Scheherazade’s Sea is an interdisciplinary creative work, which brings together music, visual art, literary text, digital media, and performance art. Interdisciplinary creativity has existed for centuries in history. In fact, the ancients of different civilisations viewed the disciplines of science and art as inseparable. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century saw a resurgence of interdisciplinary interest in the form of artistic collaborations among proponents of the different arts forms, mainly music, visual art, theatre and dance. Today, this coalescence now includes digital and electronic media. However, such works focus mainly on the more dominant distal senses of sight and sound and fail to consider the multimodality of natural sensory perception in the experience of art, and many of these works are performed in settings where artists are separated from audience by physical and psychological barriers. In Scheherazade’s Sea, I shall address the limitations of prevalent approaches, by including the proximal senses, removing the traditional physical barriers and encouraging audience participation. On another level, Scheherazade’s Sea serves as a vehicle for exploration and reflection of the inherent sensory and cognitive peculiarities associated with Asperger’s Syndrome, and their possible influences upon creativity and artistic expression. Sensory and cognitive idiosyncrasy is a common feature in Asperger’s Syndrome. Individuals suffer from extremes of either heightened sensitivity or low arousal to external sensory stimuli, and their innate cognitive patterns differ from that of the typical majority. As a result, the sensory and cognitive world of a person with Autistic Spectrum Disorder can be fragmented, disjointed and confusing. While there exists substantial literature about famous artists with Asperger’s Syndrome and various aspects of their creativity, there is, to date, limited documentation from the perspective of the artist with Asperger’s Syndrome, using an original interdisciplinary work to illustrate the possible ways in which sensory and cognitive differences may affect and influence creative choices and outcomes. By charting and examining the features and various processes in the creation of Scheherazade’s Sea, I hope to discover and contribute more insights into this area of interdisciplinary study. The purpose of this examination is not to add to the already vast body of programmes aimed at social rehabilitation and adaptation to the neurotypical world, but rather to open more avenues for the identification and development of innate abilities in autistic individuals. My intention is not to ‘fix what is broken’, but to discover and empower beauty in the unusual and the different. / published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture