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In the midst of ever growing geopolitical and socioeconomic tensions both locally and internationally, is listening to the others ever possible? If we are hopeful that it is, how will our ways of listening need to change in the near future? In this new podcast series, join Professor Suk-Jun Kim and sound artist SHHE, as they bring together guests from across the globe to ask, ‘What can artists do to imagine and encourage such possible futures of listening?’ Futures of Listening is brought to you by the University of Aberdeen in collaboration with Sonica Glasgow.
Su [00:00:11] Welcome to Futures of Listening, a new podcast series brought to you by Professor Suk Jun Kim and sound artist, SHHE. In the midst of ever-growing geopolitical and socioeconomic tensions, both locally and internationally, is listening to the others ever possible? If we are hopeful that it is, how will our ways of listening need to change in the near future? In this new podcast series, join Jun and Su as they bring together guests from across the globe to ask, what can artists and creatives do to imagine and encourage such possible futures of listening? This podcast series is brought to you in partnership with Sonica Glasgow and University of Aberdeen. Thank you for joining us.
Welcome to this episode of Futures of Listening. I am Su. I am joined here by my co-host Jun, and today we're speaking to Shadwa Ali. Shadwa Ali is an independent Egyptian audio and visual artist. Shadwa's artistic practice is based on searching and exploring society problems and human psychological issues, their behaviour through the daily chaotic routine in capital cities, and how, when certain events occur, it affects the social and collective memory and their way of interacting with the society. Noise is one of the most major subjects for Shadwa's artworks. Shadwa, thank you so much for joining us today and for coming into the studio to talk about listening and approaches to working with sound. How are you?
Shadwa [00:02:03] Thanks for the introduction and I'm really glad I'm speaking to you again after one year. Yeah, actually I'm doing great. Yeah, I feel productive like it's been a productive year, this year. A very European one, since Scotland.
Su [00:02:22] We're going to start by going right to the beginning, and asking how and when did your journey with sound and music begin?
Shadwa [00:02:31] It was mostly a coincidence to start with sound because I come from a strong visual background as I studied printmaking in the faculty of fine arts. So, I was doing like this Lino Cut prints for five years and then after I graduated, I tried to explore more mediums. And when I started to work with experimental video arts, I felt like okay, I finished shooting and editing and now I have like the sound to work on. And I felt like this is like the most major thing on the piece, because whatever the voices or the sounds I will use, it will make a whole different concept out of the same one-shot video. So I felt, oh my god, this is really something. And at this point, I didn't know like something like sound art existed or whatever because I felt like you either be a musician or a visual artist, but something in between; I didn't have the knowledge that I would be a sound artist. So, because I was also like listening to a various kind of genres of music, so I took those pieces from some sounds and they made like the sound piece on After Effect, the programme I was using for the video, and I felt like oh my god, this is really something I'm interested in, to work with sound. And after a while I attended this talk for Egyptian sound artist Magdi Mostafa, and I thought, oh, this really exists. He does like these installations and with sounds, like he has like a lot of field recordings, and I have at this time I got introduced to the sound art scene in Egypt. And I started to work with sound, but the very sound piece I had made, it was around, I had a studio programme in Cairo for six months, and it was about the metro station itself, and because in Cairo we have these metro carts, like it's separated for women and for men and mixed ones, and I was going from my apartment to the studio every day taking the same line, and I find with the woman cart, it's really something, because there is a lot of things going on. And because I was before really interested in the chaos concept and noise also, but not like hearing noise, it's mostly digging through this noise, observing and trying to contract, extract something from it. And I felt like this just woman cart, it's like a closed capsule, where you can observe what's going on with the whole society because the interactions between women, like how they can vent about what's going on in life, and because we are strangers to each other, because for me I felt like I'm also one of them; I'm not like the artist that observing from far. I was really inside this capsule, and I was really listening to everything that's happening and also interacting with it. So, I felt like it can tell you, like with just sound, you can like learn anything about like economy, socially, emotionally, and also through these interactions between people inside this public-private space, you can tell a lot about what's happening. And after six months of digging through these records, I have been recording like every day for six months, so I had like this massive sound library at the end. And here is where I find myself. Like, I want to make this composition, but also I want to have a narrative to this composition. So, I made it like I wanted it to have like chapters, how it how it starts, how it ends, and also me a narrative inside this piece. So I need to put some input also, like some voices of me to start in this journey and how it ends. Yeah, that was like my first sound piece and I was really glad because I showed like this piece without any visuals. So, it was like a challenge for me to do so also.
