A conversation with Mish Grigor, Melbourne-based theatre and performance maker whom I skyped from Sydney to Melbourne on 20th of August, shortly after her first online performance titled Wasting Wasting Wasting Time.
We talk about her experience of performing via the zoom and how she feels about the liveness of the ‘in real life’ or ‘in person’ theatre being replaced by the digital interface. Can we achieve the same or similar level of intimacy online?
As we consider the idea of ‘wasting time’ - a theme of Mish’s recent URL performance - we question: are we rushing to quickly reinvent our lives and missing an opportunity to slow down and cultivate deeper thoughts? Is speeding up in order to catch up with the changes blurring the clarity of our vision? Could ‘wasting time’ and doing nothing be the most responsible thing to do right now? And what do we even have in mind when we suggest that time could be wasted?
This podcast was recorded and produced on the stolen lands of the people of Eora and Kulin nations and we pay our respect to elders past and present.
TRANSCRIPT
Ira Ferris: Hi, nice to see you.
Mish Grigor: Nice to see you too. How are you?
Ira Ferris: I'm good. I'm doing well. Yeah, I'm in Sydney; we have a bit better situation here than you guys in Melbourne at the moment. How are you going? How is your current existence?
Mish Grigor: It's boring [laughs]… But, it's fine. I can't wait till it's over but I'm also, you know, … I have a full stomach and a warm bed so I can't really complain too much. Yeah.
Ira Ferris: And what is your day to day like; what are some major, biggest changes that you're experiencing?
Mish Grigor: Well, I mean, we're not allowed to leave a 5km area away from our house and you're not allowed to drive even within that; you're not allowed to drive to exercise. You can only walk or run to exercise. So, I feel very stuck here. Because even in the last lockdown I would go for long bike rides or drive to the beach, because I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne where there is no nature. So, it's very... I don't know, it's weird not to be able to just go somewhere even if on your own; it feels illogical. So, I think that's the biggest thing; everyone feels very stuck to their house. And I don't have a balcony or a veranda; I live in an apartment so it's very interior.
Ira Ferris: And what about working from home? How is it functioning for you; both from the perspective of physicality and in terms of being inspired and creative?
Mish Grigor: Well, I haven't been feeling that inspired or creative this whole year, really. I feel like it's a really weird time. And also, because I work so collaboratively most of the time. So, I miss the social sense of being around people a lot, in terms of how I think or how ideas come. But I mean, it could be worse. You know, a lot of people in Melbourne live in really cold houses, like really old shitty share houses. And because my flat is small, it's quite warm and cosy. So that's good. And I guess I've always worked a little bit from home. I mean, I hate it. Obviously, I would never choose this life. This is not my life as I chose it, but it sort of became normal. But I miss being able to break up my day by going out and reading in a cafe, or working in a library, or going to my studio; all those little things... Yeah. Yeah. I miss it a lot.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, I was just listening to a panel discussion of some sort, and somebody spoke about missing 'people watching'. You know, just sitting in a cafe and watching people pass by and just this theatre of everyday life. That is also something that we are lacking at the moment. Yeah...
Do you feel comfortable staying with video or do you want us to go audio only?
Mish Grigor: I'm fine, I'm fine. I tend to look around because I try to look out of my window so I get some non-screen eye-work. [laughs]
Ira Ferris: Yeah, I'm just wondering if our connection might be better if we don't have video on because I'm getting a bit of interruptions.
Mish Grigor: Ah, ok.
Ira Ferris: So, let's switch it off and hopefully that will be better and then we can just focus on our voices which I find quite interesting in this period, the focus on the voice and how that changes our attention and the way we connect. Is it something that you have been noticing or experiencing as well?
Mish Grigor: Yeah, it's interesting. I always think of my friend who when she went on tour, she was away from her child and she would Skype or zoom with the child who was a toddler at the time and was so distressed by her image. It was like: I can hear you, I can see you, but you're flat. It was very confusing for the child. So, I think, yeah, it's comforting in some ways to see people but also really annoying. Yeah. It's a funny thing. But I also kind of love the domestic. I love to see into people's spaces, you know, that it's sort of human or something. Like, it's people and the choices they make with where they are. There is something very private about looking into someone's home space. So, I kind of like that.
Ira Ferris: And what about when you performed for ADAM the other night; were we seeing inside of your sleeping room or was it a different space that you chose to show us, publicly?
Mish Grigor: Yeah, it's ... I live with my partner and we have a spare room. So, it's like our everything room; books and everything is in here. So, it's, I guess, an office. It's my office. [laughs]
Ira Ferris: That's then, I guess, a deliberate choice that you made not to give us an insight into your sleeping room, but rather in a space that's not as intimate.
Mish Grigor: Yeah. Yeah. It's not too... Yeah, there are other levels aren't there. Like, when someone's sitting on their bed on a work call. I think that's always the most delightful because it's like: wow, you're really... that's really where you sleep, that's your vulnerable space. Whereas this is perhaps a little bit removed. That was the first performance that I've done, though, here. And yeah, I don't know, I think in a way, the framing of it was because it was positioned as a ‘lecture performance’. So, there was something about it just being me, going through my computer as I would. There was something sort of practical about that choice. Whereas if it was some other type of performance frame, ... Like, I've just been really yearning, ... Because Melbourne is in lockdown and we are all zooming each other for work from our spaces, for my art yearnings I just can't ... I feel so sick of portrait mode and people's faces and bad lighting. So, with another frame I would have chosen something much weirder or beautiful or ugly or something that doesn't look like a human space.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, I was interested in this choice that you made to call it or think of it as a 'lecture performance'. Was that the framework that you were given by the festival or was it your choice to think and present it in that way, as a lecture
Mish Grigor: No. Yeah, the curatorial brief was as a lecture performance. That's the words they used. And that's, I guess, how I interpreted it.
Ira Ferris: Did you then think of yourself as a character or as Mish? Or how did you translate that framework into theatrical terms? Or did you think of it more as performance art or something like that?
Mish Grigor: Um. I think I was somewhere in between a character and myself, a little bit like a persona or ... Yeah, there was some kind of blurriness because I was kind of formalized but also informal. Like the mode was a bit strange or something. But I don't know, I wouldn't say it was a character. I would just say that I was sort of using a different mode, modality which was about presenting information and reflection. But also, I was interested in a kind of almost meditative, … Kind of like those guided meditation-style voices. [laughs] Because the content, for me, was around images and being in places or imagining yourself in places or where you are or what is a place or a space. And so, there's something about dipping a little bit into that kind of guided meditation style, which was useful for me.
Ira Ferris: Is that because of the way that you also thought about the audience? Because you obviously couldn't see us. You knew we are there, somewhere in one of those camera-off little boxes. And yeah, I was wondering how you felt from that perspective. How did you envision us and your relationship to us and where we are and how we are watching and listening? Were you at all thinking about that?
Mish Grigor: Yeah, I think it's definitely something that I found really challenging because I usually work in a live sense where the audience and I share the same space. Sensing what's going on for the audience or listening to the energy in the room or trying to find a way to tune in to this group energy, whatever that means, is part of my usual practice. And so this performance to a camera, … I suppose if I was, you know, ... Some of my actor friends have a practice of film or television work, so they have that in their back catalogue but I don't work in that way. And so, I think in a way, I knew the audience was there, but without being able to tune in, I was kind of just performing for myself, you know, almost like a rehearsal because I'm watching and I'm doing. And I'm watching. And I'm doing.
Ira Ferris: Was it more tiring, in some way?
Mish Grigor: Maybe not tiring, but anticlimactic. Normally if I'm working towards a piece, there is a rush of the adrenaline that comes with the liveness and the energy required to speak to a whole room or fill a whole room. Whereas this felt like it somehow,... Because it's just for the laptop, it felt like it was a smaller stratosphere or something. I mean, this is sounding very woo woo. It's very difficult to understand why my experience was like that, you know. But yeah, it just didn't feel like it got as big as it would if there was a theatre with seven-metre-high ceilings that you have to sort of rise up in your imagining of yourself. But at the same time, there was something about that that I found really interesting. I was sort of intrigued by that difference.
Ira Ferris: Hmmm... I guess the kind of adrenaline is very different because when you're on stage there is this rush of energy that you receive from the live audience. And that, I suppose, is completely different from adrenaline experience in this more flattened context.
