Dependencies, Digital Roots & the Stories We Share: A conversation with Vibeke Mascini

In this winding, intimate dialogue, Vibeke and friends explore:

• The Politics of Sharing: When does transparency become vulnerability? "If everything is transparent, we see nothing"—how we curate privacy as an act of care.

• Tech’s Hidden Ancestry: From Star Trek’s American imagination to fungal networks—questioning "why my digital life feels like cultural assimilation."

• Rhizomatic Living: Relearning interdependence through Dutch "declarations of dependence" and octopus intelligence. "Independence is a lonely myth."

• Proverbs as Time Machines: How Igbo wisdom (via Achebe’s Arrow of God) reframes our relationship to clocks, ancestors, and each other.

Why It Stays With You:
A meditation on connection—between continents, centuries, and the stories we withhold or spill. "To be known is to be loved. To be transparent is to disappear."

Read Full Trascript

Vibeke Mascini: This is better?

Uzoma: Yeah

Sheila Chiamaka Chukwulozie: Wow, the Phoenix arises from the tube of toothpaste. All right. Oh, hi. This is the friend that I know, I was talking to another person for the last 5 minutes.

Vibeke: This is her speaking.

Sheila: This is actually speaking, wow Vibeke I have missed you. It's so nice to hear you voice.

Vibeke: It's a while ago.

Sheila: It's been too long, like why haven’t we spoken for that long?

Vibeke: And where are you now? where are you?

Sheila: I'm in Lagos.

Vibeke: You're in Lagos.

Sheila: Yeah.

Vibeke: And what about you Uzoma.

Uzoma: Yes. That's a good pronunciation. I am in Abuja.

Sheila: Which is the capital.

Vibeke: Where is that?

Uzoma: It’s also in Nigeria. Yeah. Well, so when like, nobody. Nobody's ever going to be like, Lagos Where's that?

Sheila: I know. I know. It's unfortunate.

Uzoma: It’s sad.

Sheila: But you gain a lot by like, also being not known, that peace of mind that you guys have there.

Uzoma: I like it.

Sheila: Like, what's the point of being known if you are just going to be known for being mad?

Uzoma: Yeah. Which is Lagos

Sheila: Vibeke, Can I ask you to please introduce yourself before or should we…Um, I feel like people who are listening would know that we're talking about time and ancestral time and yadaya, I’ll get back to this but first all, Vibeke can you just introduce yourself, like, you're introducing yourself to some new, you know, when people go like, after after work for drinks? That type of introduction

Vibeke: I guess that's the type of introduction I'm so happy to not have to engage in nowadays.

Sheila: I am sorry for bringing you back

Vibeke: But I should also, while saying that I should also add that I really enjoyed seeing on your website Uzoma l'm sorry. 100 times. That you have a part of your website where you introduce yourself as you would do at parties?

Uzoma: Yeah.

Vibeke: I like that. Also, it could get uncomfortable. No.

Uzoma: Yes.

Vibeke: Yeah, but actually, I don't think I find it very much.

Uzoma: I never know what to say. It's always a bit difficult.

Sheila: I think the reason I don't panic is because I think nobody really means it's when they ask, not that they don't mean it but they never want to know everything you do, they just want an in into a conversation.

Vibeke: Yeah. It’s true

Uzoma: I feel like that's what makes me little uncomfortable Sometimes it's like, how much do I give them? Where do I draw the line? So, you know,

Vibeke: Yeah, I think it's probably because it's such as a question of kindness. Supposedly, I think it's, I tend to go as soon as I can into being specific. So, into having a conversation that I'm not hearing myself echo having already 100,000 times. So, I will often, as soon as I can go into something that might depart from what I'm working on in in the grand, grander scheme of things. Just what I've been working on that day specifically or to scale things a bit down, I think that' …. leads to more interesting conversations.

Sheila: How did you get so quickly to I think that's like a matter of kindness? What made you think this thing is a matter of kindness?

Vibeke: Because it is a type of question that doesn’t. I don't think it's the type of questions to get a conversation going. Right. It's it's sort of a question that you're supposed to ask very often. So, I think that's what I mean by kind like one of the rulebooks a bit. Like a type of …

Sheila: Like a courtesy?

Vibeke: …a bit like, indeed, it would be a different type of. maybe asking the same question when you say, what are you curious about? But actually, that would lead to a different type of answer. But yeah, I don't know if I've yet dense myself around.

Uzoma: I like it. I like this as an introduction me personally.

Sheila: What are you curious about right?

Uzoma: Just Everything she’s said so far

Sheila: Because it’s only recently, well not recently, but like I think two years ago or last week or two years ago is recently, yes. But someone was getting so offended that people ask, what do you do? And I thought way is that such an offensive question like, she made it seem like people, when they ask what you do ask you to already sort of like, make judgments upon what you do like bad judgments about what you do, or they're trying to size you out. And I think it's only recently that I came to this, I understood that some people are always working with the idea that people are things to get to the bottom of, so when people say, oh, I can't, I can't understand you. It irks them or it scares them so deeply because they think the point of spending time with someone is to then get to the…like, what we call “see finish” like get to the bottom of them. And to do, I'm always like to do what with that bottom? Like, why do you want to finish the depth of someone that you've just met? Like? Don't you don't not want to get bored?

