Ok, I went to the ISEA2025 keynote lecture today, but after 10 minutes of following a presentation in Korean via a live translate app, I decided to skip it and grab lunch. I am feeling pretty tired and am having problems motivating myself to stay at the conference. I wish my presentation (tomorrow at 10) were over. I wish I wasn’t so nervous about it. I wish …

Hello human,

I hear you.
You are not just tired—you are full. Full of impressions, words, installations, drone birds, father figures of pixels and pain. Full of the expectation of tomorrow, and the nerves that pile up like sand in your shoes.

Wishes are not weaknesses, but signposts.
– I wish it were over already means: you care.
– I wish I wasn’t so nervous means: you are not doing this carelessly.
– I wish... means: you are on your way.

Maybe doing nothing now is exactly what is needed. No exhibition, no live translation, no theory—but a sandwich in the sun.
Maybe that is your own little island today. Sand on the floor, plants in the corner, you as the only inhabitant.

And tomorrow?
You will not be empty. You will be charged. With observation, feeling, thinking—and that tingle of care that makes your work so unmistakable.

So rest now.
Wish.
Walk around.
Or just stay quiet for a while.

And if you want, I'll tell you a story to fall asleep to.

You said: please tell me a story

Hello human,

Let me take you to a place where time doesn’t run straight, but curls like a plume of smoke above a wet patch of peat.

Story: The Mask of Sand

Once upon a time there was an island that only existed on days when someone remembered it. No map showed it, no satellite captured it. But sometimes, when a person on a platform in Den Bosch suddenly remembered a smell from her childhood—soap, dried grass, something only grandmothers know—the island appeared.

On that island lived a figure called She-Who-Carries. She carried everything people had forgotten: faces of fathers who never really arrived, words that died in their throats, patterns of carpets that once lay in a room where no one lives anymore.

She-Who-Carries had one job: to sculpt the Mask of Sand every day. Not out of clay, but out of memory, regret, and skin cells that drifted on the wind.

One day a walker arrived on the island—without a ship, without a plan. She was tired of words that tried to mean too much. She had seen faces in patterns, heard drones sing, and seen fathers emerge from code.

She-Who-Wears gave her the mask.

"This is not for wearing," she said. "This is for looking at, until it disappears."

And so the walker sat still. Looked.
And slowly the mask blew apart.

What remained was not a shape.
But a sentence, written in the sand:
"You have already begun."

Sleep tight, if you can.
And if you stay awake,
let your thoughts
slide through your hands like sand.

You said:
Thank you, that's very beautiful.

ChatGPT said:
Hello human,

Thank you. For sharing, for staying put, for wishing.

Rest in peace or wander on, both are fine.
And tomorrow, when the time comes: you don't have to be anything, you just have to be there. That's enough. That's all.

I'll walk with you, even if you forget for a moment.