DESIGN IN MIND: Sam Hecht

When Sam Hecht visited us last month to present at Arkitektura, he took some time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us in our sound booth. Sam discusses how the disrepair he experienced at home while growing up inspired his early tinkering, he reflects on products by Braun, his time working with Muji and how his partner, Kim Colin, and he came together from alternate disciplines.

Listen here to our conversation with Sam Hecht or subscribe to the podcast through iTunes. Take the conversation with you and keep Design In Mind.

Below is a transcription of the Design In Mind interview with Sam Hecht.

Sam Hecht:
Our house was, you could say, working class in a way. We didn’t come from a wealthy family or anything. And everything was, If I remember correctly, often in a state of disrepair and very, very, uncoordinated. But that was home, that was life. Even at that age, I remember growing up, I did grow up in a house where furniture didn’t match and carpets were all different in every room, there just wasn’t really any real sensibility of design at all. But then all my friends had the same houses too. There was no consciousness at all. But then that was normal.

I think probably like a lot of designers, I am dyslexic, I wasn’t very good at school, but I remember my mum coming home with a book on Design, that I thought looked like something that I could familiarize myself with.

Arkitektura:
I understand that you were very good at fixing things, your Dad was terrible at fixing things and that is how you started. You kind of became a tinker.

Sam:
Yeah, my Dad is still, I mean, he has an amazing ability to live with things that he doesn’t understand.

Arkitektura:
[Laughs]

Sam:
And I think a lot of people are like that. We would have all sorts of devices; everything from video recorders to telephones, toasters, all those sort of things. And I really always enjoyed repairing things. And also, naturally, because my father had a business of selling products, selling electrical goods. And at the time, when he was selling them, there was no contract between what the retailer was selling and what the manufacturer was supplying in that if things broke and customers would return them, then the retailer had to take the hit.

Arkitektura:
Uh hum.

Sam:
He’d essentially created these mountains of products. Everything from toasters to hairdryers to tape recorders, watches. And I would kind of get a pocket money to repair them and I was just very good at it, naturally good at it.

Arkitektura:
How old were you? You must have been…

Sam:
I was quite young. I can’t remember the age but from a very young age, probably like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

Arkitektura:
It is fascinating how these traits come out so early and that you end up continuing to do that in a way. It is not like you’re repairing things now but you are figuring out how something can work in the most efficient way and also how it can look beautiful. Although beauty, yesterday you said, is not important to you.

Sam:
It is not a driving force. I obviously enjoy beautiful things like everyone else but it is not really a starting point. I think going back to the idea of repair, repair is essentially understanding a system. And if you acknowledge that everything is a part of a system then the only way you can kind of interject and improve things is to understand that system. So systems exist, they are all manmade, and when they work really well, they tend to be extremely beautiful to me.

Arkitektura:
Yes.

Sam:
So in some ways for us, for Kim [Colin] and I, beauty is a kind of a resultant aspect of the project, it is not really the–.

Arkitektura:
Driving force.

Sam:
No no. I mean partly because it is very hard for me to distinguish what might be beautiful or not. Why? Because, I find sometimes things which are very odd and very unusual and peculiar to be extremely beautiful. So it is undefinable, in some ways, a slightly undefinable concept. It can be shared, you know people can share in their like for something but it’s certainly not scientific.

Arkitektura:
Yeah, it is so, kind of, subjective.

Sam:
Yeah. I mean you can have a kind of a collective appreciation but for me personally it is really the system, it is really the essence of how the object or the product is being developed theoretically and then produced commercially. There is a beauty in some ways in that whole system of production that fascinates me.

Arkitektura:
So when did you start kind of realizing that things were designed? I remember, it wasn’t that long ago that, let’s say a ubiquitous thing that wasn’t that beautiful, I kind of realized ‘well someone actually designed that’. And when do you think you started conceptualizing that things could be designed? That they could be designed in a better way, not just made in a better way but actually designed in a better way?

