paintings.  “It is simply meant to ensure that the pictorial world we see will look like a section of the real world. Yet this itself Alberti regards as a pre-condition for a suc­cessful composition. What he means is now obvious: his chequered pavement, constructed and seen in perspective, provides the space in which the artist can compose his figures in proportion and movement; it is literally the stage on which the artist can organize the choreography of his figures. The seven movements of the body - forward, backward, left and right, up and down and around — can now be understood not only in relation to the body that moves, but also in relation to the space in which that body moves.” https://tinyurl.com/ybpt4jrd

to me this exploration of space and time has a kinship to the “popular “space whale” art of the 1970s.”  https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/fantastical-allure-space-whale “There is a bigness, infinity, and possibility in both space and the ocean. The whale is also big, and its ways mysterious, but its presence in the void has a way of concentrating those intimidating qualities, serving them up to the viewer in a legible way. As fantasy artist Marianne Plumridge wrote of her composition Spotting Starwhales II: “[The whales] represent ‘life’ and its journey through the realms of time and space. A higher consciousness. Greatness…the ‘something better in all of us’ to aspire to.” 

in the most simplistic exploration of the two vastly different genres, the central theme is an exploration of time and space, with Albertian paintings drawing focus from reality and the Whale art drawing its focus from the 

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The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds.

Simone Weil  https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/03/simone-weil-the-need-for-roots/ (via ben-hague-ba-photo-sketch-blog)

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As historians Hugh Honour and John Fleming noted, Renaissance Humanism advanced “the new idea of self-reliance and civic virtue” among the common people, combined with a belief in the uniqueness, dignity, and value of human life. As historian Charles G. Nauert wrote, “this humanistic philosophy overthrew the social and economic restraints of feudal, pre-capitalist Europe, broke the power of the clergy, and discarded ethical restraints on politics…

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There are a number of what Ernst Pöppel (1978) calls ‘elementary time experiences’, or fundamental aspects of our experience of time. Among these we may list the experience of (i) duration; (ii) non-simultaneity; (iii) order; (iv) past and present; (v) change, including the passage of time. It might be thought that experience of non-simultaneity is the same as experience of time order, but it appears that, when two events occur very close together in time, we can be aware that they occur at different times without being able to say which one came first (see Hirsh and Sherrick 1961). We might also think that perception of order was itself explicable in terms of our experience of the distinction between past and present. There will certainly be links here, but it is a contentious question whether the experience of tense—that is, experiencing an event as past or present—is more fundamental than the experience of order, or vice versa, or whether indeed there is such a thing as the experience of tense at all. This issue is taken up below. Finally, we should expect to see links between the perception of time order and the perception of motion if the latter simply involves perception of the order of the different spatial positions of an object. This is another contentious issue that is taken up below.

But is it possible to perceive something as extended and as present? If we hear a short phrase of music, we seem to hear the phrase as present, and yet — because it is a phrase rather than a single chord — we also hear the notes as successive, and therefore as extending over an interval. If this does not seem entirely convincing, consider the perception of motion. As Broad (1923) puts it, ‘to see a second-hand moving is quite a different thing from “seeing” that a hour-hand has moved.’ It is not that we see the current position of the second hand and remember where it was a second ago: we just see the motion. That leads to the following argument:

(1) What we perceive, we perceive as present.

(2) We perceive motion.

(3) Motion occurs over an interval.

Therefore: What we perceive as present occurs over an interval.

Still, there is more than an air of paradox about this. If successive parts of the motion (or musical phrase, or whatever change we perceive) are perceived as present, then surely they are perceived as simultaneous. But if they are perceived as simultaneous, then the motion will simply be a blur, as it is in cases where it is too fast to perceive as motion. The fact that we do not see it as motion suggests that we do not see the successive parts of it as simultaneous, and so do not see them as present. But then how do we explain the distinction to which Broad directs our attention?

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Much of cezanne's landscape work utilised a manipulation of perspective that made seemingly mundane places become immortalised into hugely important stepping-stones of art history.

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As I think about my work the more I realise that my interest in these photographs, in particular the panoramic photographs, does not lie with the subject but rather how the perspective of the subject can be morphed and manipulated to almost give a sense of otherness. I would like to explore the idea of introducing the utilisation of more perspectives, perhaps through manipulation of the hight of the camera versus the subject. I like the blandness and mundanity of the area I am photographing. I find that the isolated nature of the site and of my current choice of career link together well and seemingly exude an essence of boredom with which I am quite familiar.

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Towards the end of the 19th Century French painter Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906) began to question the underlying structure of his subjects. At points his works became almost abstracted, the canvas being covered with thick layers of pigment often applied with a palette knife, the naturally occuring forms simplified to their geometric essentials.

Importantly, Cézanne had begun to ignore the laws of classical perspective, allowing each object to be independent within the space of a picture while letting the relationship of one object to another to take precedence over traditional single-point perspective.

This was perhaps the beginning of the end of academic composition following the long established rules of perspective. Heavily influenced by Cezanne, several young artists were soon to radically break the mould and themselves become major influences on 20th Century art.

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The antithesis of what Susan Sontag suggests is the purpose of time and space. Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once ... and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you' (Rieff, 2007).