Wisdom Seed Mindy Seu in conversation with Keiken Thursday 4th May 2023, Twitter Spaces

Emily: Hey, everyone. Sorry, my mic was off then. I was speaking, but yeah. Welcome to today's Wisdom Seed. I'm Emily, the community manager here at Wisdoms for Neknel. We've had a super busy week as we've dropped the third free mint instalment on Zora, which is open to collect. And tomorrow we have our IRL NFT preview party where we'll be displaying never seen before Wisdom Vessels. So yeah, all super exciting. And today's Wisdom Seed is also super exciting. We're joined by designer, technologist, and author, Mindy Seu. Mindy's expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures, design commissions, and close collaborations. Mindy is the author of the "Cyberfeminism Index," a beautiful book which gathers three decades of online activism and net art. And today, Mindy's joined by Issy from Keiken, which I'm also super excited about. So yeah, thank you, and welcome to you both. Before we kick it off, I'd love to ask you a question before I pass it over to both of you. So, 1000 years from now in Neknel, when we don't have jobs, what would you be doing on a Thursday?

Mindy: Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I am excited about this invitation. And great to be in conversation with you as well, Issy. Do you wanna take it away first?

Issy: Oh, I don't mind. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really happy to be having this Wisdom Seed with you. Yeah, I can have a go at thinking about what I would be doing in a 1000 years' time on a Thursday. So, I really hope that in a 1000 years' time I would love to kind of exist a bit beyond my body in a sense of I would just be energy and I'd be just floating around more like in sort of electromagnetic field type vibe of things and just be like floating around. But yeah, that would be very cool if I could experience that. So, hopefully! What about you?

Mindy: We had a similar reaction to this question. I didn't explicitly state electromagnetic fields, but I was trying to focus on sensations and feelings that we'd hopefully have at that time. And I do think now with this emphasis on productivity and efficiency and seamlessness, hopefully in the future, it'll actually feel much slower and we can focus on emotions that aren't necessarily related to this kind of productivity. So, whether we're both blobs floating around, I do feel or hope that we'd be kind of nestled in these emotions of joy and care.

Issy: Yeah, that's super nice. I hope so as well, sometimes we have to just move so fast, going through so many things in our society. And also I think as well a lot of the tech that exists currently. I mean, the more popular one, it's kind of a lot about efficiency or decision-making. And actually, I just really hope, and this is what I'm personally interested in, it's just being able to exist in a way that is more cosmic, is more sensorial, is more sensational. I mean, we can kind of do that a bit anyway, but yeah, I hope so as well that we're able to live in a slower paced reality. Definitely.

Mindy: Absolutely.

Issy: Yeah, so either we can just keep talking more about the future or I don't know if you want to introduce like, anything else, like further, or we can just delve straight into, like, what we could imagine in the future.

Mindy: Let's dive right into it. I think it's kind of nice to move kind of into this speculative space in a way from what we're currently working on.

Issy: Okay. Amazing. Okay. Perfect. So, let me think. I think for us, a lot of the things that we've been world-building in our practice. I mean, we're a collective, so I'm always working with different people and we often have a quite like dialectic approach of looking at things. And I think for us, we've really resonated with this word “protopia”, which is kind of the idea of striving for something that's better but not perfect, because of the problems with like, I think dystopia can sometimes be a little bit too... it's great to be very critical, but, you know, I don't wanna birth that into the future, but then utopia also can be also not realistic as well. I guess my question now is, what would your ideal distant future world look like?

Mindy: Yeah, I think I love this framing of protopia rather than utopia or dystopia. I think generally, utopic spaces have never quite been possible, but I do think utopic or maybe protopic principles have been and can be applied to what we're doing now. Things like universal access to all knowledge, open borders, etc. So, in the ideal distant future, I would hope that we could have a collectively governed and mutable network of care. And I think this mutability is really important. When speaking with friends, we always refer to kind of like the structures of BDSM because it makes you question in that analogy, what sex actually means. And also have these, you've remove expectation of what the act actually is, and then you can actually get into the brainstorming of what's actually pleasurable for everyone. And that contract can change throughout the session. So, if we were to plant that into an ideal distant space, this idea of laws and governance and protection, I do think is still worthwhile to have these structures, but allowing them to be collectively created and change over time, depending on consensus feels like it could be really valuable.

