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