Developing on my previous post, I want to discuss my ideas for the audio paper and the research I could do to make it as engaging as possible.

I want my paper to explore a topic that is related to how I want to amplify the voices of the neurodiverse, and speak about how my relationship with my likely undiagnosed ADHD affects how I study and create.

During a recent lecture, each student was asked to draw on paper a representation of what they thought they might want to cover in their audio paper. Every other student seemed to come up with an interesting topic, however my mind was just blank. I’ve sadly lost my drawing (I think I might’ve thrown it away in embarrassment), however I will give an explanation. I tried to draw completely from impulse to see if it would give me any ideas, but it didn’t go well. I ended drawing a scene of three people shouting gibberish at each other whilst a train rolls through the ceiling(?) and rats run rampant everywhere. Needless to say, it didn’t produce many ideas. However, when I discussed this with my lecturer we came to an idea that I could perhaps write about the nature of academic thinking and writing within art studies, and how it can potentially be off-putting or intimidating to students who may have joined a course to develop practical skills and have little to no experience with academia. This is somewhat similar to my position, although I do have an interest in reading around arts.

This could also be an interesting topic to link up with my goal of talking about neurodiversity within art studies. Speaking from my own perspective, I can often find it very difficult to read through pages of writing such as the Manifesto for Audio Papers that I mentioned in the first blog post for this unit. Usually I find it challenging to read as my brain skips past words and I get to the end of the page wondering “how did I get here?“. This is exacerbated when words and phrases I have not been introduced to before crop up, such as in the manifesto. I might have to read one sentence five or six times to actually have any clue as to what it means, and this makes for a very long reading process, especially when I forget half of what has been said at the end (Note to self – make more notes when reading!). The same can be said for writing – my brain constantly wanders mid-sentence when I write which means it takes me quite a while to get my thoughts down (I just timed myself, it took me 3 minutes to write that last sentence and it’s taken me almost 1 and a half hours to write the previous 450 words of this post – this isn’t even serious academic writing! I’ve just been writing down my thoughts so far in a conversational tone). It would be useful to explore all of this further, and develop ideas on whether arts universities need to better adapt to neurodiversity.

Primary research would be very useful for this paper, as I can gather students’ and academics’ opinions on the matter. A family friend of mine works as a senior lecturer at Kingston School of Art, so I may ask for his opinion whilst also getting vox pops from students on my course. I think this will help me keep my essay balanced and prevent me from going off on tangents. Secondary research is also useful, and I will do some work to find writers and studies I can reference.