Issy: Yeah. No, definitely. I kind of agree that, of course, you need structural things to like help with the... I really like that reference with the safety, but then at the same time, things always move fluidly. So you need things that are constantly in progress and like having...

Mindy: Exactly.

Issy: ...a space for change. Yeah. So it's like continuously, kinda space to always grow, evolve, but consistently in the process.

Mindy: Absolutely.

Issy: Yeah, I think for us as well, we were also imagining this ideal future as would have this kind of care like carer, but I think we kind of gave it as one entity, but I think it would be probably a lot of made up of multiple, and it was kind of this divine feminine AI type entity that would govern also, which would help with distributing the resources, but wider big decisions. But then humans or other species would get to go in smaller groups and kind of collectively organise themselves in smaller ways and have the freedom and space to do so, so that you still give independence. So I think that was something that we were thinking about for the distant future.

Mindy: Well, and I think the interspecies aspect that you mentioned is extremely important, right? Like instead of having a hierarchy of who has access to materials and what are people or resources or places that we're thinking of as in terms of extraction, if we actually tried to level all of that out and understand that we're part of an ecosystem, then perhaps we wouldn't have this hierarchy. And it wouldn't be more about extraction, but instead about redistribution or just distribution generally.

Issy: Yeah, definitely. You know, I think yeah, for me personally, I think there's so much wisdom in other species, and I think there's been a hierarchy put on the human perspective, but there's so many other species that have different senses or different perspectives. And then even within ourselves, we have all these cells that have all their own intelligence and systems as well. So we're deeply fluid on the inside out as well.

Mindy: Yes.

Issy: Yeah. So I'm just going back to the questions again. Okay. I think this is going further, but I think visually or sensorially, what would you imagine if you could just keep travelling through so many different speculative worlds, or in a collective way, what could that look like?

Mindy: Wow. Well, I do think right now our culture is very focused on the visual. I think also with my background in graphic design, I would love to see like kind of this flattening effect. So again, moving away from this idea of hierarchy of one sense versus another. I guess the sense doesn't really focus on what this place could look like, but again, if you could feel it, how can we actually increase certain senses to be more attuned with different senses and how that plays into the context or experience of a space. So places that are more abstracted, maybe focused primarily on taste, or touch, or etc. I think also because I tend to navigate in like institutional or academic settings, something like touch is absolutely not acceptable because we have these things that we're trying to protect and convey. But generally, if we're working in a space where we do have a lot of consent models, I think touch is something that's really beautiful outside of a romantic relationship. So, I think how can we intensify a lot of these senses that we have rather than focus primarily on what things look like instead we can focus on what they feel like.

Issy: Yeah. I think that's super nice because I think a lot of the visions of the future, the feeling gets left out and I think definitely the embodiment of things is so deeply important. So, there's so much knowledge and things we pick up just through touch. Like you have to have that feeling being put into the future because otherwise it will feel super disconnected and like [inaudible 00:16:25] your different senses. And I think also another thing that I'm quite interested in is also, how could we unlock and go beyond the human umwelt as well. So what other senses could we also uncover or [inaudible 00:16:46]. And even, you know, when you look at different other species, there's so many different species that have these amazing other senses. I can't remember exactly from the top of my head, but I think a catfish can taste from really far away.

Mindy: Sure. It feels like... Yeah, I mean...

Issy: So I'd love to be able to imagine… like, how can I go beyond what I can already touch as well in the future? Like what would happen if we merged. Could imagine and also simulate having these other new senses as well.

