Autism through cinema: co-creation and the unmaking of knowledge

Abstract

This article discusses the methodological approach of a collaborative research project situated at the intersection of autism and cinema. The Autism through Cinema project stages an encounter between the titular terms in order to challenge the neurotypical assumptions that underpin cinema as an apparatus, and to mobilise new cinematic potentialities. Structured over a period of four years, the project undertakes a series of collaborations between different disciplines (Film Archaeology, Film Practice, History, Psychology, and Sociology) and between autistic and non-autistic thinkers and makers, as well as in partnership with institutions external to academia. Methodologically the motivation for the project is to reverse engineer research methods used historically in film history, film making and psychiatry to produce inversions of perception, power and classification, and furthermore to explore what kind of cinema is possible if it is reconfigured through autistic experience.