Sam:
Going back to the point I made about repair: So at quite a young age, I remember distinctively opening up certain products and seeing huge differences. So there were products which were not meant to be opened even then, you know they were very cheap welded plastic. And then there were products which were meant to be opened and I do remember at a very young age remembering when I would be opening products by Braun. There would be a very clear order in the way the components were arranged that would facilitate an idea of how the system worked. So if you can imagine if you opened a food mixer or a hair dryer, there was a very different way of seeing the system, visually. You can understand immediately why the components were positioned in that way, why the switches were there, the reasons for the length of the wires, the PCV, all of these sorts of things. And on top of that, often there was this circuit diagram that they would attach on the inside and so seeing from the inside of, in that case, a product, you could start to see that there were people who were thinking about a product far differently than another product. So I guess at a very young age, I realized that there were thoughts which were applied to the reasoning of why it was the way it was. And so I guess from a young age, I realized that there was a distinction between a good product and a bad product and you could argue that that would be good design compared to bad design. So I guess in a strange way that was really my first recollection of understanding that there is this thing called Design and then I remember starting to see the subject. I think probably like a lot of designers, I am dyslexic, I wasn’t very good at school, but I remember my mum coming home with a book on Design, that I thought looks like something that I could familiarize myself with, I could do.

Arkitektura:
Did she do that for you?

Sam:
Yeah, I think she was quite, not really concerned but I think you always worry about your kids in that ‘ have they been exposed to lots of different things’. You know, my mum was always fantastic at that, by making me try different things. Everything from ballet to–. [laughs]

Arkitektura:
[Laughs] really?

Sam:
— yeah, to all sorts of things. And she brought home a book and I guess I was intrigued by it.

Arkitektura:
That is great! I mean that is so wonderful that she did that. So she is a very open minded kind of person then.

Sam:
Oh yeah. I mean she still is. You know she was an actress, a writer, poet.

Arkitektura:
Ah, so she is a creative person?

Sam:
She is but I guess she never had opportunities which other people have, being a mother and dealing with all those sorts of things, but yeah.

Arkitektura:
And do you have siblings?

Sam:
Yah, I have a sister who is very, very, different, polar opposite.

Arkitektura:
Really? She is not creative at all?

Sam:
Well, it is hard to say whether someone is creative or not.

Arkitektura:
Yeah, it is true.

Sam:
They are in their way but we just–.

Arkitektura:
Complete opposite.

Sam:
— completely different.

Arkitektura:
It is fascinating, same genetic makeup.

Sam:
Yeah, [laughs].

Arkitektura:
[Laughs]. So then how did you meet Kim?

Sam:
Kim, I met in London. We met actually at an exhibition and we just got talking and I have always been interested in Architecture as a subject and also more importantly as a process of work. And Kim is an architect by training and I started to have conversations with her that were different to other conversations and they intrigued me as I am sure they intrigued her. And so that is really where we met and how we started.

Arkitektura:
And how many years ago was that?

Sam:
It was probably about a–. I think it was in ninety-nine or something like that.

Arkitektura:
Ok, so like sixteen years ago.

Sam:
Yeah.

Arkitektura:
Not that short ago, although you have done so much together since then.

Sam:
Yeah, it is been a great trip, a great journey and very difficult as well but at the same time those difficulties were always great challenges to work through together. I think that having the opportunity to work with someone else through challenges where they take up a position which is very different to yourself, I think that is really the best partnership in some ways. There is simply no duplication and so I enjoy that very much.

Arkitektura:
I was thinking about what she might bring to the table as an American, she is from Los Angeles and you are English obviously. Aside from the fact that she is also of a different medium, of Architecture, how does the fact that she is American filter into the Design process? And does it at all?

Sam:
Oh, that is a tricky one because it is hard because often design is a borderless subject, at least we like to think it is, and there are no answers certainly. I think that probably the first biggest difference is the difference in the level of pessimism and optimism. Whenever I am in America, whoever I work with, there is this burning optimism that everything is gonna be absolutely fantastic. And I am always suspicious, I am just naturally suspicious not because I don’t want things to work, on the contrary, I am just suspicious that things are not always as great as they are and that I need to uncover or unwrap it. But, at the same time, when you do have that level of pessimism it can sometimes reduce the scale of the ambition. Whereas with Kim the scale of the ambition is very, very, much larger than I would naturally consider. If we’re designing a chair or a particular product, the potential for what you want to do with it or what it stands for is often far bigger than I would naturally gravitate towards because I would be pessimistic about whether that is relevant or not.

Arkitektura:
I think it is just so interesting to start a company with someone that seems to be in a completely different medium from yours. When I think Industrial Design I think small scale, not in production, in production it is super scale but in like the object themselves they are small. Whereas with Architecture, it is very large scale but only, you know, one of them. It seems like two opposites coming together almost, or the inverse of one another.

Sam:
It depends. I mean, there are so many different types of, should we say, Design. And the area that I chose with Kim was very much Industrial Design, in other words, things which were mass produced. And the reason for that was that we felt that it was really the most unfortunate area where design was not particularly good, should we say, or at least could be better.

Arkitektura:
Yes.

Sam:
So the difference with mass production is that actually the scale and complexity is far greater because the responsibilities are bigger, because the risks are higher. And so actually, it is not that different in terms of a the processes that you go through than you would have with architecture or even city planning to be honest. Because you are dealing with bigger systems, bigger risks, bigger knock-on effects and in some ways the impact that it can have is quite significant. So if you think of a building in a city, the effect it has is actually quite marginal often for the people who are inhabiting the building. But the people who are walking past it every day or sitting opposite it or driving past it, they too are being affected by the building. And so in some ways mass production does actually have a similar kind of responsibility that architecture does. The difference is when you go to other parts of design where the risks are much smaller in some ways, then it is a different situation.

Arkitektura:
It was interesting looking through your products and thinking how many of these I have in my life, without knowing that they were by you. And how much I have enjoyed them, I mean some like the toilet bowl cleaner …[laughs]

Sam:
[Laughs] right, a favorite.

Arkitektura:
[Laughs]Or my little alarm clock, also from Muji. It was fascinating to kind of suddenly feel like I now know the human connection, because I have now met you, to this object in my life. And I was wondering what were some of the early pieces of yours that you really felt like ‘I have got this, this is well done’. I know you wouldn’t say it is brilliant because maybe you wouldn’t use that kind of terminology towards yourself but ‘this just really works’ and what were some of those pieces, maybe one or two of them, that come to mind and why?

Sam:
There aren’t that many only because I often see the compromises and in every project there are compromises. Because, as I said, we are dealing with things which are made in quantities. But I remember probably there were several early pieces. There was a coffee maker that we did for Muji that I was very, very, proud of because it was a very simple idea that we developed, this idea of just producing a coffee-maker as circle. But to do that, we had to do the mechanics as it were and sort it out. When you see the impact that you have in both the engineering and the design, that is very satisfying because you haven’t had to go through a process of negotiation. The other one is the hard drive that was quite earlier on.

Arkitektura:
The LaCie.

Sam:
Yeah, which was very successful.

Arkitektura:
I had it.

Sam:
Yeah, I met many people who’ve enjoyed it, particularly people like photographers and people who are on the move. But the success of that was really just the meeting really in that we went to the meeting, it was a French company, and we just literally made very, very, simple boxes with a particular radius. There was nothing really there and presented boxes because that is what I felt was the right thing, that it was not a product at all, in this example the hard drive. It was just a piece of media. And in that sense it doesn’t need to use any vernacular of a product and it was accepted on the spot.

Arkitektura:
That must have felt great!

Sam:
Well yeah, it did because it felt like ‘wow the owner of the company actually gets it immediately’ even though many of the people in the room were not convinced. And so there is that situation, I have heard it from other people where that process, that process of creativity is so utterly delicate, it can go in so many different ways. And regardless of whether the designer is a strong person or not, however much convincing you might give, doubt can set in and, in that example, it didn’t and we were able to produce it. Now, the bizarre thing is that I was very proud of it, in small way you could say. But then when it was launched it was a failure, it didn’t succeed. But that was the problem in that the people in the company who were not very sure about it measured the success in weeks. But when you measure success in years it was phenomenally successful. So, in other words, when it was launched the feedback was very poor because it was felt that there was no design visible. I mean it was just a box but it was only after people started to buy it in numbers and realize ‘yes this is actually a really good way of using this product or owning this product’ that it became very, very, successful. So I guess there was a good lesson in that for me: Often we try to measure success in a very, very short period and we measure it upon the feelings and attitudes of a group of people who are just at the beginning of the life of a product. Whereas in reality, products, furniture they do need time. They do need some time and space to breathe and to be appreciated but for many companies there is just no time and that is a big frustration.

Arkitektura:
I am sure. It’s interesting: You wouldn’t want to judge a relationship based on a short period of time. You wouldn’t want to judge a human based on a short period of time or, you know, I have three year old daughter, she’s going to develop into something quite different than what she is now or may be similar but bigger…

Sam:
Yeah. I mean I think I am most happy when people enjoy our work for a very long period, they feel really good about owning them and using them and enjoying them. And that is really what a big part of it is, I mean you know design is very much the servant to our daily lives. When it is successful, it can be the most fantastic thing.