Mindy: Absolutely. I think also thinking about like the Schumann resonance, which because we're part of this like electromagnetic field, we already are attuned to senses without touch. Like we can tell when people are close, we can sense when it's about to rain, etc. So I think tuning into these things more I think would be really important in the future.

Issy: Yeah, definitely. Also as well, we've been imagining humans merging with other different species or consciousness. I think we're quite influenced by a scientist called Michael Levin who does a lot of research on morphogenesis, it's the biological process of what the cells do to form an organ or form something. And we love to imagine this idea that, okay, maybe in the future, because of morphogenesis, we can organically re-engineer ourselves to merge with other consciousness, and that could kind of unlock potential to unravel more about what consciousness is, and also connect more with other species. So, if you could merge your consciousness with another species, what would it be?

Mindy: You know, I've always loved jellyfish. And first, they're like beautiful organisms, but I think I'm drawn to them because of certain traits that they have. Like they're only possible of moving forward with the currents. Like if you think of jellyfish tanks, they need to have a fan inside of them to help the jellyfish continue to move. They're very, very shaped by their environments, and they're also quite communal creatures. So for me, trying to be more empathetic or in tune with those beings I think would be quite powerful.

Issy: Yeah, that's really beautiful that one. I've never thought about what it could be like to be part of a jellyfish. I know that what's really cool about octopuses is they have - probably jellyfish too - they have a decentralised nervous system. So I've always wondered what would it be like to have a decentralised nervous system rather than a centralised one. Like, how could that be? Is like the brain is also in the hand? I know we have a lot of intelligence in it, but we have a centralised system. So, what would it be like to turn into it? Like how could that feel? I mean, I find it so hard to imagine because it's so easy for the thinking to dominate. Although I'm definitely really interested in connecting into my body and feeling it and feeling what that other intelligence is happening. But also sometimes, especially in our kind of, I guess the more like capitalist racing world, sometimes my brain is trying to keep up and go, go, go, go, but then my body's like, oh, no, this is not good. You need to relax and flow around a bit more and connect more with me, basically.

Mindy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that it also decentres our emphasis on like textual or written language, right? Like, we're so used to logic in our primary conscious, so being attuned to like feeling present, we get all of these other senses and inputs that we're actually told to not really focus on. So I love this idea about whether it's with other animals or with ourselves, trying to understand these different forms of communication.

Issy: Yeah, exactly. And also I'm interested as well in how it can be... Because again, we have to use so many words and logic, especially what's being input into a lot of technology. I think we are still gonna keep developing, but we've made prototypes of this haptic wearable womb, and, you know, it's cast from someone who is pregnant and it's made out of silicone. Silicone is very fleshy, and so it really makes you feel like it's connected to your body when you wear it, but then also we put haptics underneath, which send the vibrations. And because it's into the stomach, or the kind of womb area, it really feels like it's going into your actual intelligence, your stomach or womb area, but also into the silicone itself, which feels like it becomes part of you.

But we put different animal sounds in it. And what's really interesting is that when you put words and you put logic, like words or very rhythmical things into it, because it's just different sounds that are programmed in, it just doesn't feel good. It doesn't work, basically. As soon as I start putting water, fire, or very elemental - or I do kind of more animalistic sounds or clicking, or all these type of things, it feels good. It makes the technology work. And I think I find it really interesting, it's how there's so many parts of the... I maybe really think about a lot of tech is really geared so much towards the neocortex part rather than other parts of our bodies that are much more feeling or connecting more to, I guess, the non-logical parts. I mean, I still see it as useful and logical in some ways. And it was so interesting that the technology just did not work with logic.

Mindy: No, absolutely. I think that we're such a, like a logic and reason-focused society, so really trying to understand what these other intelligences are outside of the metric for what's successful or etc., I think is an important step to take regardless if it's in the distant future or in the near future. Like, I think we're kind of starting to see this shift in learning spaces as well, right? Like what are the different forms of communication or creativity or intelligence that's mapped through these other spaces rather than just through these preexisting grading rubrics? But this haptic womb sounds beautiful. I'd love to try that.