Jun [00:07:11] When was it, that piece that you made?
Shadwa [00:07:14] It was 2018. I made it with this studio programme called Rosnema, in Cairo. And also I was lucky because I had mentorship from two great artists, Mohamed Abdelkrim and Nour Safouri, and they actually encouraged me to do just a sound piece, because it's not usual to have just a sound piece in Egypt. Usually, you have something visual with it or you do music, but not really a sound piece.
Su [00:07:48] That's so interesting to hear coming from a background of printmaking as well. And sound finding its way into your work. And I was wondering now, when you're approaching a new project, is sound one of the elements that you consider first, or is it also something that you find sort of naturally along that process? How do you engage with sound in your work today?
Shadwa [00:08:11] I think it doesn't change so much because usually I start with sound. When the project is sound based, even if I do a video at the end, or I have an installation or whatever, sound also always comes in the beginning. I think with sound. But also because I come from a very visual background. So, when I work with sound, I usually write it as a script. I listen to the sound library I have and then I write down everything, even with the transition, the effects, everything I write it as a script. And I think this is helping to have a narrative in the piece.
Jun [00:08:54] So when you say script, what does that mean? Are you, what do you write down? I'm really curious, how you transcribe the oral experience to something that can be written down on the paper.
Shadwa [00:09:10] It's really funny because usually if you read like what I have written about the piece, you wouldn't understand anything. It looks like yeah, it's looks like encrypted or something. Because usually when I listen to - I have my sound library. First, I go to record around. It's mostly like very random to record. Like I'm not really an organised person who say like, yeah, I would go to this place and I will record this. Mostly it happens like very organically, to have this record. And I believe when you record something you're really interested in, and this is where it comes before. Like when I have this sound library, I try to listen to everything and then I rename them, also to organise the files to know like how I can navigate while composing. So, I rename them. Sometimes I rename them by the sound, so sometimes it's maybe a vehicle, but I name it like - ‘to-to-to-to-to’ - so I can recognise what the sound is. So when I write this script, I said like the intro is fading in ‘to-to-to-to-to’ and then like, I will have a reverb after or something. So, I write it like this. If anyone reads it, it doesn't make any sense. But yeah, this is how it helps me. But even before writing this script, I write like a premise or something, like a one sentence. I want to start with quiet and because I want to have, like this story inside, and I will have some sounds to separate these chapters from each other, and how I will have a finale or an end. So, it's like making a movie, but just with sound.
Jun [00:11:02] This is so interesting. So, knowing that you are hailing from Egypt, and besides you for me I've never met any sound artists have who have come from Egypt. So, you are the first you know - and that also means that you are you are coming with the very social cultural background, which is quite different from, say, the other artists that I have met before. And also knowing that, your sound work or compositional process is really really interesting. So, considering that you're coming from Egypt, and also it seems like your work in the sound material seems to be quite unique and interesting. What does that mean? What is listening to you right now? And you have mentioned a little bit when you're explaining to us about your compositional process, but how that how does that listening work? How do you engage with your own listening?
