 Wonderful. Welcome everybody and this is one of the AIN big topics, time calls at Jackson, and it's my pleasure to be introducing Jeannie Lambin who will take us through this afternoon or evening or morning. I know that there are people for each of those being an accurate description of their time of day to all of you. So Jeannie let me hand over to you to introduce yourself and introduce the session. Wonderful. Welcome everybody. I would like to, I'm just so glad that you can be here for the celebration of the 2070 anniversary of the International Museum of Applied Improvisation. And so as part of the celebration we thought it would be a really interesting thing to do to recreate the experience of a Zoom chat. Many of you because our lives have been extended remember the early days of the AIN where we spent a lot of time first in an actual room together and then in virtual rooms. And so for those of you that haven't had that experience we thought it would be just a good thing to recreate. So I'm so glad that you're all here. Hopefully our technology is working for everybody. And we're just going to spend some time together today talking about time because it's something that we all have and that we all share and it's the basis of so much of what we do. So welcome everyone. And with that I'd love to start with an introduction of yourself. I know for some of you you might not have checked in in a while, but 2070 just tell us your name and where you're calling from. Well I'm delighted to have survived till 2070. I don't think I'd get as far as half past eight. My name is Paul Z Jackson. I'm calling from a satellite of London floating just a mile or two above the city. Just unmute if you feel it's your turn and jump in. Hello I'm Kay. I'm calling to you from the international settlement on Mars. And Mars. I am David. I'm 95 years old and I just returned to where I lived back what year was that 2020 a city called Bellingham Washington that's north of Seattle. And we might be at it like two million people now. Hi I'm Erica. You can see I can barely talk but it's gonna really fun 50 years. And there are many of me. There are many many of me and I'm enjoying being with all of you all at once. My name is Ed Greenberg. I used to live on the coast of California in Southern California. I'm now in a underwater domed city in Southern California. Wonderful. Hey I'm Lisa. Oh go ahead. No you go ahead. No you go ahead. No you go ahead. No you go ahead. No you go ahead. Hey so I am on the hyperbubble. I'm so excited man. Finally after all these years we did a hyperbubble on the rings of Saturn and it's going amazingly and so smooth and so awesome and sparkly. I can't believe we're actually doing this. Hi I'm Barbara and I am I'm calling from Baja Mexico and it's this amazing ecosystem where we finally managed to find the balance between you know the the needs of the people and the creatures on the planet and the and the environment and you know it's amazing all as well. I hello everyone. I am Cristianne Frank. I feel like I'm about the age of 12 today and I am calling from a very serious headspace. Hi everyone I'm Chen Zhen from Beijing. So it's so interesting that we are at the time that everyone could stay at home and then doing the meditation or stay with closer with families together and cook together and have a very wonderful time together. So yeah. Anyone else? Hey everyone. Yeah I'm Hazel. I don't know if everyone's already been up. Yes hi everyone. I'm calling from the Polar Circle and in addition to the Lovely Museum of Applied Improv I'm also an avid fan of really old Macintosh computers right now. I'm calling from a 2009 MacBook Pro. I'm having a little trouble because Zoom of course is a little bit younger even though that also is 50 years old by now but it's really lovely to see you all and yeah. I have a good collection. If someone visits the Polar Circle at some point you can look at my really really old antique Macintoshes. Hi everybody. I'm Toby and my camera is working. I'm just not visible anymore. So yeah that happened to some of us. It's been quite the few decades. It's really sad when people didn't make it and it wasn't there. There were people that were really advanced in applied improvisation but they just didn't have any in the urban areas and well we know what happened to them. I'm very lucky. I live on a backboard of the Atlantic and in our biosphere here we've been growing our own food and using applied improvisation to make decisions to run our community and it's pretty awesome. Oh there's a dolphin right there. Okay. Great to be here. Hi everyone. This is Yvette. I'm really excited that you're all here with us. I've been in the future for quite some time as a futurist so I'm super excited that y'all have joined me here as well. I'm looking forward to the session today. Thanks. Believe that's everybody. Thank you everybody and I am calling from the Museum Tute which is a museum in an institute and inspired by kind of the Silicon Valley model which we can you know have more conversations about whether or not that was a good one to follow but it's an idea of putting people with like interest together in kind of a museum institute landscape type of environment. So I'm thrilled that you're all here and I'm just going to pause a moment and take off the future hat and come to the present and just ask how was that experience of introducing yourself at a future point in time and just jump in with whoever wants to begin. It was fun. It was fun. And what was fun about it? Just the unexpectedness of it and then suddenly jumping in with oh okay say something and yeah and just said the first thing that came into my head. Wonderful. So saying the first thing that kind of came to mind. Yeah right. Other experiences. I enjoyed doing it. I was particularly impressed that sorry I was particularly impressed that Erica has actually gone to another planet as we can see with her background there. Yeah and Erica you wrote that it was a little intimidating to come up with something that made sense and yeah yeah yeah and other experiences. Hi go ahead. I was gonna say I was noticing that as it went along the inventiveness went up like we were giving each other permission to be creative and silly. Yeah. So permission to be creative and silly and learning from one another's inventiveness. Yeah I would maybe add also that yes a little bit intimidating maybe because there was a I had issues with the technology and then I realized I ran out of tea and then I'm trying to listen to everyone and I'm like shit I'm up. Where do I press? I have to say something. So it was a little bit of also I have a deadline today so this is probably not what I should be doing but I really wanted to. So I have that you should be you know whatever so I was trying to focus and be interesting also that's always a winner. It was fun. It's a very interesting experience for me that I listen to everyone's they are timing that talking about like a hazard talk about a Macintosh or someone else talk about something. So I didn't realize these rules because I'm late to come but my brain started working like okay is everyone telling the truth or not which is very fascinating to me. Now I know the answer. Yeah so wondering if everyone is telling the truth and kind of what are