Issy: Yeah, you have to. Yeah, I hope you can try it. Especially because it seems like yeah, you really identify or resonate a lot with touch and feeling. Yeah, it's very feeling-orientated and very touch heavy. And also because it's heavy and you lie down so you really feel it. Yeah, it's just something about the silicone. I mean, I love silicone. I love touching things, to be honest, a lot. So, yeah, it's so funny. I don't know, whenever I'm just doing anything or on the phone or something, I'm just usually touching something or like... But yeah, no, silicone is just amazing because it's so skin-like. We actually did ages ago, this durational performance but this was before we ever made this haptic womb and we just bought pregnant bellies, like silicone pregnant bellies. And we had just our friends or we had friends of friend come and do this durational performance. And we had different gender expressions, like different ages all performing in it. And there was nothing else there, there was no other technology there, just the silicone wombs. And people got so attached to it, like people really wanted to care and had a very visceral response. It's also interesting how these kind of other interfaces can evoke a connection to it as well. So whatever is being of created, there's a lot of potential, but we have to be careful because we'll get the whatever tech or interface is created, we can get connected to it and actually, there's so much room to create beautiful connections from, if that makes sense.

Mindy: Yeah, definitely. I think that it maybe also...maybe a bit of a tangent, but I was recently at a conference where on the tables they had different things that you could kind of touch and play with as a way to remove the pressure from having to talk to people nearby and the social discomfort that comes with that. And they actually found that people could ease into these conversations much better if their direction was actually pointed at playing with Play-Doh or working with this other material. And, it was almost a form of parallel play where you're both doing something quite visceral and haptic with your hands and removing some of the pressure, but still allowing for communication and conversation with the stranger next to you.

Issy: That's really interesting. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's the thing, I think definitely the environment or the space, it just can really change, something goes sometimes. Because it's not just me and another person, it's like also the energy of the room and also how everyone's electromagnetic fields are kind of, and bodies interacting with each other and what else is there, and sometimes having the touch or just even having nice smells or all these other kind of sensory things can make it much more inviting or even accessible as well.

Mindy: Absolutely. Yeah. It also reminds me of the disability activist and author Sara Hendren, she was teaching this class at Olin where her focus is primarily on people with disabilities and she would have engineers work with someone and they would try to develop a tool that might be beneficial for them. And she actually found that when you're meeting someone for the first time and asking them "what their problems are or what they need help with," it's a very vulnerable and hierarchical position. So they actually found that instead of introducing these like verbal prompts, they could actually have tools in front of them that they could play with and interact with that then led to disclosures about certain forms of comfort or aid that they might need. So I think this is kind of similar to the Play-Doh thing, or how do you actually allow or create spaces where you can have comfort and allow for these sort of conversations to occur naturally.

Issy: Yeah, that's really interesting. It makes a lot of sense. I know that haptic technology has a lot of potential in terms of...I mean obviously, you can use more like...there's also more like other things, even just like Play-Doh, it seems like it's something that's really nice to touch.

Mindy: Absolutely.

Issy: Yeah. I would also be the same. Anything like that, clay's also super nice. Also just kind of nature things, like I love touching the grass or something like this can be super nice. But I know that there was things like... So at a music concert to make it more accessible, I think they put haptics in balloons or something like that, and that could help hard of hearing people to be able to feel the concert. Haptics is very simple. I mean, we have it. There's actually quite a lot of different places. It's in our phones and everything, but it's actually quite a simple thing. You can just have a little speaker and like the frequency will make it vibrate. But I just think, you put it lovely that...actually to make it more inclusive, you could have the haptic balloons so that you could experience the sound of the concert.

Mindy: Yeah. It feels like a fairly simple form of language translation. And I think more and more of this I've been seeing in other spaces and just feels like a nicer way to, again, decentre our focus on the textual, the visual, the written, etc.

Issy: Okay. I'm gonna ask you, if you were to kind of plant some wisdom into this future world in 1000 years. I mean, I'm sure you have a lot. What would you plant there?

