Terra Incognita" is still a work in progress, the final acts have not been completed yet, and the final outcome is not bleak. The artist uses the metaphor of water which runs alongside the journey as a leitmotif to lead up to his "renaiscance" in the central event of his own baptism, an event which much occupied him during the conception of this project. There will be in the tradition of dramatic irony an interview where the artist outlines the themes of the journey and what it is all about, as well as a final triumphant vision of the new jerusalem. The shining city.

This whole project stands alone as a very autistic piece, almost entirely dictated by the artists "obsessions" and is very much devoid of social contact, interaction and conventional narrative.

It is like the artists world where the vision and the music is the text for as the narrator/preacher intones at the beginning

"..... the final piece is not social, it has no interaction, it is not a commentary on society but something far deeper, constructed out of real dreams and visions with a biblical commentary thus recreating in the viewer the state of mind when a dreamer is suddenly awakened, and the pieces of his dream flee from memory in no particular order before his eyes,nothing is accidental in the journey, this is how it is was and would be."

Perhaps it is not such a "loada bollox" after all ..... for although the piece often seems to express the authors sense of futility, his isolation, and depression, it turns it into something far more significant and positive, a work of art, a syntagm, where the positive attributes of his autism are shown through the medium itself, the authors ability to produce the images, sound and narrative structure, his monofocused determination to make something of that on his own.

The author expresses his gratitude to the National Autistic Society and Hereward College on whose premises and at whose events he filmed.

He also wishes to thank all those who appear incidentally in the picture, but particularly

Dave McCormack, the narrator/preacher
Paul R Smith, some of whose footage is included
Professor Simon Baron Cohen
Brian W Ames for the Palestrina tracks
Fantasy Records, Tenth and Parker, Berkeley, CA 94710 for the Moondog track

   

Return

   

Copyright © 2005 Laurence Arnold

This page created Sunday January 9th 2005