the rules of the game. Yeah I liked that it propelled me into hopes that I had for the future. So I imagined what I would like to see at that time other than maybe being alive with you know new techniques to you know make that functional but yes I appreciated imagining what was important to me about thinking forward. So yeah so getting access to a more hopeful mindset and then also thinking about kind of what it is in that future that you would like to see. Yes. Right other experiences. Even I just didn't do this but my brain started imagining what would happen like a several months later when we are come my life come back to normal. That's very wonderful imagination for me. Yes yeah yeah especially with everything going on right now yeah so this point so maybe your you know hopeful future could be just a few months from now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any other thoughts or experiences. Hey yeah I love the dolphin that was unexpected. Yeah yeah a lot of what everyone's saying like it was fine but I felt pressure which is interesting. Yes. You know I was like oh well you know I don't have to be that present you know this is just you know this is just an AIN call right. Yeah yeah and I'm not really ready for anything you know and it's like oh wait I have to and then you know I there was a moment where I was like I love of course this is an AIN call like we can just do this right. Yeah I love this group that we could just do this and try it out and just not explain a lot and just do it. I also you know I would love to go on and on and on thinking about that future world but for me it I couldn't think about it you know a week doesn't go by when I don't think about it. So I yeah I had a real mixture you know I think that human technology's human abilities and like we get to develop with applied information will be what what provides any kind of happiness for future humans but I also know that you know disparities and unfairness will will get even more unfair so I just it was like a real mixture of emotion. Yeah and talking about thank you Toby and I think that's a nice transition to the couple things and one is kind of the with the intentionality of the brief you know sometimes I think that there can be like okay you need to do this and you do this but also leaving a more open prompt you know what are the things that people self-organize then according to that prompt and I think it's a really interesting metaphor for how we might imagine the future so you know some of us want what we think about it to make sense. Some of us want to show up intelligently or in a certain way or some of us really want to connect to hope and to something that's different than what is going on and there were ideas of representations of self of representations of the world of very specific things related to the objects that currently populate our lives to you know these ideas of things that we might want or hope or fear that might come to pass and so interestingly in improv all those things are constantly happening all the time you know we're constantly invited to respond even though we don't know necessarily where it will go or what will happen we make rules for ourselves about that and we still show up and come up with something and that's ultimately what's going to happen with the future is that we will have to show up for it if we're lucky because we'll be in it and you know we can be then more intentional about the thoughts imaginings and things like that we have and that's an amazing ability that our brain has so any other thoughts on the future before we transition to kind of the overview and next part? I just wanted to add that when you arrived with your future hat and said the words like welcome to the museum of like we're in the year 2017 the museum applied improv for me I was a little how should I say I went off in a different direction maybe because for quite a few years I've actually tried to combine those things because I work in future studies and I'm doing improv more and more applied but more also like performance improv and I've been trying to find people who are sort of nerdy enough about the future to actually want to take like real scenarios into improv work so just the fact that you said that one sentence I'm like oh yeah so yeah I sort of was a little my focus for for coming up with something interesting next was was a little off but I'm really happy yeah. Interestingly there's apparently many people who are either fortunate or not fortunate and not having a lot of internal monologuing and the thing I love about these exercises is when people report out kind of their thought bubble you know and what's happening and that's um that's always a delight to be a part of that wonderful um any other thoughts uh there's some chat things uh yes yeah thank you so paul is uh kind of capturing some of the lovely points that people have made and I'm just going to scroll and thank you for that hazel and see if there's um any and event uh yes there is definitely a lot of trust in this group and I'm so glad that you're here um avet and I just started working together uh as of well officially on Monday and so I'm thrilled that uh she was able to join us and um if you have any questions about the future that is the person to ask and it sounds like hazel as well um and so yeah so um the future name may may I interrupt for just a moment please please do the person the person who is um future studies person yeah what is her name I'm very curious to know a little more about that at some point great yeah well there's two there's hazel and avet so um dude either of you just want to give a a little introduction um since uh you're newer to this and also maria if you um uh want to pop into the chat or uh come on voice that's um that's great as well yeah hi tazel I I'm wondering what to say so I've been working in and around uh the field of future studies for 10 years and technologies everywhere um I have done very little um individual research but I'm working with researchers and I run the finished society for future studies so I'm aware of all the stuff that's happening and and um I see especially for for workshops for having people think about the future improve and any kind of creative processes but specifically applied improve and and drama techniques are really really valuable because like I I love that you mentioned already like this safe thing of like being a safe space and trust um I think especially in countries like I'm in Finland and here people find it really um difficult to jump in and start pretending there's someone else and and envisioning the future because we usually think like well this is how it's been and then it's going to just go on um in the same way with more gadgets so the fact that improv can can first create that space where you can say silly things and it's okay to make mistakes in that sense um and then only after that can you start working with people to talk about what's possible outside of the realm of our everyday lives and um yeah so I've really been wanting to start some sort of project to combine them both with performances but also with really applied stuff and so yeah I guess we can share or you have also information um our contacts after the this session if people want to email or something like