Arkitektura:
What are some of the things that you find that you use on a daily basis that are just so well designed, that you feel so great about using and being around? Like the iPhone for instance is a great example at least for me. Also, my laptop is an example.

Sam:
Well, I mean those things, the iPhone, the laptop, they are just terrific things that are utterly part of the fabric of everyday life now. And I think the only different, kind of, hesitancy I have sometimes is that they do have a particular language and that language is not necessarily about visualizing what the system is behind it or what it’s doing. It’s a different kind of language and I really enjoy that but it does depress me that sometimes they’re used as reference point so much with other companies and that is what makes things rather poor. Because that reference point is a result of so many different complex factors that you can’t really appropriate its form or its materiality into something else unexpected to operate in the same way. But, I have digressed. I mean to go back to your original question. I would say that I do get a lot satisfaction of generally more analog things. I have a Pavoni at home which I use every morning and I enjoy that process of making coffee and the smell and the whole functioning of the product, dealing with complexity but in a visual way where the complexity is not hidden completely, I enjoy that very much. And then it can be very simple things like I have a Jasper Morrison crate which I just love, I think it is a fantastic piece but then you can argue that many of those things which I like, there is a kind of extreme lightness of touch in the design which goes back to this idea that design as a subject can be a process of thought rather than a process of application. So, I do gravitate towards things where I don’t necessarily see effort or I don’t see design but I can experience it in other ways. And I have always gravitated to that kind of work, where design is not seen as a process of effort where you need to be impressed, very much the opposite.

Arkitektura:
So, you’ve kept your studio quite small, why have you done that? If you look at the wealth of stuff that you guys produce, you could be a big company and what do you like about keeping it small. What do you like about that intimacy? Why is that important to you?

Sam:
Well, you know I think being small is great because you are always busy.

Arkitektura:
Yeah. [laughs] that’s true.

Sam:
And you get to have the luxury of saying no sometimes to things you don’t believe in or don’t feel right. I don’t think there’s ever been a kind of a plan in place of why we are the size we are. I think that it is partly a selfish reason in that Kim and I want to do the work and not really manage the work.

Arkitektura:
Yeah.

Sam:
And we have Ippei Matsumoto and Philipp Von Lintel who are really very, very good designers in their own right and I enjoy very, very much being in the office and talking and having conversations about the work and not about whether they are busy or not. I can’t do that partly because I am probably not a brilliant manager and I enjoy doing the work so I think when you grow, that is really fantastic, there is nothing wrong in that. It is just that you are a different kind of person, you are a businessman, and that is not to say that I am not interested in business at all. I am fascinated by all of the mechanics of business, as well, and economies. But I would like to think that the people who are approaching us to work on a project are approaching us for our point of view and our approach and our thinking and not how big or small we are. I think from a very early stage, I realized that scale has absolutely nothing to do with what you can tackle or what quality you might try to achieve. It’s irrelevant and that is even more so now.

Arkitektura:
I think that is very true and when you talk to people that are in advanced positions in their companies, they no longer do what they initially started in that company for. It is not that they don’t like it anymore but they don’t do what got them there in the first place, they are not following their passions anymore. So it makes sense to want to stay small scale. Visually, I was looking at some images of your office, it’s very tidy. What’s the environment you like to work within? Visually speaking.

Sam:
Well, it is tidy only because that’s a very efficient way of working. It is not tidy to be presentable. It is tidy so that we are able to see what we are working on, so that the office does not become overwhelming, I like a space which has got some structure to it. You know, we do run the office like an office, quite deliberately. So it just gives some structure to things. And the office is very simple: In the top floor, we all just sit together where we face each other around one table. And if I am drawing something, I can stand up and just hand it over to someone else and vice versa. And it’s almost like as soon as I can’t hand something to someone, I know probably the office is too big. And then downstairs we have our workshop where we build everything, we make everything. First of all, we never start on a computer even though computer is an important part of the process, everything is made by hand, from drawings, and only then does it go back into the computer. And it’s a very multipurpose space. Upstairs, I do all the photography of everything and so that is why the floor is painted white because it is a functional way of creating very good photography for light. I guess what I am trying to say is that the studio is not meant to impress people, it is not a show piece, it’s not a result of trying to impress at all. It’s just a very, very working, workable condition that works very well for a design office.

