Wisdom Seed Yasaman Sheri in conversation with Keiken Monday 27th March 2023, Twitter Spaces

Emily: NFTs, but maybe most importantly, our Wisdom Seeds invite you, the participants, to embark on the exploratory journey of new ideas that urges you to question the conventional and surpass limitations in order to speculate alternate realities. But now I take great pleasure in welcoming Yasaman. Yasaman is a researcher working with emerging technologies to explore possible and becoming futures. Her investigations focus on the interaction of humans, living things and machines, synthetic biology, aesthetics and simulation, perception systems and augmentation of body objects and ecologies. Yasaman has led interface design for novel operating systems in immersive technologies and is an educator teaching sensory design.

Currently, she's the principal investigator of Synthetic Ecologies Lab at Serpentine Galleries, creating platforms, tools, and spaces that support critical and artistic inquiry in life sciences. And of course, leading this talk today is Keiken, the artist collective behind Wisdoms for Neknel. Keiken builds new and specific worlds through filmmaking, gaming, installation, extended reality, blockchain, and performance. Through these varied mediums, they explore how societal introduction governs the way we feel, think, and perceive. So I take great pleasure in welcoming Yasaman, Hana, Tanya, and Izzy.

Yasaman: Hi everyone.

Hana: Hey.

Tanya: Hi.

Isabel: Hi.

Emily: Hana's with me...

Hana: Yeah, we're together. We're one.

Emily: We're one at the moment.

Tanya: They're lying. They've become some cyborg and they actually are one.

Emily: How do you wanna start the conversation? Maybe, Yasaman, you can speak a bit more about your practice. I think that would be a really great introduction. Would that be okay?

Yasaman: Yeah, of course. No problem. Oh, my voice is slowly ascending. Hi, everyone. My name is Yasaman Sheri, and I'm a designer and researcher and more recently have been doing some writing that I'm very excited about. I come from a background of design and specifically interface design where I have led a few different operating systems in immersive technologies. And a lot of my practice has been around working with sensors and sensing technology. This led me to explore what the breadth and the kind of gamut of the different sensing methodologies are that humans are advancing on in terms of technological interfaces. And it really led me to ask the question, why are we creating sensing technologies, for what reason? And what kind of materials are we using to extend ourselves? And so, a lot of that has been around machine sensing, around AR/VR, or kind of more climate sensing technologies and so on.

But it really ultimately got me thinking about biological sensing, which I began to explore back in 2016, 2017 and led me to some of my collaboration with biotech companies and industries around biological sensors. All of this together has been a philosophical and creative and critical inquiry for me at the intersection of technology, science and creative practice. Even though my background is in design, I think my interests within creative practice are much wider than necessarily where design ends. So, you know, I collaborate with many different people thinking about artistic practice, film, and more recently, thinking about choreography even. So of course, I have interests, but I find it fascinating where technology and science could go especially in our advancements. And so, more recently having been invited to lead the Synthetic Ecologies Lab, we created that at Serpentine Galleries, where we have the space from an artistic institution to kind of explore the research and development side of looking at life sciences.

And here, you know, a lot of my practice has been personal to my interests. And as an educator, I've been teaching graduate students and also mentoring folks coming from different disciplinary practices. But at the lab, I have the chance to kind of provide tools and provide support for many folks who are coming into this intersection. So that's a little bit about me and my practice. I still do make interfaces and I really appreciate the hands-on experience to keep my toolsets sharp, but I also, I'm just a critical and maybe philosophical... I have philosophical and critical interests so that kind of goes hand in hand with some of my writing or some of my collaborations and experimental projects that I do with other folks. So I try to keep these two high-level and hands-on work in balance. Maybe I'll stop right there and we can kind of begin to explore some of the topics we've discussed together, and if you have any questions.

Josh: Yeah, I didn't introduce myself before, but I'm Josh. I'm from data and I've been helping Keiken develop this project, and I'm moderating lightly this conversation. I think we spoke a little bit the other day and I think one of the points that seems like is a really great intersection between both of your practices is the understanding, like, you are designing interfaces for these devices, like, effectively these metaverse devices, and then Keiken creating art with those same devices. So they have experience, like you were saying, you work with creative people and you think about creative practice and they're, like, very much in the thick of that and working to build, like, to communicate using those interfaces. So maybe that would be a good jumping off point because I know that Keiken can have a lot of opinions about how these devices work, what you can express, and the kind of bias that could possibly be built in.