Mindy: So, I think that one thing that has stuck with me, my former advisor in grad school was saying how...she is from the Middle East, and she was saying how when she moved out to the U.S. to teach with... She has a son that's now a teenager, and the teenager said like, now he considers himself American. And not that she has like continental ties, but she realised that this in some ways made her kind of sad because at least in the U.S., and I'm sure in many other industrial countries, they have, again, this focus on efficiency and productivity or achieving these preexisting milestones as markers of success. But she actually found that you kind of need to have space to wonder and wander and kind of dig around in order to really understand what you're drawn to and why. Otherwise, by the time you're in your 30s, you'll have achieved every single marker of success that was told has importance to you, but it doesn't actually amount to something that you might actually find truly meaningful. So I do think that this space to wander and play and figure out what you're drawn to is actually an extremely meaningful time, even if it doesn't clearly map to these other metrics that we created. It reminds me of the Rebecca Solnit book, "A Field Guide to Getting Lost," right? Like, how do we create these spaces and timeframes where we can wander a bit more?

Issy: No, definitely. It's like you have to let go of the metric of “this equals this”. Oh, if you are successful and you achieve this, it will bring this, rather than just having space to, as you were saying, wander, having space to just let go and just give yourself over to the wander. It's a very creative place to be in when you are also just wandering and like flowing around and kind of coming across different things as well. I wish I could do this much more, but just wandering out in nature and getting lost, but being kind of fine with it and just kind of going with the flow. It's rare, but I would love to do more of that. So I'm hoping in the future where we can just, again, as we've kind of been calling them Cosmic Goals, we can just follow these different threads and wander around.

Mindy: Yeah, absolutely. It's this trust and intuition, and not necessarily needing a concrete map.

Issy: Exactly. We also thought about...we kind of had this defined sense of space and time that we imagined, which was that you get to move between the different states. So rather than it's just, you know, you have a childhood and then you go through these like different steps. It's, we have...I can't remember, we have, what are they all called? But one of them is, so you have like the Watering Years, I think you have like the Reflection Years, you have the Building Years. So, the Building Years is when you're going out and you're kind of making stuff happen. But then maybe you're like, oh, you know what? I need to go back to the Watering Years. I need to just be kind of watered. I need to not do anything. I just need to absorb that. Or maybe I just wanna go back even further, just be held for a while, you know, and then I'm ready to build. So, it becomes like your sense of space and time is not linear. It's more cyclical and it allows space for the different times that you need different things, but there's flexibility to which time. I mean, it kind of happens anyway, but we go through different stages, but sometimes you just wanna go back. So, I think, yeah, we just like the idea of having more fluidity with space and time.

Mindy: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with this. I feel like this is also very intensified because of our culture's fixation on youth and like markers of achievement at a certain young timeframe, like all of these 30 under 30 lists. I had a friend's studio several years ago, Carly Ayres. They created this other list called 100 Under 100. So it was a nice way to kind of expand out like, okay, who are interesting people doing interesting things, but essentially divorced from these markers of youth? So I think it's also this shift in how we can qualify, like what's important and why. And again, by not focusing on youth, that means you're not focusing on efficient productivity now, but it can actually be expanded into an extended timeframe that doesn't have necessarily clear markers.

Issy: Yeah, definitely. And there's not this I guess urgency or like being like, oh...you know, there's not this thing of, oh, it's running out. The kind of projected feelings of regret or something like that when actually you just... You know, things have different, like growing, like things. Even just like seasonally if you look at trees or plants some bloom a bit more, but they're not blooming all year round. They go through different states continuously, you know.

Mindy: Right. That's a great analogy. It's like we're currently asking everyone to be some sort of perennial when in fact many of us have these seasons that we have to go through.

