Before  I  introduce  today's  guests, I  need  to  make  a  couple  of announcements  for  credit  students. You  must  sign  in  by  QR  code  or  manually. I'm  assuming  you  all  know  this  this  late  in  the  semester. I'm  supposed  to  ask  for  a  show  of  hands. I  like,  we  have  so  many  smart  *****. Okay.  Show  of  hands  for  credit  students. Thanks.  Oh,  I  did  not  know  this  is  what  was  happening. We  could  use  an  algorithm  for  that. All  right.  Other  students  and  interested  guests, did  you  get  what  you  need  to  get? Accounting.  Okay,  great.  I  see. Okay,  Please  turn  off  your  phones and  toss  your  trash before  leaving.  That  will  help  us  out. A  Okay.  I'm  delighted  to  introduce today's  speaker  is  an  assistant  professor  at  UMBC. He  and  I  have  gotten  to  know  each other  over  a  couple  of  years  now. We  started,  um,  regular  phone  calls, I  think,  during  Covid, and  so  I  was  delighted  to  be  able  to invite  him  to  come  and  give  a  brown  bag  lecture. His  work  focuses  on  several  areas  within  HCI. And  I  think  what's  pretty cool  about  it  and  what  we're  going  to  enjoy today  is  it's  areas  that at  times  we've  done  work  in  here, but  we  actually  don't  have  a  lot  of  folks  doing work  in  these  areas  right  now. A  lot  of  overlap  with  the  arts, looking  at  bio  materials  and  living  media  interfaces. A  lot  of  work  in  participatory  design  and DIY  approaches  to  assistive  technology,  a  UMBC. He  directs  the  Designing  Participatory  Futures  Lab and  the  Interactive  Systems  Research  Center. And  he  has  a  background,  his  Phd  in CS  from  York  University  in  Toronto. Today  he's  going  to  give  us  this  talk and  there  should  be  plenty  of  time  for  questions. I  always  want  to  encourage  folks  to  ask  questions because  that's  usually  for  speakers. That's  like  the  most  exciting  part of  this  whole  endeavor. So  think  of  some  questions. If  you  don't,  I  may  randomly  call  on  you, but  no  seriously  think  of  some  questions and  we'll  welcome  Pod  to  give  talk.  Thanks. Awesome.  Thank  you  so  much  for  the  introduction,  Carl. Wonderful  to  meet  you  all. Thanks  for  coming  to  my  talk. Please  feel  free  if  there  was anything  that  you  wanted  clarification, feel  free  to  interrupt  me,  no  problem. And  we'll  have  time  for  questions  at  the  end. I'll  try  to  cover  a  bunch  of  things, but  I  don't  have  to  cover  everything. We  can  go  into  more  depth  if something  was  of  immediate  interest. Okay.  Yeah,  my  work  at UMBC  takes  place  more  than  half the  time  outside  of  the  university, especially  the  research  work. And  in  the  photos  here, I  have  some  photos, both  of  our  lab  at the  university  and  also  at  community  sites. And  I'm  going  to  talk  about  some  of  these. But  this  is  really  important  for  my  work  to  be able  to  work  outside  of the  university  with  external  partners. And  I  get  a  lot  of  inspiration  and possibilities  open  up  in  that  space. As  you'll  see,  the  approach which  leans  into  trans  disciplinarity and  participatory  design,  especially  community  based. Participatory  design  heavily  relies on  collaborations  and  working  with  people. As  Carl  mentioned,  I  have a  background  in  computer  science. Currently  I'm  in  information  systems  and part  of  faculty  in  human  centered  computing. But  I've  zigzag  a  little bit  in  different  fields  and  discipline. My  talk  outline  introductions  already  done. I'm  going  to  go  to  the  next  step  which is  grounding  a  little  bit  the  work in  the  theoretical  frameworks that  have  been  inspired  by  and  apply. Then  I'm  going  to  talk  about  a  couple  of  projects. I  won't  be  able  to  talk  about everything  that  obviously  I'm  working  on, but  I'm  going  to  also  give  an  overview of  things  in  case  if  anybody's  interested. Essentially,  I'm  very  much in  the  space  of  community  based  participatory  design. Participatory  design,  as  you  probably  know, is  a  design  movement  very  much  committed  to  principles of  democratic  participation  and mutual  learning  that  initiated  in  Northern  Europe, but  it  has  really  spread  to  different Areas  and  different  domains. It  was  first  in  the  workplace and  now  there's  a  lot  of  other  spaces, including  community  based  spaces  that  is  being  practiced. I'm  also  see  a  lot  of  parallels between  community  engagement  and  participatory  design, and  I'm  interested  in  exploring the  relationships  with  this. Community  engagement  is  very  broadly  defined by  CDC  as  basically  working  with people  around  issues  that are  going  to  impact  them and  including  that  participation. There's  a  lot  of  parallels  between  these  two  approaches. Then  transdisciplinarity, which  is  an  approach  thinking  about going  beyond  disciplinary  bounds  to  reach  a  shared  goal. It  can  be  a  broader  goal  that  transcends  discipline. These  are  some  of  the  theoretical  background, but  as  I'll  go  into  more  examples, I  think  it  becomes  more  clear  work on  a  range  of  projects. As  I  mentioned,  I'm  not  going  to  talk  about  all  of  them. I'm  going  to  talk  about  the  first  one  and  the  last  one, the  top  left  work  living  media  interfaces. I'm  going  to  start  with  that, but  I'm  going  to  talk  a  little  bit  about the  other  ones  in  case  if  anybody's  interested. I  work  in  equity  based  making, especially  in  the  learning  space. There's  a  lot  of  interest  in  how making  activities  can  promote  learning. But  traditionally  or  historically  has  been  problematic. In  some  ways,  there's  been a  lot  of  exclusionary  practices, both  in  terms  of  language  identity and  other  materials  access,  and  so  on. So  we're  exploring  with  community  partners, how  can  we  rethink  some  of the  existing  practices  and  redefine  them? I  have  a  lot  of  interest  in community  and  DIY  infrastructure. During  covid,  there  was  a  realization, not  a  surprise  to  many  people, but  a  surprise  to organizational  overseers  that  lack of  connectivity  was  a  big  issue and  especially  internet  connectivity. In  my  city,  there's  still thousands  of  households  that don't  have  Internet  connectivity. And  during  Covid  had big  implications  on  educational  experiences, on  work  on  safety  and  so  on. I  did  some  work  with  a  