Shadwa [00:12:13] Maybe it's more like, how Egypt affected my listening in a way, if I understand right. So mostly I find Cairo and Alexandria especially, the are really loud cities, like they are chaotic and noisy, like really and people mostly try to like they try to isolate themselves from the noises. But when I was listening to every aspect of this noise and because I was even with my visuals, I was trying to catch the things that are kind of mundane and happening in everyday life, but no one really like, focus on it. So, I found like the same in in Egypt, like on the noises of Egypt, and this noise is also generated by people, but also it affects people, like we generate them and then it affects us. But also through this loop going on, you can tell a lot about the society itself, what's going on with it. So, I think how I process the listening, it was more in the beginning just hearing everything, but then after a while I tried to like listen to certain things sometimes. Things grab my attention but I kind of isolate myself from other stuff. And I think this is something developed by time with me.
Jun [00:13:54] So, do you listen differently when you are, say, not engaged in artistic practice? So when you're for example, you're not recording anything, and do you see that listening as you, as just a human being or person who lives their everyday life, or you as an artist and now fully engaged in this kind of creative process, do you implement different kind of listening, or do you see there is an overlapping, even some close similarity between the two?
Shadwa [00:14:30] Well, I feel like you know, like these videos and Instagrams that say the art of noticing things, like to get noticed by very little things, like enjoying your cup of coffee, like you can watch the tree leaves falling from a tree in autumn, and you just enjoy the wind sounds in the branches. So, I feel like I had the same with visuals, but like with sounds, it developed through time. And I got to this point where I couldn't separate myself from listening as working, like now I'm working on something, and just listening as a human being, or human interactions, like regular ones. But then I tried to get back to this point, like because with listening it's so hard to tell yourself that I'm not listening today. Like yeah, you can just stay in bed and you close your eyes or you just put like these covers and you won't see anything for the whole day. But you cannot really prevent yourself from listening to anything because even in the quietest place on earth, you would still hear your body. You can still hear everything on your body, like your organs, like any movement, you can listen to everything. So, I find it's kind of developing, sometimes I can isolate myself from certain noises, but also now I find that everything is so magnified in my mind.
Jun [00:16:02] This is really interesting. So, I have a quick response to what you have just shared. This wonderful aspects about you now realising that your listening is as a human being, and you're listening as the artist, kind of melting together. And you mentioned that, yes you cannot really close our ears to the sound. So, when you close your eyes, then sometimes the image appears, your mind's image appears, but sometimes you can even you know disregard that, but it's so difficult to disregard your mind's ear. What I mean is, when we try to close our ears, as up to certain point I think we could do that, but then when the your mind starts speaking out, it's like a small hub of the hummings that starts, and that gradually become louder and louder, then you can’t really stop it. So that's the thing that I was thinking about, power on the one hand, or maybe the shackle of that what sound can really do to us. So, that was something that was very interesting, connected to you, and your idea.
Su [00:17:25] There was something that you shared earlier, Shadwa, about growing up in Egypt and being surrounded by sound at all times. This almost, in a way, cacophony of a city soundscape. And I was thinking about that in relation to listening spaces and quiet spaces - and how you approach working with sound today. Are you often seeking out those moments to really find a way to listen differently? Especially when a lot of those formative years of making work have been based in what seems to sound like a very noisy, a very, perhaps overwhelming environment. Is there something, maybe a theme or a topic, that's connected to your listening that you're most concerned with these days? Maybe that's something around the sound pollution or just, growing up in that environment, really curious to hear a little bit more about that experience that you've had.