Mish Grigor: Absolutely. And also, coming down from that, ... Because, you know, the culture of theatre performances is that you're gathered together around this event and then you decompress together, whether that be over a glass of wine or sometimes just on the way out of the theatre, you know. It's very rare that I'll do a season and not come off stage, wash my face and then go and talk to someone about their experience of the piece or the ideas or something, and that is how you kind of come back to reality. So then to sort of be pushed out into just: Oh, I'm in my lounge room 30 seconds later; that was very odd. Yeah, you feel that disconnect from the live there.
“The culture of theatre performances is that you're gathered around this event and then you decompress together, whether that be over a glass of wine or on the way out. That is how you kind of come back to reality. So to be pushed into my lounge room 30 seconds later; that was very odd. Yeah, you feel that disconnect from the live there.”
Ira Ferris: Oh, yeah. And I also felt that when your performance finished. There was this void. You know, usually there is a ritual of clapping and bowing or whatever. There is a more obvious marking of the end and the transition. So yeah, I wanted to ask you, how did you feel? ... Well, now you spoke a bit about how you felt after we all switched off and went offline into our own spaces of loneliness again, but how did you feel even at that very moment when the performance finished and we were still there together online and we were invited to ask you questions and you went into a Q&A with the moderator. That moment when you stopped performing. The transition was so different then would normally be; there was no celebration that you usually have when on stage.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, it's funny. With the 2020, I feel that everybody has these markers of, you know, things that didn't happen. But I had a show in a festival in Melbourne that was due to open as the initial lockdowns were happening. And so, we were really ready. We were bumping in the show and doing the lighting plot and then we had to take it down. It was heartbreaking. But one of the things I realised that I was sad about the most was the fact that I don't get to share this with my community and my peers in the art world. And I realised how important that is to me. I suppose it's an obvious thing to say, but it hadn't been at the front of my mind that this sharing of thoughts and sharing of work is so much a part of what we do and how we relate ideas back and forth from each other. And of course, those rituals are so, ... Yeah, so set.
It's funny that at ADAM I found it actually quite strange and violent to go straight from performance mode into Q&A without any gap. Normally if I do a show, I go backstage, get out of my performance clothes into my civilian clothes, and then there's a moment, a breath, some water, and then you might re-enter and go and sit on the stage and there's someone there to do a Q&A with. So there are these little moments of the liminal space between who you are and what that performance has required of you or what that action is.
And, I also think that it's funny that with all of these zooms, every workplace or every form of labor is so directional. Like you can get things done and you can talk to each other, but you don't have these interstitial spaces where actually so much of thinking or processing happens. Like going to a cafe on a break with your colleagues and just processing what was happening or brainstorming or... Yeah, these other things. I just find that it's very much like, we're either on or off. We're doing something or we're not doing something. We're in the meeting room or out of it. I think that's partly what I was playing with in the lecture performance. This kind of queering or blurring of modes is something that I'm really interested in, in these months.
“With all of these zooms, every workplace or every form of labor is so directional. You can get things done and you can talk to each other, but you don't have the interstitial spaces where actually so much of thinking or processing happens. Like going to a cafe on a break with your colleagues and just processing what was happening or brainstorming or... Yeah, these other things. I just find that it's very much like, we're either on or off. We're in the meeting room or out of it.”
Ira Ferris: That's really interesting; what you said about feeling a certain violation. It's a really powerful word to use because yeah ..., it's like being in a cage of a screen with all this expectation of you to perform in a certain way. And I know that ... I mean, I know because you mentioned it in the Q&A, that at the beginning you were reluctant to even consider online because you wanted to stay faithful to the liveness of the theatre and the energy that is present in the room when we share the performance space physically. So, what made you venture into this and try it out, after all?
Mish Grigor: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot. I think that initially my resistance to going online was a response to this idea that there is nothing that can stop us artists from just dealing with the next problem. Like, oh, there's no money, that's OK, I'll keep going. There's no stage, it's OK, I'll keep going. There's no audience, I'll just keep going. It's like we just accept the conditions that are pulled away from us. And then there was also a reluctance to take something that was meant to be a live experience and put it onto a screen, because I think that those two things are speaking to a whole different set of ideas about how they're experienced, how you share them, how you consume them, what the time is on screen versus what the time is in a room together. And then I guess, ... Look, as time went on, especially because here in Melbourne we've gone back into a lockdown and it's a harder lockdown than before, I started entertaining these very existential questions: What am I, am I an artist if I don't practice? What is the performance space? When will we ever be back there? How do I function right now? And then speaking with the curators for ADAM, they were interested in me presenting something and I guess I was like, OK, well, yeah, what if I try and make something that sits in this 'lecture performance' mode and somehow deals with the screen in some way? Yeah, it was really intended as a kind of dipping my toe into that. And also, I suppose I've been influenced by seeing some other online things and I suppose thinking about artistic community and realising, as I said before, how important the sharing of ideas is to me. So, seeing other people who I know or who I've met before, seeing their work online, made me think how this is a way to hold the community or keep something alive in the community, which I think is interesting. Like we're still holding together because we're still sharing something. We still have a context through which to gather, even if it is not our preferred context. Yeah... Does that make sense?
Ira Ferris: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't think of it in these ways at all. Like as if it was a sort of service to the community; a way to keep that community, and a form of giving and sharing. Because I was thinking more about the pressure to keep going which is something I would like to talk to you a bit more about because of the topic of your piece, which is about concept of 'wasting time' and the guilt associated with potential of wasting time, but also the very idea of what is that, what do we have in mind when we say that time can be wasted? How did this theme come about for you and what did you want to express?
“Seeing other people’s work online, made me think how this is a way to hold the community or keep something alive in the community, which I think is interesting. Like we're still holding together because we're still sharing something. We still have a context through which to gather, even if it is not our preferred context.”
Mish Grigor: Well, I think it's such an interesting moment because I'm interested in wasting time but I'm also interested in what is time right now? You know, I think our experience of time is really different this year than it was last year. And it's been certainly so annoying to see all these perfect neoliberal subjects bettering themselves at the moment; having a great time in lockdown by getting really fit or whatever. I just find it really annoying. [laughs] And also, I was reading Lisa Baraitser who writes a lot about time and kind of draws on Julia Kristeva's work on circular time or non-linear times. And she writes a bit about grief and motherhood and the idea of caring and how we experience time. For instance, if you are in deep grief, you don't feel like time is going forward; you're sort of stuck in time or you're very aware of the passing of time. And she writes about when are we aware of the passing of time and what does that do? What is the materiality of time? And I think that a lot of us are talking about this at the moment. You know, there are these memes on the Internet: 'Oh, it's only been six thousand years since March!' [laughs] In a way, time has slowed down. And also, a lot of people are doing less. So, what is that? Why is time faster when we're doing more? And, are we doing less or are we just in these repetitive actions and then therefore we are feeling like we're stuck in that. You know, lots of people are talking about Groundhog Day, the film again. And, I guess for me, … I'm at the moment, you know, allowed out for one hour a day and I'm allowed to walk. And so, there's something very, you know, ... I's a very monastic lifestyle. I'm very aware of the weather and in the last couple of days I was noticing that the sun is shining and it's getting towards the end of August, so perhaps it's starting to be spring, you know, ... These kind of tuning into these very localized realities, which I don't normally care about as much. And so, I suppose yeah, just thinking about time and then thinking about wasting time. Like that's something I'm always interested in; wasting time. I like the notion of wasting time with an audience. I really like long durational work or... You know, it's so important when an audience gives you an hour of their time. It's so precious, like it's incredible. We live these crazy lives where you can do anything and these people have come together into a theatre to spend an hour. And then I just think it's the funniest thing just to waste it, just to waste ten minutes of that time together. It's so tricky or silly, which I think is interesting.
Ira Ferris: I also feel that you are questioning... Or that was my impression from the performance and from what you were saying, that you are questioning if time can be wasted.
Mish Grigor: Yeah.
Ira Ferris: Because in a sense, when we waste time, we also make time. I think someone made that point. And especially for any creative work; what appears as a waste of time is actually the most productive part of the work.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, absolutely.
Ira Ferris: I think there was a line that you say at the beginning of the performance and maybe I'm paraphrasing it a bit, but you say: ‘I haven't learned French, I haven't got fit, but I have been trying to waste time.’ So, wasting time as practice.
Mish Grigor: Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. For me it's impossible to waste time because you're just living, right. But you know, we have these cultural narratives around how we should be spending time or what is a valuable use of time or a special time together. I went to an artist talk by Tacita Dean and she said, echoing something that a lot of people say, that it is important for an artist to be bored. That you need to do nothing in order for things to rise up or to give space for a new thinking. And I really agree with that. And you often hear, if people are troubled by a creative problem or they can't solve something, they go for a walk and it suddenly, you know, the pieces fit together and they find something in their brain because there is less distraction or less pressure. And also, I just really like the idea of laziness, being like Garfield and just sitting around and eating too much. I really enjoy that. Yeah. And sometimes I also love to be really busy and really manic. So, I think I like that sort of spectrum of things. But if you really try and waste time, it's really kind of an interesting philosophical question, because I think you can't... You can't waste time because even if you decide that you're wasting time, you're already undertaking an exercise. It's like, you can't get there. It's just eating itself.
“We have these cultural narratives around how we should be spending time or what is a valuable use of time or a special time together. I went to an artist talk by Tacita Dean and she said, echoing something that a lot of people say, that it is important for an artist to be bored. […] But if you really try and waste time, it's really kind of an interesting philosophical question, because I think you can't... You can't waste time because even if you decide that you're wasting time, you're already undertaking an exercise.”
Ira Ferris: Yeah. There is this conceptual artist from ex-Yugoslavia whose name is Mladen Stilinovic and he wrote an essay 'Praise of laziness' back in the 90s and one of his sentences is "the hardest work is to do nothing." And. you know, he was in fact super productive and was anything but lazy in the way that we might think of laziness but he wanted to resist the capitalist pressure of production, the imposed pressure which is something that I've been really noticing right now. Because, you know, when the whole Corona thing started, there was a lot of talk about slowing down and everyone really wanted an opportunity to rest. But unfortunately, I didn't actually experience the slowing down or the allowance to do nothing and to just wait until the lockdown passes. Instead of that, everything has actually sped up in some ways. And now there is even more things to catch up on and learn, to develop all these new skills as you were saying in your piece. And I'm thinking about this pressure to keep going as the systems method to distract us from noticing the actual problem, the core of the problem. We just quickly adapt and keep going down the same path, rather than actually stopping so things could fundamentally change.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I don't think there can be any kind of structural change unless we extract ourselves from the processes that we are caught up in under capitalism. That's my own perspective as someone who works in the arts, someone for whom my art practice is my vocation and who works for an organization. And since the lockdown, there's certainly been a lot of communication towards organizations and advocacy sources about still fulfilling what was expected of you this year and all of this rhetoric around digital pivot which is just yeah, ... I also think it's interesting that so many big political moments have happened this year alongside it, alongside the pandemic. Protests like the Black Lives Matter. The huge steps in that movement have happened this year and now the Belarusian situation. But I don't know. I don't know what effect they will have in the long term, even though they've got such huge focus right now. The world feels like it's not quite ready to accept revolution right now. And I mean, that's like a big, ridiculous statement: "revolution". What does that mean? But, yeah, it feels like on a micro level people are still expecting or expected to operate in the ways that they were before, except now it's just atomized or further atomized.
Ira Ferris: And it also appears like the things are changing, so we are kind of blinded from perceiving that in reality nothing is really changing, it's just being repackaged.
Mish Grigor: Hmm. I think certainly for people who are involved in care in any way, … Like, all of my friends who are mothers or teachers; it's like there is all these pressure on them but the pressures were already there, now it's just acute. Like, they're just so tired, so tired, I mean, I'm just like, wow, I'm barely getting through this pandemic on my own. I'm like, oh, this is difficult. And I don't have to feed anybody and do all my work and reconceptualize my practice or think about resisting that. And, you know, it's just so immense for them.
Ira Ferris: Yes. I was wondering if in some ways the work that you've done with APHIDS last year, called 'Exit Strategies', which was about impossibilities of leaving histories behind, is related to where we are at the moment? I haven't seen the work but the premise makes me think again about the need to stop and scratch the way that we've been doing things and the value systems that we've build for histories and histories. Just stop first so we give ourselves time to see and then we can reimagine. Do you find any parallels between that piece and where we are at the moment?
Mish Grigor: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think. It's interesting to consider... For me with that piece, it was really about... I think that one of the final points I came to with that piece is that you can't leave anything behind. History is always with you in some way. And what if the strategy is to accept it, to stick around, to stay in the messiness that we're living in and try and look at it and face it and deal with it. Because in a way, I found myself naively just wanting to cut things off or shut things down, which is almost like a childhood fantasy of finding utopia. But I think... Yeah, I think in a way what 2020 has taught us is that huge things can happen all of a sudden. Like this virus ... A year ago, nobody in the world had this virus. Last year it didn't exist and now it has pervaded every aspect of most of our lives. So there's something in me that feels very optimistic once again about radical shifts, but then, yeah, I think I feel like both hugely optimistic and hugely pessimistic and those things are equal in my mind. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Because if I think structurally 2020 has though us that huge change is possible but it comes at the highest cost to people at the bottom of the power structures. You know, carers or people of colour are disproportionately crunched, affected by these huge shifts. And the people who have power or privilege still remain sort of untouched. Take Qantas for example. Qantas flights aren't running and the corporation of Qantas has lost billions of dollars, but the people who are in charge of it are still really rich and comfortable and they're not actually facing any real imminent danger or, you know, if they get sick, they won't be affected in the same way as if someone who has no money or resources is going to be affected. So, yeah, it's proved to us that revolution is possible but only the revolution that comes at the cost of human lives, of people of colour and women and old people, so that's the pessimism, you know.
“What 2020 has taught us is that huge things can happen all of a sudden. Like this virus ... A year ago, nobody in the world had this virus. Last year it didn't exist and now it has pervaded every aspect of most of our lives. So there's something in me that feels very optimistic once again about radical shifts. But then, yeah, … I feel both hugely optimistic and hugely pessimistic and those things are equal in my mind.”
Ira Ferris: Mhm. Yeah. When you speak about radical change, I have two questions there. One is, what do you see as required for that radical change to happen? And I guess one thing that comes to my mind is 'radical imagination'. Imagination that goes, as Kierkegaard said, beyond what taught can think. And I often wonder, how do we even... How is it even possible to have radical imagination and what is required for that space within us to flourish so we can produce dreams that are beyond anything that we can actually think of?
Mish Grigor: Mhm. Yeah. I went to a talk last week by Lara Stevens, an academic from Melbourne who writes a lot about the climate crisis and about performance. One of her big ongoing questions is what is it that theatre can do that other things can't and what is it that art can do? And she really posits that art is the way to communicate and to get people on board and to make change, to change popular opinion. It was sort of interesting to think about what role does creativity play in... I don't know, I guess marketing, [laughs] ... Marketing the changes. Not marketing the climate crisis, but marketing the need for shifts. Someone told me about this book, I haven't read it yet, by Bifo Berardi who has a book about breath and poetry. And as they were telling me, he talks about poetry as being the only way out of capitalism because it's sort of obscure, or it's complex and it doesn't have a clear market sense. So, to think about what is needed from massive change. Yes, look, I don't know, I think... I think, it's like... Sometimes I think that the human race will just really... Like we are just burning out and it's OK, you know. I think that was partly in my lecture performance as well; this idea of... This question I have around who was the last person to pray to a Roman God, and you know... when the empire is ending, you don't necessarily know the empire is ending. Like we really have... Like, I don't feel sad if we all just die out. I mean, obviously, I'm sad if my family is in pain, but on a larger level I'm like, well, yeah, it's maybe time to go humans so that the planet can regenerate because it certainly doesn't feel like life forms are able to regenerate while we just suck like vampires.
Ira Ferris: Um. Yeah, I share that opinion with you but also, you know, in terms of thinking about going, it's... I mean, I'm coming back to that idea of stopping because we don't have to go. We can... Like, even if we just stopped and if we shifted the values from valuing productivity and speed to valuing slowness, rest, doing nothing. Because we've done enough, you know, we don't need to produce new things for dozens of years. We could actually just cultivate the land, care for each other, do things that do not result in products and consumption of resources. And it's interesting you're mentioning this book, because I've heard about it also about three weeks ago for the first time so it's an interesting synchronicity. I think it's called 'Breathing: chaos and poetry'. And, it's interesting to use breathing as a metaphor. I haven't read the book either so I am imagining but, for me, breathing is so connected to 'pausing' and also to care - caring about our own body which is connected to caring about nature and caring about other bodies. And I guess I'm finding this turn to digital worlds endangering the potential of that, although it has its benefits as well. But if we are just inside all the time and connecting with each other only through the screen, we are getting more and more removed from other bodies and from our body. But then again, ... Yeah, I don't know. It's ... It's a bit. Yeah. Thoughts are a bit messy in my head at the moment because it's ... I mean, it's confusing.