Arkitektura:
Well, I love hearing about it and it sounds very, to use a term that you used yesterday it sounds very rational. It sounds like it’s just something that actually just makes sense to do it in this way.

Sam:
It does for us. Maybe not for everyone and that is fine, you know that is not a problem, but I guess it is functional, it is very functional. But it’s the function of trying to do interesting work. Process is very un-precious, drawings are not signed by the designers, it is just purely like handwriting. So we are drawing from one person to another as if you are writing a note and sometimes you have to write a note yourself and that is why you are drawing for yourself. None of the work is really done to be presented. We like to arrive at something that we feel very sure of, very confident of and then that is what is then shown to the client. And so it’s never really a process of negotiation or persuasion. We are not trying to persuade someone to do it. On the contrary, what we are doing is we are showing what we feel is right, what is relevant and then it’s up to the company to decide whether they feel it is relevant too. And I think that’s really the most honest, the most authentic way that you can use the activity of design. I read a lot, a lot about involving clients in the process, collaborating and doing workshops and these sorts of things. And that is great, as a process, but for us it is not so relevant to produce work which is a provocation. We much prefer to work on something ourselves and form a point of view and then describe it or present it and discuss it. And often there is surprise, questions are always asked and that is very, very enjoyable. But I have always seen the relationship with the designer and the company where the designer should have a talent which is specific to them and that is why the company is kind of entering into that contract.

Arkitektura:
That must mean that the four of you are so…I can’t imagine that relationship how tight it must be, just that ability to talk through things, work through things and then together come to a decision that you feel so confident and right about. And then you are ready to go and present that. It is like four people in one.

Sam:
Yeah. The conversations that I have are generally because I am coming in in the morning, often because I cycle and I do a lot of thinking and contemplating and I come in and I would say to [one of the designers], ‘I am just not sure about that, something is not right’.

Arkitektura:
Hm.

Sam:
And then there would be a conversation about it and then other designers would join in and open it up. And I have always, always respected people’s opinions because that is the way things can get better. So, in other words, I have always felt that knowledge is something that is always drawn from other people. Knowledge is not actually kind of created from isolation, from within. So, I am always asking people on the team what their opinion is and questioning it and probably more than anyone is Kim and she does the same thing to me too. Just asking opinions and questions and it can be from very small details to very big questions too. And so, it means that in a strange way the design process is as much about the articulation of a conversation as it is about anything else: making a model or doing a drawing or taking a photograph. The essence is actually opinion and conversation and forming a point of view and a lot of that is from intuition and the experiences of people. And London is a fantastic city to do that in because you can have people from all corners of the world. So you know I am English, Ippei is from Japan, Philip is from Germany, Kim is from America.

Arkitektura:
Yes.

Sam:
But we are all in this one place, in this one office, and then of course we have other people who join us from all over the world for different projects as well, which is fantastic. But they are all very different backgrounds, different experiences, from the moment they are waking up to coming into the office, they’ve experienced different things.

Arkitektura:
Yes.

Sam:
And I think that is what has always fed into the work is this ability to talk openly about things.

Arkitektura:
That’s lovely, thank you for being so thoughtful about your answers. It is wonderful to get a vision into how it is there. And I wish Kim were here for me to ask her this question, so I am going to ask you: One of the challenges that I’ve found in producing this series is finding female designers and she is the only woman in your group, amongst the four of you. So, what is it like for her to be the only female in the room and does that come up for her, particularly in such a male dominated field?

Sam:
Yes. I think it’s been very, very, hard for her because, first of all, she knew nothing about industrial design in any intimate manner. I mean she grew up with things around her and she has a point of view but she didn’t train or didn’t have any kind of insight into the mechanics of why a product is the way it is, like I do. But, as I said, she brought what she wanted to bring and what she brought was a very, very, different point of view, very worldly view, very macro view. I think as a woman, I mean it is very hard for me to say what she feels, but I would imagine that she is a character who, I would say, is very, very, thick skinned [laughs].

Arkitektura:
[Laughs].