community  partner to  explore  how  can  we create  DIY  infrastructure  for  broadband  connectivity. Other  areas  that  I've  worked  in,  environmental  justice, thinking  about  how  communities  can  be  empowered  to  do work  to  bring  attention  to  injustices  and  address  them, and  then  inclusive  privacy. I  won't  go  into  them  too  much. And  then  the  last  one,  DIY  Assisted  Techology, I'm  going  to  go  into  some  more  detail. Let  me  get  started  in  talking  about the  first  project  for  my  Phd. This  goes  a  little  time  back. I  was  tasked  with  a  very  difficult  idea  of  designing an  interactive  and  engaging  system for  children  to  be  used  in  the  home  setting. The  reason  I  say  difficult  is because  if  you've  designed  anything  for  kids, I  was  working  with  kids  of  five  to  ten,  they're  very, very  direct,  and  if  they don't  like  something  they  don't  like  something, you  can't  really  ask  them  or  give them  like  a  participant  in  maybe  chocolate, but  it  wasn't  very  ethical. Or  candies  and  I  build  a  lot  of prototypes  and  they  basically  destroyed  all  of  them. Or  worse,  they  ignored  them. And  so  I  was  kind  of  really  thinking  about,  okay, how  can  I  design  something  that  engages  kids? Over  a  period  of  time,  I spent  a  lot  of  time  with  parents, with  teachers,  and  with  children of  my  friends  and  family. And  slowly  I  came  to the  realization  that  something  that  can  sustain interest  is  kind  of  similar  to  living  organisms. So,  a  lot  of  these  kids  had  pets. They  were  growing  plants  and  so  on, and  they  kept  talking  about  them. Um,  famously,  there  was  one  of them  asked  if  I  could  design  something  with  a  horse. She'd  really  liked  to  have  a  horse  as  a  pet. I  couldn't  solve  that  problem. But  I  got  an  idea  that  maybe  there's other  living  organisms  that  can engage  children  and  sustained  attention. Over  time,  I  started experimenting  and  exploring  and  thinking. And  of  course,  there's  a  huge  area  of biodesign  that  kind  of  incorporates  living  organisms. And  given  my  constraints of  something  that  had  to  be  very  safe approved  obviously  by  the  university  at multiple  levels  and  so  on  and something  that  could  be  engaging  for  kids. I  came  to  the  idea  that  mushrooms,  not  all  mushrooms, but  specifically  oyster  mushrooms  that  are edible  can  be  a  medium to  work  with,  a  material  to  work  with. So  I  kind  of  had  a  few  ideas  around  there. Safety,  of  course,  was  very  important. But  also  the  type  of  mushrooms  that  I  found, they  had  predictable  growth  patterns, which  was  really  important  because  I  wanted  to convey  some  information,  not  very  precise, but  some  information  to  the  kids about  change  and  about  consequences  of  behavior. And  also  the  changes  were  perceivable. It  wasn't  like  a  game  that  you  press, but  obviously  and  things  change. But  they  could  still see  the  changes  over  a  period  of  time. And  if  you're  a  child,  seeing changes  in  a  tree  might  not  be  as exciting  as  seeing  something  over a  period  of  a  few  hours. So. This  was  important.  So  I started  experimenting  at  the  lab, growing  a  lot  of  mushrooms  in  the  lab. And  I  was  in  a  computer  science  department. So  this  was  a  little  bit  strange, but  I  convinced  them  that  I  was  doing research  and  I  figured  out  some  mechanism, some  amounts  of  water  that  I could  provide  to  the  mushrooms, the  particular  ones  that  I  was  working  with, and  they  would  kind  of  grow  in  predictable  ways. And  I  combined  this  into  an  embedded  system  called  Rafi, which  in  Farsi,  and  I  think  Arabic  too, but  I'm  not  sure,  means  companion. And  this  was  something  that  was  designed  as an  ambient  system  to  be  left  at  children's  homes. And  it  would  encourage  collaborative  behavior. Some  of  the  children  that  I  was  working  with  had  autism. And  in  the  family  goal  was for  them  to  communicate  with  their  siblings, with  their  parents,  and  have  a  shared  space. Some  of  the  applications, this  is  basically  a  data  visualization  approach or  data  mushroomization. Except  that  some  of  the  concerns around  data  visualization, about  accuracy  and  so  on  were  not  as  prominent  here. It  was  more  about  engagement. The  way  that  it  works  is  it  had an  embedded  irrigation  system and  you  could  actually  communicate  with  that. Initially,  I  made  it  with  an  Arduino, but  then  Raspberry  Pie  has much  more  flexibility  in  terms  of  programming. It  would  basically  detect  um, certain  amounts  of  behavior. It  could  be  defined what  those  are,  certain  applications  used. For  example,  could  be communicated  to  the  irrigation  system, and  then  based  on  that,  it  would  give water  to  the  mushrooms. And  some  of  our  questions  was whether  the  kids  we  were  working with  actually  are  going  to  understand  this  relationship, whether  they're  going  to  be  motivated  to  do  more  work, whether  it's  going  to  create  information  and more  discussion  in  the  home  if  we  set  up  these  systems. Now,  I  said  that  this  is a  ambient  system  and this  is  a  slow  ambient  system,  right? So  it  takes  not  seconds  or  minutes, but  hours  for  it  to  change, but  the  changes  perceivable. And  the  we  did  basically a  case  study  where  we  had  several  homes where  we  dropped  off  versions  of  this  system. And  I  would  basically  visit  them periodically  and  collect  data  from the  parents  and  also  talk  to  the  children. Over  time,  we  saw  that  the  children  were  very interested  in  how  the  mushrooms  were  growing. Not  all  of  them,  most  of  the  kids  were  interested. And  some  of  them  actually  became  obsessed  with  them. So  they  would  actually  go  not  force, but  really  motivate  their  siblings or  their  parents  to  come  and  play  these  games  with  them. Because  they  really  wanted  to  see how  fast  the  mushroom  grows. The  idea  was  that  the  more  they played  these  collaborative  games, the  more  water  was  given  to  the  mushroom. Another  interesting  thing  was that  the  children  kept talking  about  them  for  a  very  long  time, even  after  the  study  was  done. This  was  done  over  a  period  of  two  months  approximately. I  dropped  off  multiple  versions of  this  device  at  the  houses, but  I  was  still  in contact  with  the  parents  and  with  the  children, even  after  six  months  a  year. Some  of  the  kids  were  talking  about mushrooms  and  wanting  to  grow  them, asking  what  happens  when  they're  harvested  and  so  on. And  it  created  a  lot  of  conversation  in  the  family. Incidentally,  the  mushrooms  being  edible, none  of  the  kids  wanted  to  eat  them. But  in  every  case,  the  parents  actually  did  eat  them. So  that  was  another  or  unexpected  finding, I  guess,  from  the  study. But  one  of  the  things  that  this  project started  opening  up  for  me  was, what  if  you  look  at  these  types  of  systems  more  broadly, what  are  the  possibilities  of  living  media  interfaces, interfaces  that  combine living  organisms  and  computational  devices? I  mean,  this  was  a  very  particular  case, but  there  are  other  applications  that  can  happen. And  I  started  collaborating  with colleagues  in  other  fields  and  thinking  about, okay,  what  have  people  done, especially  in  HCI  but  also  in  biodesign, and  slowly  starting  to  explore  in  other  areas, falls  into  this  space. What  type  of  organisms  have  they  worked  with? What  type  of  engagement  or change  mechanisms  they  have  enacted? In  the  case  that  I  showed, it  was  very  macro  level, meaning  that  I  was  giving  water, changing  some  of  the  environmental  factors and  the  growth  was  impacted. There  are  other  projects  where  organisms  are changed  on  a  DNA  level  or  at  other  levels, and  I  was  very  interested  in  what  happens when  that  comes  about. During  this  exploration,  I  came  to  understand also  or  know  of  this  art  practice, bio  art,  which  essentially uses  living  organisms  as  a  material  for, um,  art  aims,  art  purposes. It  can  be  defined  as  art  that literally  works  in  the  continuum  of  bio  materiality, from  DNA,  proteins  and  cells  to  full  organisms. An  example  of  that  is  a  work  by  Marta  Dominicis. She's  a  Portuguese  bio  artist which  I've  had  the  pleasure  of  working  with. And  she  did  a  project  called  Nature  where  she, she  basically  intervened  in the  growth  process  of  butterflies, introducing  new  patterns  into  their  wings. And  her  question  was,  is  this  nature  or  not? And  the  exhibit  was  actually  Exhibit  of  living. Butterflies.  Now,  this,  of  course, raises  a  lot  of  ethical  questions. Is  it  okay? It  brings  up  a  lot  of  issues,  right? Is  this  ethical  to  do?  This  is going  to  have  implications  on the  bio  system.  What  are  the  ethics  of  this? Bio  Artists  are  extremely  aware  of  this  issue. Actually,  that's  partially  why  they  do  some  of  this  work. Not  everyone,  but  a  lot  of  the  people are  deeply  engaged  with  ethical  issues. And  I  wanted  to  understand  that  more. So  we  did  a  study  with  bio  artists  to  understand why  they  work  with  biological  materials. And  some  of  the  themes  that  we  found through  that  study  was  that,  well, bio  art  can  generate  transdisciplinarity  fluency, meaning  people  from  different  fields coming  together,  Biologists, artists  working  in  the  same  lab, sometimes  that  can  lead  to  new  opportunities. Another  idea  was  that  the  familiarity  and  agency, or  vitality  of  the  living  organisms create  different  experiences  for  audiences. Again,  these  very  strong  emotions. I  feel  like  even  when  I  mentioned  the  Butterfly  Project, there  was  an  emotional  response  to that  that  was  important  for  them. Also,  they  talked  about negotiating  access  and  this  is  really  important. Why  is  it  that  a  lot  of  these  processes  that we  describe  and  more  intense  ones than  the  one  for  example  in  nature, are  being  done  on  a  daily  basis  by synthetic  biology  companies  and organizations  behind  closed  doors. But  as  soon  as  artists  start  experimenting  with  them, the  public  is  concerned,  right? And  how  can  that  practice  kind  of  shed  light on  what  does  it  mean  for the  public  to  have  access  to  that  knowledge  and  have  some say  in  interrogating  these  type  of  emerging  technologies. So  I  said,  okay,  this  is  great. I  learned  a  lot,  but  this  is  not  enough. I  have  to  do  something  myself  to understand  what  does  it  feel  like  to actually  interact  with  organisms  at  the  DNA  level. I  also  became  aware  of  this  practice  of  DIY  Bio, which  is  essentially  working  creatively with  biological  organisms  in  our  city. We  have  a  community  lab, Bugs,  Baltimore  underground  science  space. They  do  these  after  school  programs where  people  can  come  and, or  out  of  school  time  programs  also  on  the  weekends where  people  can  come  and  learn  about  biology. And  these  range  from  learning  what  is  DNA, what  is  different  transformations, to  bio  art  projects. I  kind  of  participated  in  this  and  I don't  have  a  background  in  biology,  so  it  was  really  fun. I  mean,  they  have  these  workshops where  high  school  students  and postdocs  and  professors  all  work  together. And  the  younger  members  of  that  group  were  definitely more  methodological  than  I  was  at the  beginning  until  I  learned  a little  bit  more  about  what's  going  on. And  that  kind  of  opened  up  as a  space  for  me  where  I  kind  of  started  thinking,  well, I'm  going  to  really  try  to  understand  the  possibilities of  human  DNA  interaction  through  doing  a  bio  art  project. And  that's  where  the  next  project  came  to  being. As  I  was  thinking  about  what  would  it mean  to  work  on  a  bio  art  project, I  started  to  think  about  a  metaphor  that  in  my  culture. So  I'm  originally  from  Iran. In  my  culture,  the  concept  of wine  is  a  very  strong  metaphor. Partially  because  it's  used  a  lot  in  poetry  and  in our  culture  as  a  concept  to  think  about  transformation. But  also  in  Islamic  culture, drinking  and  making  alcohol  are  taboo, are  actually  sin,  considered  sin. But  I  was  very  interested  because  our  poets, especially  the  older  poets, if  you're  familiar  with  Sufi  poetry, with  am  Fez,  Rome, they  talk  a  lot  about  wine. I  was  confused  about  this  because  in  Iran, there's  censorship  around  poetry,  around  literature. But  these  books  are  never  stop  publishing and  people  are  always  buying  them  and  consuming  them. And  some  of  the  argument  is  that  these  are  