that yeah if you want your contact info shared uh just um put it in the your in the chat and then I'll be sending out a follow-up um email and just like a housekeeping thing um I'll be sending in the follow-up some useful resources and links related to kind of time perception and um and some of the background research that's been informing this work recently um at some point might not be immediately great thank you in some time yes in some time yes exactly um I I thought that was a great perspective hazel and um I I would say yes and as my experience and um in this arena has just begun in terms of improvisation so I've been in the foresight field for about 10 years I started off as disney's futurist and started a group there focused on the focus of the future of work and that's where I met my now business partner frank spencer and together we own a firm named kedge and we started an offering called the futures school which um really drives our mission of democratizing the future and democratizing the field of foresight we really believe if everybody thought like a futurist the world would be a better place so um as gene said we have the privilege of having her join our team this week and uh so we're really excited about the intersection of these fields and just see so much potential uh and really like you said opening people's vistas for the future and letting them let down their guard about what's possible um both you know the the maybe the dystopic view but hopefully also the more optimistic and transformative view which is how our firm leads um so um so yeah so that's a little bit about uh my um sort of experience in foresight my business partner frank spencer has a master's degree in strategic foresight so um so we lean on his um academic expertise heavily um and we've had the privilege to work with a lot of organizations and individuals across the globe for the last 10 years so we love it it's exciting it's fun um and you know we're always trying to invent new things so um thanks for uh for asking great thank you for for those so for those introductions and ed also thank you for that prompt of um inquiry um and wanting to know a bit more and um great and I see the contacts popping up and we've had a couple more uh people that have joined uh we have julian i believe he is calling in from paris and uh we have um marius um from norway and then um i think those are the new people that uh have popped into the call and so one of the reasons and this is a this build on what was said so one of the reasons why i personally became interested in kind of time and experience was my background is in archaeology and anthropology and historic preservation and when i was working as an archaeologist i did a lot of surveys for kind of like highway development and things like that so it wasn't you know the very exciting you know finding all sorts of valuable artifacts kind of mode but i was at one point um on on a survey project and i was in the middle of this field and there was a no insight there and i was looking for it and um i i you know we weren't finding it and all of a sudden i kind of looked down and there right at my feet was this amazing archaic projectile point you might know it as an arrowhead but it was probably about 5 000 years old and i reached down and picked it up and it was just this like i felt like it was like the handshake of the infinite like at some point at some time this person had dropped this artifact and then i was the first person possibly to pick it up um and hold it and you know what had happened in that space and all of a sudden the like the loops intertwined and there was that you know infinity connection and and then um you know i worked in historic preservation and one thing that i found interesting was that people seemed incapable of seeing a historic building or property in anything other than its um current state not some people but not all people but there were some people that no matter how much you talked about what was possible um that they couldn't imagine that and so i became really curious about the imagination for the future and why some people were much better at that and then what were the building blocks and then i came across an idea that we use the same part of our brain to remember the past as we do to imagine the future and so since i was in the business of memory um i thought holy crap i can help people find a lot of good stuff to use and that's kind of how the process started and so i want to share a quote related to that and this also builds on um what some others have said about kind of memory and the role of that and this is from a great book um mapping the mind um and it's on memorizing the future and um i'll just share this one component at first sight memory and imagination seem quite distinct the first is concerned after all with what has happened already whereas the second is all about what has not but recent studies show that imagination is wholly dependent on memory because memories are its building blocks when we imagine something happening we root around in our memory and come up with experiences which seem likely to occur then combine them chop them shake them and blend them until they come out as something apparently entirely different even the most phantasmorgic scenes derive from things that have already from things that have already occurred we simply can't invent something for which we do not already have the ingredients anymore than we can rustle up a dish made of things that we do not have in the larder which is in in in essence in many ways that is also improv where um we call upon our past our present and our imagination to create something in that so any thoughts on that uh before we move into another exercise i was actually typing but i realize i can't type and listen to your great quote at the same time when you mentioned that thing that people can't imagine um things or places in any other state than the current i just had a very vivid memory of of two places where i've been where it's sort of been a historic place and one was a very pleasant experience when it was very unpleasant but somehow those had enough of i don't know what it is memory or energy conserved in them they actually i could hear the past i could hear people sounds um one was a terrible place where there was a mass had been a massacre and one was just um like a marketplace and both were one was from the hot up on age like nine thousand years ago and um yeah it doesn't always happen but sometimes it does and i it will be great for me at least we've tried to do these exercises where we get a map and we actually go out into the actual city or whatever it is the space and there we imagine because there you don't just sit in at the table and and draw papers about the future you actually go out and you're like okay what could be here um which i think is sort of the other way of of doing it than uh archaeology i suppose you actually have the other side yeah wonderful yeah um thanks for all this um just i'm walking in the wood so i'm sharing beauty with you as we speak um you know jean i've known you for so long and i i've known your work but i've never actually made this connection between our work so when i did my doctoral research my research was on collective memory and how it impacted conflict