Issy: Exactly. And there is the wisdom of sometimes you need to go into less blooming, but there is the wisdom of slowing down or reflecting, or you need to be more reflective, maybe less visual brewing loads of energy. I can't remember who the reference was, but I know that basically when humans, like when it was like the summertime, especially if you think about like seasonal, it's a time to be walking outside really going over long distance of time. Whereas I guess winter it's much more like you don't need to move as much, you do shorter bursts. Whereas I think in summer it's just like that. And I think what I really liked about that was just how you, again, a bit like the plants, it's like we also need to go through different states as well and that is a good thing as well. Rather than it being like, oh, you need to be the full bloom all the time, or we need to have energy or needs to be summer all the time. I mean, that would be very nice, but also it's not like that. And I think you need to have space to go through those different cycles and the world is more cyclical than I think our current society has been set up.

Mindy: Yeah. It's like even when people tend to find inspiration, it's not done by staring at a screen necessarily. I feel like most people I know, their ideas come to them because they're constantly experiencing new things, absorbing them, and then coming up with different ideas like in the shower or on a walk or doing these other activities that give some space to let this thing simmer. So I think it's also about trying to also consider that, a necessary step in whatever other things we're trying to work on.

Issy: Exactly. And often just like when you move your body, like when you move your body over a long time, even if you are, say you're feeling frustrated about something, if you just go on a long walk over a long period of time, your body will calm you down and you'll have a clearer perspective. But also I found some of my creative moments have been when, you know, not necessarily staring at the computer screen, it's when I've been doing other things. Also interacting with people. Like I respond a lot from other people, so that's why I wouldn't wanna be an artist on my own because I like to respond of other people and I like the alchemy of minds coming together and what that also does, and what that kind of creates. So, having space for that alchemy is really important, I think.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah, I feel very similarly to this. Like, I generally don't like working alone. I really like to be in communion with other people whether their ideas complement mine or not. Like they can actually be very critical of something that I'm doing or vice versa, but this is still the kind of synergy or alchemy that allows for these new things to occur. I guess also kind of related, my partner and I have this phrase where if we're in an argument or you can't bring up something important to discuss, using the acronym HALT, which is when you're Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Because this just tends to exacerbate the issue rather than when you're in a state of peace or calm, it actually feels like a more productive or like healing conversation. I think hungry can also be exchanged for horny, but essentially like when you're at these peaks of emotions, these big decisions shouldn't be made at that time.

Issy: No, definitely. I mean, I'm definitely guilty of like every time I'm more annoying to my partner, it's when I'm hungry, literally every single time.

Mindy: Oh, absolutely.

Issy: It's like I'm always the most unreasonable. And then all the other times, mostly I'm definitely much more reasonable, but it's just like I need to be fed in the morning or it's just not gonna go well.

Mindy: Absolutely. There's hangry and there's also tangry. So hangry is angry when you're hungry, but we coined tangry, which is angry when you're tired, because I also get...

Issy: Oh, I love that.

Mindy: ...kind of irritable when I'm tired. So I think if we avoid both of these or at least nurture those instincts first, then we don't have to go into the angry territory.

Issy: Exactly. Also, it is so interesting when you're tired, it's like you are aware of your tiredness, it makes the...I feel like I look at things so much more negatively. It's like there's some moments where I'm not noticing things, but then there's some also weird moments of perfectionism when I'm tired as well because you are seeing it. It's like your vision is negative, how you're seeing the world. And it can be so simple. It can be sometimes such simple needs that can put on a different lens, a different frame of vision. But yeah, that's so funny, that...

Mindy: Yeah. Take care of your body first...

Issy: Exactly.

Mindy: ...and then focus on the other things.

Issy: Exactly. So I think that's the thing. If everyone can have the resources to be able to look after themselves, or in the future like people are more collectively cared-for so that more basic needs...

Mindy: Exactly.

Issy: ...are covered rather than this like stark inequality, then it will enable people to be able to go in. Like it'll enable much more space and more space to flow, or we can follow more cosmic goals maybe, and be less having to be in our efficiency and just doing this, and like A to B type stuff. I hope!

Mindy: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, even machines need care and maintenance, you know. I don't think anything is built to be efficient all the time.