metaphors, these  are  not  real  references  to  material  wine. But  I  felt  that  the  Tabu  aspect  of  wine making  parallels  with the  Tabu  aspects  of  synthetic  biology. I  wanted  to  explore  that  this  is a  tomb  of  a  very  famous  Iranian  poet,  Hoz. The  idea  that  his  collection  of  poetry, you  can  find  it  in  every  Iranian  home. I  haven't  checked  this,  I  don't  have  data  on  this, but  I  think  it's  likely  there's  a  poem  by  him  that I'm  very  close  to  because  it's  very  famous. A  lot  of  people  use  it  in  reciting  it, especially  if  somebody  passes  away  and  so  on, and  it's  about  timelessness  and  about  continuity. I'm  going  to  read  it  and  you're  probably  going  to hear  this  a  few  times,  you'll  see. But  I'm  going  to  read  it  in  farce  and then  read  the  English  translation. Zaid  Saptavommo, one  whose  heart  is  revived  by  love  never  dies. Our  continuity  is  written  on  the  face  of  time. Okay,  We  had  this  one  line  of  a  poem. My  question  was,  how  can  turn  this  into  a  bottle  of  wine? How  can  I  turn  a  poem  into  a  bottle  of  wine? Right.  I  thought,  well, maybe  it's  possible,  maybe  not.  I  don't  know. I  started  talking  to  people  and  exploring, and  it  took  a  few  years,  but  eventually  I  figured  it  out. The  idea  was  that  if  we look  at  it  as  I'm  going  to  talk  about  the  process, there  is  a  way  to  encode  this  poem  into  a  binary  code. That's  pretty  straightforward,  right?  I  use  Morse  code. This  is  a  Persian  word,  three  letters. And  I  used  it  to  create  basically  a  binary  mapping. And  then  I  used  another  mapping to  the  four  molecules  of  DNA,  GTA. And  then  I  basically  had  code. Then  the  idea  was,  well, what  can  I  do  with  this  code? I  sit  down  with  the  biologist, a  bio  artist,  and  we  talk  for  a  very  long  time, and  we  realize  that  there's a  way  that  this  code  can  be  designed, um,  into  something  that  can  be programmed  into  living  organisms. I  won't  go  into  a  lot  of  details, but  we  added  more  code  to the  beginning  and  the  end  of  this  so  that  we  could basically  cut  it  in  with  enzymes  and we  could  also  detect  it  in  a  bunch  of  DNA. That's  the  very  unscientific  way  of  thinking  about  it. But  anyway,  once  I  had  this  code  and  we  used  bench  Link, if  you're  familiar  with  synthetic  biology, you  might  recognize  this,  which  is  a  software  to  design, DNA  code,  to  design  this  code. And  then  we  send  it  to a  company  and  they  send  me  back  a  while. Very  strange  and  I  couldn't  see  anything  in  there. So  this  was  my  first  direct  interaction  with  DNA. There  was  DNA  in  there,  but  it  wasn't  alive. It  was  just  a  molecule,  right? So,  we  had  to  do  some  processes  in  the  lab, in  the  community  lab, to  actually  insert  this  DNA  into the  genome  of  living  bacteria. Once  this  happened,  the  bacteria grew,  of  course,  very  quickly. And  suddenly  I  had  a  while of  millions  of  copies  of  this  poem. I  couldn't  read  it  or  hear  it  or  anything, but  I  knew  it  was  in  there. And  the  way  I  knew  it  was  that  as  I  said, that  design  we  could  create a  process  that  we  could  verify  that the  bacteria  have  picked  up  this  poem. But  then  with  bacteria, it's  basically  just  storage  way  of  storing  the  DNA. Then  we  were  able  to  extract  the  DNA again  the  fragment  and  put  it  into  yeast  cells. Then  we  had  poetic  yeast. These  yeast  cells  include  the  poem  in  them. Of  course,  once  you  have  poetic  yeast,  you  can  make  wine, you  can  make  bread,  you can  make  anything  that's  made  from  yeast, and  I  made  wine  with  it. Now,  there  are  a  few  different  things  here  of  this. Yeast  is  not  as  optimized  for winemaking  as  winemakers  yet. But  it  still  works.  It  takes  longer. There  is  more  possibilities  for  contamination  and  stuff. So  I  did  actually  this  process that  I  described  very  linearly. I  did  it  many  times, like  I  spent  a  lot  of  time  in  the  lab. Failing,  failing,  failing. But  eventually  I  had  about  a  gallon  of  wine  and this  was  poetic  wine.  This  is  the  outcome. Now  a  big  question, this  is  a  question  in  the  space  of  bio  art, but  also  in  this  exploration  of  DNA, human  DNA  interaction  is  how  do  we convey  some  of  these  concepts  to  other  people? Right,  so  other  than  giving  it  a  talk, because  these  are  micro  organisms and  it's  really  hard  to understand  what's  going  on  with  them. So  how  can  we  create more  representations  or  amplify some  of  the  poetic  content? Here  I  worked  with  a  colleague,  Tageicarojo, who  does  imaging  of  microorganisms, and  she  did  these  images  of  yeast  cells. These  are  the  poetic  yeast  cells. Then  she  did  some  processes  to  paint  them. We  have  this  series  of  tables,  let's  say, of  yeast  cells  that  are  next  to  some  of  the  material  that we  use  in  the  winemaking  and  grape  juice  residue. This  was  in  the  middle  of  Covid. I  talked  to  a  few  colleagues  in  music  and they  came  up  with  an  audio  composition  to create  an  ambient  experience  with  this  wine  and  images. They  basically  took  my  voice and  they  played  it  over  itself many  times  until  the  voice  became a  sine  wave.  That  was  one  element. Another  element  was  the  Morse  code  that  I  mentioned, an  audio  representation  of  that, and  then  a  meditative  bass  flute. Then  I'll  come  back  to  the  last  one, the  recording  of  The  Sound  of a  Red  Pen  Writing  this  poem. All  of  these  were  combined  together  into  ambient  audio. And  I'll  play  it  in  a  moment. But  our  question  was  how  do we  do  some  exhibition  design to  present  this  to  the  public? Because  I  wanted  to  bring  it  back  to the  community  lab  that  I  had  done  this  work. It  was  very  important  for  me  to communicate  this  back  to  the  community  lab. And  so  we  had  a  very  basic  idea. We  basically  put  the  wine  bottle  there, we  had  the  images,  we  had  several  of  them. And  we  had  the  audio  kind  of  playing. So  I'm  going  to  try  to  play  the  audio. One  whose  heart  is  vitalized  by  love  never  dies. Our  continuity  is  written  on  the  face  of  time. Okay. My  colleague  Linda  Span  and  Alan  Wanaberger, who  did  the  audio, we  were  really  thinking about  how  to  make  