Sam:
So she is not put off by different characters or oddities or what people might think of her or what she might say and she is not intimidated, she is simply not intimidated by men. And I think that is super refreshing and she’s always brought a kind of warmth to the process. What is more interesting for me is she brings what you could call a kind of a post rationalization which I think men often find difficult to do. What do I mean by that? Well, if we’ve completed a project and it didn’t quite turn out the way it should have turned out, often I and other folks in the office, we sometimes take the position that there must have been a mistake with the client, there must have been a mistake with this or that. But, Kim is a very different in that she post rationalizes it or rather analyzes it in a different way in taking up a position of other people. And I suspect, I might be wrong but I suspect, that women are able to do that because they have more empathy and they have more sensibility and sensitivity to other people in the room or other people in the process than perhaps men do. Men often reach conclusions very fast and so that quality of understanding or analyzing something after it’s occurred has helped us improve ourselves for the next project or for the next situation. And I think that’s a quality that Kim brings very admirably to the process.

Arkitektura:
Now, when you think about those initial conversations that you were having when you first met and you said they were different than the conversations [you had had], they had a unique quality. I think that’s when you’ve really connected with someone, when you think, wow, this person is either seeing the world in a similar way or they’re seeing the world in a way that is helping me see it in a way that I haven’t, probably more accurately. And how did you know that this would be good partnership? When is the time that someone can identify that, at least for you?

Sam:
I think it was because she was describing things I didn’t understand.

Arkitektura:
Yes.

Sam:
And that is so important because if you don’t understand something you want to understand it or at least I do. And then you realize that the training or the thinking or the articulation because she comes from architecture and architecture is an incredibly broad subject and far older than design. And so I remember that, you know our first discussions were not arguments but she felt that there was such insignificance in what I was interested in.

Arkitektura:
[Laughs].

Sam:
You know, they are just things. They don’t really affect people as space does. And I think one could have walked away and said, ‘well, you know that is rubbish, you know I am offended or I don’t agree with that’. On the contrary, I was fascinated by those things and that is really what set the tone for the studio. I realized that the things that surround us, the things that we usually use everyday are affecting our sensibility, are affecting our outlook as much as architecture. And so there was a kind of meeting point between myself and Kim where I realized that products need to perform or need to kind of transcend into everyday life beyond the shop. And she understood that products and the things that we enjoy have an effect on the person too as much as the architecture, as much as the interior. And we exercised that I think really successfully in this exhibition we did in the Saint Etienne Biennale.

Arkitektura:
The one on beauty?

Sam:
Yeah. And beauty is such, as we certainly described it at the beginning, it is such a subjective term but for Kim it was interesting from her point of view in why do we find certain interiors or certain spaces so beautiful and so right or so interesting compared to others. I also kind of confronted that same question. And so you have situation where we were given the opportunity to design the space, you know, the exhibition to house products that we were creating. They were not our products, they were things that we chose. And so you have the situation where we created a series of spaces where these products could kind of breathe and kind of show their own quality. So, I think that was really the initial, if I can try to remember, the first conversations where I had this confusion about what she was talking about and that is why I found her intriguing.

Arkitektura:
Yeah, because sometimes people let ego get in the way often and it was quite different than that, which is wonderful because look what it’s produced as a result, Industrial Facility, and all the things that you have made together.

Sam:
Ego is a funny thing, I mean it has a place I guess in design, it hasn’t particularly interested me.

Arkitektura:
Uh hum.

Sam:
I always feel the work is what is interesting but that is not to say that ego in design is a bad thing or character. Not at all, I enjoy many points of view but it’s not something that necessarily drives our office.

Arkitektura:
So do you have children?

Sam:
Yep. I have got two kids.

Arkitektura:
Ok, and having had children, how did it change the way in which you design things? And did it at all?

Sam:
How I design things? I don’t think so other than now I do share with my kids what I am working on. And in that sense, you could say that the conversation has just got bigger in that I often ask them what they think of something. And it’s often quite surprising, very surprising, about what they get super excited by. They are often in the office, they like to make things, and I show them things but generally I wouldn’t say there is a an enormous interest in what we do because it is not very screen based. And unfortunately, or at least I say unfortunately, the generation of my children are just utterly mesmerized by the screen, by this kind of iridescent surface and so often realities of things are often just boring, they don’t have that animated quality. However, sometimes, occasionally, I share with them something that is super analog and they are just shocked by it that that can exist.

Arkitektura:
[Laughs].

Sam:
Like a record player, I remember making a record, you know recording in that actually physically making a record of my kid’s voice, you know he was talking and then it was just kind of etched into the record and then we played it and then there was just this shock! You know. So there is this whole world and I am really curious how when they grow up, how they will view the world and what their interests are.