Hana: Yeah. So, Yasaman came to our studio a little while back and I think we instantly connected, because Yasaman straightaway knew a lot of the people that were of interest to the similar research to us, but we also have a lot of experience with interfaces. And I think when you start to design your own interfaces or your own technologies, you really start to realise how narrow-minded the technologies that are popular are and how different they could be. So for example, we made a haptic wearable womb and you know, it's made out of silicone, it's embodied, you put it on you, and you feel like...you basically feel this kind of 360 sound inside your new found belly and your new found womb.

And I think from creating that technology, it opened up all these, like, it opened up so many different understandings from even, for example, it's, like, when you then look at agricultural devices and technologies, you're like, "Well, why don't they use soft robotics? Why is a tractor so harsh? What does it do to the land?" Like, you start to see things really differently because you are like, "Well, why is the VR so, like, it's so masculine and, like, it's so uncomfortable and on a lot of levels? But why is it that way?" I think it makes you really start to question those things which yeah, only through the process of starting to create your own technologies and interfaces, you're like, "Oh my God, this is just really weird that the technologies that we've created." I don't know. Izzy, you can maybe talk a bit more, specifically about this.

Isabel: I think Tanya is going [crosstalk 00:09:22].

Tanya: No, I was just gonna say, I think it makes you realise that things could actually, like, we are so used to things being exactly as they are, but it makes you realise that it could be something entirely different and it could be something that's far more comfortable and far more, what's the word? I don't know. It could just allow for much smoother reality.

Isabel: We like to use the word... Oh, sorry, you say.

Yasaman: No, I was just gonna, yeah, say the same thing. I couldn't agree with you more because once you're in it and you're building the things and you're very hands-on, you see the breadth and also the limitations. And more often than not, it's made me ask more questions, then kind of accept what is. And so, I think that's what led me to also kind of open up a different space for pedagogy for folks who are coming in new to actually question what we have. So, I really relate to what you're saying about where, as you begin to build your own, you kind of can begin to imagine a different kind of reality. And you're speaking to something that I care a lot about, which is who gets to make these things and who gets to have access for creating technology. And I think depending on who you put at the table, the answer might be different.

Hana: I think also a big part of it, which I think you went into a lot about, like, the olfactory and just, like, smell, whereas that's something that we've less discovered even though we've always talked about. Whereas we've looked a lot more into, or you looked also into we take it from very, like, embodiment perspective. And it's always, for us, we're always like, "Well, what part of the body is it activating and what parts of the brain is it activating?" And are we using our, so, like, if you think of the body as, like, an operating system, it's like, "Are we using our operating system to its fullest capacities? Or are we just cutting off certain pathways when we're creating these devices?"

And I think more often than not, most technologies such as your... When you go on your computer, you open a load of tabs, and those tabs basically you read, like, one sentence of each tab, and you think you are almost like... The way that it positions you, it positions you as if you are kind of, like, this kind of...you have some sort of like godly power, like, you're bigger than the world that the screen is inside. But then it's like, there's so much knowledge, but you can only read the first sentence of everything. So it's, like, shallow wisdom almost, but then it's really just...

Yasaman: Yeah, it's almost like it's not wisdom or knowledge, it's almost like just information thrown at you.

Hana: Yeah, exactly. And I think it's manipulative because it's making you think that, you know all these things, but actually, you know very little of everything, which can give you a certain type of wisdom as well. Like, I think that a lot of younger generation, there are certain things that they're aware of that others, maybe an older generation, are not aware of in general, but then they don't know the details of, like, one specific thing. And they don't have the attention span, but I think it's basically very manipulative of, like, data visual. We are, like, visual creatures, so we get addicted to visuals, so that's why you have, like, an endless scroll because you are addicted to the visuals of it. And we as humans will be addicted to visuals. It's not like...or, like, you know, for people. So it's kind of, like... Yeah, it's very manipulative the way all the technology is being positioned. It's purposefully...or sometimes it's not purposeful, but they've realised it's addictive.

Tanya: And also, a lot of it also will activate the seeking parts of your brain or which is also linked to the idea also in the past, and you had to, like, forage for things. You had to find things. So that's why it can end up being really addictive. So say you are scrolling through, like, TikTok or something like this, it's very addictive because you're trying to find something where you can never find it. And so, it's really, I think...yeah, we are really interested. It's, like, going back to, like, how is the technology actually at...what is it doing to your body? What is it doing to your being and are we fit, like, are we leaving out such, like, crucial embodiment practices? Because I think what we really discovered was, what we really loved about the womb is that, the haptic wearable womb that we made, is it really was so much about ground...like, it was very grounding.

It was very much, like, in the stomach intelligence and the womb area intelligence of being able to really be incredibly meditative. And it would often create three different types of experience. One would be, like, people get very visionary, which was a few, most people would feel very, like, meditative and calm. Some people had some sort of, like, traumatic thing to do with that area, it could become very cathartic. So it's like there's so much that technology could do that is not so much about seeking, like, logic, like, moving through a lot of information. There's so much information that is much less, like, verbal. Yeah.

Yasaman: Yeah, I think if I were to... Can y'all hear me? Sorry, I'm new to Twitter Spaces. Cool.

Tanya: Yeah, we can.

Yasaman: Awesome. Yeah, you know, I'm reminded so much of someone I used to work with and care for dearly, Jaron Lanier, who actually was kind of, like, early thinker in virtual reality who, recently, in the last few years, has been very critical of the kind of direction the internet is going and very much talking about the Skinner Box, that kind of loophole that we've been talking about with scrolling endlessly and so on. And I think we have in our hand's ways that we can explore technology that doesn't have to be the way it is today, which is in relation to addiction or in relation to constant small amounts of addiction...sorry, attention and also kind of, like, punishment and reward systems.

And it can be very much about embodiment, very much about slowing down. And so, for me, the kinds of metaphors that get me excited and make me think differently about those sense of temporality over time, or relationship with my own embodiment and my surroundings is thinking about different living species and my relationship with, for instance, plants or my relationship with fermentation, which are completely different things. Today at this stage, we would not categorise computers and plants as one thing. But, I'm curious about ways that we can even think about how these things can be related to one another or, for instance, for ourselves to consider different relationship and different forms of time and embodiment.

One of the things I did right before this call is to actually go outside into my garden and look at my plants, take care of them, feed them. And so, I think that's a very different feeling than waking up and scrolling or waking up and looking at my email. And not to say that plants should be a technological ground for us. That's not what I'm saying, but there's different relationships that we can build with our objects or our interactions that are habitual or ritualistic.

Hana: Yeah, I think, also, we need to consider, so, like, when we're creating more digital... As soon as we are supposedly, like, if we're advancing more technologically, we are also dividing so much. And I think that... We were talking a bit about it together, it's, like, about how, obviously, like, our relationship with nature and how important it is. I know from, as, like, Keiken collectively we all have this kind of, like, nature is so important to us and we all didn't grow up in a city, so we're used to the kind of the rocks, the trees, the water being our neighbours. Like, when I left my home and my parents sold a house and things happened and stuff like that, I remember the thing that would hurt me so much was that I couldn't go to, like, my sea.

In my mind, it's, like, that's my home. Like, my actual physical home was not my home. It was all the different elements in the environment that even I could fall asleep. And when I fall asleep, I can go in every single direction from my house in my sleep, and I can see everything because I know every bit of land like the back of my hand because I've searched everywhere around me. And that relationship to nature, it's so much to do with the mechanics of how our body feels balanced and stabilised and rooted to existence. So it's really, really vital that we don't lose that. Like, that's something that we cannot lose. And in some weird way, it's so easy to forget that it's vital. It's something that's unbelievably vital, yet somehow it's, like, we detach ourselves from these things, which...

Yasaman: Yeah, totally. Hana, and I think when I visited your studio back in London, you know, some of the things that you mentioned that even though it's related to nature and living, you brought up this word Divine Fem AI. And I thought that was so beautiful and wanted to know if this had a relationship for you with the kinds of ecological or nature that you're discussing, the Divine Fem or kind of thinking about the senses and the embodiment. For me, this had a relationship, but I also would love to hear from your perspective and how that connects back to your work.

Hana: Like, before, we would think of, like, this idea of mother digital or this idea of, like, nurture and this kind of eternal dedication to everything around you, and to care for the things around you. And I think this energy is something that's often, like, not...there's no value system for it within the current system that we're in. But for us, though, that energy is an energy that's really important to sustaining systems, especially systems of large scales. So when we were with you, I think we showed you, like, the mind map of kind of what would the world be like in a thousand years' time.

And we had one aspect was, like, we are really interested in creating this in the future. We thought, "Okay, humans are, like, not..." Humans have a centre point to them. And we always see the centre point as this idea of, like, you always see from your own perspective, and everything that you are gauging is rooting back to the south or, like, the centre point that you exist in. Which is, like, a fundamentally flawed operating system to care for really large-scale things. Also, the time span of a human is quite small relative to existence. So for us, we were trying to, like, design what we think a kind of future AI governance could be. And it's something we're still prototyping, but it's just us trying to think of alternative systems. And it was this idea of a Divine Fem governance.