Mish Grigor: Yeah. It's, it's interesting this kind of, you know, ... Because of course it's so amazing that I can go to this talk that's happening in Tokyo and I have access to these ideas and these people and of course, anyone who has any kind of mobility issues or challenges with travel or getting around is suddenly more hooked in a more democratic way than perhaps they would be normally. And that's really enormously positive. But, yeah, I think there is this you know, ... It's like... You know, my friend has a one year old and she doesn't really let the baby zoom people so they have this bubble where they're the only people for that child.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. The lack of socialization for the children is scary. The idea that some kids will not socialize for a year or...
Mish Grigor: Yeah. And even for adults. You know, I think we're so... Like I was thinking, being in Melbourne at the moment is a bit like living in a really remote area. Like you see someone and you are on the street at the same time and you're so excited and you're like: How are you? How is your life? Like, it feels like I live under a rock or something. It's so exciting to see another human, you know. To see the back of their head. [laughs] Because it is so different. Yeah, ... It is also very messy for me as well, because we're ... This is the thing. I think about rushing to go online with our arts practice or taking our whole lives online. This is such you know, of course the cliche is 'unprecedented times', and it's really important to just be having all of these thoughts. I mean, that's such a self aggrandising notion: oh, my thoughts are so important right now. But I think it's important for everybody to just contemplate about what the fuck is happening right now, because this is all so bizarre. You know, this is so weird. This is so really real. And I think it's so important to try and spend time with the reality right now.
“I’ve been thinking about this rushing to go online with our arts practice or taking our whole lives online. This is such you know, of course the cliche is 'unprecedented time', and […] I think it's important for everybody to just contemplate about what the fuck is happening right now, because this is all so bizarre. You know, this is so weird. This is so really real. And I think it's so important to try and spend time with the reality right now.”
Ira Ferris: Yeah. And, on the one hand, working in the arts, we have this pressure to keep performing and being relevant. And I think we need to admit there is also ego in that. But at the same time, we are a very privileged part of society that can also, you know, ... We are not essential workers. And maybe that's hard to accept, you know, that society can do without us for a bit. And we have a privilege to actually stop while some others don't; to stop and think. And yeah, that's a huge privilege to have and the one we should perhaps take.
Mish Grigor: Yeah. And somehow, in my mind, that's that huge privilege to ‘waste time’. That's exactly it. Like... You know, my mom is a nurse and so at the moment she's working extra hours and also the hours are very stressful and you have to put multiple sets of clothes on that you take off in different rooms, like the exterior layer and then the interior layer, and then all these extra precautions that are really important but are also extremely fatiguing and it's very anxiety-inducing to be around new illness or to be around very vulnerable people all the time. Like, she's thinking about survival and her patients' survival. And that's, you know, that is a high stress. And I don't have to think about that day in and day out. And so, the best thing I can do with my spare time is to try and waste it, because what else is it for. It sounds so stupid. It is stupid! But yeah, I don't know, there's some kind of tension in that that I find really interesting and the responsibility and the kind of shirking of responsibility, and the idea of relevance and irrelevance of certain types of labor. Yeah, that's really where my mind is right now.
Ira Ferris: Hmmm... Yeah.... I'm wondering if we could leave it there.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, sorry, I'm ranting. [laughs]
Ira Ferris: No, no. I'm really enjoying this. I mean, that's I guess, you know, a thing that I've been really enjoying and that has been kind of special in this time, is this connection through voices that I spoke a bit about at the beginning. And, you know, I have a background in dance and there is a lot of talk amongst dancers at the moment about voice being a body and voice having a vibration and voice being able to touch. And so that's why I enjoy these moments where we don't stare at each other's image. Because an image takes me outside of myself and my focus is on this external thing. But if we just tune into each other through our voices, maybe there is a stronger sense of being touched by one another; which is a sort of intimacy we’ve been missing.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, that's interesting. Mm hmm. It's nice.