and people's perceptions of conflict and the first line of my dissertation was a quote from George Santiana who said those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it and i kind of turned it and i said well sometimes when we do know our history we're doomed to repeat it so i just want to kind of honor this connection between past and future and uh amazing that we've never kind of found that point before yeah and and it's in and there's i mean what i love about these calls is that there's so many connections and then to add the time later too is that there's this really interesting thing that we're all here at the same time but it's all a different time for us literally and emotionally and um cognitively and kind of you know where we are in the season of our life so there's this you know this beautiful multiplicity that often exists in these experiences um oh this it's so hard to just not let my you know idea monkey um just go nuts um and just okay we're gonna but anyway i'm gonna keep on track um if uh so any other thoughts on kind of the connections between time and story and place um people um and julian had um uh uh talked about the um the links to storytelling and that um the retelling of the past um stories will help listeners shape their future absolutely and a fascinating thing about memory as some of you may know is that our memory of an experience doesn't exist in just like one solid beautiful little chunk in our brain like a shelf full of books in a library that um our memories are dispersed and so when we remember we're actually calling upon um that memory to be gathered and collected and so that's why when once you start remembering oftentimes you bump into all these other memories that are kind of in that place because they're they're kind of all meshed together so this is an exercise to kind of get at that so does everyone kind of have a pen and paper handy okay and if not i will give you a moment to gather one okay and then let's see um oh great and yes hazel let us know that world future day is march first um which is fantastic 24 hours of talking about the future in all time zones all over the world um what day of the week is that that is that would be a great day to have a a quest um an asynchronous quest um ideas okay um and then uh paul that remembering uh just doing a great job of uh transcribing relevant and or maybe points from the conversation great okay so if everyone has their um writing implements um this is an exercise that was inspired by linda berry for those of you that don't know linda berry's work she's uh does graphic novels and then she also has a writing and creativity class which is absolutely amazing and her work is absolutely compelling thoughtful delves a lot into the intersection intersection of memory place and time and it's just um it's incredible stuff and i will provide a link to that in the in the webinar notes but so this exercise is based on that so what we're going to do is in the first part we're going to kind of do a little memory gathering so we're just going to start with some objects then kind of build the room around that and then the exercise will build um from there so i'll give the kind of prompts to kind of build and scaffold that as we go does that sound okay to everybody great wonderful okay and um and then uh cheng said that maybe the innovation from the past uh as the new thoughts i'll connect with things which already exist yes beautiful um yeah there are these um and that connects to what hazel said about the sounds of the past that i think um i think that material life has a lot of life and connection so wonderful okay so if everyone would just take a moment um and we're going to uh choose a table and so if you would just make a list um and there's no you know optimal number but just take a uh about 30 seconds and just make a list of all the tables that you've known in your life so you know the table in you know your apartment now uh the table in your office uh the table that was in the kitchen of your aunt um that you loved visiting when you were growing up um a table in a um you know a classroom wherever whatever table there's no um any table is fair game okay and about 15 more seconds okay and then wrap up with whatever tables appeared great and did everybody find some tables in their memory okay excellent and um so what we're going to do now is we're going to spend a little time with one of those tables and we'll be kind of building the memory out around that table so if you have a particular table that you would like to spend more time with um you can select one if you would like to kind of just approach it with a little more um curiosity and just randomly close your eyes and put your hand on the page to pick a table um that's fine too and then also just if there's a table that has appeared from your memory archive that um might be a bit more emotionally laden or charged we will be spending a little bit more time so just as long as you're um you know comfortable with spending time with that table and perhaps even telling us a little bit about it um that's okay but just you know we will be talking about the tables so one manage one's own comfort with uh disclosure um in that okay so um so everybody just uh does everybody have a table great wonderful okay now just um I'm going to invite everybody to close their eyes and if you are more comfortable turning off your screen uh so that um people aren't peering at you with your eyes closed that's great too and I'm going to invite you to a series of prompts to spend um to build out that memory of the place of it and just take a couple deep breaths and now that you're with your table just take a moment to look around and picture that in your mind's eye imagining where you are and are you doing anything maybe you're sitting or standing or just present in the room and looking at the table what is its shape its texture is it bigger or smaller than you remembered it if it's in a room where is it in the room what is above you what is behind you is there anyone else in the room with you can you tell from the light what time of day it is how old are you do you know what time of year it is why are you there what is there in the room or on the table that you are curious about or interested in and now take a moment to look around the space once more to look at the table you can even imagine putting your hand on it thank your memories for appearing and whenever you're ready open your eyes and turn back on your video if you're so inclined welcome back to the present and how was that experience I'd see if I can talk uh it was like a combination of you know it definitely brought me to a specific memory and then I really felt this back and forth between sometimes feeling like information was surprising me like oh I didn't remember and like it was oh like a real discovery like you said of things bumping around mm-hmm I was like sometimes doing that but then other times I could watching my brain like going and running around and trying to figure things out and be like well there would have been a bunk bed yeah I think I remember the bunk bed and just totally fabricating you know I could totally see that process of fabrication also like attempting to happen they're both I felt like there were two different responses going on at the same time and then there was an emotion at the same time of just sort of what it felt you know what the memory was there yeah and with that Erica there's uh I I appreciate that and there's something that's called kind of that some people call a time signature which is kind of how you experience time so it's the experience of the time the patterns you recognize with time the larger world in which that time exists and so it's interesting to hear that reflection of kind of in some ways that experience of kind of the the kind of visceral emotional embodied experience of time and then the kind of more observational and perhaps even kind of analytical yeah and then a third one of where I really would just have these pop-ups of memories like on the underside of that table look like and I I wasn't hunting for that it was it it was like that felt authentic like a little like you described like something that was sort of stored in there somewhere that I wouldn't have found otherwise yeah yeah I mean we have there's an amazing storage bin like right here so um great other other thoughts or experiences I have to say that um I thought it was lovely first of all thank you very much and I'd have to say for me I was very aware that in this exercise that it's a lot easier for me to listen to someone else than to take myself through that guided imagery and you know that's a skill set I would like to be able to turn and mirror on myself um so it's kind of like a personal statement um um because as you walked me through that I could smell things I could feel textures but it's almost as if I have to hear it from another voice um a little confusing is because I would like to be able to initiate that on my own um and I have tried in the past but it's not such it's not so impactful as when I listen to someone else speaking thank you Cristiana and yes I think that sometimes um that that guided process of having the prompts um provided um and I'm happy to kind of provide the basic script or um in in time I can also um one of the things that I want to do is make a voice recording so that this can just be accessible and also for doing it with my own work of doing that so I will put that on the list if that would be helpful great thank you wonderful yes and having that guide is a very apt metaphor as well of someone to kind of help us walk through our experience sometimes other thoughts or experiences I've done this um many times not this exactly but um an exercise where in pairs you describe like a childhood room or like a bedroom or a room that you know very well and then because you're actually moving your body and you're showing like okay here's the bed and you know here are the curtains and then when the other person is actually prompted um by the teacher before to ask more questions there's usually a lot of details that come out and some sort of bonding is like oh I had that same thing or um and um so this was a little similar but it was interesting because I haven't really been to this room it was a room I uh or table that I I stayed when I was 14 just for one year and it was interesting because I even before you asked about the time of day or the season I saw them through the window so then when you asked it was like of course I don't even have to imagine because I already because it was the light that came to the table and I knew that it was like late afternoon in November or something like that so yeah it was a really nice exercise and I some some things I I felt bad for not being able to see I was like okay there's the whole blurry area I don't know what's there in the room but then I saw a very specific like a pen that I was a little surprised that I remembered so yeah very nice exercise yeah and in the blurry area of information that's not there there's a writer Jasper 40 who does uh speculative fiction and uh he um talks there's an ability of people to go back in time and look at their memories but if you go back in the space you actually have the ability to really look at it and parts of it are missing because the way our brain works we automatically kind of knit things together even if we don't have the information so part of the intentionality of working this muscle is you know looking back to the past where we can really kind of dig in and see and then forward casting that to you know the present like how can we be more attuned to what's now and then also imagining um you know what we can do with that information other experiences Julian yes can you hear me yeah yeah so I was um it's funny how when you said table I saw the the material the wood and uh it's like a zoomed in vision of the actual table is very close to it and then when I zoomed out um and you said oh if it's a very emotional you know just feel comfortable uh but it was a very happy memory that I stole the way and I couldn't I hadn't accessed it in in years actually so I was felt very emotional just thinking about that it's just a very simple childhood memory with my dad uh I was just sitting at the table um uh lunching with him when I was very small every day I would go home for lunch and I was very uh lucky in that respect and it's funny how I was trying to rebuild all the little details because I I know it was lunch I can't remember the exact shapes and colors and things on the table but I know about one or two things because it's part of the memory and how much we laughed that day uh for a very stupid stupid reason and uh so it's funny how it's linked for me it's very strongly attached to emotions you know when I was uh whether when we were selecting the tables it always linked to a very strong emotional episode happy or or sad but um yeah so for me it's definitely linked to that so wonderful so recalling and then also re-experiencing that kind of happy emotion and something small that hadn't been remembered um for a long time yeah wonderful any other um thoughts before we go on to the next uh quick exercise and then we have to sadly wrap up yeah so yeah how about you go ahead no you go ahead okay go ahead okay uh when you were talking about the table uh I immediately uh thought about the my my school time so we have lots of tables over there and it's really strong emotional attached to that table and uh uh there is a thing about uh if you hate or you dislike or if you love and that memory just remain your your hyper uh campus like the core of the brain so it's like two-sided brain so you can hate or either like it so you really really clearly to to it's like a hot uh photoshop it's like a photoshop it's just stay over there yeah right so yeah it's it's it's it's it's something you can dig out because it's not uh it's not a short-term memory it's non-term memory you can never forget in your lifetime yeah yeah yeah and and yes that we have a lifetime of memories that accompany us and sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes it can be challenging and usually it's a blend of the two yeah wonderful I I just wanted to thank you for helping me uncover the source of my rebelliousness um so the the table that I imagined was the table that I grew up within my family home and I used to spend a lot of time under the table like making forts and just whatever you know as a kid and I will never forget the first time I saw that tag that says you know do not