And the idea was that it was actually barely perceivable and frictionless. So it's not like it controls you, it doesn't tell you what to do. It's just a governance that basically helps, it helps a lot with, like, non-preposterous hierarchy. So the distribution of things, if you are, like, non-biased to specific groups or specific species, you would share things out more equally. So you need to have that, like, non-center point governance that can think very long-term and will be dedicated to nurturing something but also it would allow for mistakes. It would allow humans to be humans. Yeah. And I guess this is all very speculative. I'm sure if somebody was speaking to somebody who is in governance would be like, "What you on about?" But in our heads, like, this is what we like to think about because we need to learn how to quite radically change our relationship with technology.

Yasaman: Yeah, and I couldn't agree more with that. Recently, I've been, as I mentioned, I've been trying to do more writing, and one of the things that has been an essay I've been focusing on for the last little while is, it relates back to kind of what you're saying, which is, like, if you look at 1800s or 1700s drawings of nature diagrams, it's called Tree of Life. It's, like, tree of life diagram. There's always man at the top and then other species are kind of, like, slowly go down in hierarchy. So there's this very up down, top is human bottom is these other living things, or other versions of it are, like, circular where the human is in the center quite literally, and then all these other species just kind of flow out. I think what you're kind of talking about also relates back to this way of thinking, this philosophical idea that humans, it's ultimately about control.

So I think humans are kind of projecting their own desire to be in control even though we might not be at all or might be perceiving ourselves as we are, when in reality we might not be, considering COVID recently. So I think dismantling that way of thinking and considering different ways of thinking is not only important, but also acknowledging that that's a very specific way of thinking, and other forms of thinking has been existing. It's just that we don't put value towards it or we don't uplift it as much. You know, when I'm thinking about the communities living in Canada because I'm Canadian and the history of Canada before colonial settlement, there's a very direct relationship to nature that a lot of indigenous communities have had. So I'm really curious about not only future ways of thinking, but also uplifting existing knowledge in relationship to other species.

And can that be a metaphor or also very real interaction with the way that we're building technology, so it doesn't have to necessarily be... It can be in any material format, but our own ritualistic, habitual interaction, like we talked about, to human not being the centre, human not being the control. I think AI is a controversial one that keeps coming up, but as an interface designer, I think a lot about that sense of control that humans have built-in. And the notion of time, because so much of our interfaces today are fast-paced, visual oriented, so moving...if we were to push that, like, upside, make that upside down, could it be more ecological or could it be slower? I sometimes think about solar as a way of, like, solar computers being outside, and interfaces being maybe physical, embodied, not necessarily virtual even, or digital. So it's definitely something I think a lot. And I think the things that you're saying resonate not just in this group, but I think of in recent generations too.

Hana: I think also the oldest belief system is animism. And animism is the belief in whether it is, like, an object, an entity, you know, nature, animals, they all have, like, a soul or some sort of, like, resonating, existence or being. So one of the things when we were making haptic wound, one of the reasons what the...Initially, we did a performance called silicone animism. And our kind of ideas on it is like, for example, it's like I'm half Japanese, so actually my mom didn't teach me the western philosophy of...she just told me that everything in nature is real and it has a soul and it exists because... So she just treats it like that because that's within Eastern philosophy already. It's just embedded within the philosophy. And you can tell that because the relationship with technology in the East is quite different to the West.

Particularly, like, in Japan, you know, people fall in love with their girlfriends that are on their phone, the digital girlfriends on their phone. That's some sort of AI system because they believe in its soul and its existence and it's acceptable to believe in that. And I think that it seems to...both scientifically, so, like, we talked a bit about Michael Levin and, like, we connect a lot of Michael Levin's theories with Donald Hoffman and how each cell is, like, a consciousness, and that all your different cells can have relationships with each other in different parts of every cell that exists. And they all operate on these microscopic levels, and they're all interacting and communicating in different ways and have different abilities of consciousness. And I think for us, we really think about how everything is alive and everything is animism, and everything has different kinds of wisdom and knowledge and ways of understanding, communicating.

It's just not only humans, they want to have control, but they're actually deeply fearful of the unknown. Why are people scared of dying? Because what happens once you die? What happens when you are dying? It's like how do you understand the soul of a rock or the soul of the sea? You have to connect to these things in very different ways, but you can feel your body and your heart vibrating when you are near them, if you are in tune with those things, or they will naturally just come upon you. So there's just, like, a whole different understanding... I think basically the collective consciousness of the modern day, especially within the west, has a confused...it's, like, we're going against what we really believe in, almost.