Shadwa [00:18:32] Yeah, because I grew up in Alexandria and I have worked in Alexandria for many years and after, I started to move between Cairo and Alexandria. And in Alexandria, really nature is so connected to the city because we are on the beach. So, you feel like nature is like inside the city, like it's not separated. And this is actually the opposite in Cairo, because in Cairo, it's just like a capital city, like with these buildings and transportations and people everywhere, but it doesn't have anything related to nature. Like yeah, if you want to go to camp, or to go to some place like really quiet, or to listen to the trees and the birds and everything, you should go outside of the city. So, because first I was working just with the cities, and then I find myself much more interested in people, not really the cities, like how it's affecting them, in a way. And then I moved to working with construction sites, because it was really happening a lot in Alexandria - and then in Cairo, it happened more rapidly. And I felt, it's mostly like the theme here is not about the urban planning, it's about people, it's about the noises that's not generated by just people. They don't really have control to do it. So, it's like a game of control and power. And then I started to work, because also I started to travel, and to have this concept of how noise may vary from one place to another. I mean by place, like city to town or village, or like another region. So, when I was in Switzerland, it was mostly like Alexandria in a way that nature is intertwined with cities, villages, small towns. So, I find it so hard to separate noises from nature sounds. So, I'm trying to play with this now. And I feel like, it was helpful to grow [up] in Alexandria, so I can try this now because if I grow [up] in Cairo, I feel like it's a very strong contradiction for me. But now I feel like, any place could have a lot of noises, but it's different from place to another. The kind of noises you hear.
Jun [00:21:16] You shared, you talked about a couple of moments where your listening probably has changed or, for example, when you talked about the first time you discovered that, ‘oh there is something like sound art’. That's one element. And then you also shared this wonderful moment where you were in one of those women's only subway or trains, and how their soundscape was very special and different and that's kind of another kind of moment of the listening. But do you have any other very peculiar moments, or events or instants, where you think that your listening has decisively made a change, transformed into something else?
Shadwa [00:22:16] I think it was not really a moment, but when I had the residency in Switzerland, I wanted to have these walks, to have the recording so I can work on this composition. But I found myself like, I can't really stop listening. I was really like even going to events like exhibition or something, and I can't really stop working. I found it was really hard for me, and this was actually the first time because I felt like I'm used to isolate myself from some sounds, or I just listen to this and not this. But I feel like when I was in Switzerland, maybe because of the quietness, like yeah, they have a lot of noises, of course, but I come from Alexandria and Cairo, like the noises are surrounding all the time. But now because I mostly have a quiet mind at the studio. When I go out, I feel like I'm working the whole time. So I need to listen and I need to record. But also there is something related to recording. Because in Egypt, I used to record with my phone. That's how it is, but when I have been to Switzerland, I thought like, yeah, I would get a Zoom and I would go around and I will record, and it's kind of nice. And I feel like, actually it's mostly I should go to my phone again because people when they see like the zoom you're holding, they act differently. Of course, it's like holding a camera in front of somebody's face. I felt like switching to the phone, it becomes more like a personality in the work also. Like, how can I approach work, is like, I'm kind of observing and I'm inside these recordings in a way. Because [with] the zoom, I feel it's kind of different because it hears something different than I hear it. But with the phone, I feel like it's very similar from what I hear. Like even with the wind, with everything - but working with the zoom, I feel like it's kind of isolating the wind. It hears people speaking 10 metres away from me, and I don't normally listen to this. And I don't want to listen to this, because I wanted to record what I'm hearing now. So usually, I use it with nature sounds like birds and trees and water, but not really with people. I feel like it's kind of making them uncomfortable.
Su [00:25:10] There's something so interesting there, about different environments and the sonics of different environments, and something that you shared earlier about your practice revolving around noticing the mostly unnoticed details. Thinking then, about sound in these environments - do you have a preferred way of listening yourself, when you're spending time, perhaps on a residency or developing a project somewhere - how do you get to know that new place? Is it through sound initially? Is it through visuals? I'm really intrigued to hear a little bit about how you may begin a project in a new environment.
Shadwa [00:25:56] I think with new environment it's kind of like they go in parallel like sound and visuals, like both of them. Because for example, when I have been to Switzerland, I was working on these noises in big cities, but how it is connected to the construction sites also, and how it's affecting people and with different people with different environments, you should observe also visually. For example, they have a lot of construction sites, but you can't really listen to it. You can see the cranes everywhere, like on the Rhine River, in Basel, but you don't really listen to the noises of the construction, because they have certain timings. But for example, if you close your eyes, you would hear a lot of noises coming from transportations. This was the main thing to listen to all the time - this is the main noise. So, it's transportations, and also when I was going to more quieter places, like outside of the cities, like villages or towns, I would hear a lot of aeroplanes, like helicopters and stuff. And this is something I don't have to see, but I listen to it. So, first like impressions would be two of them in parallel, but then after a while, I think the visual gets withdrawn a little bit, and the sound takes over.
