I know
[Applause]
I am curious so here we are in this
particular moment in time collectively
feeling this formidable triple threat of
fear uncertainty and doubt I don’t need
to tell you a lot about this you already
know the shorthand climate change income
disparity protectionism borders culture
Wars fake news we don’t know what’s true
and we don’t know what’s coming it’s
known that humans would rather feel
predictable pain than uncertainty so
it’s no wonder that we’re feeling very
uncomfortable so I’m here to talk to you
about fear and its antidotes and I might
even convince you that the next time you
feel fear you could smile smile because
it’ll be your cue to get curious and
look more closely I’m also going to talk
about technology because technology is a
big part of our lives it’s also a big
source of change and therefore fear I’m
going to talk about how we can use
technology and shape it to help us deal
with things as they are seventeen years
ago I found myself on a bus on my way to
work unable to move I should have been
able to get off it was my stop but I
couldn’t breathe and my heart was racing
I was experiencing
panic attack I didn’t know it at the
time but I was lucky because I related
the incident to a friend of mine and she
said oh I have some tools for you and
she taught me how to meditate that sent
me on what I think will be a lifelong
exploration of fear so it turns out we
swim in fear so much so that we don’t
realize that most of the time there’s a
constant hum of anxiety following us
around every sensory input goes through
this part of the brain called the
amygdala and it gets evaluated as a
potential threat I call that the mi okay
hum am i okay am i okay my okay are you
okay what’s going on it’s like that so
right now the mi okay hum is really loud
and we all have a visceral reactions to
fear some of us fight some of us freeze
some of us freeze and some of us bond
but can we get beyond those of it’ll
react shion’s turns out that yes we can
because there’s another pathway involved
in the process of fear and it’s what
neuroscientist called the high road and
the high road goes through a part of the
brain called the cortex which is highly
adaptive so that means that we can train
ourselves to have more nuanced reactions
to fear we can get familiar with the gap
between the feeling of fear and our next
action we can get curious about the
details the texture of an experience and
eventually get to a place where we can
focus on how we can help rather than how
we can be harmed the trick is to not
turn away or if you’re like my cat the
trick is to run away stop look and come
back and we’re all like cats we do this
all of the time going from fear to
curiosity is felt as space expanded
space so after I came across the
complexity of fear my work turned toward
space external space the space we move
in an internal space the space we feel
most clearly when we’re not moving and
these are arbitrary distinction
some of them call them the spaces of the
the body or the spaces of the mind I
tend to think that the mind is the body
or that they’re so interwoven that
they’re always acting in tandem so that
if I move a certain way I change my
thoughts and feelings and if I feel a
certain way it affects my physical
stance so it’s a constantly evolving
dance so there’s the internal space of
fear the subtlety of human experience
and then there’s a situation of life the
technology were surrounded with people
the buildings organizations and
fascinated by the contrast between the
space of the body and the space of our
interaction with technology particularly
virtual space and one of my first
investigation of the body in virtual
space was a project called chorus of
lungs that I did with Leela soggier and
in that project you stand facing a
virtual stereoscopic chorus of breathing
lungs and the interaction is simple you
create space between your hands or you
decrease space expand or decrease and as
you do this the lungs also take up more
space or less and the idea with that
project was to explore the difference
between what it feels like to be
expanded and breathing and to be closed
down these days I’m very excited about
new trends in virtual reality technology
particularly mixed eggnog mented reality
because of the possibility of mixing
physical and virtual spaces for the past
10 years we’ve extended ourselves into
virtual space we have accounts on
countless websites we leave digital
traces of ourselves everywhere we
interact with each other based on those
digital traces and we’ve created a kind
of the eye of the extended self and the
we of the network I call that a kind of
third space and so far this third space
has been disembodied we carry it in our
minds and we interact with it with
devices in our pockets with augmented
and mixed reality
soonish will be walking around the world
with glasses and maybe even implants and
we’ll be able to see virtual information
located into physical space so you could
say that this third space that I talked
about earlier
the eye of the extend itself and the Wii
of the network is getting a body and
just like our bodies help ground our
experience and help us work with fear so
will the body of this third space help
us process the information we’re
constantly swimming in in a less
overwhelming way so what will this mean
to our relationship to information to
knowledge to action I believe that a
more embodied relationship to
information will connect us with what’s
true what’s doable and what’s
appropriate at any particular point in
time so I can see a world where we’re
connected globally but have a felt sense
of how to help locally just like we
started sorting our garbage because it
was made easy we’ll be more engaged with
local governance design and social
issues because it’ll be embedded in the
