Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - "We've really dismissed the value of failure." - Sarah Bay-Cheng

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Sarah is a theatre researcher with a background in film studies, digital performance and puppetry. Their research and writing has focused on the intersection of theatre, media and emerging technologies, including 4 books and over 50 articles and essays. They currently serve as the Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University and as a Professor of Theatre & Performance Studies.Jody and Sarah explore the impact of social media and algorithmic culture on performance and authenticity. She highlights the need to create spaces for low-stakes failure and challenges the success bias in society. Sarah's LinksIG: @sbaychengX: @sbaychenghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sbaycheng/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. At the beginning of every episode, there will always be time for an acknowledgement. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on a land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me

and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Pekinni, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. hello my fellow humans welcome back welcome into the everyone comes from somewhere podcast i am so grateful that you're back with us today. And do I have a treat for you. Listen, I've been spending a lot of time lately with our brand.

I don't know, we haven't even decided on a title, but she's this most incredible human who has lived in the most incredible places. And she said to me, listen, I know this person that I think would be a perfect podcast guest for you. And, um, Shana told me a little bit about, uh, who you're going to meet today, Sarah Bay Chang. And I got to tell you, I could not wait for this conversation. Let me, let me tell you a little bit. Uh, Sarah is a theater researcher. If that doesn't make you want to just like get your popcorn, the thing is, yes, it's a thing. Apparently there are theater researchers in the world with a background

in film studies, digital performance, and puppetry. My research, her research and writing has focused on the intersection of theater, media, and emerging technologies, including four books and over 50 articles and essays. Uh, Sarah currently serves as the Dean of the school of arts, media performance and design at York university. And as a professor of the theater and performance studies, I, okay. We start every episode like this. Okay. The difference between empathy and judgment often comes in, um, knowing somebody's story, knowing where they come from. Okay. So context is the prerequisite for empathy is what I think around here. So that's the first question. Where do you come from? Well, I, thanks so much for having me.

I can answer that question in two ways. One, I will say, is sort of literally, geographically, I was born and raised in California, did most of my sort of schooling in the States, but have been really happy to be in Toronto, Canada for the last five years after having spent about a decade in Buffalo, kind of knocking at the door. So originally physically from California, but what I would say is more to the point and maybe more useful in the context of this podcast, I come from the theater. I come from a many generational theater family. My dad was and still is a professional puppeteer. My parents met in theater arts and I feel incredibly fortunate to keep, you know, getting to keep do that, doing that for, for a living today.

Well, no kidding. I mean, it, it, it propelled you into this place where not only do you live it, you teach it. Do you still, do you perform? Are you like, tell me all the things like, are you a performer on the side as well or full time? I used to perform and more recently I've collaborated with other folks on performance. These days, my major performance is as an administrator. So and occasionally in a theater, which is its own its own kind of unique mode of performance. But no, I haven't been able to do anything of my own creatively in a while, but that just makes me all the more appreciative of the work that our students do and my colleagues do and that I get to, you know, travel and see

and participate in as an audience. Oh, I love that. I spent a lot of time with educators, mostly not a lot of post-secondary space, but I, I am now more interested in this more than ever. Okay. So when we look at the mental health crisis, I often talk about, you know, people ask me, are we in a mental health crisis? And I often say, absolutely not. We are in an understandable human response to a loneliness epidemic in your department, in this prestigious university in Canada, what have you noticed? I mean, over the last little bit of, of your students sort of now reconnecting on campus, being able to be, you know, much more in physical spaces with each

other. What have you seen a shift in the student body in your career? When we speak about, you know, being able to express themselves, being able to be in a speak about, you know, being able to express themselves, being able to be in a place where, you know, in this liberal arts space, put their emotion and their feelings, because we feel we, I see so many kids, so many students, so many adults, uh, having nowhere to put it. So what have you seen? Well, it's an, it's an interesting question. I mean, I started this job in the summer of 2019. Wow. So I had not been here very long when the pandemic hit. And, you know, just as I was like, oh, I'm kind of starting to get the hang of this. I felt like nobody knew what was going on. And

we were all in a totally different challenging space together. I will say that I have observed a there's clearly a lack of confidence. I don't think students who went through particularly high school and maybe even early university in the, you know, through online schooling, you know, as necessary as that was in terms of health, I think it really limited people's ability to get out there and try things and, you know, feel like they could be confident and sort of learn some of those habits. So I've seen a little bit of, you know, um, tentativeness. I think some of that is shifting as, as students, you know, kind of acclimate, but even before the pandemic, I think that, you know, one of the things that I've observed in a lot of our, our, the students that I've worked

with and, um, and my own children who are now 22 and 23, um, they is that, you know, we've really dismissed the value of failure. Yes. And I feel like in many, in many circumstances, we've given young people the message that they either have to be total success or, or, you know, it's disastrous and nothing will ever work out. And I think we've, we've really inculcated a fear of trying and failing. And I think we've eliminated a lot of spaces of failure where people can practice what I would say is low stakes failure. And so now, you know, by the time some of our students get to university, you know, there are some really high stakes, you know, for many of our students. And I really, I really admire our students.

You know, they may be the first in their families to go to university, particularly for students in our school who are pursuing, you know, one or more of the disciplines in the arts, there's a real sense of, of, you know, risk and challenge and adventurousness and that kind of spirit. But we know that, that success in the arts, you know, really comes as a product of failure, that, that moving things forward and finding your own voice and developing new talents and new ideas is all about trying things and finding out what doesn't work. And I really worry that we don't create enough space for that sense of of what I used to call with my grad students spectacular failure. Yeah. Without it feeling so overwhelming that, you know, that that that people really shy away from that.

So I would say that that's a, that's a, that's a big shift and, but a real challenge for educators. Oh, like, and I've never thought about it that way. How, what opportunities the arts provide for that experience of failure and how it's even necessary. Right. So I have to talk about this, like you need a script for futility, but so many of the times now we really want our kids to be okay. Everybody to be okay. It's okay. We're okay. Everybody's okay. Right. And let's give everybody a medal. Right. So nobody's sad. Okay. So you were really shitty, but, but still you were so good at your shoes were so nice, right? Oh my God. Tell them they're bad. Like we need to be able to have a script for

it. It's not, if we're going to do it, it's how, and I think there's such a concern around, you know, I think where we're getting caught and I'd love your opinion on this. We're concerned about a mental health crisis. We're concerned about anxiety and depression and people not being able to have a voice. So we're trying to then just keep everybody happy. But the experience for wellness isn't happiness. It is a script for all of the emotions. And do you, I mean, what do you think about that? Well, I'm, I'm no psychologist. So, you know, I, I would, you know, I, I would defer to people with a lot more experience in that than I. But but I would say on on the art side, I mean, I think one of the things that you learn and I think there are lots of places to learn this, right?

You learn it through sports. You learn it, but you learn it through creative activity is is is trying and failing and trying again. And I think that a lot of the spaces that, like we know creativity is iterative. Like nobody comes out and does something beautifully, perfectly the first time. And yet I would say that culturally,

you know, there's such a mandate to success. And I would say that a lot of this gets exacerbated through social media, where we have all in different ways learned how to carefully select and present and polish what we want the world to see of our successes and that we have a real success bias. So we foreground those and we create narratives, whether those are online or in conversation of pure sort of success lists, you know, and then I did this, and then I did this, and then I did that. And, and now I am so, so accomplished. And we, we don't talk about the, the setbacks, the failures.

You know, I had a conversation with my partner who at one point was working with her PhD students. And, you know, she sort of outlined what she called the shadow CV, right? Or the shadow resume, which was a list of all the things that didn't work, right? Yes. The accounting of the failures, the publication rejections, the grants that weren't funded, you know, but we don't talk about that. And I think that, you know, there may need to be in the context of sort of success bias of online discourse,

there may need to be moments where we're very intentional about taking stock of things that don't work. And again, if we sort of just think about the creative process, how do we create spaces in which people can feel supported to hear that their work was not successful? Because that's the other thing, like you can't just run around telling people, you know, like, I know you invested all this time and energy, but it's really bad. That's right. No one wants to hear that. And, and, and it's, but more importantly, it's like, well, but to what end? Like, what do I do with that? As opposed to this is the, the elements that, that are successful. This is what didn't work. And now let's, let's kind of try it again.

And I think again, creative processes that build in those kinds of iterations like the sciences, frankly, you know, like people test and and, you know, hypotheses all the time. But again, it's it's creating a space to make that visible and not and not demonize it as like one failure is the whole project is, is a failure. It's like, how do you kind of, you know, recognize the process and that iteration over and over again to make it. And that expectation that that is the plan, right? Like that it isn't actually, you don't, we don't want your best at the beginning. We actually don't want that. We don't expect that. I had a great directing teacher, um, when I was, uh, studying, was studying for my MFA in directing who had a great phrase where he said, he said, don't polish mud. He said that one of the things that a lot of early directors try to do is you get an idea and and then you just try to like polish it. Right. And he's like, mud is not there to be like shellacked. It's, you know, it's messy, it's goopy. You play with it, you figure out what it can be. And, um, but you don't, you don't fix it. And that I think is a

really important idea is that, you know, don't polish. Oh, I love that. And I like, so performance in contemporary digital culture, this is one of the points that you sort of put forward. And I was like, Hey, just a second. You also said, you know, we're performing all the time. So in this, in this place of such access to everybody that we've never had this much access to at all, uh, we're trying to look shiny all the time. We're trying to sort of appear as though everybody has everything together. What, you know, when we're in this state of performing, tell me about this. Like the, the importance of performance is sort of so critical to what you do all the time. How does that showing up in this digital culture where it's, it is probably more difficult now than ever to not have the finished piece available all the time at the ready. Um, and that, that process

isn't something that we show. How, how can we show that process more often? Should we, because we want people to be authentic. I mean, we're, we're sort of this oxymoron of like be authentic, but like, it's gotta be fucking perfect, please. You know? No, it's, it's, it's, it's really true. I mean, I, you know, there's, there's been a number of recent studies on online influencers, you know, folks on Instagram and about really how difficult that job is, how much of a job it is. is that everything has to be documented and then refined and perfected and displayed. And for me, I think that's sort of an interesting research topic is to look at the ways in which this notion of presentation performance has become increasingly codified and also now subject to algorithmic recommender systems, right? So it's not just about creating work to share with your friends.

If you sort of think about like the early days of, you know, in the early aughts, right, of MySpace and, you know, early Facebook, it was like, here's me for my friends. There you go. And they're AOL. Oh, you got me. I am. You know, and it was like there was a sort of value in being, you know, authentic and weird and intimate. Right. You had a in fact, if I remember correctly, at one point,

you know, Facebook capped the number of friends you could have, right? So, you know, it was still a fairly large number. I think it was like 5,000, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't infinite. It wasn't, you know, you had to really, you know, think very carefully about who is your, who is your community and how did you sort of structure that but over time you know you know we have people with you know hundreds of thousands millions of followers um you know like there's more social media uh broadcast scope than you know what's sometimes been referred to as mainstream media or you know traditional you know, media unidirectional broadcasting. So you're, you're putting more stuff out there. And I think that, you know, we, we don't take account very often of, of, of how much that kind of pressure of

performance is, is both a craft, right? It's a, it's a skill that, that people hone, whether they do that in formal training, like, you know, like an acting school or something like that, or whether it's just something that they, you know, hone and develop, but, but that amount of exposure and that compulsion to ever be creating more content and not even, I would say content for other people, right. Although that's clearly the goal, it's really what you're performing for are the algorithms. And those algorithms are changing and they're finicky. And so you're seeing now, of course, with AI, we're in a really interesting transition where now people are going to be performing with machines to attract the attention of other machines so that the machine, you know, co-created and curated content eventually reaches some other human beings who are also reliant on their end for their machines to tell them what

they should be watching and what will be relevant to their lives. And I think this, you know, when you talk about isolation and separation and loneliness, you know, I think certainly looking at our social relationships being mediated in and through algorithms that are often opaque at best and also highly changeable, I think just sets us up for constantly feeling like we're chasing something that is unattainable. And that's true for people who both appear very successful and, you know, and who are, you know, struggling or trying to attain that success. But that's where I think there needs to be some kind of, you know, rethinking or another kind of narrative about what connection in and through media looks like right now. Because I have no, I'm under no illusions that we're all gonna just, you know, return to an analog age in which we, you know, write long, you know, handwritten letters to one another that, you know, take anywhere from, you know,

a few days to a few weeks to reach its respondents. So we've got to think intentionally about what that looks like in this kind of context. Hey, everyone. We all know how draining cold and flu season can be. Waiting rooms, missed appointments, and that worry about whether a fever is something serious. But there is a better way. Maple gives you access to Canadian doctors and nurse practitioners in minutes, right from your phone. Get the medical care you need, including prescriptions when appropriate, 24-7 without leaving home. One membership covers your whole family, so you can add all your dependents to your account.