Issy: No, definitely. And I remember, like a researcher called Helen Hester who's done a lot on like post [crosstalk 00:45:46.678]

Mindy: Xenofeminism?

Issy: Yeah, exactly. And I remember listening to a book of hers during the beginning of the pandemic, and she was speaking a lot about how one of the...the biggest part of the economy is care work, but it's the least financially compensated as well. And actually, like the systems of care are just so important because it is gonna be so important. Obviously, it's so important now, but it's also gonna be so important in the future because as you've said, everything kind of needs care. Like tech can definitely be very temperamental sometimes. I've been working a lot just like the last month with 3D printers and they can sometimes play up, so you just have to talk to them nicely and be like, are you okay?

Mindy: Yeah. Well, and when you read these studies by OpenAI or etc., care work is one of the few spaces that cannot be automated. Like it really requires this human hand. So I think it also kind of points to this question of like, feminist economies or why we don't value domestic labor or care work in the same way. And even if these are things that are keeping society running, because they're not these clear markers of quantitative metrics, then they're considered less valuable, even if that's the thing, this oath of maintenance that allows things to progress.

Issy: Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, the dominant system, especially in those like industrial western countries can be, and with capitalism, it's like money is the most important like value system, but we don't value care work in the same way. But actually, it's such a huge part of the need of things. It's like it takes up so much time. I think we like to think about like, you know...motherhood is like, you're birthing consciousness, that's pretty crazy. Crazy that we create consciousness. And raising consciousness is such an important thing yet in like the UK where I'm from, it's not valued. It's not valued in the same way as finance or other systems in place, but yet it's so important. It's like maybe one of the most important value systems in some ways, but it's just not valued or like cared for in the same way. So there'll be more forms of value in the future, or hopefully in the present too.

Mindy: Yes. Well, I think also when people hear like feminist economics, this does not mean like labour done by women or feminised labour. It means rethinking the study of economics to consider a holistic lens. So, what are the different parts of an environment or a system that allows certain things to happen, and that requires maintenance and care, and these kinds of invisible labour that aren't as sexy or quotable as the things later in the line. So I think I literally like considering it from this very holistic or ecosystemic angle.

Issy: Yeah, definitely. And like that's the thing, there's so many things that get missed out, and like those things that aren't like sexy labour should be, yeah, they should definitely be considered valuable and be made to exist rather than I guess whatever is the blooming thing or like seen as the most kind of on the surface of value being seen as valuable or like earning lots of money or earning crazy amounts of money or something like that is the most valuable thing.

Mindy: Yeah. Precisely.

Issy: I wanted to ask you another thing, which was, tell us like one piece of wisdom, and it can be good or bad that someone's given you that you'll just always remember.

Mindy: So the best part about being a professor or a teacher is to be surrounded by brilliant students. And during my last class on Monday with some of the grad students, Corine Antigone and Jules introduced this idea about the lineage of gossip. So gossip now is seen with a negative connotation, but when it was first emerging, it was actually considered like a feminist caretaking device because it allowed people to commune and kind of allow people to be vulnerable, have different strategies of protection, or trade different things that people might need to do well in their current environment. And gossip actually emerged from God sip. At the time, it was almost used as a marker for someone who was pious in religion. For example, gospel has the same root as gossip, but then over time, people suspect like Silvia Federici, who's written about this, that it's kind of mutated into this negative connotation of people talking behind people's backs and etc., mainly because we were constantly antagonising these feminist circles of discourse. So I really like this idea that being able to talk vulnerably with other people, talk about others, talk about ourselves isn't inherently bad, it's actually a really important strategy. It's just the maliciousness that currently is overlaid on top of it. That's the thing that needs to be interrogated, and that doesn't necessarily come from gossip itself. So this is something I've been kind of mulling over quite a bit. It's been a nice, yeah, thought experiment.