remove under penalty of law that is attached to so many pieces of furniture or whatever at least here in the US and I remember thinking well why like who'll find out like is there a camera how will they know if I if I tear it off and I was I remember so many times being under there like tempted to tear it off to see what would happen and so that's the memory that came was like this sort of provocation to rebel um so thank you for that that's great wonderful um this is this is um so any other thoughts or reflections and I want did want to share what Laurie said that um the her experience was mixed and kind of bittersweet I loved having the table show up in the first place I've had two to three traumatic brain injuries so I have trouble with my memory I love the prompts and appreciated the information that did come up makes you want to wander those halls more and yes and so this is in that's thank you Laurie that's um those halls are always there and that setting aside the time to kind of spend time with memories I think sometimes it's easy to take that process A for granted because it's accessible and then also for those of us that have had difficult or traumatic experiences or memories that then sometimes that process can be somewhat fearful or challenging so figuring out what that balance is of comfort with um spending time with memories in kind of a way of not with judgment or attachment but just that noticing of what appears with that um great um uh yes and uh christiana notes that our mood while trying to recall events at a later date can affect our ability to gather those memories back correct yes absolutely yes our current self um can influence how um we call upon our past self and um sadly we are running out of time because there's there's two other exercises that I will tell you that we're building on this and we won't have time to play because we're at the close to the close and there's just a closing part for you but um one is that um to build on uh that that christiana said is that one of the reasons why I think that um the accessing of memory is so important that we've all played word association and if you have an it's where you know one person says a word the next person says whatever word comes to mind and you keep going and what I really noticed with that is if I was the one to start the word that I started within the tone that I used profoundly impacted the words that followed so if I started with a dark or angry or negative word then what flowed from that was often dark and angry and negative and so in thinking about this in terms of then you know the scenes that would grow and build from that um oftentimes it had that cast so in calling these things into being you know what is the emotional attachment and core that we're putting on that and then how might that play out into the future so so the next um so a step so that's related to word association then the next step with this game would be that then we would build out the room of memory together um and I will ask our grandmaster uh paul is it okay if we um if we go over about five and a half minutes and with everyone on the call is it okay if we go um about five and a half minutes over it is the these causes scheduled for 90 minutes so you can oh my god it's like christmas 30 minutes over if anyone stays with you and I will wonderful oh this is so exciting oh my gosh okay all right I gotta calm down excellent okay but inside this is still happening in my brain okay so then we can go to the next step all right so um so the next step in this would be to build out the the memory palace so to speak and so with this um is um is it okay with everyone if we collectively build on one another's memory to create one shared room that we can all kind of walk around in together is that okay great okay so so the way it works it's a very simple extension of the yes and so someone will say you know there is a table um yes and um and then you you know recall something from your own experience and so um the idea is that we just populate the space in the way that it emerges so um that's basically the very loose prompt does that make sense to everybody and so you just name whatever it is that you saw in your room so it can be um people it can be the minutiae of you know like a door handle or um the time of year so we just yes and and go around and build out the room so um we'll start with it we'll just close our eyes for a moment take a breath and remember our room and our table or if you're outside and then come back and I would like to welcome you all to the space that we're going to create and if there's someone that would like to start please go ahead and you can just start with there is a table there is a table it's in a classroom at school yes and it's made out of cardboard on the table there is a very colorful ink uh pen that you can fill little cartridges in and um it's a body shop pen of plastic yes and there's a deck of cards on the table that are halfway out of the box yes and the room smells like it hasn't been used since yesterday yes and the floor is brown and tan square tiles yes and through the windows on the left hand side of the room I can see the trees outside yes and if you look far there's uh there are big mountains yes and the door to the room is open and it's a little warm outside yes and the floor is cold yes and there is a light the spring light coming in through the window yes and the ceiling is very high yes and there's a slight noise of a light bulb that's buzzing just by being on yes and you can hear the birds the voices come from the outside of the house yes and there's wallpaper on the walls which is sort of a bluish color and big big flowers yes and there is the map uh hand on the wall as well yes and there's a tv with tin foil for the antenna yes and there are two dozen empty boxes of tin foil next to the tv yes and there are termites in the wood in the floor yes so the map shows a military campaign route lovely yes and that is the room that we were all in and if you want to take a moment and just reflect on all the things that we saw in the room and then reflect on how that experience was to me there's a quality to the silence that we're sharing right now and that we were sharing during the exercise yes and i'm not sure i have any more words in the spirit of short turn taking i'll leave it at that i love that silence followed the remark about silence word i was thinking of about the exercise and toby's comment was sweet it was just thinking that if we were each listing an object sort of as bullet points it would have been harder to remember but because we had a rumor of visualizing i'm wondering if it was easier for me to remember because i was thinking of the relationship between things so contemplating if it was easier to remember because we were we had this space that we were recalling um and then the relationships were easier to kind of pull together then maybe relationships and at least for me personally visualizing it helps great i feel like walking us through our own specific visualization first you know and really feeling it and sensing that made it a lot easier to yes and other other ideas um incorporate those on like a really thoughtful as opposed to just other yes and games i've played where you're going back and forth and it's real easy it's almost like that word association this one more heartfelt um i hate to do this i have to go um but thank you very much thank you for joining it was so nice to see you yeah and so and this is you know now people are leaving a room and it's sad but other yes uh yeah julian reminding of invocation which is a very um a great game on kind of calling to objects into into life and spaces um other thoughts or experiences on that uh i got like three things or three spaces uh or time spaces in my head one is my past memory another at the present with everyone we're connecting like uh connecting with each other thoughts another something i really want to see sometimes i mix them together sometimes uh i'll tend to forget the future what i want to see i forget the past so i have to stay with everyone just the present so it's something like a really interesting three things happening like that was beautifully put and um i think um the uh i have three time spaces in my heart um would be a great um t-shirt yeah i'm putting that on my list other experiences from me i had a moment sort of towards the end maybe 80 percent of after we did 80 percent of the of the descriptions because i somehow understood that we were to add of course this is rule setting probably on my own part but add things from our path the the previous really uh imagined room or remembered room so i picked whatever i said actually had been in the room that i had just previously imagined but then i was like wait these people are now playing another game and like i'm pretty sure there wasn't tinfoil and the boxes and so suddenly i'm like oh this is a new thing and then we already ended so i i sort of yeah it was an interesting switch where i i thought i knew what was happening and then people started playing and i got a little a little later than some people yeah yeah yeah and yeah that thought that you knew what was happening and then something switched and it's like is this still the same um thing yeah but it was a really nice sort of i just noticed going like oh this is what we're doing now so when it went from adding to playing yeah yeah and and so what and i want to so i'll have a question related to that but i want to hear um other uh any other thoughts or reflections i really liked my journey to you know that you let us on and i like hearing other people's journeys and i like like the first five offers of the shared one or maybe 10 but then i then i like lost my investment in it you know because it was sort of cluttering up and it was like everything they're going in different directions and it just it like i i thought it felt like it lost its poignancy like i was willing to have poignancy in an imaginary room for a while but not 30 different rooms all mashed again just i lost my um investment in it yes yeah so the um the so building aligned in some ways with hazel's comment about kind of you know the the shift and then where does one kind of remain engaged in the world that's being built or where does one kind of have a different experience of the world that's being built um yeah yeah maybe because i was primed for like the poignancy of the first activity and that's why i was you know hearing it through at first yeah yeah yeah helpful note other other experiences yeah one thing i noticed something you said erica made me think of this that i didn't experience any blocking there weren't any contradictory offers uh negating someone else's offer they all in my mind at least fit together so yeah so there there wasn't negation or blocking and all the offers fit together or yeah fit together great it felt like it felt like dream like a little bit definitely more than the memory because there were these weird elements coming from different perspectives and i was like oh uh almost like a magical land where there was these objects together and slowly being revealed to everyone and i like the feeling it's definitely something that can't be created on on one's own so it was a really cool shared like any shared experience you know group shared experience it's something very unique in terms of what comes up in your imagination how you picture things because you know the pen that was there i i see it in my mind probably not the same as any you know other members of this group so it's kind of a it's different for everyone but it's also collective so it's it's very interesting yeah and in in storytelling i kind of call that the specific universal or the universal specific that we all have our experiences of pens and tables and love and loss and hope but our you know we have a shared idea of what those might be but then our each the specifics of our detail you know of that are all unique and so with this exercise how many of you had kind of stories emerge about the table um that presented itself oh definitely yeah and so with the stories that emerge with that were there times in the recreation of the room where there was a moment of like that's not how the story went or that's not what happened or you thought oh that makes me think of something else that i hadn't thought of yeah second thoughts yes yeah second thoughts yeah so this is um so this game could be played either calling upon past memories dealing you know then or you could you know recreate a room in the present especially if you're in a virtual space you know by inviting everybody to describe something that's in their present environment um that um and so as a way to kind of build a shared community in a virtual space of you know how we're experiencing it and what we see out the window and oh i didn't know you know um there were mountains visible from the window and then you could also do this for the future so what is a room that we would like to be in so if we went back to that self that we introduced ourselves as at the beginning um what would it be like to run through that exercise and to visit that space and to kind of imagine those tangible aspects of it of you know what the room feels like um what's in the room um who might be in the room what time of year it is um and all those things so there's all sorts of different ways to kind of move the time lens with that exercise and kind of play with the intentionality of it and um and then also with that there's the um there's the stories that we all carry with us and um we didn't do a whole lot of storytelling um today um and i'm happy to talk more about that and do a future one but one of the things with kind of bringing out stories related to memory is that you know sometimes those can be um emotional experiences or different things can appear which is all there's no um and i wanted to make sure that we had enough time to kind of do um to honor those stories that would appear in a careful and intentional way and so this was kind of part one of you know here's the thing and so i'll pause for a second with any thoughts or reflections and then launch into the final bracket of that hello this is Ed Greenberg again can you hear me yeah hi Ed hi so i have to get off unfortunately i have to uh lead for today uh but i just want to share with everyone thank you so much for this last night i was at an event in los angeles which was the world premiere not the world premiere but the premiere of a brand new movie about uh the rwandan genocide and it was so powerful and there were people there from the show foundation and genocide survivors and the fact that that happened last night and this was this morning it was so um much a part of my experience from last night and and i'll just say that the value of this work for resilience and healing and the need to remember is um this has been a very powerful morning after the panel and film from last night thank you thank you Ed yeah that's lovely um and and i and i um i think ed said it so beautifully and that our memories are so powerful and can be um generative and kind and um they can be bridges to help us be in the now and then also to imagine a future and so being intentional with that amazing ability that we have to constantly move backward forward um in the um in the time kind of horizon is an amazing and powerful capacity that we have any other thoughts or reflections yes i towards the end of the our story i was noticing that there were no people i don't think there were any people in the room and just that and just the texture of the space got me thinking well where are the people there used to be people in the room and they're gone why are they gone what happened to them so i was thinking about that as well yeah yeah it's interesting that no one showed up in our room um yeah and in this in this is the interesting thing where you can observe i mean it's it's this fascinating thing where you can be in and then observe and all of that yeah any other thoughts or reflections well to me it did feel abandoned because no one mentioned the the people and then there was well no one had been there for one day and there was a map with some uh some more things which is a little odd because it did feel like a classroom for some reason but they had all left they'd gone it was a little yeah do we want to invite our people into the room and so we can leave them there to um to hang out um should we just invite our person by name that we would like to uh if they would like to be in the space i imagined we were all in the room together so it wasn't empty we were all there uh but yes let's uh add more people as we want i i definitely had the feeling it was so strong and i realized that it it could have just been me but from early on i had the feeling like all of us were one like this was one brain seeing and we as one person were waiting for this awesome other person to arrive um there was something about the the playing cards like i had this expectation like oh goodie they're gonna get here and this like cool magical thing's gonna happen yeah yeah and and so i think i love that that this magical thing is going to happen so with that um we were we're going to um draw to a close there's one final kind of meditation uh that we have and then i know paul has some announcements um and so before we launch into that i um i would love to um well i wouldn't love to i will i just thank you everybody for taking the time to show up and i really appreciate the uh care and curiosity and generosity that uh you all brought to this lovely virtual space and i know this will be a recording that will be stored in the archives of the uh international museum of applied improvisation in this recreated zoom space so i will turn it over to paul and then i'll then after that i'll do the closing um meditation thanks genie uh it will also be archived and available on the aim youtube channel more immediately um in a few days i imagine and um i will keep the chat because i'm not sure whether that appears or not in the archive but it may be useful to us on another occasion so that will be available in some form too um um the next events on a i n webinars are on monday the second of march which is a 60 minute social no agenda whatever emerges that will be hosted by susan shinko fishley then on the 19th of march thursday the 19th of march beth pointon is going to do a big topic medical improv state of the art and then there are two per month alternating 60 minute socials and big topics through the rest of the year but if you have others that you would like to host either a hosting people for a 60 minute chat or a specific topic that you'd like to present then do please email me and make that proposal the ones that i've mentioned are all at 4 p.m uk time and all of the big topics are at that time as that gives us the maximum spread around the world but the 60 minute socials are at the time proposed by the host of that social and they do range by at least 12 hours difference across different time zones through the year so that everyone has a chance to have something that's at the more convenient time for their area that will continue in the future as a policy of making them as available as possible along with the availability of the recordings so a few minutes left i'm going to hand that back to genie and when she finishes her meditation um we'll stay open for a couple more moments in case there are the comments or responses that people would like to make and then i'll stop the recording at that point genie back to you great thank you so much paul and thank you for your always amazing uh co-piloting it's fantastic to have you as a wingman um and i always enjoy um being with you in a virtual space and i look forward to seeing you in an actual one next month so thank you to paul and also just thank you for being the the one who makes all these webinars happen so with that um we're going to do one last closing meditation and then paul and i will hang out in case that are are there any questions so um you're welcome to close your eyes if that's comfortable for you or turn off your video or do whatever it takes um to get a little comfortable and give a moment for that and so i'm just going to run you through a little guided uh voice exercise um to leave um on the universe might have been created billions of years ago it might have been created five minutes ago and all the notions of time and space were embedded in the cosmos at its moment of creation whether the big bang happened five minutes ago or five billion years ago i know not but here's an idea what if all the stories and the memories in the universe were created at the same moment some are floating towards us and others hurtling away and these moments exquisite and infinite finite and mundane these memories these stories were all part of that moment what if part of our purpose here is to capture those stories before they go hurtling off into space because embedded in those stories of love and loss despair and hope are secrets that will sustain us in a complex and sometimes chaotic world now just remember dwell in the floating world and have at the liminal spaces of time gone by now remember a time where you felt great giant heart swelling hope maybe you were five maybe you were 50 maybe it was so long ago you can't remember it maybe it is now but remember inhabit the moment be in that space what is above you what is below you in front of you behind who is with you reach out grab that moment now fold it carefully what is a word a phrase a key to remember write it down carry it with you when you need it when you need hope take it out go to that space unfold your corner of the cosmos remember it share it and thank you and whenever you're ready you can come back to the room stay or sign off and I thank you thanks Jeannie I'm going to pause the record