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So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Isn't that true? I mean, I hear myself more and more sounding like a grandmother, my grandmother. Whoa, whoa, this is too scary. Like, you know, and I, but I also feel like that, like the horse is out of the barn in so many ways because we're already here. And I was just, I listened to a talk recently and I have her book here, so I'm just going to bring it up and masking AI by Dr. Joy Buola Weenie. And I am so impressed with this human because what she's saying is that the algorithm itself, although changeable was was largely developed at this point anyway by straight white men.

And so we are employing many of these AI. We think this is fantastic. It can hire and it can fire and it can provide us scripts and it can do all of these beautiful things. Somebody put their thoughts into that. Like, so that was created by a human and there's been very little thought on the outcomes of that. So it's making things easier, but what is it suggesting that we do? How is it suggesting we do things? And I think it's, it's, we're so many times, I think we're moving beyond human scale. And what I love beyond, like what I love the most about the digital arts, what I love the most about your work is this conversation about

just a second, how can this idea of the performative arts still be so critical in this time of everything becoming automated? Tell me about that piece for you, because I love that. I think like it is the opportunity where you can't necessarily automate, um, the experience of theater, um, and, and getting somebody to, to get a feeling right. And to get into the persona of another human to tell me about that. Well, the, the, the unmasking AI is a, is a, is a wonderful book. It joins a number of other, oh yeah. Oh yeah of course you know great great book she's canadian her story is yes and super compelling yeah um is she is she can yes i thought she was um okay well i could be wrong but i met her at uh we did a conference in austin and i was like blown away

by her so don't quote me on that but i honestly thought I seriously think she's Canadian. You keep talking and I will tell you the truth. Maybe it doesn't. Well, I, I, I, I would, I would be delighted. No, she is, she is really quite, quite amazing. And she joins a number of other researchers like, you know, Kathy O'Neill and Ruha Benjamin and, um, you know, Wendy Chun, uh, you know, Wendy Chun, you know, who just has a book in the last few years, Discriminating Data. And, you know, that talk about all the different ways in which automation and algorithmic culture has really shaped our social relations and, you know, how that's been created, you know, again, by, by folks with inherent, you know, biases that, you know, have been, have been really, you know, I mean, Ruha Benjamin's race after technology is just a, and what she calls the new Jim code is just a, a, a, a must read in this.

Sophia Noble's Algorithms of Oppression. I mean, I think, you know, what's different about AI is that at a, you know, so we have all these algorithms and an algorithm is really just a recipe. Like it's like if this, then that. And it's a way of sorting massive amounts of data. And part of the flaw in, and the inequalities that people, and the dangers that people have pointed out in algorithmic culture is that, first of all, it depends on where the data comes from and, and how that, and how that's collected. What are the ethics of that collection? And, you know, Bo Alami talks ethics of that collection? And, you know,

well, we talked about this really extensively in her, you know, when she's talking about coming up with different data sets of faces, right. And, and attending to the gender bias and, you know, looking at, you know, at skin tone and how that gets coded and identified and what are the complications of that. I mean, she's really quite thorough in thinking through. So that's partly, it's partly about data. And then it's partly about, you know, how the algorithms get selected, you know, how those get written and what parameters get weighted and how those functions.

We've had that for a long time and we've had a lot of automation built into a lot of our social structures, certainly online, but in lots of other ways too. I mean, you've got urban planning that has some of this built into it. You've got transportation systems that run through algorithms as well as what you pointed out,

the hiring and things like that. Where different kinds of artificial intelligences become really interesting or a complication is that those are essentially opportunities based on different large language models or large learning models to adapt the algorithms in real time according to a number of parameters. So this is what is a little bit of the distinction between sort of a pure algorithm and what we're kind of calling AI, which is that the system learns and develops and changes in response to it. And some of that is readily apprehendable to the

people who are running it, but often it's not. So, you know, people have been playing around with generative, you know, AI and, you know, various GPTs and note the mistakes that come in or the flaws or the, you know, the what sometimes get attributed or called hallucinations in the model. Right. And these are not simply a sifting of data. These are manufacturing data based on the parameters of the system and what they're trying to come up with in real time. And that's where I think, you know, we look, that's an even sort of more challenging area, I think we look at. The intersection for performance is interesting

because on the one hand, theater seems to be a space where, and live performance in general, seems to be a space where we can sort of in general seems to be a space where we can sort of have a, like a little protected bubble from all of that. Right. So it's like, okay, you know, my, my Instagram feed is trying to push me in, in various ways. Um, you know, there's been a lot of attention to, you know, Google search and, and how, you know, what gets ranked, um, in, in that, but then there's a whole other kind of conversation you know but like but when i go to the theater i'm seeing you know i'm a human i'm