this  more  immersive. So  we  had  a  few  exhibits  where  we  combined this  exhibition  with  painting  with  living  organisms. It's  called  Agar  Art, if  you  might  be  familiar  with  it, just  for  different  ways  of  engaging  with  this  work. But  we  were  really  interested  in seeing  how  we  can  make  it  more  immersive. We  started  a  collaboration  with  the  center  IRC, Media  Visualization  Research  Center  at  our  university, and  Libo,  Ryan  Zuber. We  started  working  together  on how  to  enhance  the  visualizations. It's  interesting  because  when  I  do  this  work, I  always  think  of  like  there  should  be an  aesthetic  logic  to  the  different  steps. I  don't  want  to  have  some  random  imagery. And  of  course,  I  went  back  to the  Islamic  architectural  patterns because  culturally  it  made  sense. These  were  contemporary  with the  poetry  that  was  being  used  in  this  space. The  question  of  how  to  cover  a  plane has  been  around  for  a  very  long  time  in  architecture. Interestingly,  there's  also  a  parallel  in  geometry, contemporary  geometry,  around  how  can we  cover  a  plane  with  tiles. In  1971  or  1974, Roger  Penrose  came  up  with  a  tiling  scheme  that  uses only  two  tiles  to  create  an  Apriodic  tiling, meaning  that  it  can  cover  a  surface into  infinity  without  ever  repeating  itself. It's  a  very  strange  mathematical  phenomenon, but  the  idea  there  is  that  it actually  represents  infinity  and  repetition, which  was  something  that  we  were  really  interested  in. This  caused  the  big  revolution  in  science, because  in  theoretical  science, understanding  these  patterns  can  help  create new  materials  that  are  very stable,  called  quasi  crystals. Actually,  Roger  Penrose,  I  believe,  got  the  Nobel  Prize. Maybe  not  exactly  for  this  work, but  for  some  of  the  work  that  derived  from  this. But  interestingly,  there's  research that  shows  that  these  patterns were  discovered  by  some of  the  architects  in  the  Middle  East, much  much  earlier,  like  around  14,  15th  century. This  is  an  image  of  a  mosque  that  uses  this. Now  the  issue  is  that  all  the documentation  has  been  lost. So  we  don't  know  what  they knew  and  how  they  arrived  at  it. But  these  don't  happen  randomly. These  are  by  design. I  was  very  interested  in  this. Of  course,  computationally  we  can  create  this  very easily  and  we  can  create  representations  of  these  tiles. So  our  question,  and  Ryan  Zuber  and  Li, but  my  colleagues  really  worked  on  this  a  lot, was  how  can  we  combine this  biological  imaging  with  this  geometric  imaging? And  it  took  a  long  time  to  work  on  it, and  they  did  a  lot  of  magic  in  the  back, but  eventually  they  came  up with  animation  that  combines  them  together. I  find  it  very  memerizing  and  meditative. And  the  idea  here  is  that  it  aligns  with this  poem  repeating  and resounding  over  time,  surviving  through  change. We  had  this  then. This  was  one  of  our  ideas  here. Remember  I  was  talking  about  the  red  pen. In  Iran,  we  have  this  calligraphy  tradition  that's  used to  write  these  poems  often and  sometimes  they're  written  on  drums. The  composer  I  was working  with  Linda  Desmond,  was  very  interested  in  this. We  did  a  recording  of a  calligrapher  writing  this  poem again  and  again  around  the  drum. And  the  sound  is  very  interesting,  but  you  can  hear  it. If  you  listen  carefully,  that's  not  the  sound. It's  very  subtle,  but  there  is  the  sound  to  this  video. Then  our  exhibition  design became  a  little  bit  more  complicated. We  said,  well,  if  we  have the  visualizations  and  if you  have  the  video  of  the  calligraphy, how  can  we  put  it  together  with the  IRC  designed  a  way of  having  several  projectors  that  can project  this  image  onto  a  parachute. We  bought  a  army  grade  parachute  and we  basically  set  it  up  in  a  space. The  final  product  looked  like  this.  I  have  another  video. Okay,  yeah. So  we  had  this  installation  at  the  university  and  I was  really  curious  to  see  if  we  go  back to  the  initial  three  teams  that  I  mentioned  to  you, how  much  of  that  will  occur if  we  have  audience  members  experiencing  this. And  there  was  this  idea  around trans  disciplinary  fluency. And  actually  what  happened was  that  we  realized  that  people  come  to this  exhibit  or  to this  installation  with very  different  intentions  and  background. So  some  people  came  from biology  and  they  were  like,  well, we're  interested  to  see  how  you do  this  biological  product. Some  people  were  from  math  and they  were  interested  in  the  geometry, Some  people  were  from  the  audio. And  they  were  really  kind  of  paying  attention  to how  the  voice  was  kind  of  transformed  over  time. But  then  when  they  were  there, they  would  start  talking  about the  other  aspects  of  the  work. That  kind  of  transdisciplinarity, I  think  of  it  as  a  means  of engagement  for  different  groups of  people  to  come  together  and  kind of  have  conversations  together. It  was  very  important  and  also  for  me  and  for  our  team. A  really  big  challenge  about  how to  communicate  about  this  project. I  mean,  I'm  trying  also, even  in  this  talk,  to  communicate  about  it, but  there's  a  lot  of  concepts  and a  lot  of  ideas  that  need  to  come  together. And  it's  kind  of  an  ongoing  challenge, but  it's  also  a  good  challenge  in  some  ways. Other  piece  was  about  negotiating  access. So  a  lot  of  people  ask  me  like, how  are  you  doing  this  work? Is  it  like  HCI  work?  Is  it  computer  science? Is  it  information  system,  is  the  art? Is  it  music  What  are  you  doing? I  think  those  are  also  very  healthy  conversations to  have  in  the  university  and also  outside  of  the  university  because  it helps  question  some  of  those  boundaries  that  we  draw. I'm  excited  to  continue  and see  where  we  can  go  with  this  project. I've  also  had  some  very  interesting  business  proposals which  I'm  not  going  to  do  around  selling  these, the  wine  as  gifts  for  wedding, I  mean  custom  orders  and  so  on. Or  using  it  for  NSA  to send  secret  messages  anywhere  and  stuff  like  that. So  it  kind  of  causes some  interesting  reactions  in  people, but  some  of  them  I'm  more  interested, like  the  artworks  and  some  of  them  I think  I'm  going  to  pass  on  for  now. Yeah.  