Uzoma: Yeah, sounds like familiarity and comfort.

Sheila: What do you mean? Say more.

Uzoma: Those are the minds like, you know, the mind the ego like those is, it's go-tos. It's all about staying safe and staying within the confines of what is known.

Sheila: Yeah.

Uzoma: So yeah, getting to the bottom of someone fits into that.

Sheila: It's true.

Uzoma: So, you have to challenge yourself to look beyond that.

Vibeke: And I think it also maybe, apart from the frame from that question. And the person who asks it's like, what do you do? It's also. it creates a frame of what can be answered. So, it's also sort of this strategy of like, what do we do? What do we consider important enough to mention?

Sheila: Yes.

Uzoma: Yes, that’s what I am saying.

Vibeke: And what is left out? Yeah,

Uzoma: Yeah.

Sheila: Yeah. But I think that's the question as well between like, what is difference between privacy and shame? Like, where's the thin line? where it's like, it's not that I'm ashamed. I'm just a private person, like people would say that, or when people go on Twitter to complain that people just over share, but it's like, for some people saying, oh, I've had a wonderful day at work is just right. Besides I am so excited about this round of sex, I'm about to have tonight as in they wear the same clothes. So, for them, if someone can share what kind of toothpaste that they use? Why can’t they share what kind of sexual positions that they like? Like, what is the thin line?

Vibeke: Is that leading towards the next question?

Sheila: No, that's a question. That's already the question in itself. Vibeke that's the question, I'm asking you and the world Answer me, please. Because I think so many people have this fear, I posted something about oversharing. And how like, some people complain about oversharing, when actually they under share. And then they have such deep resentment against people who just share at all, because they think they're holding so much in and waiting for someone to reward them for this version of like, keeping composure, and it never really feels rewarding, or it just feels is irritating that people are like, sharing their opinions. And people responded so much be like, yeah, I understand perfectly what this person is talking about. So, it seems like people are struggling with that concept of over and under, like, what is the place? And what is the time for this? Because I think that's the thing about oversharing. But yeah, anyway, that's my question.

Vibeke: Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't think it's really an answer to that question. If I can really even feel out the question so much, but I think it reminds me, let me say what it reminds me of, it reminds me of a conversation I've had in different shapes recently regarding transparency. And transparency relates to a sense of sharing in communications, or sharing socially, like what do you what do you keep private and what do you share for others to take part in? or to possibly judge? I've been having a conversation regarding transparency recently, in different shapes and forms or slightly different contexts. I mean, it's a term that is used politically very often, or in political context of being transparent and the idea that transparency is equal to honesty.

Sheila: Yes.

Vibeke: But I've had sort of simultaneously from transparency, being politically discussed, I had conversation with some friends the other day. And these are some friends who perhaps considered me the least sharing of them. And I have always very interesting conversations with them regarding that in one way or another, because they consider that to be in times to be offensive, in the worst times, to think that I would not share all myself with them. When actually I consider it even, to be respectful, up to a certain point. And that's sort of the short premise of the converse of that conversation. But it's been so interesting to me to think of transparency, because it's also so we use in language, but it's also such a visual reference for us. And lately in the, in the news, here, in the Netherlands, we had this, this little joke around transparency that as it was mentioned in politics, and there was a sentence which said, if everything is transparent, we can see nothing. So, there was, I like that sentence a lot.

Sheila: What do you think about the sentence?

Vibeke: When it comes to sharing, sharing parts of ourselves, for me, in terms of communication, I think we have a responsibility, even this very heavy word to use, perhaps immediately. But I think what we decide to filter is very important, what we decide to not share can be as important as what we share and I think we do, it can be a bit…I consider it to be to be a gesture of love, to not share everything.

Sheila: So interesting. Because, I mean, it's interesting on so many different levels, especially for me, my personal life is that, like, I've been with someone who does romantically, who I feel doesn't share what it necessary to be shared. But then I've also been with someone else who complained that I didn't share what was necessary to be shared. So, I just thought he's almost on the spectrum. And it's such a thin line between, there's never, I'm never just someone who shares this amount. I'm always someone who shares this amount in relation to someone else's expectation of what is a good amount of sharing, which is difficult, because then you don't, you can't really, you almost can't formularize it. Because as you were talking, I really wanted to hear you say, Okay, this is what I think is a good percent of sharing and like not sharing, but you're not going to answer that question for me. Because the amount of transparency you need to curate, and sort of like, harbor a really good relationship is really dependent on what the person, the other person feels they need to feel safe, because I think transparency maybe is about proving to someone that they're safe. Like, you're not. look, I'm so clear that you can see that I'm not trying to play you be it like you as a friend, you as a lover or you as a government, right.

Vibeke: That’s amazing.

Uzoma: We have been thinking about time, about ancestral time about what our notions of time have come to mean in the present day. So, we started off this project reading Chinua Achebe’s arrow of God in which he deeply narrates and catalogues the experiences of a precolonial Igbo community around the coming of the colonialists, missionaries, all those people and so we are very interested in the relationship between the time that they lived in, and how they experienced time and how they formed the recipe relationship to time through the linguistic technology of proverbs which we are thinking of it as. we're interested in the relationship between that time and the time we live in now. And what lessons we can sort of extract from their relationship to time that can help serve us in this present day. And Proverbs, I mentioned Proverbs, we’re interested in reframing proverbs as sort of like a device that can determine or help us understand our own time, the way they did. That’s a loose, high-level overview with many words.

Sheila: Also, just to give you some backstory, so like, in a way, how this kind of grew into what's it was, was I was telling Uzoma that I interviewed someone on another podcast that I do with my friends, and we were having a conversation about technology. And so, my friend asks, yeah, like, Where can I? How can I learn about, if I really want to learn about the beginning of technology? Can you link me to some stuff and then the person we were interviewing just goes, you know, what, just watch Star Trek? We were like, excuse me. And he was like, yeah. Just watch Star Trek. Star Trek is anything that has to do with technology that we're using currently probably has a seed from Star Trek. And a part of me just went like What the actual fuck as in. So, you're telling me that the creation story of most of the technology that we use now started from Star Trek, Star Trek? I mean, why it blew my mind was because I was like, Star Trek is such an American phenomenon. I'm sure there are people all over the world don't get me wrong that love Star Trek, but the breadth, the sweats of Star Trek is very American. And I was like, that means that everything that defines me digitally is steep in such a deep sense of Americanism and everything that defines me digitally is so close to defining me almost totally, because I don't go anywhere without my phone. I don't go anywhere, almost without my laptop, or my laptop is down, I feel like I'm down. There's just so many things about the digital world right now that makes my life recognizable as mine. So, in a way, I'm buying myself into an American identity.

Vibeke: But maybe that is quite a particular frame of looking at technology. Right? When I think when that answer of Star Trek to what is a history of technology, it's first of all, it's very short sighted in terms of, historically, to say technology started there in any way, when I think that the source of the word technology is so much, I think it even it refers to even a sense of artistry.

Sheila: Right. Right. So just to clarify, I think he was referring to this just to separate that, like, not technology in all its technology, but digital technology, as we know is today.

Vibeke: Yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean I understand. I think I I understand or at least I recognize a part of that answer, because there's some sense of the way we treat digital technologies, or, like, for instance, tools, devices that sometimes feel so much like a mimicry of an imagination, or the mimicry of science fiction, in the case of I think this was literally the case with Samsung. And I'm not sure if I remember it right, might have been an entirely different company, but a tech company who at some point admitted to have adopted the, or mimics the looks of the new pet they developed from A Space Odyssey you know, so to have those sources as inspiration for what is imagined to be the newest of the new which is then clearly …

Sheila: not so new after all

Vibeke: not so new after all. But yeah, I'm Really, I myself I'm so interested to think of also, or I get so excited when I realized that there's parts of modern day or contemporary technology that resonate with much older and unrelated, seemingly unrelated to Silicon Valley type of technology. And...

Sheila: Which ones have you found of recent?

Vibeke: Well, I mean, there's this sort of analogy made between the World Wide Web and what is called the worldwide what is this called? It's basically the spores of fungi. This sort of way Underground? Yes, it's sort of, you know, I don't know how it is over there. But fungi are like, a big thing. In conceptual art, conversations, theory, conversations around theory, in relation to fungi octopi, like they pop up almost daily.

Sheila: Is there a relationship between fungi and octopi?

Vibeke: I'm sure there is. But I cannot think of one immediately. But I mean, more like these are they become the sort of perfect analogies for things that we see around us. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For the other in relation to the the very…

Sheila: Center of the conversation.

Vibeke: Yeah, or this, you know, when we think of certain technology, it's almost It's incredible that it’s also mundane, in a way, because it's also so much part of our daily life. But then it's so….

Sheila: I think that's why octopi features so much because it's like, their ordinary is so extraordinary to us. That it’s like do you know that their eyes are literally their skin. So, if you're talking about normality, like these two balls that are concentrated are literally the skin of an entire creature. So obviously, we don't know the beginning and end of anything. That's basically what octopi serve.

Vibeke: You see, there they are, again, entering another conversation.

Sheila: Vibeke this was you, this as you.

Vibeke: It's true, I was their agent in this location.

Sheila: But you were saying something I think I stopped you when you were talking about how fungi and octopi like, Oh, yeah.

Vibeke: Yeah, how they come into being sort of, used as analogies for contemporary technology. That does spores of fungi, which I don't know exactly the English word for but that sort of structure that they build underground that can reach kilometers, I believe. And through which…

Sheila: Are they rhizomes?

Uzoma: They are rhizomatic

Vibeke: Yes.

Sheila: Yes.

Vibeke: And how through really, like, tiny synapse information is being communicated. And so, these type of I think there's certain excitement when and I think that has to do with the popularity of octopi and fungi, I'm sure. But there's certain excitement when you also find this natural analogy to something that seems so unnatural sometimes, right.

Sheila: I actually feel like the West because I learned about rhizomatic philosophies or thoughts from like, what are you going to lose? And I think that the Western world may be obsessed with that because I think in a way, the philosophy is almost a clarifying. It's bringing everyone, raising something to the pedestal of people's eyes. it's like, see what you think is beneath you, but actually should be on par, like at the same level with you. So, I think what it did was to bring to level how natural it is for a nonhierarchical way of thinking. I think what the rhizome did was to talk about the assembly line and the necessity of division of labor. Instead of turning division of labor into something that works against those on the line, it should be that like, Inevitable for people to work in different parts, like on different things. So, we need to find a system that encourages people to work as rhizomes and not discourages people from not working in a rhizomatic way because they only want to be the boss. But I think that's because the West is such a hierarchical society, there's so many monarchies, there's so much about organization turning things into the pyramid scheme of relevance that I think that idea of a fungus, something that is so collective, like taproots, sort of like pops up every now and then because people are like, well, I want to live like a village.

Vibeke: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's the in that sense, it is also the perfect other, or like, alternative to illustrate an alternative way of relating because it's so much about collaboration, right, and not a collaboration of hierarchies. But indeed, one that is so horizontal. And one of dependency of mutual dependency.

Sheila: Yes. Yes. How have you in your own personal space shifted, or maintained your relationship with dependency?

Vibeke: Shifted? You mean through time or recently?

Sheila: I mean, through time through time?

Vibeke: I think at some point, I don't know exactly at what point in time I started developing an old idea or an idea of not wanting to be dependent of anyone, or not so much, anyone, but I think there's definitely been a phase of my life that I really didn't want to be disappointed by expectations I put on other people and so I stopped expecting anything from people as an avoidance to be disappointed. But of course, that's like, just such a lonely process. And also, I think, because that also builds on an idea that you can be independent. And I don't think there's actually, I don't think that's realistic. I don't think that's doable. Let alone I don't think it's fun at all. So, I think when it comes to being dependent, like recently, there has been a project that I've seen in a Dutch writer she's been working on a statement or a declaration of dependence as sort of a contrasting declaration as we know it, in which she really states, you know, like how happy we should be for dependencies also. And how profound those connections are that if we acknowledge being dependent on for so many things on other people, be it for our own sense of happiness of health? Well-being? Yeah, I think it's not either, or, really, of course. But I think it's been an interesting conversation to at least to have a statement for dependency again. And I think that really aligned with a moment in time where I, myself also felt more and more comfortable with accepting dependency on others.

Sheila: Do you think that this has anything to do with or this is related to this conversation about sharing and transparency is that sometimes we don't want to share or be transparent because then people are going to know where we need help? And we don't want them to sort of like….so in that way you're saying almost, is it in line with what you're saying about protecting people almost by not everything transparent, making sure that some… because I feel like in it, the more transparency means that the more Something has the capacity to fall through. But sometimes we need something to hold us. But instead of lets us fall, like I'm thinking about the visual image of transparency, If I see something as transparent just makes me think of something that I can slide down. But if there's something like a cloud or a darkness, I feel like maybe I can be stopped, it means that there's an object there to hold me. So, do you think that your relationship with sharing has anything to do with your thoughts on dependence through time?

Vibeke: I'm sure they are related. And I think this, I mean, I could go into really diving deep into my own psychology here.

Sheila: Welcome.

Vibeke: But I'm not sure if I will do that right now. But I think there's also, I think, maybe to get back to the entering of transparency into this conversation again, I think there's one, I think transparency is a really interesting approach up to the point where it becomes very misguiding. In considering that everything can be made to be seen that if only you would lift the fogginess, you will see everything clearly. And I don't think that we can, that this world or this reality, allows for everything to be seen, nor that everything in our personal sphere can be laid there. I think there's a lot of incoherence in us that also transparency fights with a bit because transparency tries to also give a sense that you can be understood, in a way. Maybe I'm sort of floating a bit in my…

Sheila: Oh my god, you're floating, but I'm immersing, I'm just being roped into this conversation with all my soul, I don’t know why. But there's something so powerful about you making that statement that we really crave the neatness of thinking that there is a bottom to get to. But that's also part of why Uzoma and I are doing this project because one of the things we find about proverbs are their resolution is in the fact that you will never really understand why. you just understand the what’s. you understand that when it's this time, like you understand that a man doesn't do this. But when you start asking, why does a man do this, you're off in a different land. That's almost not your questions to answer for some things. It's the time we're all allowed to be diverse people. But there's certain moments where we have to recognize that if we want to say we are human beings, we have to agree that this is what this is. And I think that sometimes that centrifugal force to kind of like apply a law that you haven't calculated from beginning to end, like you don't know the burden of proof, but you feel that there is proof and it feels like a burden. Sometimes it's so it's both unifying and tragic. it's tragic, when it's something that you feel like you want to break out of, but you can't. But it's unifying when it just feels like sometimes, I don't want to have to like, explain myself, I just want everyone to understand that I am a human being who like has these desires. Like imagine people now asking, oh why do you have sexual desires? everybody has sexual desires. Everybody understands that. even if people grapple with their sexual desires in many different ways, people just understand what it means to like, feel this tug of electricity that makes you want to like, I don't know, exchange saliva with someone else. But I guess maybe we're now in a stage where we're saying that maybe not everyone does. Like if you think about people who say they're asexual or something.

Vibeke: I like how we ended up in this example, somehow.

Sheila: I think it's not very difficult for me to be very honest.

Vibeke: You'll take every opportunity you have.

Sheila: Every opportunity, sex is so interesting to me because like, I think it's something that you can never do away with, as you can never do it with the conversation about sex. So even if you want to be like, why are we still here? This is how life is formed?

Vibeke: Yes, I remember. Speaking of transparency, I remember asking as a child to my father saying, why do you have sex? And I didn't know what really sex was. Because I might have been like five or six. But just really before any sense of shame. I was just really like curious, like, why? Before even knowing what's like, why?

Sheila: Right? Exactly

Vibeke: And my father answered, Because I really like how it feels. And I mean, I remember that when I heard it then I already thought this, I don't know, but this is a bit dirty somehow. Maybe because you don't really hear your parents speak so much about what feels good and not.

Sheila: Yes.

Vibeke: That seems to belong to you as a child, you know, that reality of, I like to squish my hand in this dirty model or whatever.

Sheila: You're so right on that.

Vibeke: But it was a very honest and good answer.

Sheila: Is that what you would give your child if they asked like, is that the kind of answer you would give them?

Vibeke: Oh, God, I have no idea. I really have no idea how I would go about those types of challenges. What I also find funny is that I have no idea how friends who have kids how they do that.

Sheila: Why not? Like why is that something that you feel you can't see clearly?

Vibeke: I think it's a bit like certain things are very hard to predict how people will handle it. Like, for instance, it was strange, but like princess soap, or series on Netflix, I don't know, I can tell what type of people might like what movies, but series somehow, I cannot predict what someone will like, or how someone will respond to it. I don't know what it is.

Sheila: It's true.

Vibeke: But there's some level of that I have no idea how they will go about responding to those type of questions from their children. I don't

Sheila: Does it have to do with the question on series and movies, does It have to do with the length. And therefore, what happens in that length of time?

Vibeke: Maybe or maybe that people really watch series for different purposes, like some just for not thinking and just being sort of, you know, watching series for comfort for just being. I think the reason why friends are still so popular is just because it's sort of nostalgia and comfort, but it's also quite shocking how it has aged. But yeah.

Sheila: Shocking, in what way?

Vibeke: Well, in a way how it is, and it's been criticized also for how it is so fat shaming, slut shaming, homophobic, sexist, like, just all so wrong in so many ways.

Sheila: That's actually very interesting because I was watching Girlfriends. I don't know if you've seen Girlfriends, but I was watching Girlfriends and I just thought, God who can make this? Who can go on with this? Not I Jah Rastafari. But then it was so popular in its time. And same thing with friends. Like, even when I experienced those moments of fat shaming or slut shaming, I wince but I forgive it, because it was in its time. How do we deal, like how do we hold things accountable when like hand sides is only 20 or 2020?

Vibeke: But I think that's because you still continue watching that episode because that's not the reason why you're watching it. You're not watching it to be educated or you're not watching it to be critical. I think most people are watching that series to just be like, oh the time when stuff didn't seem complicated type of feeling.

Sheila: But isn't that connected? I mean, the same people who like would complain, or a lot of people now would complain that like, you know, I saw something on Twitter that scared me. But I think it relates to this in a way where someone said, if you date someone who is homophobic, you are homophobic. Like, there's no arguments about that. And a part of me, a big part of me resisted, because I felt like people date for, it's almost what you're saying now, people date series and people for different reasons, people could be dating someone because they actually needed a place to stay, people could be dating someone because they are trying to get over a really long relationship that they had and they just need any distraction, any distraction they'll take it even if they know that this person is homophobic and they've decided to almost block that part out. So, you guys, what do you think about those statements? And like, how does it feel? Or does it feel like relevant in this time? Does it feel like something that you guys feel you're encountering in this time? there's like…Yeah, let me just leave that question.,

Vibeke: Well, like you're saying something that could be answered by people who have their reasons. So, in terms of series or relationship, yeah, there's something you're getting out from it. And maybe that's not the entire picture. And maybe, as a bystander, you'll see, oh, other things sort of glaring up, but that's not the reason why people make that decision.

Sheila: Yeah.

Uzoma: Yeah.

Vibeke: Yeah.

Uzoma: I am inclined to agree.

Sheila: With Vibeke or with the tweet?

Uzoma: With her response.

Sheila: I was just thinking this conversation was making me feel like, if a relationship is a space, then it's also a time. So maybe that's not how I want to spend my time. Like right now. maybe my work is so much about criticizing, or like pointing out where homophobia lives or whatever. And then in my relationship, I actually don't want to spend my time watching a series and picking at it, I almost want to intentionally force myself to move it away and enjoy other things. Because where people may be so sensitive to these things that are happening, maybe they might not reach the other things that I want from this, which is…. even just nostalgia. I think sometimes in this day and age, I feel like there's a version of being nostalgic that feels very hypocritical, because what's in the past is so much of what we fought to, like get through.

Uzoma: To my mind that links to this question of like, looking back to look for and seeing being asked a lot more recently. A lot of people are saying, especially in the context of African features or, quote unquote, indigenous features whatever, the solutions to whatever we are trying to manifest lie in our ancestral history. But then, obviously, so much of that is so busy, that there's a lot to be, you know, even this project is premised upon that, but then, you know, there's a lot that. I feel like it's a question of balance, and I didn't know what do you think? How do you? Yeah, what I'm hearing you ask or what I am hearing you bring up is like, how do you look back to look forward? Or how do you bring to past into… where is the place of nostalgia in the present?

Sheila: Yeah, like, can you afford nostalgia when you're trying to be progressive?

Vibeke: Mm hmm. Yeah, that's, that's, that's such an interesting point. And I think I don't know. I think nostalgia might also be very cultural. Like, I think there's Definitely cultures that have a stronger need or place a bigger place for nostalgia, even in their music, even in there, you know, stories. But also, I think, in fact, in their experience, I mean, there's cultures, obviously that have very different relationships to the past. And, Yeah, I think at least in the West, I think there's a very big sort of fetish sometimes with the past and with the grandness of a certain time. And I think, what is so interesting, I think for me, I recently read this book by john Durham or this paper that he wrote, which is called marvelous clouds. And it's really a very intricate, very interesting exploration of the history of media and of also how, well maybe let me not try and summarize that project, because it's so complex. But one thing that he mentioned was that, for instance, sea creatures that live in the sea, such as whales, or such as dolphins, who we know to have such a deep sense of personality, culture. I mean, we don't know so much about this species, right. But we do have a sense of the complexity of different layers of their realities. But then He also expressed, you know, like in living in an environment that is liquid living in the ocean, there's such a different relation to anything of a past, because there's nothing that can be built of a structure that can stay. I mean, there's coral, obviously, but in relation to what he was mentioning, was specifically to these species, these whales that leave no structures, no buildings, no archives, the way that we relate to the past, often, or to our history as a species.

Sheila: That's so fascinating.

Vibeke: Yeah

Sheila: Making that leap of thoughts.

Vibeke: Well, and because he went into really describing, the only thing that you can store your information or your archives in as well would be your movement would be.

Sheila: Yes

Vibeke: Your jumps would be your communications, would be your pots, would be your community.

Sheila: I'm excited about this, because I just read an article in The New Yorker about like, animals’ navigation, and it was finding their way and talking about how cats are able to find their way like they gave the story of this guy who found a cat on his porch and decided to take the cats in and then they wanted to move house. Halfway through the journey, the cat jumps out of the car and is never to be found. Not to be found. It's not found for like months. And then one day, the person who moved into the old house calls and is like, I think there's an orange cat in front of my house, is the cat you were looking for? The cat had traveled.

This is like Interstate; this cat traveled and found its way back to this person's house. And so, it's like, How the hell did it do that? I'd be so lost and even like, looking at how we use Google map now. And even talking about them, I don't know what it's called. But basically, there's a whole phenomenon for when Google Maps leads you into the wrong place. Like there was a whole podcast that talks about Google Maps leading people to places where they ended up dead or something like that, because the map isn't as accurate as we think it is. We almost design, even when we're feeling uncomfortable, we still believe so much in the hierarchy of the digital to know where we're going better than us. We are so desperate to resign all instruction to something else or to someone else. So, it's like, as much as it's our God, it's our God because it's also our slave.

Vibeke: Yeah, I mean, how many conversations have you been overhearing where people are saying yeah, it says to go left here, but

Sheila: Yeah, you are actually so right. Yeah, like how much can we know now? Like, how much can we say we don't even know? This is the thing when people always make you feel so available, like, have you ever tried now asking a question nobody knows? When someone realizes that nobody knows the answer. There's a little sort of slight irritation like Google now like, check Google like, don’t you know you are supposed to check Google, why the fuck are you asking a bunch of human beings a question you could have just typed into the internet? And there's that expectation that almost it should be the first thing you do. But sometimes some people will just say, well, I'm just asking, like, I'm just asking the ask.

Vibeke: I had such a funny situation the other day. So, I have a dog now.

Sheila: Congratulations

Vibeke: That’s so sweet. But, so basically, I'm having like a roommate since a few weeks, who lives with us who we are very intimate with, you know, we share life and are living with her. But we don't know her yet so we're… like this. And we don't speak the same language so it’s also been awkward sometimes, but also very loving already very quickly. But then the other day, we went for a walk. And somewhere just on the middle of the street, she decided not to go and walk anymore. She sat down. And she looked at me like, you know that I'm not doing this. And I really didn't know what this meant, you know, so, and I was with someone and she said that lets Google what this means, what to do when a dog sits, and it was so it was once again, and I think those moments happen in portions where we become more and more willing to accept that this Google is part of our idea of understanding the world. But just, it was so absurd to stand in front of a dog and look at a phone to see what the dog does.

Sheila: Did you get the answer?

Vibeke: Like a manual or something. And there was very conflict, there were also very many disagreements with one another. So, it wasn’t much of an insight.

