Visualising Neurodivergent Thought Processes: An Image-Thinking Approach in Practice-as-Research Using Desktop Documentary
Author: Yu-Lun Sung, Lennie Varvarides, Kazimir Bielecki
Format: Desktop Documentary
Duration: 7′00″ & 11′38″
Published: November 2025
https://doi.org/10.37186/swrks/16.1/4
Driven by a shared interest in visual art creation, our research team unites the distinct perspectives of two neurodivergent artists, Kazimir Bielecki and Lennie Varvarides, and one neurotypical researcher, Yu-Lun Sung. Through Practice-as-Research (PaR), we argue that this inherent synergy allows us to shed light on contested cognitive phenomena, such as the nature and manifestation of ‘visual thinking’ while inviting invites viewers to reflect on the political and affective dimensions of the screen.
The concept of visual thinking or ‘thinking in pictures’, as highlighted by autistic animal behaviour scientist Temple Grandin, suggests that autistic perception, cognition, and emotional awareness are advantages rather than deficits (1995). She later elaborated that different types of visual thinkers possess distinct strengths that require appropriate environments to thrive (Grandin, 2023). Similarly, Thomas G. West, in In the Mind's Eye (1991), connects dyslexia to visual thinking and creativity, advocating for educational and corporate applications that leverage visual-spatial imagination. These pivotal works mark a shift in the discourse surrounding neurodiversity, particularly in English-speaking contexts, initiating a move away from pathologisation and toward the recognition of cognitive diversity. Robert Chapman (2023: 136) notes that neurodivergent scholars advocating for the Neurodiversity paradigm, like Nick Walker, have successfully demonstrated the significance of neurodiversity as a concept applicable to scientific research, making the framework more inclusive.
Investigations into visual thinking have extended beyond case studies and anecdotal accounts. For instance, the Complementary Cognition model proposes that cognitive specialisation in exploration and exploitation enhances group-level adaptability by distributing cognitive search strategies across individuals, enabling a broader and more effective approach to problem-solving (Taylor et al., 2021: 68).
However, empirical research presents inconsistencies regarding these presumed cognitive strengths. While dyslexic individuals are often described as having superior visuo-spatial reasoning, some studies suggest this advantage is not consistently observed in psychometric evaluations (Lockiewicz, 2014). Such discrepancies may stem from the limitations of standardised testing, which often isolates cognitive performance from its natural context. In contrast, studies indicate that dyslexic individuals excel in open-ended, real-world problem-solving tasks (Schneps et al., 2012; von Karolyi, 2001). These findings highlight the need for methodological approaches that align more closely with neurodivergent modes of cognition, particularly when research aims to investigate how different thinking processes manifest in neurodivergent artists during their artmaking.
This statement articulates how PaR, specifically through the medium of desktop documentary, can serve as a new research method to examine thinking in pictures. By framing Mieke Bal’s Image-Thinking (2022) as our primary interpretative approach, we argue that screen-based media can be understood as an effective means to externalise thinking processes, while simultaneously questioning the habits of screen consumption. Through collaborative writing, we elaborate on the potential of desktop documentary as both an investigative tool and a mediated process of knowledge production.
Desktop subjectivity, as defined and practiced by Kevin B. Lee and Chloé Galibert-Laîné, embodies a unique first-person perspective by reconstructing the creator’s own desktop recordings (Lee & Avissar, 2023: 277). Lee (2021) describes this medium as a way of “making sense of new possibilities of media production, as a way of reflecting new forms of experience and new forms of thinking”. This insight informs our first argument: desktop documentary, as a form of audio-visual production, can be utilised as a legitimate method for investigating the visual thinking of neurodivergent artists.
Miklós Kiss (2021: 102) conceptualises the affordances of the desktop documentary through four qualities inherent to contemporary screen-based interactions: transparency, credibility, effortlessness, and performativity. While these characteristics are pertinent for describing artistic intentions and nuanced “artefact emotions” (Tan, 2018, cited in Kiss, 2021: 111), during our creation and analysis of the screenwork, we identified a new quality—Honesty—that is clearly linked to the ‘Neurodivergent (ND) Aesthetic’ proposed by two of the authors Varvarides and Bielecki (2019). The ND aesthetic is a transcendental, intuitive, humanist praxis, led by one's instincts and natural inclinations. Not limited by a specific tradition and medium, it can be defined as the artwork created and experienced by those who are neurodivergent. We argue that screens, as structured materialisations of engagement, visualise the cognitive processes of searching, reading, and exploring, making them dynamic sites for research.