Okay.  So  I'm  going  to  switch gears  a  little  bit  now and  talk  about  the  different  project  around. Do  it  yourself,  Assistive  technology,  do  it  yourself. Assistive  technology  are  basically assistive  technologies  that  are designed  to  either  be  built, ideally  by  people  with  disabilities  or  by  members  of the  community  who  are  not  necessarily professionals  in  building  assistive  technologies. There's  a  number  of  these  things  around, some  of  them  are  more  sophisticated, for  example,  puff  switches  or  single  switches. I  have  some  images  here, even  some  prosthetics,  and  some  are  more  simple. Like,  for  example,  a  pencil  grip, or  we  have  one  on  the  bottom,  a  customized  grip. And  these  can  make  a  big  difference. I've  seen  some  of  the  DIY  ATs  that  are  treated, printed,  being  used  by  some  of our  community  in  the  long  run, they  can  make  a  big  difference. Sometimes  a  big  question  is Which  types  of  assistive  technologies  are  appropriate  to make  using  the  IY  approaches  and  which  ones  are  not? This  was  the  space  that  I  was  interested  in. I  was  working  on  this  project, also  for  my  Phd, as  part  of  a  site  project  during  my  Phd. And  I  had  a  colleague  who  was very  interested  in  accessibility, but  he  came  and  talked  to  me.  We  talked  a  lot. And  he  was  saying  that  a  lot  of the  technologies  and  features and  so  on  are  built  in  North  America  and  Europe. There  isn't  a  lot  outside  of  there. And  he  was  from  Kenya. He  had  done  a  lot  of  work  over a  long  period  of  time  with  schools, special  education  schools  in  both  rural  and  urban  Kenya. And  he  wanted  to  explore  some of  the  questions  that  we  can. In  this  space  there,  we kind  of  started  thinking  about  what  are some  of  features  or  some  of the  characteristics  in  the  Kenyan  landscape. We  were  thinking  a  lot about  this  new  movement  in  Kenya  to create  home  grown  digital  technologies. So  there's  a  number  of  them  you  might  be  familiar  with. Yuhahidi  Psa. These  are  technologies  that  were  developed  there  and really  kind  of  caught  up  in  a  lot  of  places. And  there's  a  move  to  also  enact  on legislation  around  creating  access for  people  with  disabilities  in  Kenya. So  there  was  a  lot  of  motivation  in engaging  with  accessibility  and  assistive  technology. Now  it  was  a  challenge  to talk  about  assistive  technology, especially  from  an  abstract  point  of  view. And  my  colleague  was  very interested  in  talking  about  it  as a  concrete  system  or  concrete  approach. So  we  had  a  prototype  DIY  communication  board. So  these  are  devices  that  are often  used  by  people  who  are  non  verbal. And  basically  they  can  press  a  button  or activate  switch  and  it  will  play  back  some  audio. There's  a  lot  of  commercial  versions  of  them  available, but  they're  often  expensive. Sometimes  they  have  a  lot  of  features  which  can be  difficult  for  some  of  the  users to  navigate  and  also  the  hardware  is  hard  to  design. I  co  designed  a  prototype  with a  special  education  teacher  where  we  use  the  sway  pie again  and  some  sensors  to  put  together  a  device. It  was  pretty  basic,  but  we  could  change  any  part  of  it, including  the  software,  the  shape  of  it, and  so  on  because  we  had  created  ourselves. This  is  a  use  case. This  girl,  I  think  she  had several  policies  sitting  in  a  wheelchair. She  has  non  verbal.  She  can  press the  buttons  and  playback  audio. She  couldn't  use  some  of  the  conventional  devices because  they  were  not  sensitive enough  for  her  very  light  touch. But  we  could  change  the  sensitivity  of  this  capacitator. It  could  be  tweaked  for  her, so  we  decompose  this  device  into  a  kit. Started  to  use  it  as  a  way  to  encourage discussion  with  diverse  stakeholders  in  Quisumo, which  is  the  third  largest  city  in  Kenya. And  that's  where  my  colleague  had  connections. I  want  to  go  into  a  lot  of  details  around  a  lot  of the  activities  we  did there,  including  stakeholder  mapping. Some  of  you  might  be  familiar  with  kind  of having  sessions  where  we  were talking  to  people  there  around  who  is  doing  work, disability  work,  who  is doing  technology  work  in  this  space. And  are  they  connected  with  each  other? Which  government  organizations  or non  governmental  organizations  are  working  together? And  how  can  collaborate to  make  something  like  this  available? More  interestingly,  and  that  we had  some  interesting  outcomes  from  there. But  we  also  brought this  device  and  some  versions  of  it  to  several  schools. And  left  them  for  the  teachers and  for  some  of  the  university  student, local  university  students  that  we  had  trained to  customize  and  use  in  the  schools. Things  we  saw  was  really  interesting. First  of  all,  they  used  it  collectively, so  all  the  kids  were  using  it  together. Also,  they  used  it  in  a  way  that  was very  much  supporting  engagement and  acknowledgment  of  each  other. For  example,  these  were  very  mixed  classes. Some  of  the,  um, children  there  had  verbal, some  of  them  were  not  verbal, some  of  them  had  different  degrees of  communication  skills. And  with  this  device, what  the  teachers  would  often  do  was,  for  example, one  thing  they  did  was  record everybody's  voice,  everybody's  name. And  then  they  would  have  each  person press  the  button  that  corresponded  to their  name  so  that  they  were  all included  in  the  warm  up  activity  of  the  day. And  they  said  that  it  made  a  big  difference for  the  class  dynamics. Some  other  things  that  they  did  was  that  they kind  of  use  some  local  material. So  this  is  one  that  was  created  by  a  local  carpenter. And  they  were  kind  of  really  asking important  questions  because  when I  was  talking  to  them  initially, they  were  very  much  aware  of the  colonial  history  of  technology  there. So  a  lot  of  technologies  are  donated. They're  not  really  well  maintained, and  over  time  they  go  out  of  use. And  also  they're  expensive  and  hard  to  come  by. So  they  were  very  much  aware  of  this  issue  and  they didn't  want  any  technology  that's going  to  be  