Ira Ferris: Yeah… I'll just ask you one more question and it's a question inspired by a conversation I had with poet Neva Lukic who pondered: What would Carona time look like without technology?
Mish Grigor: Hmmm... I mean, it's interesting, like, how strict is that, what is technology? Language is a technology. If we're telling each other, don't come too close to me because you could catch the sickness, that is in some ways ... We are using a technology to communicate. But I guess the most obvious thing is thinking about it without the Internet... There was... I'm trying to think now... I heard a talk with an American artist, I can think of her name, and she chose, when the lockdown happened in her city, ... She was like, if I'm locked down, I'm going to go fully locked down. And so she did Vipassana. So she completely disconnected all of her technology and didn't speak for seven days and just meditated. And once again, of course, in a Western context, it brings up the idea of, well, who has seven days where they can just do that. It's an interesting idea. But, yeah, she said it was very negative. She did not like her experience.
Ira Ferris: And why was that? Did she elaborate?
Mish Grigor: She said that psychologically she couldn't really cope with it. She wasn't an experienced Vipassana practitioner. She didn't really know what she was doing. She just sort of closed her eyes for a week. And so it felt quite hellish to her. Yeah, I wish I could remember her name now,... But yeah, I suppose, if thinking about Corona without technology... Maybe we wouldn't even know it was happening, you know, people would just be getting sick but we wouldn't be hearing about why or what was really going on.
Ira Ferris: Maybe some information would be passing through, you know, community papers... Or...
Mish Grigor: Town hall meetings.
Ira Ferris: But we couldn't meet. Well, we would meet and then everyone would get sick.
Mish Grigor: Yeah, it's a bit like that Australian book for children called Tomorrow When the War Began about these teenagers who go off camping in a remote location and then there's an invasion and they have to sort of live out in this bushland and get away from society indefinitely. Um… Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. That provocation certainly makes me think about how much I have been leaning into technology as a survival mechanism.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. I try to do this thing every Friday. And I had to make a very deliberate and strict decision, to go to nature and switch off from technology for 24 hours. So, I don't turn my phone on or computer or anything because I'm just glued to it otherwise. And it's a hard work for me. It is that thing, you know; the hardest thing to do is to do nothing and the hardest thing to do is to not turn on your computer.
Mish Grigor: Mhm.
Ira Ferris: And my experience is that I turn it back on the next day and it's not like much has shifted. It's like, you know, I can do that actually. And I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. And it's just really refreshing.
Mish Grigor: Yeah. In between the two lockdowns... My friend has a little shack about an hour and a half from Melbourne. And just before our second lockdown, I went up there and there's no power or anything and no hot water. So I went up there, it was going to be for only two nights. But then they said they weren't going back there, so I ended up spending a week there. And that was really nice. Just to, you know, ... Because it was freezing so your day is just like lighting the fire, keeping the fire lit, boiling some water to have a little bit of a bath, .... It's basically camping, you know. Trying to cook some dinner with just a stove top. But it's really full, because you're spending all your time existing. And I think that really helped a lot when the second lockdown was announced. When it was announced that we were going back into this ‘you can't leave your house’ kind of phase, I had just come back from that. And yeah, I think that time in nature really meant that I was like, oh, it's OK, I've had a little breather. I've had, like, another rhythm that isn't just the rhythm of my flat and the Internet.
Ira Ferris: Yeah.... How long is Melbourne supposed to be under the lockdown for? Is there any indication at this stage
Mish Grigor: I think it's another three weeks at least for this hard, hard lockdown with the one hour a day. All I want is just to be able to ... Like I live about 10 kilometres from the ocean or from the bay. I mean, it's not like Sydney. It's nowhere near as nice. But, you know, there's the mountains and the bay. And I'd like to go and see one of them. So I'm just looking forward to that, hoping that this is lifted in three weeks.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, it really highlights what the essential needs are, because it's interesting that that's the first thing you would want to do. It's pointing to the things that really matter.
Mish Grigor: Yeah.
Ira Ferris: I will leave it there, if that's OK with you.
Mish Grigor: Yeah. Thank you for having me on your conversation. It's nice to spend the time thinking.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It was lovely. Thank you. Speak soon. Bye.
Mish Grigor: Bye.