This praxis aligns with the distinct mode of knowledge production advocated by PaR—being-doing-knowing (Nelson, 2022: 7). As Barbara Bolt (2016: 134) contends, it foregrounds “process, participation, events, expressive actions, and experience”. In reflecting on how the artist makes desktop moving images and the researchers’ viewing experience, we move away from purely textual analyses of cultural production. Instead, we dissect what this creative act means to us, and “does something in the world” (Bolt, 2016: 137).
Treating desktop recordings as a materialisation of thought resonates with Gilles Deleuze’s theory of moving images, particularly his assertion that “the brain is the screen” (Deleuze, 1986). Cinematic apparatus and its techniques, such as movement and editing, function analogously to a brain, allowing us to identify connections, circuits, and flows of thought and affect, then create them anew. Unlike traditional narrative films, we argue that desktop documentaries offer creative freedom through three modalities:
Fluid and connected: Real-time screen captures and videos reflect continuous navigation, similar to the concept of choreographies of interactivity—a calculated result of staged-ness, showing sequences where a performer executes gestures associated with digital interaction (De Rosa and Strauven, 2020: 251).
Layered and fragmented: Multiple windows, simultaneous tabs, and continuous scrolling mirror the associative nature of thought, representing the associational structure required by Soft Montage, which, in Harun Farocki’s work, allows for the “emergence of particular images in completely different contexts [to destabilise] their putative meaning and breaks them out of ideologically congealed discourses” (Blumenthal-Barby, 2015: 343).
Temporal and processual: Images transcend a fixed signified/signifier relationship, becoming open to interpretation, related to Spatial Montage—where multiple visual fragments integrate without hierarchy, unifying disparate spatio-temporal perspectives within a single frame (Manovich, 2001).
By drawing on other scholarships, we suggest that conceptual similarities allow viewers to read the work with more reference points, and we foreground the key difference in treating ‘Time’ as a creative element. For instance, both the Image-Thinking framework and Spatial Montage challenge the linearity traditionally presupposed in watching and creating films, but Image-Thinking stresses that time and space are inseparable dimensions of movement. This emphasis aligns with our attempt to position desktop documentary as more than a representational tool for a sleek and smooth temporal sense; it is an embodied practice that reveals the different movements and perceptions in time individually—a sort of stream of consciousness, whether it is jarring, prolonged, or inconsistent. Nonetheless, showing cognition is not the same as building a story narrative, and the screen can be performative without being a performance.
Desktop documentary has a range of expressions. First, we identified references from the Screen Stories Library[1], recommended by Lee (2021). We agreed to take inspiration from one specific video essay by Klaire fait Grr (2016) as its fast-paced editing and zoom-in/zoom-out motion effects align with our ways of interacting with desktop interfaces, particularly when reading various webpages.
The method in our collaborative research is structured in three phases:
Production Phase: Bielecki created a desktop documentary based on the brief: I am sorry, but I disagree. The rationale behind the brief was to encourage deduction and inference, simulating debate preparation while recording the screen. He visualised his thought process (forming his arguments) using only screen recordings, applying creative direction only later during editing. The initial version was completed in 2021. However, as its aspect ratio was not a standard 16:9, he revised it in 2024 to better align with desktop documentary formats.
Analytical Phase: The three authors engaged with two desktop documentaries through Bal’s Image-Thinking framework, investigating its performativity, affective, and political dimensions. Focusing on the 2024 version, we set up two meetings across a month to allow us to develop our critical readings of the work.
Reflection Phase: Our collaborative writing examined how Desktop Documentary serves as a medium for visualising neurodivergent thought processes that reveal political and affective meanings, rather than being merely a visual artefact. Thanks to the experience of DYSPLA[2], we could contextualise the reception of our documentary with their years of community engagement.
We contend that the desktop documentary format effectively highlights neurodivergent cognition by explicitly visualising the creator’s navigation between self-censorship and the desire to disrupt linear narrative conventions. Unlike traditional cinema, which typically prioritises coherence and clear narrative development, desktop documentaries openly display the raw, iterative nature of thought. While thought is not a narrative, the process underscores the methodology’s suitability. Each hesitation, browser tab opened, and closed folder embodies the nonlinear, repetitive, and associative characteristics common in neurodivergent cognition, making visible the artist’s awareness of how internal expressions affect others. Strong visuals, such as stylised sequences of graphic eye surgery and explicit pornography—both rendered through colour inversion—demonstrate the creator’s deliberate choice to confront intense material that might cause viewer discomfort. Presenting these visuals side-by-side in a split screen further emphasises the tension between self-disclosure and restraint, highlighting the internal and external pressures on neurodivergent artists to conform to dominant communication styles.
Considering temporality through the lens of information processing difficulties offers new perspectives on representing neurodivergent thought processes via desktop documentaries. Bal (2022: 131) discusses “multi-tentacled time,” referring to the uneven and qualitatively diverse experience of time, distinct from linear clock-time. While the voiceover provides a chronological guide, the documentary's meandering, mesmerising effects invite viewers to ‘zone out,’ fostering an expanded temporal consciousness characterised by prolonged uncertainty. Notably, the opening sequence's sound editing interface explicitly reveals the labour and time involved in creation, with synchronised audio spikes. However, subsequent windows quickly shift focus from the software to previously opened pages, subtly hinting at ongoing and future explorations. Instead of constructing temporality for clear storytelling, the desktop format encourages viewers to question the compressed time and seamless transitions typical of cinema. Incremental, performative actions—clicks, self-talk, pauses, and typing—disrupt the usual temporal flow, enabling viewers to sympathise with their multi-directional and digressive thought processes. Contrary to the paradoxical ‘transparency’ in Kiss’s conception of desktop documentary (2021: 102), the ND aesthetic of our work aims to materialise honesty, in that we propose to read this honesty while it manifests as a refusal to sanitise or censor the raw, iterative, and sometimes confrontational aspects of the thought process (such as the juxtaposition of pornographic video sequences vs the Notes pages about Nash Equilibrium). It challenges the normative storytelling strategies that please the audience, and raises awareness of cognitive diversity and the deleterious effects of the traditional medical paradigm.
During the 2022 exhibition of DYSPLA's VR Tour at London South Bank University's Borough Road Gallery some visitors hesitated to view the desktop documentary publicly due to its powerful imagery, including eye surgery and explicit pornographic scenes. This highlighted the tension between truthfully representing internal thoughts and the framing aesthetics of desktop documentaries. Consequently, we created a second, more viewer-conscious version. Nevertheless, our reflections on both versions align with Bal’s concept of Image-Thinking, which posits that art's effectiveness depends heavily on emotionally engaging its audience, even if the emotion-in-question is boredom or aversion. We can then engage in conversations concerning the expectation for clarity, a requirement that is constantly placed on neurodivergent individuals to articulate and explain what they mean. For this publication with Screenworks, we encourage readers/viewers to pay heed to the moments when our attention shifts, and how we create narratives to comprehend a neurodivergent mind.
Formally, desktop documentaries digitise contemporary thought processes. However, we see further potential to enhance their emotional impact through subtle manipulations like enriched sound design and colour inversion effects. These artistic choices invite viewers to experience flat screen interfaces in a new way. We aim to utilise this work to stress that neurodivergent cultures, like neurodivergent individuals, have always existed; they were simply not previously named or formally recognised as such. Desktop subjectivity, expressed through neurodivergent sensitivity, becomes a form of honest choreography, not merely a distortion of sound and image, but an externalisation of internal cognitive processes. Ultimately, it reflects the creator's journey in navigating and representing their experience within a neurotypical world through digital means.
A neurodivergent-led arts collective, see https://dyspla.com/. Two of the three authors are the founders of this collective, and they actively promote the creation of neurodivergent cultures, inhabited by activists, authors, artists, educators, and researchers, in the hope to enact change from within the status quo, reflecting the unique neurominority perspectives of its members. They draw on the term ‘NeuroTribes’ (Silberman, 2015) to describe their network and this evolving cultural landscape.
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All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response to what follows
Review 1: Accept submission for publication with no amendments.