Yasaman: Yeah, it's interesting. I really like this. I really like reading older Middle Eastern mythology. One of my favourite ones is called Kalila and Dimna, which I think in Indian is Panchatantara. And it's stories of animals and it's kind of like moral stories, but it's so beautiful and it's around the senses. And I really recommend everyone to find it and read it and find the translation, but it's kind of around the relationship of animals and the kind of stories that they tell. And, obviously, it's written by humans. So there is definitely some projection happening there, but it reminds me of the way that different humans view nature or the way that different humans have a relationship to living things and living beings.

And I'm curious about the kinds of work that current artists or current writers or current folks who are creating new mythologies or creating new artwork, what kind of work they might be making considering these kinds of legends that have been existing in a very different set of, I don't wanna say operating system, but almost, like, social structure and our relationship to living things. And very recently with technology, which today if we say the word technology, we might think of phones and laptops, where I'm sure back then if they said technology, they would've related to like, I don't know, radio which today we don't even consider radio a technology really. It's kind of, like, ubiquitous.

So yeah, I think that this notion of technology is also shifting, but it's very clear that it's creating some of our daily practices with our interfaces are creating points of challenge. And I wonder if there were different folks designing it or different folks like you all, myself, others, how it might look different and act differently, different set of kind of social rules that it might begin to embody.

Hana: Yeah. I think it's very easy to... Once you are in a system, it's very hard to basically see that system. You basically need to go outside of that container or that frame. And I think that's very hard because people think that the reality is fixed, but actually not only within our universe, there are so many other beings already operating in different ways and creating their own structures and existence. And I think we just have to listen more carefully and be more open and be less fearful because it's actually not that hard. Like, as soon as you put yourself in... A perfect one is going into a very, like, empty kind of environment that's with nature, that's with less people. You move differently. You start to walk slower. I know, like, because we all grew up in the countryside, like, both Tanya and I grew up in Cornwall, so we were really at the tip of England and nothing ever changes there. Everything is like, time has stopped. Everything is slow. Everyone exists and operates differently and that just is the way it is.

There are so many other spaces, I think, when you are in a city, you become the city, you become the framework of that city. But actually, I think it's just much easier than people recognize it. And I think, like, when we are going back to interfaces, from making our own interfaces, technologies that are being developed right now, that are in the mainstream are made by a certain mindset, a very specific type of mindset. It's very geographical too. It's way more narrow than you think it is. For sure, it's so much more narrow than you think it is because they all become the same.

The VR, the phone, the computer looks the exact same as each other. Why does it look the exact same? It doesn't look the exact same because the people want it the same. It's being made by the same type of mind, with the same kind of framework. But obviously, we can change that. And the thing is, you know, when you start to look into, like, for example, environmental, so many environmental issues, there's definitely a prototype or somebody who has come up with an alternative for pretty much every environmental issue out there. There's, like, so many amazing intelligent and smart solutions that are so radical and crazy, they've not had the funding or the belief system to put those things in place. But we just need to change our way of thinking.

And that is totally related to fear. It's to do with fear, it's to do with control, it's to do with being closed, like, all those sort of things. I think Antonio Damasio, who he wrote, like, so many books on the relationship between emotions to do with neuroscience and really distinguishing, like, our emotions to how we feel, and really getting into the nitty gritty of, like, how it is scientifically works within our brain. And so, he published so many books and, you know, really was one of the founding people to kind of be in that emotional intelligence bracket in science. His latest book is called "The Strange Order of Things," and he basically argues in this book that feelings are the nearby beginnings of everything that exists.

So it's like how we architecturally design everything, it's all the things that come into existence that feelings are the, like, very premise of how these things, how our future is kind of created. And it's very interesting because every book that he's wrote has just been super scientific, incredibly amazing, but it's very specific to how emotions work on a neurological way. But how we feel right now will create our future. So we just need to feel better. So it's like how do we make society feel better? Feeling better will then lead to people feeling more open. They'll feel more free. They'll feel less fearful. So it's, like, there are steps that we can, like, break down and we can work towards.