Jun [00:27:36] It's so interesting about your observations and working with the sounds with your own phone, and then sounds that you record with Zoom recorder - or more high quality or technically more advanced way of collecting sounds - and you prefer now the phone sound better. And one of the reasons has to do with the ephemerality of the sound you are getting, and where Zoom recording seems to kind of, remove that ephemeral or maybe natural aspects about your listening in place. Is that right? I think that’s an interesting element. Could you maybe explain a little bit more about that - why you prefer the recording with your phone rather than a Zoom recorder.
Shadwa [00:28:45] I think what I prefer more is to have the phone. It's kind of limited. Like it's very limited. It has the same sound as I hear, but it's limited because I cannot really get closer to anything to record while I'm in public spaces. I'm just here. So, if I want to get closer, I should move with my body to this.
Jun [00:29:09] That’s a wonderful idea.
Shadwa [00:29:10] So also, it gives me how I am close to the voices, or the sounds I'm recording by myself. It's not really like, I feel like me and the phone became one thing, you know, like we are observing but in a stalker way, because we might get caught. But with the Zoom, you are so visible that you're recording something, and this is affecting the environment around you. So, it's kind of like, you're not really recording something happening organically - you're kind of, more interacting with something. So that's what I like about recording with the phone. It gives you, like, this personality. And for the quality, I feel like it's also documenting what's happening in the place, like you're not trying to polish things that aren’t polished, you know. But even when I try to work with the Zoom recorder, I felt like it's really polished. I don't really hear such like good quality sounds in real life.
Jun [00:30:28] That's a really interesting, wonderful idea.
Shadwa [00:30:33] Yeah, because also I think because I work with chaos and noise all the time, even like my artworks like in installations, I don't like it to be very polished. I feel like this is not real to have like very polished installations that doesn't have a scratch or something. I feel like, no, this is not real. It should be real, like it should have a lot of scratches and errors and you could hear like sometimes me breathing in the record, and I use this in in the record itself, because I was there. So it's kind of, I was present while recording and I'm present in this composition, because I'm not like really this artist who's superior, like I see them from up. No, I was just inside this public space also. I was just witnessing, you know.
Su [00:31:28] I wondered if we could go back to chaos. You mentioned that you work with chaos in a lot of the projects that you've developed. And I wondered if you could share a little bit more about that. Is there something about finding the comfort in the chaos? Or is it more coming from a point of view that you want to share a true representation of an environment or of a situation - therefore, you're using sound to document, or as an archive. How do you work with chaos in that way?
Shadwa [00:32:04] I feel like chaos is formed through people and through the country in many ways. It's formed and it's happening again. It's like a cycle also. But in this chaos, people try to create some patterns. So, it's kind of like trying to find the order in chaos. And I'm really fascinated by how people try to adapt with the chaos by creating another chaos. It's kind of like yeah, it's insane because you can't really, it's like the chicken or the egg, you know, you don't really know how it started. But this is what I observe a lot, how it is in Egypt. It's kind of part of the system and the city itself, and people, so it's kind of like a whole cycle, especially when some events are happening - even political or something like the pandemic, for example – you can really see it very visible at these times.
Jun [00:33:16] It sounds like, based on the artistic process that you explained to us, just record a bunch of sounds and then later you listen to them and then transcribe the sound into some kind of text or some kind of drawing, or something. That would mean that you will end up creating a lot of archives, sound archives, writing and so on. How do you organise them? Do you organise them based on project, and you keep them? Or after the project, you just throw them out? And what do you do with those archives, because there must be quite a lot of them.
Shadwa [00:33:59] Yeah, it's a lot of them, but I can't get rid of them. It's like my babies.
