Autisticulture hat ein Interview mit mir veröffentlicht
Interview between Autisticulture reviewer, Selene Depackh and Autisticulture artist, Gerhard Beck
Autisticulture: First, we would like to thank you for agreeing to be
the inaugural contributor interview for Autisticulture. We welcome the
opportunity to have this conversation about your insights into autism
and the creative process. Your work seems to depict deep inner emotional states—do you work from a
purely intuitive process, or is there a planned, methodical element to
your creative regimen?
Gerhard
Beck: I have no plan at all when I start drawing. I draw what comes
spontaneously to my mind. Please find here a translation of a German text that
I and a gallery-owner have written some time ago about my work. (What
follows is excerpted from the statement that accompanied Beck’s exhibit
"Don't come that close, don't stay away from me !")“…The
exhibition title… illustrates the ambivalence between the desire for intimacy
and the fear of it. How close may someone approach us? What scares us? Are we
not good for what we desire ? A universal theme that not only
relates to autistic people, but which Gerhard Beck brings us to mind,
as he digs deep into himself… His works are created spontaneously, ad hoc,
during the process of drawing. First of all, there is chaos, disorientedness,
amorphousness, impalpableness, uncertainty. Anything is possible. For the time
being there is nothing that gives hold; no one who makes a decision. Gerhard Beck creates consciously from the unconscious. The absolute spontaneity
is the sole creative principle… The experience obtained in the process of
drawing is of central importance. The accomplished drawing is a result of an
absorption, of an open process. Obstructions and mental controls are surmounted and solved. There is direct access to
feelings and to the irrational without the intervening of the mind.. The aim is
to reach the sources of one’s own creativity and intuition which organicly form
an image of inner consistence. His works are absorptions and processes of convergency that are intented
to read in his subconsciousness and to report of which there are no words for.”
Autisticulture: Do you find autism informs your work directly, or is
it more an aspect of yourself that is passively present in your creative
process?
G. B: I think my work is partly influenced by my autism. I think there
is always a core I start drawing from or towards. And the format I draw
is rather small and the drawing seems always somehow encapsulated. Also,
when drawing I always have the feeling everything is being shrinked and
contracted, orienting to the center.
Autisticulture: Is there anything you would like Autisticulture
readers to know about the particular pieces you chose for the magazine,
and/or why you selected those particular images for us?
G.B: I think the yellow drawing with the huddled up figure is refering
to an autistoid person. I have a special relationship to this drawing.
Interestingly enough, it was bought by Viktoria Lyons, an Asperger
researcher.
The red-blue drawing with three seperated figures is also one of my
favorites. I have selected this drawing for the Autisticulture readers
as the lost and isolated figures might also show an autistoid dash.
Autisticulture: Your personal gallery shows you standing with a
poster for a Joseph Beuys retrospective. Given that Beuys has powerfully
influenced modern art with an outsider’s critique of western culture,
how do you feel yourself to have been touched by his ideas?
G.B: I’m a great fan of Joseph Beuys’ work.
(Beck quotes here from http://johanhedback.com/beuys.html, I like America and America likes Me)
” For three days in May of 1974, Joseph Beuys lived and communicated
with a coyote in a small room… Though actually witnessed by only a
handful of people, this action, I Like America and America Likes Me,
awakened the interest and curiosity of many who heard about it, far and
wide… [I]mages of the Coyote action are among the most resilient and
generative images to come out of Beuys’s performance work.”
I like very much his drawings (“The Secret Block For a Secret Person in
Ireland.”) and I like his concept of ‘Social Sculpture’ as far as I
understand it. (““Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions
will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide
evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only
art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social
system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in
order to build ‘A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART’… EVERY HUMAN BEING
IS AN ARTIST who – from his state of freedom – the position of freedom
that he experiences at first-hand – learns to determine the other
positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER.”)
Autisticulture: Do you think Beuys has a particular relevance to those of us on the Autistic Spectrum?
G.B: Interestingly enough, Joseph Beuys as a public figure, repetitively
dressed in the same felt hat, the same fishing jacket and the same
jeans, had an air of autism. Concededly, this is of minor interest as
for a particular relevance to those of us on the Autistic Spectrum.
Nevertheless it is a conspicuous feature. Beuys’ believe that his art
was a homeopathic remedy that could heal the world, however, might be an
intriguing and hopeful aspect for persons on the Autistic spectrum. As
well as Beuys’ statement that everything begins with art, and that art
is finally synonymous with life, with survival. (”Art alone makes life
possible” ; ”Without art man is inconceivable in physiological terms.”)