We know how to make people happy because people make people happy every single day, but we don't know how to make society happy, so that... Yeah, I just feel like there are so many solutions out there and there are so many people willing to resolve these solutions, we just need to have different frameworks and we need to have more belief. We need to be working in a way where the diversity of minds... We need every kind of mind to come together and those minds need to expand on all the other minds that are beyond just the human mind, and then we can start building from there. I don't know, like, maybe I'm just in my, like, Keiken's just in our own dream world, but I don't know, we just spend, like, you said, we spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship with technology and we think about how can we make society better? We care about it and I know there's something about art that's, like, it's impractical in a weird way, but then, I think, it's incredibly important because you need people thinking outside trying to see the world differently. We just need to find ways of collectively coming together and implementing these things.

Tanya: And look...

Yasaman: And I think... Oh yeah, go for it, please.

Isabel: Oh, I just wanted to, like, go a bit back to, like, linking what you've both been saying to going back to, like, the kind of idea of the Divine Feminine AI. I think when we were, like, talking about it, we were really looking, going, "Humans are not..." Especially, and going back to also looking at the idea of, like, humans wanting to control things or specific groups of humans really wanting to control things. Humans are not historically very good at governing really large groups of people. So that's why we were like, "Okay. Should it be humans who essentially have authority or power, even if they are elected over really huge amounts of people?"

Especially in the West, it's, like, we have to live in a such, like, huge global society, yet there's, like, specific individuals who have to make really big decisions on a global scale, yet humans are not... I personally, or we in Keiken we think we're not good at doing that, like, we're much better in smaller groups. And that's where you can often see, like, really incredible ideas and things actually happening in smaller communities, in smaller groups. So it's thinking, "Okay, could you use technology in a way that would relinquish those kind of, like, really large decisions, but looking at all the wisdom and the knowledge within the freedom of the, like, small groups and the wisdom of not just a few humans."

Yasaman: Yeah, I mean, for sure. And I think both of you are kind of speaking to this systematic challenge because the people who are building the technologies today aren't, like, individually trying to do harm, but I think it's, like, a systematic framework or goal that needs to be shifted and needs to be rethought. And, you know, if you imagine the earth being this large ship, it's very large to turn the ship. So the most beautiful things I've seen are grassroots, and I couldn't agree with you more, Isabel.

That's why I get excited when artists and people from their own home, you know, thinking about alternative interfaces. A few years ago, we were gonna have a conference with SPACE 10 and other folks with, I think it was called Copenhagen Contemporary, and we were gonna have a conference and then, of course, COVID hit. But it was really around, like, thinking about alternative interfaces, and what could it look like and what could it be and can different folks imagine different worlds.

The scale of Twitter which we're on, or Instagram or all these big, you know, platforms are so large, but, you know, my friend Cab from Are.na, Are.na platform, they just started their own platform. And I think it's really cool to look at, you know, of course, it's, like, a website still, but there's something really cool to see that artists and creative and critical folks are beginning to create their own ways of gathering and their own ways of engaging with technology and science. And, you know, with my own students, I fully encourage them to explore sensory experiences, embodiments and imagine different forms of computation, different forms of relationship with technology and science.

And also question the status quo, because that's kind of the issue. That's part of the problem that we have created these silos, these expert knowledge. And it's at such mass scale with incentives that are very capitalistically driven that you know, folks, someone has to pay the rent, someone has to pay the bills. And at the end of the day, they began to kind of follow the, you know, order of the system in order to kind of survive. And not everyone's privileged enough to kind of let go of that and start something. So people have to balance this, you know, their position in society and also the reality of what's around them.

But I think what you're saying, Hana, about openness and having an open mind and also being comfortable with ambiguity, and rather than being afraid, ultimately, for me and my practice, has led to good places. And it's very challenging to do that because, you know, ambiguity is challenging. We don't know what's gonna happen. It's uncomfortable, but leaning into that and also considering is this action fear-driven or is this action kind of passion-driven? And trying to lean into the passion and the openness, because ultimately I think that's what creates creativity flourish. And, yeah, I care a lot about that and I hope that that's kind of the culture that we can begin to cultivate as well.

Hana: I'm thinking we should talk about food.

Isabel: We're getting hungry.

Hana: We really love food. But also food is wisdom, so it's really nice.

Yasaman: Food is wisdom.

Hana: Yeah. And food, the relationship between the action of, like, making food for others and you put your energy into it and then you feed others of where it comes from, and if you pick it or you grow it, all the different stages of how food, the process of food I think is, like, very... It's such, like, a beautiful act and it's something that brings...it's like a point of joy. It's community. I know for myself, it's one of the main ways in which I get to be Japanese in some way because I live in the UK. I don't see my mom as much. I can't speak Japanese. So the food is a language of connecting to my ancestors. So I think that it's just, like, a really beautiful topic.

