A new book by local author Jasun Horsley examines the influence of popular culture in our lives.
Revisiting his former writings on film and deconstructing old texts, Horsley engages in a literary dialogue with his past as he struggles to open his fantasy life and reach the truth behind it.
“Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist is intended to show how I was able to discover things about myself and movies by mapping a relationship between the two, and how I came out the other end with a much clearer sense of who I was and of what movies are,” said Horsley. “If a person reading that has the experience vicariously, they can then bring that to their own lives.”
Moving into and through the cultural, social and political dimensions of movies, the book outlines previously undiscovered psychological and spiritual realms of the movie-going experience to create a thought-provoking narrative about the essential acts of movie-watching, writing, and self-examination.
“The movies that we’re attracted to and like, there are unconscious reasons for that. They actually represent our inner lives. By watching movies more consciously, we can learn things about ourselves,” said Horsley. “The other thing that the book explores is the way movies are not just entertainment. Movies are actually reflecting the ideology of the culture they create and reinforcing it.”
Horsley has been writing about film, culture, and the quest for meaning and identity for 20 years. He is the author of several books including a two-volume study on film violence, The Blood Poets, and his first exploration of film as public dreams subject to psychoanalytical techniques, The Secret Life of Movies: Schizophrenic and Shamanic Journeys in American Cinema. His articles on film, pop culture, autism, neurology and authorship have also been widely published in English and Spanish in print and online. In 2014, Horsley was also invited to present the concluding keynote address at the Bonus MX conference in Mexico City.
Horsley will read from his new book and lead participants in an information discussion at his local book launch at Baker’s Books this Saturday (Feb. 21) at 7 p.m. He’s also planning another book reading May 13 at the Hope Library. For more information on Horsley or his new book, visit movieautist.com