I can’t. But because I have been trying to upload them on cloud, so when I upload them in cloud and I get them so I have renamed them while working on the same project, because mostly I upload the raw files, not the renamed and sampled ones. So now, I have a very big archive of things, I don't know what it is. But because I have been renaming files, like this is for this project, this is for this project - and actually, very late, I think it was last week or something, I was listening to some of them and I recognised which project is this one. Because usually I don't really manipulate the sound so much, so I recognise which project, but I don't really recognise when it was recorded or where it was. Some of them I recognised, but some I couldn't, because some are really noisy things, so you don't know, was it a machine or a vehicle? You don't really know, especially because I don't really do very long records, it's mostly around one minute. I don't really record for one hour or something, it's just one minute. But if I record a lot in the same place, I can really recognise what was it.
Shadwa [00:35:42] But now, thank God, we have on the phone we can access location to the sound record, so I can know where I recorded this.
Su [00:35:51] Shadwa, when you present work, do you like to leave it open to interpretation for an audience to try and decipher what they might be listening to? Or do you prefer to share a lot of context around the work? I'm really curious – it was something that you said, that was really interesting about archiving. So for you, it sounds like documenting your own journey through the project also is a very important part. And in a way, it sounds like it's also part of the creative output. And when we think about making projects, often we're only sharing that final polished product. But there's something really wonderful about how you're approaching each project that it's so embedded in your own personal connection and experience to being in that place. You shared earlier, how ‘you can hear my breath and I'm sort of documenting as I go’. Do you also like to share that with the audience or with a listener? And do you like to leave your work open to interpretation?
Shadwa [00:36:55] I feel it depends on the project, because if it's very musical, you wouldn't really recognise any voices in it. It depends, some pieces really have a narrative; it's a story I can tell, and you can follow me on this story - and some pieces are really kind of musical as it has musical notes, so you cannot really recognise that its even field recordings. But I like to have a story to every piece, but also to give people or audience the ability to have some interpretations. But also I love it to be limited, not really open, not doing something very abstract and people can take it however they want, because I'm working on this piece and I want people to relate to this piece at some point about a feeling, about a question, about an idea. And maybe later, when we have a talk or something, I can speak about the whole process. But if you tell people about the process through description, they will have a pre-idea of what you're doing. But I feel, I like to play like this; let people see what they can see, and then we can listen, I mean, then we can speak about it. Sometimes I speak to the audience to hear some feedback or just exist there not saying that I'm the artist, to listen to what people saying about my piece. I think I'm a stalker in my heart.
Jun [00:38:45] Just one thing, one thing that caught my attention - when you said, when you record, you only record just one minute or very short, you don't just press record button then let it go for hours. Which is interesting because I know many artists, particularly sound artists or the field recordists or the artists who work with a lot of field recordings, they tend to let the recording start and then continue. Partly, I think there are two elements to it. I think one reason why they do it is because they don't want to miss out. Because you never know what's gonna happen. Then once something happens, then you are not recording, it's gone. So, there is a fear, not necessarily fear, but there is a concern the artistic concern that, ‘oh I might miss something, so I'll just let it let it continue.’ That's one element. And the second is, that quite a lot of the sound artists who work with the soundscapes, they tend to see the sound event as a very long-term durational element. So that's another reason, I think that a lot of people record a sound in a very long duration. But you said that you don't do that. That's really fascinating. What does that mean, in terms of listening? How do you know, ‘oh I'm going to record now and for one minute’. How do you decide?
Shadwa [00:40:25] This is actually the most useful thing about the phone, that if you listen to something happen suddenly, you can press record immediately. But imagine if you have a Zoom, and you're going on the street and you hear something, if you just turn it on and you wait until it says ‘hello’ and you just try to adjust everything, the moment will be missed already. So that's why also I'm working with the phone. I can capture a very momental thing happening, or voices or sounds, and I don't need to have this one hour recording, because I'm catching these moments with the phone.