seeing some other humans i'm in this kind of you know special uh place but but even there you know how i pick what theater show to see is based on a number of recommender systems um how i even know what's available it may be selected out of, you know, search results when I look up like what theater show should I see in Toronto, you know, through Google based on my past search history. But also if you look at things like, you know, fever productions or the, you know, candlelight music series, very often that comes out of a kind of analysis of cultural data based on what people seem to be liking on digital platforms and then trying to create real world in-person experiences that will appeal to the people, to what people are attracted to on online. So this, this, this gap between the sort of online space and the,

and the offline space or the, you know, digital space and the, and the IRL right in real life are increasingly interwoven with each other. And I think the more that we can pull them apart and, and really understand kind of what are the mechanisms that are happening, how do we make sense of that, and how do we recognize our own performances as conditioned by a lot of the things around us, then we can be really intentional. And I do think that there is a real importance and maybe an opportunity for things that are slow, for things that are based more in material, physical craft, for things that break or do not function perfectly, to introduce more friction into the cultural space,

and yes, to create then more opportunities for failure, and to try to change our expectations so that what we're looking for are things that maybe are not successful. Or the way I presented this to my students is that, you know, all the algorithmic recommender systems want to show you more things that you already know you like. The way to really expand is to try to find things you don't think you're going to like and go see them anyway. And that I think is going to be the real challenge for us going forward. Yes. Because this idea of social media, it's not social at all, right? It really is very curated to the things that, you know, you already like. And so of course you believe that the world is all following one political ideal because that's all that comes up in your, in your things that you believe everybody is on the same page about these things. Is there any sacred spaces left

and how do we create them that are truly places where you can create and perform, um, unadulterated or it's maybe not a good word, but this idea of like, how do we get back to the truest sense? How do we create those spaces, you know, in our family systems, in our, in our universities? And I mean, is that, is that what you're trying to do? I guess like having these conversations with your students, with this next generation of humans, like question everything, step at wonder about things. For sure. Questioning is a big part of it. I, I, um, uh, I taught a class about a year ago on contemporary performance and, uh, and we met in person for the, uh, for the most part.

And, and I think, I think our classroom, like our in-person classrooms are really, are really valuable. I think, um, I went to see the theater with, with my students on a, on a number of occasions and, you know, like the, the, the, the things that are difficult about that were also the things that were wonderful, like coordinating where everybody was going to be gathering together, you know. But the conversation that we had in the lobby after the show was some of the most engaged conversation that some of my students participated in all semester. You know, even though we met for, you know, a few hours a week to really, you know, think through these things, it was when it was really fresh and we weren't in a classroom. So I think studios, rehearsal halls, I mean, those are all really important, important spaces.

I really think, and I like meeting one-on-one or in small groups with students, whether it's in my role as dean or outside, because I think then you can have the conversation with them as a whole human. It's, it's understanding that they're learning and their role as an artist or, um, or musician or, you know, maker creator is only one part of who they are as a person. And that the most effective education will happen when you're listening to and attending to and educating the whole self of who's there and and also educating with your whole self. You know, it's that I'm, you know, I'm partly a brain, but I'm also partly a body. And I'm a social being that that, you know, experiences the physical

world and also navigates the digital world. And I do that in different proportions at different times. And my students do that differently, too. But it's like, how do we kind of put this all together? And I think that universities are really special spaces and really important spaces for that. And our arts programs within, you know, universities are really important for maintaining that. And we're under a lot of pressure right now. There's a lot of political fracture and polarization and demands that the university move in one way or another. And I really believe very strongly that our, our, our best, uh, and most important role to play is to be a space to hold really hard conversations, to, um, facilitate a lot of different voices, um, as hard as that is to, to help students and, and sometimes faculty and staff also, and myself, you know, administrators move

beyond our desire for rooms in which everyone agrees or, you know, the, you know, kind of notion of a safe space where like, you know, nothing will disturb me to places that are contested and where there is disagreement, but there's, there's a way to think through that. And that not everybody has to come out of that room thinking the same thing or agreeing with one another, but that we can have a really informed, you know, civil discourse. And, and, but again, I think part of that is also like we've got to be in physical space with like we've got to be in rooms together because we've got to, you know, I think that, you know, part of what the pandemic really did was to facilitate a lot of conversations with with, you know, with talking heads in which we, you know, I think kind of without intending to began to dehumanize each other and to imagine who was on the other side as opposed to really having to reckon with, okay, so who are these folks? How do I understand and how do I really listen to what's being said, not just what is a place to do that in ways that are, because it's imaginative, can be really powerful and really important. But only if you seek out the things you don't think you already agree with.

