The premise of evolution has never been about what we know, but about what we do not know. All the things we do not know!
Hello, my name is Natasha Tsakos, and you do not want to meet in an elevator. It’s been a challenge having to describe my work when I meet people for the first time. I can not explain what I do in one way, or one thing. I am many ones, I do many things. Titles are prisons of human potential.
What’s interesting is, as we start to move exponentially faster, definitions may update themselves by the hour. Our vocabulary may become a real time algorithmic word bank. Could you imagine having a conversation like that? Where the meaning of words constantly adapts? “ Hello my name is Natasha and I am an: polyformer, polyformist, polyartist, polyventor, polypractionist, polyshit - turtle.
So let’s forget about semantics. Let’s forget about the rules for a minute. The quos of status. The codes of conduct. The business cards… My goal today is to get you naked.
I’ve got exactly four minutes: Let’s get started.
I realize we do not all welcome the Indecent proposal. Inhibitions, Insecurity, Instagram. But why not? Why hide? Let’s be blunt. It’s time we stripped our preconceived notions, ideas, ideals, completely pillaged our states of mind in order for us to think freely.
Now: we don’t think, really; We think we think. Thinking never thinks, it knows better, it’s embedded in our biology, there’s a reason for the bio-mimicry. We Instinct. Intuit. Imagine.
After we get naked, We’re going to copulate, we are going to propagate dangerous ideas. I understand, you would like to know who you are getting familiar with. You would like to know my twitter handle, my age, my hobbies, the name of my cat, my DNA possibly... But why? These points of references do not define who I am, who you are: they are for others. For others to judge, base, compare, what we call “relate”. Just: in relationship to what? Are we the differentials between two people? if so, shrink accordingly, the higher the division? Is that what makes us, us? The subtraction between you and I? You and them? This and that. The extract? I don’t think I think we think so.
If you must know: I went to a traditional theatre conservatory. I was classically trained as an actor, where my career would have consisted of learning somebody else’s lines, and replaying them like a mobile, docile, self consumed humanoid, and feeling very good about myself. Maybe. But I got a little tired of the redundancy. I find that Theatre, like other disciplines, keeps playing the same track on repeat. If you’re lucky you get a remix, or a mash up. But I wanted to Deejay my own ideas and theories. So I decided I’d create the shows that I would want to see. I didn’t know what I was doing, and still don’t. The only thing I knew is that I would give myself permission to imagine anything and reverse engineer my way from there. Shortly after producing my first show, a world opened its doors to me. It wasn’t Theatre. It was the science and tech world. I think because, by nature, those worlds have to stay opened and flexible in order to keep up.
I love being in dynamic environments and meeting people who have nothing to do with what you do, because they bring foreign bits of information that spark synapses, and open new pathways of understanding. And that’s the best moment in the creative process, when all those dots connect and surprise you in completely unexpected ways.
The premise of evolution has never been about what we know, but about what we do not know. All the things we do not know. It’s about running wild in a field of exclamation points chasing question marks. It’s about Curiosity. Freedom. Daring to question. Daring to be completely crazy in the face of normalcy. Because it now seems that nonsense is the only sensible recourse to remedy the nonsense of society’s accepted normalcy. I didn’t understand that either…
So let’s have wild unprotected uncensored Ideas! Let’s be Mad. Come on. Everybody get up! Get out of your seat! I want you all to say: “I am Mad as Hell! and I am not going to take this anymore!”. Let’s do things differently. Let’s talk about open sourcing our dreams. Wireless brain technology. What animal part you might want in your body. Who are you going to be? A data illusionist? A nano theorist? A techno therapist? There are no rules anymore! We are writing the codes as we speak. We can be anything we want to be.
The rest is writable. Data choreography. Administrative upkeep of our own demise. We are the flesh slaves of our brain waves. A supercomputer about to be infinitely more powerful than ever. Just what are going to feed it? Notifications? Updates? Emojis? Angry Birds? or..... Imagination? Nicholas Negroponte predicts the advent of pill technology. Swallow a pill to learn Spanish, take the blue one to read Shakespeare. Hard to stomach? Education never tasted so good! We are literally entering a synesthetic era of functionality. Plug your headphones into a wall to taste an orange. That’s what!: Welcome to the 21st century.
I dare you to create your future.
I dare you to be extraordinary.
I dare you to believe in You.
Let’s be contagiously creative, let’s be blunt, let’s be Mad!
And let’s get naked.
Now.
Talk Transcript at TEDxPuraVidaJoven at the Auditorio Nacional del Museo de los Niños, San Jose, Costa Rica, October 23, 2014
QUOTES
"We don’t think, really; We think we think. Thinking never thinks, it knows better, it’s embedded in our biology, there’s a reason for the bio-mimicry. We Instinct. Intuit. Imagine."
"The premise of evolution has never been about what we know, but about what do we not know. All the things we do not know. It’s about running wild in a field of exclamation points chasing question marks."
"It now seems that nonsense is the only sensible recourse to remedy the nonsense of society’s accepted normalcy."
"Let’s do things differently. Let’s talk about open sourcing our dreams. Wireless brain technology. What animal part you might want in your body. Who are you going to be? A data illusionist? A nano theorist? A techno therapist? There are no rules anymore! We are writing the codes as we speak. We can be anything we want to be."
"The rest is writable. Data choreography. Administrative upkeep of our own demise. We are the flesh slaves of our brain waves. A supercomputer about to be infinitely more powerful than ever. Just what are going to feed it?"