R Dyer: Brain Fog talk @ Bombanes

Transcript

Sorry. When I talk about brain fog, I mean something, I don’t know what people normally mean, but for me, it’s like all my thoughts have slightly slowed down.

Like, I’m made out of beads, and the beads normally click together at a certain speed, but everything is slower. Like, there’s more gaps, there’s more absence, there’s more just forgetting. And forgetting isn’t a positive thing, isn’t it? It’s not like a, it’s not something, it’s not painful, it’s not a sensation, it’s an absence of things. So it’s like being in a film where it’s, you can see, you can feel, I can’t even, I don’t even have the language for it at all. So I’m neurodivergent, as most of you know. There’s a type of thinking called monotropism, which is that you process things one at a time. And I don’t want to talk about explanations for what’s been going on, because I’ve been explaining to PIP, I’ve been explaining to Adult Social Care, and you use a certain type of language for each one. And each of those explanations is slightly different, and all of them are incomplete. Because… I actually think of myself as someone that faces barriers in specific sensory situations because capitalism creates an unwelcome, hostile environment. Unfortunately, most people just want to hear you say you’re disabled. And most people aren’t interested to hear about my philosophy of language or the kind of idea of forgetting as a Marxist revolutionary act.

And also that isn’t quite correct because there’s certain things that you can’t claim are a superpower. You know, leaving the tap on and flooding my neighbour is not something, you know, I couldn’t say to the situation, or I couldn’t say it to Maggie. Maggie, although I like to think. that she’ll be slightly more prepared for climate change because of me.

Sorry Maggie. But this is the situation I’ve been in and I started off with the Arts Council stuff and I was excited about it and I put way too much in and the project plan was probably not achievable for some sort of bodybuilding cybernetic life form that didn’t need to eat or sleep.

I was going to do all sorts of things i was going to learn acrobatics in six months i was going to work out of a whole process of conflict resolution for traumatized autistic people that was non-verbal and we were never going to fight and that that didn’t happen but what have i been doing i hear you ask well i made this I made that guy and I worked out what seasonal colouring I was last week.

The way you do that is you drape yourself in different fabrics and take loads of photos of yourself. What colour are you? I think I’m a warm spring. I was surprised too. I thought you were not going to tell us for a second.

I thought you were not going to tell us for a second. I nearly wasn’t actually, thank you for the feedback. But the point I’m getting to is that… All these narratives about people that face barriers in hostile environments and social settings that don’t acknowledge the uniqueness of their nervous system or physical, which is actually all of us, right? But people that face the most barriers, disabled people. But I think there’s something else to say about the moments of absence, the moments of non-functioning, the moments of pain, because we all have that. And the problem with arts provision is that you’re basically getting the extra funding so that you can pretend to be normal.

And none of the kind of, you know, I’m well aware that today hasn’t been that professional. I kind of wish it had been. I’ve had one of the worst weeks ever.

And, you know, you’re still allowed to go away and think, oh, that was a load of shit. But also sometimes, like, showing up.

I mean, you can leave, it’s okay. But, you know, like, so many of us, especially people that have to call themselves disabled, you know, we have to work out how much energy we can give to something and what the cost is going to be.

So we’re always hiding that little side of ourselves that is going to be tired and exhausted or non-verbal or not with it or scatty. And especially in the arts sector where you’re being asked to perform a certain version of what…a professional is and actually I think what maybe there’s value in the fog so that’s what I’ve been thinking is like what value could there be just in fog in absence and it’s obviously it’s not like I enjoy flooding my neighbours or having to get pip or any of these things it’s not pleasant but just the experience of the gaps and sometimes that’s a physical experience or a mental experience but we all have moments or maybe it’s and it’s not always to do with autism or neurodivergence it’s also to do with depression or tiredness or just okay i’m trying to look at what words my fingers are saying but i started to wonder what we might find in the fog I haven’t worked it out yet What have I got?

Descending silver mints of doubt and listlessness.

Face of the jeans and smell the grass sand.

Just rusted in the dust between the nuffler things. Oh, for ghosts they teach me how.

and came up with that.

I have been thinking a lot about nature and the idea of a project plan and the idea of time and everything being in straight lines and some people talk neurodivergent minds is being scattered you know like with an implication that that’s all over the place yes yes it is clearly all over the place but also seeds are scattered or patterns in nature I mean that the thing I always think about is tree branches so some of us think from A to B maybe some of us think up in branches that can’t be pruned into that same shape and I suppose the good old situationists would call it a derivative.

I don’t actually know. The idea that you can take something and sort of meander through it and make a different history and a different story. And I don’t know what I think about any of that.

But I guess I brought Neil. Poor Neil. It won’t be the same without his name, but… but moments of failure and moments of nothing are part of the human condition and maybe part of certainly what i think is essential to art essential to music is honesty and maybe a bit of brokenness and I don’t know what I found in the fog, but I think I learned to something. I don’t know. Maybe there’s no answer. I’m going to play one more song. I don’t know, am I? Yes. Yes, you can’t end on that. No, this is, yeah. And this song…

Is everything out loud all of a sudden? Oh, so sorry. And this is a song that I wrote for a friend, and it’s quite hard to explain it all, but… I guess it’s about tactile stuff and the feelings of things and those little moments where you can be really present with something.

It’s called soil. It’s about making soil from nothing. About that labour of like sifting things down and adding things in and trying to do that with your life and all the bits that don’t fit and the bits that do.

I need the contact mic. I’m just wondering, Marie, if you want… I don’t know. Three? Two? Four? Should I keep going?

Yes! Thank you! Can someone show me the list? Although I haven’t done lots of things. Clear the re-face! Sorry,

it’s not inappropriate. My God, my God! Breathe! So…