Yasaman: It's definitely a beautiful topic. I couldn't agree with you more. I think about food all the time. So I'm definitely a food lover. And you know, my friend was talking to me the other day, they were like, "Do you go on TikTok?" I was like, "Yeah." And it's like, "What do you do there?" Like, "I look at food videos. That's all I do." So I think for me, not only, of course, is related to heritage and connection to my own body and, of course, taste. Because ultimately if something tastes good, it's gonna come back to me. It's the rituals of food that also create a connection to my own embodiment, like smelling or taking a moment and just slowing down. Food always makes me slow down and just kind of consider what's in front of me. And it does make me feel connected to where that material that I'm ingesting coming from.

I ferment a lot. More recently, I've been doing yoghurt, which is... I didn't always do a good job creating yoghurt, but more recently I'm doing a much better job, which is something also my family did growing up. I also, like you, feel connected back to my parents who are not here with me and my heritage as well. But because I have a practice around interaction with microbes and living things, it's also a way for me to kind of understand the invisible life forms that are microbes, and how they need to be cared for and the time scales that they require and the kind of warmth that they require. Some people use, like, yoghurt machines, which is really nice. It's ultimately, like, an incubator, which is, like, a heated space that microbes can grow in both in labs and in kitchens. But my mother, she kind of heats up the milk but then puts, like, a wool blanket around the pot. And I always found that so cute. So, I think there's, like, super sweet practices that folks have in their own homes that also has a relationship with microbes that comes back to food. Yeah.

Isabel: I think also in a similar way because, like, I guess, same as what you and Hana have just been saying, like, my family is Mexican, I grew up in England, but I always connected very strongly with that side of myself through the food as well. But it's not quite the same as wrapping yoghurt in a wool blanket, but you always, every time you heat up tortillas, you always wrap them in a little special towel. Like, it kind of looks a bit like a tea towel, but it's kind of, like, while you're hitting them up, you put them in there and you make sure you wrap them up so that no air escapes. And it's part of the process of keeping them warm so they stay warm while you are eating, or, like, everyone's eating and they stay warm on the table. But it's also part of the process of them kind of actually, like, the collective heat of all of them inside of that tea towel makes the whole, like, community of them better because they get softer, they get more pliable.

But yeah, I agree. There's just so many lovely little rituals around food like that. And when you take that time to, or when you are kind of going through these rituals, I think it speaks a lot to a lot of the things you've been saying, Yasaman, about slowing down time. And actually, yeah, there's a lot of ways that we feel all the time that there's no time in the day, but there's actually a lot of things that we can do during the day that can help us actually open up that time and make the day feel like it has a lot more room and a lot more space for things. And food is a great place for that.

Hana: I was gonna also say that I think food is a huge... There's something about food that can bring so much prosperity. So, I remember when I was a kid, it's, like, we had no money, but my mom would make such amazing food out of nothing. And also because I just grew up with fields and just in nature, we would also forage a lot and we would have, like, a local organic vegetable box. We had a relationship with our farmer, and it was seven pounds a week. And all my closest friends had the same vegetable box. And we always thought that it was because our parents feed us in a more kind of that holistic way. And even our water, we found not only did we collect water, but we would also, we found our own water. We could hear through the wall, the water was stuck inside the wall and we managed to create our own well and we would collect the water.

So I think that being able to create something out of nothing, I feel like food is such a symbolic thing of that. It's, like, something so small you can feed a whole family. And I think that kind of sense of prosperity and the sense of like observing the small things and making such...like, you can make such a monumental moment in time. I think food also can represent that so much. And I think for so many people, their prosperity and their family comes through the food that their family cooked for them.

Yasaman: Yeah, and I think it kind of relates back to the collectivity that we've been discussing when I visited you in your studio. I think this notion of sharing food and food is tastier when you share it with others, that kind of comes back to this value system that, you know, sharing, being together, collectivity. I think that's really, really beautiful. I can't say that, you know, drive-throughs are the same, but I think most people agree that eating together is more enjoyable. So I think the same rituals can extend to different forms of interaction, around sensory interactions that we could potentially share with one another. And I think sharing and community can be a big element of how we might imagine relationships. Ultimately, what I'm saying is food is a beautiful metaphor to consider for the ways that we're building our relationship with living beings.

Hana: Yeah. And it's a beautiful wisdom, too Maybe what we can just close on is, like, asking you just, like, are there any future interfaces that...like, what are any future designs that you think are important? And if you could imagine creating your future world or visions that you think are important, are there any designs or ideas that you could, like, share or thoughts on that as a closing kind of thing?