Right. So like even in that space, it's also possible to get stuck. And I think so many things came to my head when I thought about this. So Esther Perel spoke recently, and somebody's written a book about it. I can't remember who, that the real AI is authentic interaction. We will never, ever automate relationship. And what I love the most, and I've never thought about it this way, you know, all through grad school. I mean, I have an arts, everything is arts for me. Cause I can't, I don't like spreadsheets, but I, the idea is that I, as that being the sacred place that we promote that even more to, you know, policy development. And, you know,

when we're iterating this idea of like, we need to create on purpose places where people can authentically sink into themselves. There's nothing more brilliant about that than what is set up in every arts program across North America, right? How do we then like, because really this place of emotional development or emotional language has really been the soft skill side of everything, right? If I were to choose between an arts degree and a science degree, it's like, if you want to go to the art side of things, cute. But if you really want to be good in this world, you'll get a science undergrad graduate degree. Right. And, and what I see the parallel as a psychologist, what I see the parallel as in this,

even in an organizational space, it's like we used to like the very masculine energy around, um, structure, routine, predictability, this idea of a PNL, the statement versus the soft skills, which is so sweet with a much more of a feminine energy. the statement versus the soft skills, which is so sweet with a much more of a feminine energy. You know, what's going to keep us alive in this season is really promoting the use of the emotional language because you have to name it to tame it. And people are hard to hate closeup. If we do this process much more on, you know, so I just, your work is amazing to me. Having this conversation that yes, this place of the arts is where people will feel seen. And when you feel seen, you can do

incredible things. If you don't, our capacity to be creative and innovative and motivated becomes significantly compromised. Well, and I would even, I would even take it a step further, which is to say that I think arts programs, you know, writ large are not just about kind of understanding and, and, and, you know, actuating yourself, but can also be really important opportunities to explore the world. And, and, you know, I also really, I believe very fundamentally that the division between the arts and the, and the sciences between, you know, the so-called soft skills and the hard, the, you know, and the hard skills is, is really a fallacy. And it's one that's, that's undermined the what's creative in the sciences and what's rigorous and, uh, and, and the, and the possibility on the art side.

And there's a, there's a wonderful book by Stephen, Stephen Jay Gould, who is an, uh, brilliant evolutionary biologist at, at Harvard wrote a number of really, um, wonderful books, but one that he wrote was called The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox. And it was about the kind of false dividing of the arts and sciences. And Gould was amazing. I mean, he, you know, read Latin and Greek and as well as, you know, was really well versed in science and statistics, again, particularly, you know, biology. And he was able to speak to both sides. And he traced a kind of history of where these divisions came from.

And they were always, you know, within a different kind of historical moment, you know, often politically motivated or, you know, had some kind of other agenda. And he talked about, you know, what that meant sort of historically and socially and what were the benefits of coming, you know, back together. There's also a more recently, there's a really wonderful book called The Nexus by Julio Otto with Bruce Mao, the designer. And it's all about the ways in which arts and science are constantly intersecting in contemporary culture and how understanding that intersection

or those various intersections is really so important. And that's, you know, I think that, you know, obviously as the dean of an art school, you know, with with design and theater and computational arts, like, you know, I'm constantly advocating for our should come at the expense of, you know, the social sciences or, you know, computer science and, you know, engineering, you know, or, you know, or the business like these are all they all have a different role to play and they're all really important. I mean, the whole idea and the, you know, the etymology of the university is universe, right? It was designed and named to be capacious and inclusive. And it has to hold all the parts, those that fit together easily, those that are, you know, at odds with one another. But it has to hold it all simultaneously and become a whole, you know, infinite world that students can navigate, but also that, you know, faculty and staff and all of us can participate in and contribute to. And that's been just a sort of animating, you know, life force for me from the beginning. Oh, I can see it. I can see it in you. And I,

it just so reminds me of the parallels, right? Like nothing is a binary and we are often in this place of it's either this it's, you know, gender is a spectrum, mental illness, mental wellness is a spectrum. The idea of when we try to really decompartmentalize so many things, we get in to so much struggle because we then get really hard lined into one. And often the arts, the feminine, the idea of, you know, being able to express emotion where we can't measure it as well has typically been the one that we have to fight harder to prove because it's much more difficult in this space of psychology, for example, to be like, this is a real thing, right? Clinical depression is like this. Well, we don't know if you really got it. Do you really got the ADHD?