Jun [00:41:12] It's almost like capturing an oral image. It's like taking a picture you know. So to me, one minute or so for the sound recording - for me, that's really short.
That’s a really fascinating way to work with the sound.
Shadwa [00:41:37] But sometimes I like to take an ambient sound of the places, but it would be also one minute and a half maximum, but not longer than this. Because I like to have the atmosphere of the place, even if nothing is happening. But I'm not waiting for something, just to have a background for the composition or something.
Su [00:42:01] As the sonics of our environments are changing, including cities, and you talked a lot about using construction sounds both in Switzerland and in Egypt, which are quite common sounds when you've been spending time there working. Do you feel like, as the sonics of these cities and environments are changing, do you feel your listening is also changing? That you have to work harder to be able to delve deeper into the sounds underneath this change, that you can hear in a cityscape?
Shadwa [00:42:37] I think it's more when you're moving between cities, it takes much more time to adapt. When I got back from Switzerland to Alexandria, I felt like it took me like one week or two weeks to adapt again with the sounds and to listen again. It was more like, it was overwhelming for me. I couldn't hear anything. And even people were trying to make fun of it, like, ‘you work with sound like all the time, you’re used to it, you're not a foreigner’. But yeah, when you get used to a certain environment, it takes time to adapt. I think it's not just with listening or sound, it's your whole body has adapted with something, so it needs more time to adapt with a different environment. Because as we were saying before, sound is not really affecting just your ear. It affects the whole body. Even if you're not hearing anything, but you can feel it in your body – if it disturbs your body, you need some time to adapt with it.
Jun [00:43:50] What's going to happen to our listening? Noise is a big issue, as you know very well. And obviously noise is a big health issue in developing countries, especially Southeast Asia, some African big cities, including Egypt. And noise is also a big issue, especially in the noise abatement rules and regulations that happen in developed countries. Obviously, that will have an impact on the way we're listening. What's going to happen, considering that noise is a key topic for you as an artist, what is going to happen to our listening? Will our listening adapt to it? Or, noise will disappear at some point as human civilizations will advance to some another level? Have you thought about these aspects?
Shadwa [00:44:55] Yeah, but I think we can have these very dystopian ideas that because from what's going on now, like people go more individual, there is a pressure from the media, from the technology, from the acceleration of AI, from everything, to just be an individual, to be in your own bubble, to be very isolated, not to listen to anything. You are just the one, you need to work on your health, on your mental health, on whatever. Don't interact. I feel like this is the main thing happening, like you don't interact with each other - you just speak, you don't listen. This is what's happening with the world. But from what we see from history, from our past, so we can learn about our future, this is not really happening because people always adapt with everything and they create new ways. So, I don't think that people will become very individualistic, and they will just ignore each other and they won't listen to anything. I think it's going to be the same. What I see, is our future is a new loop from our past. Like it's not really going to be this very futuristic thing, because for me, I was born in the nineties and at this time we thought like ‘yeah, in 2000, we will have like these flying cars and robots’, and now we just see these absurd videos about robots just folding laundry. We are not really using, or even like a vacuum cleaner. We don't really use robots to create anything massive. So, I think with listening it's going to be, like, I don't want to sound disappointing, but it's going to be the same actually.
Jun [00:46:56] Well in some way, that's really good, isn't it? That listening is one of the core elements that makes who we are as a human being, and also as an organism. So, it's good to hear from you that you have some positive aspect of the future. If that is positive, that it's not changing.
Shadwa [00:47:21] I don't know if it is positive or not.
Jun [00:47:25] But at least it's not pessimistic. [Laughs]
Su [00:47:32] Shadwa, thank you so much for speaking to us today. And so fascinating to hear about your approach to making work and just yes, brilliant to hear about all these different ways that you're thinking about that through your practice.
Shadwa [00:47:44] Thank you so much. I'm really glad we had this conversation after one year of our first meeting. And I hope we will do it again, of course.