Yasaman: Yeah. I mean, one of my favourite things that currently exists, not to say everything here isn't valuable, because I love Wikipedia and I love libraries, and I love this notion that I can just deep dive into Wikipedia or a library or some form of online space or even physical space to just access new information or knowledge that I didn't have before. I might look something up that I didn't know before, and just fully deep dive into that for a long time. But right now that happens by me sitting upright in front of my computer with a bright screen or on my phone, I think if I take the idea of libraries, Wikipedia, knowledge, like, global mind access to information that maybe we didn't have wisdoms about food, wisdoms about plants, and so on. And then if I just think about not being at home, just being, like, on a beach or...

I'm a surfer. I go to the beach a lot. I feel connected with water and I really love the life forms in water, or, for instance, being in the mountains or being somewhere in nature. And honestly, the other day I was thinking a lot about access and who gets to access this nature, who's privileged enough to be able to go there. And I would love a future where all this knowledge, not only virtually, but physically, is accessible to everyone, and anyone who feels that they want to connect with that, they can just do it. To be able to just go into a forest or to go into, you know, we have a lot of deserts in California. California deserts are absolutely beautiful, filled with life forms like cactus and scorpions and so, so nice just to learn new things. And then at the same time be able to access, you know, knowledge that humans have built on top of that, around these life forms. I think that to me is, like, what I'd love to access at some point, that it doesn't connect me to a laptop or a phone. Something a little bit more embodied and connected with the elements.

Hana: I think that's beautiful. We often think about that too. In our head, the future virtual spaces just feel as real as the earth. So there is no interface, it's just completely interconnected to nature. So you are always in nature in everything you do. So it's kind of we are thinking very similar as well, that we're, like, everything needs to be connected to all the living existence out there. And you just need to feel it with every part of you because it's just so important. But at the same time, yeah, if you can also access all the other things in a completely ephemeral and very kind of, like, a spirit, it goes in and out of you. It's something that's like, but you can feel it and you can be part of it, but it doesn't interrupt the kind of pace and the energy around you. Josh, did you wanna do any, like anything...?

Josh: You're really muffled, Hana.

Hana: Oh, sorry. I think that was literally my fault because I put my finger underneath the microphone, so that's really stupid of me. I just thought if there any things that you would want to say because I think it's been an hour.

Josh: I've loved listening to you guys. I haven't needed to say anything because it's just been a great conversation.

Hana: Yeah. I also think, Yasaman, even the conversation somehow I feel like we slowed down time a bit and it really started making... Like, through the conversations we had, I started to have, like, visions of things because I don't know, I feel like there's something about the way that we think that both of us feel very connected to one another and it feels like we want the same things. Yeah.

Yasaman: I feel the same way. We want the same things. And it's, like, very... Even though we're not talking visually, we're verbal. In my mind, I have a visual imagery of what it looks like.

Hana: And when, I think if our future work has this, like, I'm gonna give... So when we work collaboratively, we normally, like...a lot of our work is created through the experiences that we have with one another and our reflections with that experience. So we'll have, like, an experience, shared experience, and then we'll go through each other's perspectives on it. And then, normally, there's like...because when you work for so long with each other and you feel so connected, you start making ideas just, like, everything is, like, a puzzle and it just fits perfectly together. And I was thinking of some sort of, if somebody...because people can do this. There's people that I've met who are so good at being able to bend time. They're just able to slow down time in your presence or they know how to speed it up, but they can do it in such, like, a malleable and effortless way.

Like, for example, when we are together we're always, like, going too fast, whereas we need someone to help us slow down. But I think some sort of technology for the... We thought of a technological dream time life simulation, which was a bit like that, how you could basically kind of bend time in a way, but I feel like there's another technology we can create. But I'll let you know because I'll say, like, this is from the beginning of our conversation.

Yasaman: Beautiful. Thank you for having me. This has been really fun and it's so nice to be on Twitter Spaces with you.

Hana: Yeah, it's so nice to be with you. Thank you so much for joining. [Crosstalk 01:00:54].

Isabel: Yeah. It's been really great.

Hana: Yeah. Really love you. Emily, is there any closing things you wanted to say?

Emily: Yeah, so thank you all in the audience for joining, and thank you guys for having such a beautiful conversation live and online for us all. It's super exciting to launch our Wisdom Seeds with you, Yasaman. So we really, really appreciate it. And Hana, I don't know if you're free now, if you wanted to go into Discord and do a debrief. Just let me know. Otherwise, thank you so much, everyone. And until next time.