We don't really know. Huh? But it's this idea of my gosh, both of those things are critical. All of this, nobody's better than the other. We need it all to function so beautifully. And I just, I've never thought about it like that in the space of university and, uh, or what a university truly means. And I think that that is just phenomenal. Um, I, one more question for you. Well, I have so many more, but I know your time is precious. Um, I, I have, I want to back up a little bit in this place of performance and, um, puppeteering of, of really being in a sacred space where you can be the voice of another entity. Can you, can you tell me a little bit about that and why that is something that is just in your blood? Well, I, I, you know, I grew up the, the way the family story goes is, um, you

know, my dad, uh, his grandmother, uh, was, was a puppeteer and taught him puppetry. Really? And so he started. Yeah, he started making puppets when he was a little kid. And I guess I might be really misremembering this, but I think sometime around he was like eight or 10. He started doing puppet shows for a nickel out of his garage in uh, in, uh, in, in Northern California. Yes. And, and he kind of never stopped. Like he, he, you know, did puppets all through theater

school and then he, you know, supported, you know, his family for a while, you know, when we were, you know, when I was a baby, um, you know, just doing like freelance puppet shows. And when I when I was about two, I really liked performing. And so he would put a little stool in front of the puppet show and he would put me on the stool and give me a little microphone. And at the time I had long blonde hair and in pigtails. And so I would sit there with my little microphone and I would like talk, talk back and forth to the puppets when I was like two, two or three. Um, and what I would say is that growing up in a space where there was always music, there was always, we were, you know, they were, my parents were always doing shows or going to see shows. Um, uh, they were constantly playing like musical theater albums. And, and my dad was always making new stuff. Like he just, he was always making new puppets. He was making new shows. He was

making new worlds. There was this idea that, um, and puppets are amazing because they're not fixed by any real rules of reality. Like they, they, they fly fly they disappear very suddenly they reappear very suddenly they're you know if we go historically back into the old days of punch and judy you know they you can't really hurt them so you can you know beat up on puppets but they don't they don't you know they're they're they're impervious to pain and in that way and yet when you watch puppets on stage they're actually the only actors that um and this is happily um that can truly die like if a puppeteer lays a puppet on a on the stage and then walks away you can actually see the life force of that character exit exit the stage and and have this you know kind of moment in a way that you, you would never have with a, with a human

actor. So, you know, I think for me, puppetry became all about the art of possibility and infused with joy and wackiness, right? Because like I used to, I, you know, I used to say, like I grew up, you know, with like, you know, like, with weird things covered in fake fur talking to me. And so my sense of reality is forever a little altered. That's right. That's right. But yeah, and just that there should be fun and joy and weirdness and yes, and fake fur in everyday life. And I think that,

that we get too trapped into, into all different kinds of realism and, and, and we lose the things that are really pleasurable about puppets, um, as we get older and we think of them as, especially in, in North American culture, it's not so much in Asia and particularly, you know, there's wonderful puppetry in Southeast Asia, Indonesia. Europe has wonderful puppet traditions. But in North America, we think of it mostly, you know, as as a children's thing. And so something to outgrow. But, you know, but if you've ever been to, you know, seen Japanese Bunraku or, you know, Burmese, you know, shadow puppet theater. I mean, these are these are beautiful cultural art forms that also have tremendous political power. I mean, there there are there have been periods where repressive regimes have censored puppet shows because they were seen as as threatening to to established power and so i just

you know i i wonder if kids of magicians feel the same way right like i've been triloquist you know you grow up in a in a house yes where where where weird magical stuff can happen all the time and that you can have a role in making it. And I think that that was a really powerful lesson for me. I can see it. And I, and I think what is so interesting to me is as you were speaking, when I was reading your bio initially, I was like, I'm no puppeteer by any stretch. Some of the most effective work I've ever done in therapy is using puppets because it provides that exterior sense that I can separate from self and I can be able to say, well, you know, can you whisper it to the puppet and then get the puppet to tell me? And if we were to use this,

like, what would you say to this puppet? Right. And you know, where did you, you can hit this puppet. You can do it. Like, as you described it, I was like, I can think about a hundred sessions in my head where it was like, yes. And this kid, you know, and show me what it felt like you, you can pick any puppets. And I had a wall of puppets at one point. Like, I mean, people are very big in this, but like remarkably specifically human looking, non-human looking. And so choose the puppet that would represent grandpa to you. And the therapy in a single choice happens because I can now personify or put my emote. I can't say he was a narcissistic son of a bitch, bastard abuser, but I could, this right there looks like that to me.