Sheila: Whenever I ask Google, but like, I remember when my dad was sick. What I felt was a phantom cough, he would have the feeling that he was gonna cough before the cough came and getting rid of that feeling was more painful and stressful than getting a good real cough. Well, that's because no one's doing so like, of course, when you're clearing your throat, you're never going to get satisfied from a clear throat because it's not the throat that needs clearing is your mind, that needs exactly.

Vibeke: It’s the urge.

Sheila: So, when you try to explain it to us, he took like, I kid you not, like 40 minutes, at one point where we were all even losing focus, he looked at me and said Chiamaka, I need you to not give up on me. And I was like, okay, and so we started talking and I just heard because I know about phantom limb. And so, I was like, I think this is a phantom cough. So, I started Googling, and googling. And I found something that backs up what I was saying, and it was describing what gave him so much peace at that moment was me reading what he had been trying to say in words that were not his own. And so, he was like, you see I'm not lying like there’s somebody else that knows this exact feeling in the world. And felt it so much that he had a paper written about it, so I think sometimes, there's so much relief from stuff like Web MD, which is like, even if I'm dying, I'm like, thank God, you know, I'm dying. Other people have died.

Uzoma: Yeah

Vibeke: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And it reminds me of this little portal that I found on the internet some time ago, because I've been working on a project that I was working on, at the time on a project about words that have gone extinct. Like words that have been, like, you know how a dictionary is shaped. Like I'm really often interested in this sort of formal gestures of something that is very fluid, like a dictionary, you know, like how there's sort of a manifesto of language and then of course, language takes on all different types of shapes. But here is sort of something to progress on somehow. And the documents, definitely not something dolphins would have. But then what we do in the Netherlands because in different countries, a dictionary gets updated every once in a while, and new words get added, because, you know, we are constantly inventing new terms and new concepts. But then what we do in the Netherlands is that we are such a people of efficiency in that every time a new dictionary is published, words are erased also, words that are considered to be obsolete. And this is something I got so curious about because, when do we consider a word to be, in a way having gone extinct? You know, when do we think when do we believe a word to have lost its liveliness or its animation, so much so that it can be taken into consideration. And this was the beginning of a conversation I had with this linguist that were involved in this. And what they went on to tell me was that everything that is published in public space on print in the Netherlands is being screened. So, every newspaper, every magazine, every novel, every book of poetry is being screened. And all the words are basically. And if there's a word that is not, you know, being used enough, then that becomes critical, like its liveliness becomes critical. And at some point, I got specifically interested into words describing death that themselves.

Uzoma: Are dying.

Vibeke: …are dying. And there was one word that I got specifically invested in, because this was the word death rattle. In Dutch, that is doodsreutel. And, and this word has been erased some time ago from the Dutch dictionary. So, the fact is a word that describes itself, the sound that the body makes, just before entering the stage of death, that that word precisely has faced death on the pages of the dictionary, became very intriguing to me. And I've been in a few years in a process of reanimating So to say that word by following the rules by what terms, a word is considered to be alive or not. So, by printing it in the public space, printing it in newspapers, printing it in magazines, in books, and, and this has become very much a shared effort where I've invited many Dutch writers also to implement it into text.

That is so amazing, because I mean, it's also very reminiscent of Uzoma and I trying to reverse engineer Proverbs, and inject them back into society but in a way that if. Because language, words don't respond to force, they respond to seduction and ease that's why slang is one of the first things to actually transform, like most of the words that become formal can easily be traced to their informal use.

Uzoma: Yeah.

Sheila: So, it's just so interesting almost that both places or both times informal and formal. They depend on each other, like they are dependent on each other. So, but then they like to exist as if they're backing each other. But it's almost as if they even need that friction of backing each other to then be affected by each other the way that they play their games together. I think maybe it's just because I'm coming into a space where it feels like, man, maybe everything that is just what needs to be.

Vibeke: Well, let me respond to that by something that I also came to realize out of that setup, let's say because it is a designed setup, right of making a dictionary to say that, first of all, everything that's printed.

Sheila: Yes

Vibeke: So that's already quite a framework restriction. It also says a lot about who's allowed to, you know, have a say, in words that are considered to be official. But also, I realized, you know, there's this for instance, there’s this extreme right party that we have in the Netherlands, which is getting a lot of attention in the last years. And they've been introducing some really horrible terms into the public conversation. Words, you know, two concepts that, they've invented words like attacks for wearing a headscarf, for instance. And that's, yes, that's something that they at some point came up with, that you would be punished in a way, you know, for wearing a headscarf but then they made a new term for that. And of course, that became a conversation that everyone responded to because both or they agreed, which was a minuscule number of politicians, luckily, but if they would disagree, they would still fall over that term because that was, you know, the premise of that conversation. It was those words that were laying there. And so, and I realized that even if you disagree with that word, by mentioning it, you're giving it liveliness. By using it, every journalist that would be critical of that word, by the very fact of publishing it, you know, they would enforce it.

Sheila: Elevate it. That's like, uhm

Vibeke: Exactly,

Sheila: There's an essay by Malcolm Gladwell, I think it's called thresholds of violence, where he was talking about the mass killings by these white boys in America, and talking about how his thesis was basically that the reason unfortunately, and I don't know, stunningly that almost 80% This is not his statistics, but almost 80% of the reason why white boys kill in the way that they kill is because they're so driven by what has been written and spoken of those who killed before them.

