A performative exploration through engaged networks, autobiographic traces and multidisciplinary art practice in order to express the dynamics of social power inequalities embracing autism as a innate forms of neurodivergence; a neurocognitive variation; an identity. 

OUTSIDE THE REALM OF THE HUMAN positions itself in contrast to classic psychological research and autism research, where autism is considered a cognitive disability. Classical psychology and autism research is based on the WHO's international diagnostic system (ICD11), in which autism is classified as a 'disorder' and a lack of narrative structures, coherence, rhetorical skills, self-reflection and the ability to understand other people based on a theory of Mindblindness. With a significant increase in the number of people diagnosed with autism and the accompanied increase in comorbidities among those diagnosed, a critical review and renegotiation of the basis of autism research is necessary. And there is a need to create a language and art that incorporates neurodivergent voices and the particular neurodivergent experience. Outside the Realm of the Human offers such a scrutiny that, through artistic practice, opens our eyes to consider autism in ways comparable to how we politically perceive race, gender, sexuality and class: as human differences that are spun into a wider process of inequality.

Lise Tovesdatter Skou (b. 1966, Denmark) is a multidisciplinary artist with social hierarchies, and economic structures as a consistent theme in her artistic practice. She has a MFA from Funen Art Academy (DK), and was enrolled at The Whitney Museum - Independent Study Program, New York in 2002-2003. Besides she holds a BA in Nordic Literature and Art History from the University of Aarhus. Throughout her career she has been engaged in numerous transdisciplinary research projects. She has exhibited extensively internationally and nationally for the past 20 years. Most recent the solo exhibitions: Fight to the Death with Clubs, Randers Kunstmuseum (DK 2025); and Destituent Bodies, Galleri Image (DK 2024). In conjunction to Destituent Bodies exhibition she published Destituent Bodies Booklets # 1 og # 2 supported by Ny Carlsberg Fondet. Previous publications include Memorial to the Vanquished and the Silent (2021), and We all Suffer from Capitalism, but Refuse Treatment (2014).In her practice she emphasizes the need to exchange knowledge, and therefore organizing seminars, symposiums and setting up performative spaces for exchange, has been an artistic research method throughout her career, i.e. Have you ever Been Fully Human Symposium (2024). From 2020 - 2024 she was at the board of the Danish Arts Council, and in 2024 she was elected for the Academy Council for the Fine Arts in Denmark. She is currently a PhD research fellow at The Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen.