I miss… Being in a classroom, with people Doing work together with others in a library, Or in a café, even with/out talking, Simply feeling, I’m not alone I miss… The university cafes, Afternoons of coffee with colleagues, And the occasional piece of cake Hearing people talking in the background And music playing softly, under café lights I miss… The smells, tones, sounds, vibrations, All these aesthetic aspects of Being Together, physically Nourish and sustain this dreary work Of dissertations I miss… Feeling like I’m part of an academic community The in-between study breaks, where you are with peers And someone asks you: ‘Have you read this or that yet?’ And you go: ‘No but tell me more!’ I miss… Being out with people, interacting face-to-face Understanding each other’s emotions, Running into people randomly, Starting conversations, Spontaneously, in corridors I miss… The sense of somebody else, Not even through touch But by occupying the same physical space That sense of presence With people In person I miss… Human contact

Ohh, I should probably check my email… Hold on, did I call my supervisor yet? Oh no, I haven’t ordered those shoes yet and the sale is ending tomorrow! Ok let me just quickly check Instagram before working… Oh hold on, Eliza is getting married? Oh no, Peter is already calling me? Wait a second, I thought that conference was next week, not today! [INAUDIBLE VOICES TALKING AT ONCE] Hello? Hello, can you hear me? Great I’m sorry I’m late, I had the most chaotic morning Let me explain to you…. Oftentimes, working together on a screen just feels like another distraction I already have a thousand tabs open of things I'm supposed to read and emails stacking up. To have a Zoom screen in the corner adding to more screen time and dissonance, I just find that to be slightly… unpleasant Education becomes just another video to watch like the YouTube and Netflix we already consume Or maybe it's the fact that I'm just sitting in a room, Alone. Even though we are talking in real time, there's nobody here. Sometimes my Zoom disconnects so that all of a sudden, I go off (line) And then that's that Or when other people just disconnect: turning off their camera when they want, turning off their microphone when they want, it feels much less… authentic In person, you can't just log out, switch off disappear It's weird, because I am in my home, where I grew up. University used to be detached from this space but now, my home space feels strangely… visible Like a kind of invasion into people's personal spaces, that feels somewhat dehumanizing I feel very visible myself, it makes me shy… I don’t know where to look anymore when we can no longer look into each other’s eyes Our bodies and our brains are freaking out unable to make sense of what they're looking at It makes me a little uncomfortable [DISTORTED] It's difficult to describe the kinds of subtleties that occur when you're with friends, constructing dialog, building on each other. It’s just easier to do that in person than over the dis/// > connect < and the slight delay of voice call [AUDIO DISAPPEARS] Hello? Have I lost you? Can you hear me? [MALE VOICE DISRUPTION] Oops! Looks like something went wrong… Due to poor connection, this thesis has been paused. We’re trying to get you back into the poem Please pick up… Hello? I’m so sorry about the connection guys. Ah, thank God, we’re back! Where were we? Right, disconnection. But you know what? Audio isn’t the only problem. There’s plenty of them with video as well. You see, I don’t know about you but with video, for me, I'm also constantly looking at myself: There's a HYPER-awareness of your own self It reminds me of when I was a kid, there was this television character ‘Max Headroom’, a talking head in a television box. It'd just talk nonsense and sit there… It had a digital lag in it, so it would say his name, and go: M M Ma M Ma Max x x x Max H H He He He He He He Hea! Head Headr Headrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Headroom The other day, I taught on Zoom for eight hours, by the end of the day, I saw the image of myself in Zoom, and I thought: That’s M M M M E EEE That’s ME! For a moment, I felt so dis/embodied I felt myself breaking out in sweat It was terrifying

You’re asking about my perfect dystopia? Imagine a world where virtual reality has taken off, Where everyone has VR headsets To host experiences online. Imagine when… You wake up in the morning you put your headset on, you go through university, you go to lectures, you sort of simulate WHAT LIFE IS The University would be a network, or a file, it wouldn't even be a place anymore. To me, that university would be Hellish [CHORUS] Hellish I think that what might happen, when learning is no longer a physical thing, We start to ignore the body even more. We get focused on the mind and vision alone, which means we're disconnected from Knowing through our Body My life is consumed by technology. Having to step away from that and interact with real people in a real space, once a week to listen to someone speaking, To me, that is truly Holy [CHORUS] Holy When we cannot Be with each other Physically, it feels like it's Not really real but really reality [WHISPERED] is all in our heads anyway. Learning and social interaction are not some meta-intellectual search: It's a physical practice; it's a way of Being-in-the-World. [CHORUS] Being in the world Thinking something or actually doing it are not the same You have to practice interacting with people, Practice learning with people In the Real World Because space is important: The body should be free to operate in space. The more sectors of society become exclusive to certain demographics, the worse. [CHORUS] Not really real

The point of education is to make you more human. It’s Super. DUPER. Abstract. And very Wwwwishhhhhy Wwwwwashhhhhy, but I think it is ‘meaningful’ nonetheless The point of education might be to make you more human, yet we live in a world where education systems are creating markets for global elites to continue consuming the planet's resources. To create the illusion that we're all deeply un-happy un-less we all have this (or that) Capitalism plants seeds of dissatisfaction into young minds and schools teach them to buy into consumerism Outer society be like, ‘What cars do you have?’ ‘Where do you live? Who do you know?’ As if education is supposed to make you Happier? When the Actual Point of Education is to make you Frustrated! (and to think and have interesting conversations) Happiness is a fortunate by-product that happens (– sometimes –) when you make a Break / Through a ‘human’ connection. But like… it's NOT the point Within fields of education, We're focused on measuring things, like learning outcomes, profitability, the progress that people make, yet How do you measure your humanity? For me, this crisis is about human life; and the valuation of human life; and the depth and experience of human life, And which Human Beings get to count as ~ Being Human ~ Right now, the people who are 'human' are those on the ‘winning’ side of profit seeking. Which tends to be… (surprise…) WHITE GUYS * And I despair * A future utopia would need to reconfigure what it means to be human... For me, this involves, the abolition of whiteness as a thing When I imagine my hopes for 2050, I envision a world in which whiteness no longer operates as a Death Seeking Cult How to organize education with this utopia in mind? By accounting for alter/native knowledges By understanding the nature of our Bodily Being By trying to be speculative and coming up with a new vocabulary for a world that isn't defined by the racial capitalist logic of who's human and who's not What does that mean for a university? I don't really know… Maybe it means that these places need to crumble… Maybe it does mean they need to just that? Maybe it means exactly THAT.