very fabric of the city so if I’m out
for a walk I’ll be able to tell if a
soup kitchen needs help serving food
that day or maybe there’s a design
workshop open for participation and this
can be done through physical or virtual
information layers embedded onto the
city or more interestingly as chatbots
that walk with us and talk about issues
in more depth than any sign could
connecting with the physical physical
substrate of information becomes a way
to rekindle trust and confidence in our
ability to help trust builds by
immediate and ongoing feedback and
dialogue and this kind of bottom-up
approach from working with ourselves to
recognize and move through fear and
working with our neighborhoods to build
trust and widen our influence is healing
it’s revolutionary actually it has a
capacity of growing an entirely new
system from the old
every day we can connect with the
intention of helping how can I be of
help can be a guiding principle
throughout the day I fully realize that
this is an idealistic stance and if you
think of technology development as
having a breath there are moments we’re
breathing in and moments were breathing
out and right now we’re starting to
breathe in so we can imagine we need to
be able to imagine the world that we
want even if it’s not ultimately
achievable I can see a path forward but
it needs all of us to think about issues
of privacy sharing who owns our extend
itself and how we can increase equality
and transparency okay every day I do
this breathing exercise and I would like
to share it with you it’s a simple
exercise but it’s very powerful so the
idea is to breathe in dark and breathe
out light and we do this also involving
the body and when I say breathe in dark
it can just be that or it can be your
own suffering or the suffering of others
or everything that you might not want to
feel but you breathe in and then you
breathe out light the antidote space
okay so I would like to do that three
times with you and so and as you breathe
out
as you breathe in you close your hand on
your eyes and as you breathe out you
open your hand and your eyes okay so
let’s do that together three times
okay and then there’s a bigger version
of this exercise that involves the whole
body so if you are able I would like to
invite you to stand up okay so we’re
going to do the same thing we’re going
to breathe in dark and breathe out light
but this time when we breathe in will
crouch and when we breathe out we spring
up and use our voice so let’s do that
three times okay okay you can sit down
so and that’s I recommend doing that ten
times every morning it feels great so if
you got even a glimpse of what it is to
go from a feeling of being trapped to
one of possibility then you know what it
takes to go beyond fear to curiosity and
insight so get curious about that
explore that
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Applause]
I am curious so here we are in this
particular moment in time collectively
feeling this formidable triple threat of
fear uncertainty and doubt I don’t need
to tell you a lot about this you already
know the shorthand climate change income
disparity protectionism borders culture
Wars fake news we don’t know what’s true
and we don’t know what’s coming it’s
known that humans would rather feel
predictable pain than uncertainty so
it’s no wonder that we’re feeling very
uncomfortable so I’m here to talk to you
about fear and its antidotes and I might
even convince you that the next time you
feel fear you could smile smile because
it’ll be your cue to get curious and
look more closely I’m also going to talk
about technology because technology is a
big part of our lives it’s also a big
source of change and therefore fear I’m
going to talk about how we can use
technology and shape it to help us deal
with things as they are seventeen years
ago I found myself on a bus on my way to
work unable to move I should have been
able to get off it was my stop but I
couldn’t breathe and my heart was racing
I was experiencing
panic attack I didn’t know it at the
time but I was lucky because I related
the incident to a friend of mine and she
said oh I have some tools for you and
she taught me how to meditate that sent
me on what I think will be a lifelong
exploration of fear so it turns out we
swim in fear so much so that we don’t
realize that most of the time there’s a
constant hum of anxiety following us
around every sensory input goes through
this part of the brain called the
amygdala and it gets evaluated as a
potential threat I call that the mi okay
hum am i okay am i okay my okay are you
okay what’s going on it’s like that so
right now the mi okay hum is really loud
and we all have a visceral reactions to
fear some of us fight some of us freeze
some of us freeze and some of us bond
but can we get beyond those of it’ll
react shion’s turns out that yes we can
because there’s another pathway involved
in the process of fear and it’s what
neuroscientist called the high road and
the high road goes through a part of the
brain called the cortex which is highly
adaptive so that means that we can train
ourselves to have more nuanced reactions
to fear we can get familiar with the gap
between the feeling of fear and our next
action we can get curious about the
details the texture of an experience and
eventually get to a place where we can
focus on how we can help rather than how
we can be harmed the trick is to not
turn away or if you’re like my cat the
trick is to run away stop look and come
back and we’re all like cats we do this
all of the time going from fear to
curiosity is felt as space expanded
space so after I came across the
complexity of fear my work turned toward
space external space the space we move
in an internal space the space we feel
most clearly when we’re not moving and