And it makes me feel like this. Okay, good. Now we've got something to work with, or I've never felt this elation before. I don't have a word for big, fat, juicy joy, but when I put, when I, this puppet can tell you about that. Right. And I just, I think that idea of performance, being able to put emotion somewhere, even the ones we don't have words for, or are the ones that we don't have words for what a beautiful opportunity your students have to have you guide them in this way. And now I, I mean, when I first read that line, it is a thing we do research in

theater. I get it. I, I just think it's amazing. And, and what, I mean, what is your most exciting thing coming up for you? What do you, where, where's your research taking you? What is the biggest focus next for you? Well, right now I'm, I'm really trying to think through the different implications of AI and these kind of algorithmic recommender systems in art and in theater and performance in particular. around looking at like arts data, like how can, how can we make the work that we do legible within, you know, quantitative systems? Um, you know, where are we getting left out because, you know, it, Google doesn't know how to search and doesn't know we, because we don't have a good semantics. So I've been working on that for a while, but, but this what Lev Manovich calls cultural analytics, right? So how do we kind of, you know, get a sense of culture in and as data and what exceeds and works beyond that? But my other sort of area is thinking through what are the implications of this in terms of not just on the creative side,

but also on audiences, like how is, how are our tastes being shaped? How are our expectations being shaped? Like what do we, what is it that we want from different forms of performance as they, you know, get, you know, constantly entangled. And I've been reading a lot by some really wonderful researchers who are, you know, looking at, um, different performances with, uh, with different, you know, AI systems, whether that's, you know, choreo robotics or, um, you know, sonification systems in which a dancer has to respond to, you know, you know, not just an automated piece of

music, but a piece of music that's, you know, working according to certain parameters that exceed, you know, the dancer's knowledge. And again, what is what are the implications for our craft? And, and how can we shape this, but also, I think a certain part of this has to be educational, which is how can we make visible and transparent the work that is happening and what's going on in these systems for, you know, for emerging artists, for, you know, younger audiences. I'm talking like, you know, grade school and high school to really start to understand and have access to thinking about, you know, the world as it's, you know, in this kind of field.

Because, you know, generative AI is amazing, but so much of it, again, like social media, appears to operate behind a black box. And I think the more that we can explicate what are the structures, what are the regimes of power, you know, what are the biases, you know, what is the data on which this is based, you know, is that data ethically collected or has it been, you know, scraped, you know, from a bunch of folks, you know, in violation of copyright, you know, what are some of these? I mean, I think that, again, the arts and some of these performances can also become really exciting opportunities to dig into and learn about the structures and the foundations so that people have a clear sense of, you know, what how their sense of reality is being shaped, you know, day to day, whether it's through their phones or their computers or, you know, in, in, you know, streaming services, et cetera. So that's, that's a few different projects that I'm

really invested in. Just a tiny few, right. And, uh, growing your babies and changing the world. Otherwise I listen, it was such an honor to sit with you. I just think that York is so lucky to have you as a Dean of this most, there's never been a more critical time to, I think, get students prepared for what we need to be able to have a voice in this space and to be able to understand the importance of everything you teach. And so thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your very precious time today. It was such an honor. I, um, Oh, it was my pleasure. I really appreciate it. I loved it. And I'm, I will put everything in the show notes, the books, um, everything that you can find, um, and, and how we just really start having more conversations

about this with, with our babies and, um, all the opportunities that I think we're going to have to pursue on purpose. So thanks for joining us once again. I cannot wait to meet you right back again here next week in the same place. In the meantime, look after each other and you. The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast is produced by the incredibly talented and handsome team at Snack Labs, Mr. Brian Seaver, Mr. Taylor McGilvery, and the infamous Jeremy Saunders. The soundtracks that you hear at the beginning of every episode

were created by Donovan Morgan. Our executive producer is Marty Piller. Our PR big shooters are Des Veneau and Barry Cohen. Our agent, my manager, Jeff Lowness from the Talent Bureau. And emotional support, of course, is provided by, relatively speaking, our children. For the record, I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice.

The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and maybe even a little bit of hope. I'm going to go. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.