Autisticulture: Could you describe your work methods—not necessarily
the wonderful alchemy of your luminous techniques (unless you’re willing
to do so), but how and when you create—the hours of the day you’re most
productive, how long you work at a sitting, etc.
G.B: I work fast and spontaneously. I’m under great pressure when I
draw. First, I choose the colors coincidentally. I have no plan. I
drift. Everything is random, arises maybe from subconsciousness. During
the drawing process I let surprise me and react gradually. It happens
often that I abolish my product and start again. I draw layers. I
scratch and rub them, in the whole or partly. A sitting can last 15
minutes up to 1 hour. I have no special hours of the day when I work.
Autisticulture: You shared an intriguing article about Hans Asperger
from a German website that appears to serve the German-speaking Autistic
culture. The article was fascinating from a historical perspective, as
well as offering some insights into how Autism has been viewed in
Germany in modern times. Can you share with us a little of the
experience of being on the Spectrum within that culture? How might it
seem different from that of an American on the Spectrum?
G.B: I think in Germany the neurotypical person is not that
communicative as an American one. As an Asperger person who is shy and
self-effacing and poor in words I might be not that conspicuous as an
American Asperger person would be. I noticed after my diagnosis when I
had told most of my surrounding that I have a specific communication
and contact problem which is called Asperger syndrome that there was not
that much interest shown. I was disappointed by that deficit of care
and understanding. I suppose in the US my social environment would not
frustrate me that much.
Autisticulture: You also shared a mesmerizing video of your work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuFkQtVNcZg in preparation for this
interview. Do you see yourself expanding this time-element aspect of
your oeuvre? The added effect of your images melding into one another
offers a rich emotional dimension we’d love to see more of.
G.B: Recently, I found out that there is a possibility to produce a
so-called ‘slide show’ for YouTube with an online tool. I never had
worked with video. I do not have a camera. I like photographing and a
long time ago I was keen with photographing. But I’m a keen
“movie-goer”. I watch many films with my DVD-player at home. ‘Film’ was
also one of my special interests. — As for a ‘time element’, before I
received my Asperger diagnosis I always told my surrounding that I have a
‘time disturbance’. Everybody laughed. Now, I know why I have this
‘time disorder’. Here’s a text I found in autism literature. (Beck quotes Christian Klicpera & Paul Innerhofer:
The world of early childhood autism, Munich, 2002, page 171 f)
“At this point, the question intrudes what is the subjective
biographical world view of the autistic person. Does he/she sense his
life in chronological order at all ? How far are events anticipated in
terms of time ? To what extent are they retrospectively reflected ? We
know that it is difficult for autistic persons to organize events in the
time schedule. Therefore we suppose that their experience is rather
timeless, and that there is but a rudimentary understanding of their own
past and that future perspectives are wanting… Time as scheme of order
is a requirement for the understanding of biographies and for the
formation of an awareness of history of one's own .… The awareness of
autistic children – so we have to assume – is almost timeless. We get an
idea of the far-reaching impact on their view of the world when we
listen to their stories. These stories that autistic children
occasionally construct consist mostly of enumerating things and events
and not of the description of a process. Most striking is the lack of
time dimension… We must assume that autistic children are also lacking
the time dimension in experience, so that past events are experienced as
present ones. We must also assume that this also applies to the
experience of dramatic events. Dramatic experiences can not be dealt
with in the sense that they turn into the past for the person and a new
beginning is possible.. Processing in the strict sense does not exist
…Certainly, experiences can easily be forgotten, but autistic children
can not process them in a way that while they are still conscious they
belong yet to the past.”
Autisticulture: How much to you consider your audience as you create?
Are you completely within yourself as you make your images, or do you
imagine your work as a dialog with your viewer as you work?
G.B: I do not think of audience when drawing. I am completely within
myself. I’m in a kind of flow. Nothing else but the drawing process
interests me.
Autisticulture: We deeply appreciate you participating so early in
the development of Autisticulture. We’d love to know what drew you to
offer us your work, and where you’d like to see this publication go in
the next few years.
G. B: I’m very interested in every aspect of autism and Asperger
syndrome ( Asperger syndrome used to be and partly still is my ‘special
interest’.) So the link between autism and creativity finds also my
great interest. I am a keen reader of the publications of Michael
Fitzgerald and Viktoria Lyons who combed through cultural history to
find persons on the Autistic spectrum who contributed extraordinary
works and ideas to culture. As an autistic artist and a beginning
student of ‘Cultural Studies’, I like every reliable and creative effort
that is done to describe and reflect on autism and autistic persons and
their manifold and not seldom connived contributions to all facets
of culture. I hope your publication will succeed with its admirable
effort.
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