Issy: That's really interesting. I've never heard of that before. I'm just thinking about it because, of course gossip is always seen as a bad thing, but it's interesting always when you look into the roots of things and how it's been transmuted from where it became. You know, I guess if you're not spreading malicious things, it's something that helps to form community. So that's something that can easily become lacking, but it's something that we need to have exchanges with each other. We need to feel connected and be able to also have freedom of exchange as well in a safe way. So...

Mindy: Well, and if you consider some of the roles of gossip now, in some ways they're like strategies of defence, right? Like how to offer, be careful with X because this thing has happened. Or even being able to speak openly about what's happening in your life with others. I think it's the virality that makes it a bit malicious now just because it transmutes so much in transfer. And I think also, it's been very sensationalised. So it's also become an industry where we want to say bad things about other people. But as a revisionist history, it's nice to think about its origins.

Issy: Yeah, that's true. I’ll have a more of a think about it. It's interesting. Yeah, I was also just wondering as well, if anyone in the audience wanted to ask us any questions as well before we reached the end.

Emily: Yeah, feel free to request to speak and join us. Also, we've been dropping all the references and resources that have been mentioned in Discord as well. There's always so much from these Wisdom Seeds of different books and studies, so we like to keep a record of them.

Issy: Well, if anyone wants to message me anything, welcome to do so. It's been really nice speaking with you. We've gone through so many different strands as well, which is super nice. I think what's nice about this conversation is that the act of it is that we are trying to plant like Wisdom Seeds, and so that there is space to grow for it. I think also there's been a really nice like tangent about going back to touch and floating around and feeling as well, which I also really resonate with as well. So I think that's been super lovely to speak with you, Mindy, and have this conversation.

Mindy: Yeah. Thank you so much, Issy. So, one question we didn't get to, if there's no audience questions, was to name one book or text that you'd like to enter into the Library of Neknel. And I wonder if this would be a good place to close, because I have a poem and maybe I can read it.

Issy: Oh yes, please. I'm so sorry. I missed that question.

Mindy: Oh, no, no, not at all.

Issy: And it's obviously so important to ask you this one, like, it's very related to this one. Yes, please.

Mindy: Yes, it's my favourite poem. It's so beautiful. I'm sure many people have heard this, but it just feels so apt for the time we're living in. It's the Richard Brautigan poem, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace." And it's three stanzas, fairly short. He writes:

"I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony, like pure water touching clear sky.

I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.

I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labours and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters and all watched over by machines of loving grace."

Issy: That's amazing. Thank you so much for reading that.

Mindy: Yeah, it's a really beautiful one. I think it's something that's very much in line with everything we've discussed now with the future or the near future. It's really just feeling like we're in communion with an ecosystem again.

Issy: Yeah, again, like what we are talking about is just like being able to be inclusive of thinking about the whole ecosystem, thinking about how we merge. We don't just consider ourselves or humans, it's kind of like going beyond, of how do we have a more encompassing system as well, like that's kind of in line with the system of nature as well, which is super beautiful.

Mindy: Yes, definitely.

Emily: So yeah, thank you so much both of you. It's been really wonderful hearing this conversation, because I feel both of your practices are quite different, but you have this interconnectedness with future visions and possible futures. So it's been really, really wonderful. And we also have a channel going in Discord where people submit books to the Library of Neknel, and your "Cyberfeminism Index" is in there, Mindy.

Mindy: Oh, thank you. Wow. That's great.

Emily: So yeah, thank you so much for your time. And yeah, till the next Wisdom Seed!

Issy: Thank you.

Mindy: Until the next one. Thanks again.

Issy: Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us. That was amazing. And thank you, Emily, as well.

Mindy: Thank you so much to both of you, and for those who came to listen as well. Appreciate it.

Issy: Yeah, thank you, listeners. And yeah, if you have any questions, I think we'll be on the Discord, right, Emily?

Emily: Yeah, just come and drop in, like you don't have to be a speaker or anything, like send us a message.

Issy: Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Mindy: All right, bye, everyone.

Issy: Have a lovely evening or day.

Mindy: Bye.