Uzoma: That feels so good to hear, because this is just a sad note but in Uni we had this course, a module that essentially focused on the lives of the most renowned, like, most infamous serial killers. And I just, I was very uncomfortable with the whole thing. I don’t know if it just feels like validation. Because I just feel like there's a certain life that they are cast in a certain language that is used, that I feel that can enable more acts of violence.

Sheila: So, what do you think? I mean, this is the dilemma is that, if you don't talk about something that has happened, like something, for instance, racial attacks, right? You have people saying silence is violence, silence is violence, you have to speak about what happened. But then if violence is actually inspired by speaking, what happens, what should we do?

Uzoma: So, can I piggyback on this question to ask Vibeke, in the case of the journalists who are writing about these new words, meaning violence word, right? Is there a way to …do you feel like there's a way to go about that without elevating or enforcing those words? Like, I don't know you know how you can say things without saying them, stuff like that I don't know, what do you think?

Sheila: Yeah, I mean, I think in a way it is, at least it made me know how this infrastructure works. It made me realize that I don't want to use those words. And I think in a way, it would be a part of a solution at least could be, I'm not sure if that's, the right one. But it did make me very aware of the type of words I choose to use. So also think like, if I will decide not to use certain words, which words would I more actively engaged with? Which words do I choose to take into my mouth, but also into the world? Which I realized is such a real thing. Like it's not only a gesture, or a way of saying something but it's actually it is an action. It's an active action of in, at least in the case of printing, but I also consider it active in bringing up certain conversation, because that is gonna be the conversation that we dedicate our time to. And that relates to something you also said a while ago, Sheila like saying, this isn’t how I want to spend my time right now in that certain relation or in a certain series, but also with these certain words, that's not where I want to put mine. That reminds me of a signboard I saw of a church, Apparently, in Lagos so many churches are advertising their churches like products, like candies, but okay. There was a signboard that said, there goes your tongue, there goes your life? That sounds so extreme.

Uzoma: But it’s true

Vibeke: It’s true.

Sheila: Basically, we’re saying that the tongue is, I mean, the tongue is pretty powerful. they say the pen is mightier than the sword, but I guess the pen is like, transcribed to the tongue, like, the pen is what's that word? Interpolation of the tongue basically. Which is interesting to what you say p about printing. Yes.

Vibeke: And an amplification? Yeah.

Sheila: What is the most profound thing about time that you learned from your work with? Well?

Vibeke: Um, well, I mean, time is so many things. But what I would refer to now of how time is duration, or durational. Because that's something that at least as, or in my work, or in my project, or the projects I've been involved with, the way the time has really entered as both a concept but almost nearly as a material has been by working with energy with electricity. And that has been so much shaping of how I've been thinking of…I cannot say it has changed my idea of thinking about time, but it has made my practice, it has shaped my practice in a different way. Because I've worked more with the durational, I have more durational works, in consequence, this is the sound of someone coming home. And that doesn't mean your time. So, for instance, by including energy or stored electricity into my work, I realized that I have to treat that work not so much as an object, but as a situation. Because if I use that electricity in the work, which is how I've been shaping projects around specific sources of energy, using those specific sources of energy, and making them sound so real. I'm using that energy not so much as a…., something in between being a material and being a situation being a temporary experience.

Sheila: As opposed to what in the way that you would use it before?

Vibeke: I think before or at least in other projects I've been, I cannot even say that I necessarily have been but I think the way that I think about art works is very often with a sort of central element to it being object based or, and I know that there's a very limited way of thinking about. or they don't think that its art as a whole but other project that I've been working on have been in part about central to different projects that an object has been more central somehow to sort of convey something or convey a story that might be temporal but not the object being as temporal. And the way that it is affecting my work or my thinking has been both conceptually like how do I relate to this energy that I include in my work, to this agent, but also practically, like how do I when I show a work that is a battery that slowly discharging, the importance of that moment of during in which the show takes place becomes weightier.

Uzoma: Yeah.

Vibeke: Because all the time that I'm showing it in another place, I will not be able to show it in another because it will be empty. Yeah.

Sheila: Yes. So, like, as a performance artist, I get that so much in terms of the ephemerality of my work. Like, there's no two performances that are the same because the audience even is not the same. No matter how hard I try. The audience is already an element that is changing. And even if the audience were not changing the time, it not being Monday, but being Tuesday is already so different. And so like, instead of precision, I just have to take what I get, I have to make something else a measure of hitting bull's eye rather than precision. You know, it's not a cake and baking. But um, I want to release you because you have

.. we have taken so much of your time. Uzoma, you have a question?

Vibeke: No. I mean I would love to continue this conversation for hours and hours to come and yeah, I mean, that's absolutely the case. And yeah, I would love to have that time also. But yeah, what I'm also realizing by the way, is that you know, I'm now stressing about entering the clutter with visually, but I have not been considering you know, actually hearing ….

Sheila: We can take that trash but then the other people coming physically can't take the trash

Vibeke: Such a total joy to chat with you

Sheila: Same have a beautiful day.