a  burden  in  the  long  term. So  even  the  device  we  have, if  we  have  to  get  the  raspberry  pie  from  somewhere  else, and  people  don't  have  the  expertise  there  to either  build  it  or  program  it  and  so  on, it  would  not  be  really  relevant  for  them. They  were  asking  these  questions a  lot  and  also  questions  around E  waste  and  other  environmental  impact  of  devices. At  the  same  time,  they  were  very  interested about  the  possibilities  of  these  technologies, especially  around  some  of the  interactivity  that  happened when  the  kids  were  using  this  device. Specifically,  we  also  interviewed  caregivers  of  the  kids, and  I  think  the  interviews  were  taking  part. This  was  a  very  long  project. I  think  we  worked  on  it  at  least  four  years, but  after  the  third  year  we  did  interviews  and  some of  the  data  we  got  was  that  several  of  the  children, they  didn't  have  access  to  interactive  technology  the  way that  children  have  here  or  even  adults  have  here. And  because  of  that,  they  were really  guarded  against  using  things  like the  telephone  or  any  other  interactive  device. Whereas  after  using  this  device  in  the  school  setting, they  were  more  encouraged  to  pick  up  the  phone, for  example,  and  communicate  with others  using  some  of  those  technologies. So  that  was  an  interesting  early  finding. Of  course,  Covid  really  kind  of  messed  things  up. We  didn't  get  to  continue  this  project  much  longer. But  that  also  opened  up another  area  where  a  lot  of  our  participants  were  asking about  technologies  that  can support  things  beyond  functional  communication. For  example,  entertainment,  creativity,  joy,  fun, things  that  communication  devices  can  be  a  bit  limiting, obviously  by  the  design  and  also  their  function. Some  of  our  therapists  were  talking  a  lot  about  that. We  created  a  couple  of  different  versions of  this  that  are  not  necessarily geared  towards  learning  or  trapautic  purposes. Although  they  can  be,  for  example, a  very,  very  simple  piano, something  that  has  like  four  keys, and  you  can  actually  record musical  audio  other  than  piano  sounds  on  it. Also  a  music  player. This  one  on  the  right  is music  player  that  instead  of  the  keys  it  has, it  detects  RFID  tags. And  it  can  play  any  audio  that's  connected  to that  RFID  tag  that  was  designed  for  a  child  who  really, I  think,  yeah,  he  had  like a  bunch  of  artists  that  he  was  obsessed  with and  he  wanted  to  play  them,  play  the  music. But  whenever  he  played  it  on  Youtube  or  other  platforms, it  would  go  to  other  videos  and  it  would  get really  confusing  and  frustrating. But  he  wanted  something  that  didn't have  necessarily  display, and  that  was  the  one  that  we  created. So  I  found  an  old  CD  case  and  we had  the  RFID  tag  in  there. And  then  whenever  he  brought  it  close, I  think  he  really  liked  Bruno  Mars. I'm  trying.  Yeah,  I  think  that's  what  it  is. Yeah,  he  really  liked  Bruno  Mars. So  he  liked  to  play  Bruno  Mars  song  by  kind  of bringing  that  case  close  to  the  player  there. This  kind  of  has  also  motivated our  lab  as  a  whole  to  think  more  about  what  are some  aesthetic  possibilities  of  working with  disability  and  working with  accessibility  and  assistive  technology. I've  had  a  couple  of  students  who  are  very  much using  fine  arts  methods  to  customize  prosthetics. We  also  are  kind  of  asking  some  questions  about the  intersectional  experiences  around  disability. And  what  would  it  look  like  if  he had  assistive  technologies  that  were  more  aware  of, for  example,  race,  gender, sexuality,  and  so  on. The  image  I  have  on  the  left  is  of  a  hearing  aid  holder, has  the  texture  and  looks  like the  texture  and  color  of  African  American  hair. And  it  was  requested  from  our  lab  by a  therapist  who  said  that this  type  of  design  does  not  yet  exist  commercially, and  a  lot  of  her  clients  would  like  to  have  that. This  is  building  on  work  that's  earlier  looked  at the  statics  and  like  the  extensions of  assistive  technology, say  Abby  angle  here. She's  done  a  lot  of  work  in  that  space  too. And  thinking  about  like,  what  are  some of  the  possibilities  of media  and  anesthetics  in the  space  of  disability  and  accessibility. Okay.  Of  course,  none  of  this  work  would be  remotely  possible  without  the  work  of  my  students. Some  of  them  are  here  and  colleagues  and  collaborators, and  without  inspiration  by mentors  such  as  Carl  and  I  mean, we  are  all  kind  of  building  on  each  other's  work. And  it's  really,  really  important  to  have  that  space. And  I  think  one  thing  I  want  to say  is  that  giving  the  courage  to  explore, because  sometimes  there  are  things that  might  be  a  little  bit  out  there, but  you  want  to  explore  it  and  see  where  it  goes. And  I  really  appreciate  the  courage  and the  encouragement  that  I've  received  over the  years  about  the  projects. Okay,  I'm  going  to  stop  there. Thanks  everyone,  and  I'm  happy  to  answer any  questions  that question  shall  ask  questions. Share. Hi,  I'm  Rachel  Lowe. Before  I  came  here  was  a  speech  therapist, so  I  loved  seeing  your  last  thing  in  particular. So  I  do  work  with co  design  with  adults  with  disabilities. And  it  looked  like  you  were  doing a  lot  of  work  with  proxies, therapists,  and  parents  and  whatnot. So  I'm  just  curious,  what  role, if  any,  did  the  kids  and the  people  with  disabilities take  in  your  design  projects? And  moving  forward,  what  are your  thoughts  towards  including  them  in  co  designs? Yeah,  Excellent  question.  