I approached this academic project by first watching the two desktop documentaries, then reading the research statement, and finally listening to the researchers' conversation. This choice seemed rather arbitrary- but appropriate for the nature of a desktop documentary, which by its nature, is fragmented and non-linear. I wonder if my thoughts and feelings would have been different about this project if I'd viewed the content in a different order?
Although I'd heard the phrase "desktop documentary", and even viewed a couple, I hadn't really thought about what it meant. It was fascinating to me to think about it as seeing the contents of someone's brain laid out in front of me, doing the work of thought and creation in a very raw way. Indeed, it's specifically the contents of a neurodivergent brain; which opened up questions and possibilities of whether a divergent would work differently when creating a desktop documentary, and if so how. I came to watching the documentaries very much conscious that I'm not neurodivergent, and wondered how that would affect my responses to the documentaries.
Like one of the speakers in the audio conversation, the problem I have with these work is that I found them aesthetically unappealing. This was nothing to do with images of eye operations, or pornography, but more to do with the constantly shifting tabs opening and closing, and rapidly offering me information. Is this an indication that my brain is operating in a different way? Do I think more slowly, and in a more linear way than someone who is neurodivergent? Opening up these questions showed me the value of the work. I can see how they would work effectively in a gallery context because there was something a bit suffocating watching them on my laptop.
I found the research statement illuminating, and very well written. The arguments are clear, and obviously well-researched. I'm familiar with Mieke Bal's work about narratology, but had not read "Image-Thinking". Her arguments about embodiment and emotion have interested me enough to ensure I have now read her book, and will probably use it for my own research. However, I want to make the point that not all cinema privileges narrative clarity and coherence. There is a strong tradition that actively works against those values.
In summary, although I found the elucidation of what a desktop documentary is, and its relationship to neurodivergent though compelling, even though I found the actual work difficult to watch at times. It's backed by a well-argued, really interesting research statement, which makes it in total a compelling piece of work.
Review 2: Invite resubmission with major revisions of practical work and/or written statement.
This series of films and accompanying research statement raise numerous thought-provoking questions about the nature of desktop documentary production, spectatorship and its potential for representing neurodivergent thinking. In particular, the first two films highlight how desktop subjectivity visualises filmmaking practices and visualising thought, while also creating a tension between engagement and distraction in the viewer through the performative activity of the artist. These insights, when paired with neurodiversity scholarship, are novel. However, the research statement demands more schematised context for the production and interrelationship of these films, particularly the third film, as well as a more streamlined explication of findings based on the films as texts.
While the relationship between the first two films appear relatively straightforward and require a form of cinematic engagement that directly implicates the production practices of the artist, the third film feels somewhat tangential and contradictory to the aims of the first two films. Given the length of this third film and a lack of prefacing who the individuals speaking are or their relationship to one another, it feels unwieldy and unpolished. The research statement indicates that “Bielecki's work might be better suited for a gallery setting,” and some care should be taken in considering how the artist’s work will be exhibited within Screenwork’s publishing parameters. I would encourage a systemised introduction to each film – when it was produced, how it relates to the other films, and perhaps titles to better keep track of the individual films – either early in the research statement or using title cards within each work to highlight the intentionality of their inclusion. Similarly, I would consider truncating the third film to avoid meandering dialogue and better highlight the insights relevant to the argumentation found in the research statement.
Regarding the research statement, using ‘desktop subjectivity’ to illuminate neurodivergence is rather apt, however a stronger focus on how the project’s methodology and outcomes relate to either the production or final versions of the films is perhaps necessary. For example, the ‘three phases’ of collaborative research should indicate how such phases explicitly relate to the three films presented. Similarly, the proposed “affective potential” of desktop documentary can be explicated through specific textual examples. As such, statements such as “the tension between truthfully representing internal thoughts and the framing aesthetics of desktop documentaries” feel somewhat unqualified. Finally, the relevance of the three modalities introduced could be stressed further, for the manner they are introduced now feels either digressive or too similar to other findings in desktop cinema literature to stand apart. Rather, introducing terms such as ‘soft montage’ (Farocki, “Cross Influence / Soft Montage,” 2008), ‘spatial montage’ (Manovich, “Language of New Media,” 2001) and ‘choreographies of interactivity’ (de Rosa & Strauven, “Screenic Reorientations,” 2020) could prove useful here instead, or at least a cursory review of such literature to help inform the modalities presented.
All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response