these are arbitrary distinction
some of them call them the spaces of the
the body or the spaces of the mind I
tend to think that the mind is the body
or that they’re so interwoven that
they’re always acting in tandem so that
if I move a certain way I change my
thoughts and feelings and if I feel a
certain way it affects my physical
stance so it’s a constantly evolving
dance so there’s the internal space of
fear the subtlety of human experience
and then there’s a situation of life the
technology were surrounded with people
the buildings organizations and
fascinated by the contrast between the
space of the body and the space of our
interaction with technology particularly
virtual space and one of my first
investigation of the body in virtual
space was a project called chorus of
lungs that I did with Leela soggier and
in that project you stand facing a
virtual stereoscopic chorus of breathing
lungs and the interaction is simple you
create space between your hands or you
decrease space expand or decrease and as
you do this the lungs also take up more
space or less and the idea with that
project was to explore the difference
between what it feels like to be
expanded and breathing and to be closed
down these days I’m very excited about
new trends in virtual reality technology
particularly mixed eggnog mented reality
because of the possibility of mixing
physical and virtual spaces for the past
10 years we’ve extended ourselves into
virtual space we have accounts on
countless websites we leave digital
traces of ourselves everywhere we
interact with each other based on those
digital traces and we’ve created a kind
of the eye of the extended self and the
we of the network I call that a kind of
third space and so far this third space
has been disembodied we carry it in our
minds and we interact with it with
devices in our pockets with augmented
and mixed reality
soonish will be walking around the world
with glasses and maybe even implants and
we’ll be able to see virtual information
located into physical space so you could
say that this third space that I talked
about earlier
the eye of the extend itself and the Wii
of the network is getting a body and
just like our bodies help ground our
experience and help us work with fear so
will the body of this third space help
us process the information we’re
constantly swimming in in a less
overwhelming way so what will this mean
to our relationship to information to
knowledge to action I believe that a
more embodied relationship to
information will connect us with what’s
true what’s doable and what’s
appropriate at any particular point in
time so I can see a world where we’re
connected globally but have a felt sense
of how to help locally just like we
started sorting our garbage because it
was made easy we’ll be more engaged with
local governance design and social
issues because it’ll be embedded in the
very fabric of the city so if I’m out
for a walk I’ll be able to tell if a
soup kitchen needs help serving food
that day or maybe there’s a design
workshop open for participation and this
can be done through physical or virtual
information layers embedded onto the
city or more interestingly as chatbots
that walk with us and talk about issues
in more depth than any sign could
connecting with the physical physical
substrate of information becomes a way
to rekindle trust and confidence in our
ability to help trust builds by
immediate and ongoing feedback and
dialogue and this kind of bottom-up
approach from working with ourselves to
recognize and move through fear and
working with our neighborhoods to build
trust and widen our influence is healing
it’s revolutionary actually it has a
capacity of growing an entirely new
system from the old
every day we can connect with the
intention of helping how can I be of
help can be a guiding principle
throughout the day I fully realize that
this is an idealistic stance and if you
think of technology development as
having a breath there are moments we’re
breathing in and moments were breathing
out and right now we’re starting to
breathe in so we can imagine we need to
be able to imagine the world that we
want even if it’s not ultimately
achievable I can see a path forward but
it needs all of us to think about issues
of privacy sharing who owns our extend
itself and how we can increase equality
and transparency okay every day I do
this breathing exercise and I would like
to share it with you it’s a simple
exercise but it’s very powerful so the
idea is to breathe in dark and breathe
out light and we do this also involving
the body and when I say breathe in dark
it can just be that or it can be your
own suffering or the suffering of others
or everything that you might not want to
feel but you breathe in and then you
breathe out light the antidote space
okay so I would like to do that three
times with you and so and as you breathe
out
as you breathe in you close your hand on
your eyes and as you breathe out you
open your hand and your eyes okay so
let’s do that together three times
okay and then there’s a bigger version
of this exercise that involves the whole
body so if you are able I would like to
invite you to stand up okay so we’re
going to do the same thing we’re going
to breathe in dark and breathe out light
but this time when we breathe in will
crouch and when we breathe out we spring
up and use our voice so let’s do that
three times okay okay you can sit down
so and that’s I recommend doing that ten
times every morning it feels great so if
you got even a glimpse of what it is to
go from a feeling of being trapped to
one of possibility then you know what it
takes to go beyond fear to curiosity and
insight so get curious about that
explore that
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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