Thank  you  very  much. Yeah,  I  feel  like  in  my  process, I  kind  of  have  moved  more  from working  with  proxies  to  working with  people  more  directly, I  think,  and  people  with  disabilities, both  adults  and  children. For  the  first  project  that  I  mentioned, I  had  a  hard  task  of  trying  to translate  input  both  from kids  and  also  kids  with  disabilities. Especially  because  I  was  trying to  design  something  for  the  home  setting. A  lot  of  the  issues  that  would  come  up, they  had  to  be  translated  for  me through  the  parents  or  through  the  therapist. I  had  kind  of  a  hard  time understanding  what  some  of  the  input  is, and  I  think  that  translation  was the  main  part  that  I  relied  on  the  proxies. However,  there  was  also situations  where  it  was  very  difficult to  get  a  specific  input  from  some  of  my  participants. However,  now  I  have realized  that  there's  a  lot  of  different  ways  of getting  that  input  and  we  just  need to  rethink  what  are  some  communication  ways. Sometimes  that  transition  is, of  course,  is  still  needed, but  a  lot  of  it  is  about  thinking  about protocols  that  are  meaningful and  useful  for  both  parties. Some  of  the  Kenya  project, there  was  more  direct  input. Not  necessarily  direct  to  me, but  direct  to  the  part  of  the  research  team  who  were working  at  the  sites.  Thank  you. Other  Yes, poetic. Did  you  have  different  poets or  is  there  a  noticeable  difference? Yes.  Or  different? Yeah.  Yeah.  Good  question. I  have  also  this is  going  to  be  the  most  disappointing  answer. I  have  not  tasted  the  wine. Yeah.  But  that  has  a  reason, and  that  goes  back  to  the  aesthetic  logic  of  it, is  that  I  still  have  not  found the  right  intention  for  doing  that. It  might  be  a  performance, it  might  be  something,  but  I  have  not.  I  have  smelled  it. It  smells  alcoholic,  so  I  know  that  it  worked, but  I  haven't  tasted  it,  but  yeah. Good  question. Yes,  yes,  yes. Fantastic.  Yeah.  So  my  work  with  the  community  labs  is basically  part  of  a  bigger  project  where  I'm looking  at  informal  learning  outside  of  school, in  kind  of  spaces  that  are  creating these  opportunities  for  kids  and adults  to  learn  about  emerging  technologies. And  one  of  the  mechanisms  I'm  looking  at  is  bio  art. I  showed  some  photos  about  the  ago  art  that  people  are doing  some  research  are  published  on that  and  I'm  doing  a  little  bit  of  research  on  that. That  kind  of  falls  under  some  of  my  NSF  funded  work. But  not  the  art  project?  The  art  project, I'm  very  much  aware  that the  funding  for  that  one  is  different. Initially,  it  was  very  much  self  funded, so  there  wasn't  I  done  my  time and  volunteering  and  collaborators  who  worked  with  me. I  was  buying  only  very  minimal  material. But  last  year  we  got  a  fellowship  that  is  designed  to bring  artists  and  scientists together  in  this  type  of  projects. And  that's  how  my  colleague  Linda  Dusman, who's  the  composer  and  I  applied  for  it. And  it  enabled  us  to  work  with  the  IRC, the  imaging  Research  Center  that  I  mentioned. And  they  provided  a  lot  of  the  work  that helps  us  elevate  the  visual  aspects  of  the  work, a  little  bit  of  everything. But  yeah,  it's  been  a  little patchy  the  funding,  but  yeah. Thank  you.  Yes, Mm  hm. Yeah.  Yeah,  it's  a  very  good  question. I  think  that  some  of  it  cannot be  locally  sourced  and  I  think  there  is also  some  research  that  shows  that  even  some  of the  locally  sourced  material  might  not  be  as sustainable  as  something  like  it  kind  of  depends. It's  a  case  by  case  situation. It's  a  very,  very  complex  question. So  I  haven't  been  able  to  answer  that. I  know  that  there  are  robust  ways to  get  specifically,  at  least  at  the  time, the  raspberry  pie  to  Kenya, there  were  some  distributors  that  had  it  available. And  some  of  the  circuits  are specifically  designed  for  that  context. So  there  are  some  places, but  again,  I'm  not  sure  what  the  landscape  is  now. Because  it  changes  so  much. Yeah.  But  I  would  say  that  a  lot  of the  questions  that  they  had  was  around  how  can  we  have, for  example,  backup  plans, like  something  that  is  open  source. Maybe  the  hardware  can  be more  open  source  so  there  could be  different  versions  of  it, so  if  something  fails,  we  can  have  another  one. But  yeah,  but  especially the  hardware  part  is a  really  difficult  part  to  work  with. Yeah,  Yes. Mm, yeah. Yeah,  Yeah,  that's  absolutely  a  very  good  point. I  mean,  I  think  the  other  piece  that  came  out  of that  work  is  that  a  lot  of  the  narrative  or the  processes  around  DIY  assistive  technology  are  so situated  in  the  ecosystems  of  North  America and  Europe  that  they're  enabled  by  that. And  so  if  you  kind  of  move  that, it's  going  to  completely  change  the  landscape. Yeah,  I  mean,  there's  maker  approaches that  are  happening  in  other  places  too, but  the  nature  of the  ecosystem  infrastructural  support  is  different. So  yeah.  Yeah.  Thank  you.  Yeah. How  do  you  spot  disciplinary  opportunities and  what  do  you  do? Yeah,  So  the  first  one, I  hope  it's  not  too  disappointing, but  it's  not  systematic, It's  very  much  around  people  that I  know  and  I  appreciate  working  with  and basically  kind  of  exposing myself  to  different  scenarios  where  we have  conversations  and  some  ideas come  that  are  just  amazing. And  I  would  love  to  continue  working  with  that  person. I  think  a  lot  of  my  projects have  kind  of  happened  like  that. Or  I  might  have  an  idea  that somebody  else  is  interested  in  collaborating. So  that's  kind  of  one  way the  thing  that  I  want  to  do  more  in  the  future. I  mean,  I  would  love  to  have  this  project. The  first  one  especially deployed  in  a  couple  of  different  variations  to  see  how people  respond  to  it  and  who  responds  to  it  and  if  it  has any  lasting  changes  in either  the  infrastructure  that  it's  set  up  in  or  it, does  it  open  new  opportunities  for other  people  to  do  similar  things  or  not? Or  what  kind  of  other  impact it  might  have?  Yeah.  Thank  you. Okay.  We're  going  to  wrap  this  up. But  first,  can  we  give  a  round  of  applause? Yeah,  so  I  just  want  to  say  thank  you. I  mean,  what's  exciting  to  me, and  we  can  talk  about  this  more  later, is  the  way  in  which  this  is  really  broadening what  we  can  think  of  doing  in  our  field. And  then  also,  I  just  want  to  say, I  think  it's  great  and  we  can  all  learn  from the  amount  of  work  that  went  into  that  art  project. Right  where  it's  like it's  every  step  is  like  one  more  complication. And  I  think  that  that's  an  important  lesson for  us  all  to  hear  about. Okay.  I  need  to  make  two  announcements. Sorry.  I  need  to  let  you  all  know  what  do  I  need  to?