 One of the things you're talking about is a family connection, our heritage. You know, your grandparents are Ray and Charles Eames, who are a phenomena in the design world. So what did you learn from your grandparents? What is your connection to India through them? The story of India for our family was always, always there. I remember, you know, Ray once said that her favorite music was the sound of the train whistles in Rajasthan. So that's part of our India story, and it starts with my grandparents, Charles and Ray Eames. So they came to India in 1958 at the invitation of Nehru. And he was kind of concerned about kind of lessening of the quality of things and also sort of how to deal with westernization. For those of you who may not be as familiar with Charles and Ray's work, this is a postcard they sent. This chair, they're kind of most famous for furniture, but they had a beautiful and very holistic vision of design. This is a house that they designed. They came to India, that's my grandmother, Ray, and they traveled for about three months and they went all over India. They took many pictures and they're really trying to figure out how to deal with this question that Nehru had raised, which is, you know, how do you deal with modernization without becoming so romantic about the past that you actually can't engage in what's really going on? After a while, they wrote something called the India report, and that was the document that founded the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. As this issue kind of unfolded of how to do it, they said, you know, first of all, with literally a thousand cultures on the subcontinent, why do you need to look outside? There must be answers here. And one of the answers they were really impressed by was this vessel, which is called Lota. Lota is a vessel for carrying water. And the thing that fascinated them about the Lota was that it had been designed by generations of youth. And so what that meant is that actually, you know, nobody can throw away something like this just because it wasn't working perfectly. But when it didn't work, then you would make it a little bit better. And in a way, through time, it answered all the things you would answer in design briefs, the, you know, fluid dynamics, the gender of the people that usually use it, whether it's hand, all these kinds of things. And so that's kind of an interesting model. And when you think about it, it's a little bit like what designed by designers is. That's a way you can use the process that comes very naturally to look to the future. One of the things that Meru asked Charles and Ray was, well, what do we do, you know, should we buy a brand new computer? And Charles and Ray said, no, you're much better off making a really crappy computer yourself, making all the mistakes, but having that learning happen here, because you never delegate understanding. So when Charles, when Meru died, they were asked to do an exhibition about Meru's life. And actually this exhibit is still at the Purgati Maidan in New Delhi. And what they did is they said, OK, well, we're happy to have the job, but we want to do it with the students of the National Institute of Design. So it was actually one of their first jobs that led to this design. So they actually walked the walk and talked the talk. And one little detail is you can see there are the sandbags there. And anyone who's ever designed an exhibition knows that traveling is a nightmare, because you have to carry all this weight. So what they did is they weighted down all the stands of the exhibition with sand, and then you could pour it out. And when you get to the next location, you just get some sand. That's great. So maybe your sense of design or how to get everybody to participate in their own culture could have an influence by them. And the second thing they were very known for is the concept of hours of 10 has changed people's perception of scale. So tell us a little bit about that and how it influenced you. So the film you're going to see, I did a powers of 10 of wine. So you're not going to listen to it. And this is the film that Charles and Ray made. And then what we have here is a concurrent journey through wine. But it's a very good introduction to the concept of scale. And one of the things that I believe very strongly is that scale is the new geography. In fact, if you don't understand scale, it's actually a form of illiteracy in this day and age. And a lot of the things that we've talked about are issues of scale, what we're just hearing about in the village. I mean, it has to happen on the individual basis, but it can actually be part of saving some amazing things. But if you think about it, we're not very fluent in scale. I mean, we see all these big numbers and we don't really know what they mean. And yet they have very, you know, we're basically involved as a human culture in a giant science experiment right now, which is what happens when you do the same stupid thing a million times a day. Whether it's the chemicals that are coming into the air, whether it's the four species being extinct, there'll be 30 minutes, all these kinds of things. And yet we can't really wrestle with it because we almost don't even understand what's going on. So to me, a scale line needs to be as comfortable for people as a timeline or as a map of the world. Yeah, and also, you know, the powers of 10 to me was that, you know, just within 20 steps, you go from, you know, from a body to the universe and from the body to the atom. I mean, it's just, it makes you understand life in such few shorter steps. Now, you know, you have your own version of how you see the world through a parallel universe you have created. So tell us a little bit about this. They're very sophisticated people behind the scenes here. Unfortunately, they're not in this chair. So the project I'm working on now is global work of multidimensional fiction. And it's called Chimerics there. It's very easy to pronounce. And it comes... Was that intentional? You wanted a name that's very difficult to pronounce? No, it actually came from the cognate word chimara, which means the true physicality of the planet and an x-theor, which is a shape with almost an infinity of dimensions or sides, infinity minus 29. So the control of those missing dimensions becomes very important. So I'm just, I call myself a geographer at large. I'm just a reporter about this parallel world. So what we do is we go around the world installing bronze plaques and historic sites that honor events from the parallel world in our world. This is the Museum of the Bench installed in what we call Abilene, Texas. We have about 89 sites in 19 countries. This is actually the least visited site. It's under 60 feet of water off the coast of Scotland. So one of the nice things about being involved in a parallel universe is sometimes the land values are still pretty good. So what we did is that we installed this plaque. We also brought about 100 tons of stone there to tell the story that happens in that place in the parallel world. Is it you want people to travel through different sites to kind of piece in the story or you want them to experience each location as it is? Or why are you calling it parallel universe and not a book or a novel? Well, it is kind of a novel with every page in a different place. When you read a book and you actually kind of lift out of the page as you read it and you visualize in the story. But what's really weird if you think about it is that your retinas, if you could look at what your retinas are seeing, they're actually seeing the characters on the page. So language is very much a part of perception. So what I wanted to do is kind of live in that space and use that kind of toolkit to help people see the world differently. So for example, it's very hard when you see a red car to only see the color red because your brain interprets what your eye sees before your mind even knows it. But the downside is you don't see all the things that aren't there. And then you think about everything that people have been talking about. They're talking about things that are there, but they're talking about things that aren't there. And so these things that aren't there are actually very important. So to create a way for people to conjure it up and not take the visual environment for granted is pretty cool. And the other thing about it is that we have this process, and this is a village near Sendwa, which is in Magyar Pradesh. What I do is I tell stories from the parallel world, from Chimerex there, to people around the world and ask them to create their own visions of what I've been doing. So if I do a sketch, then even if it's really bad, you sort of figure out, well, he wrote it. Of course, he knows what it looks like. But if everybody does it, then instead of having clusters of representation, you have clusters of understandings. And that's a very different thing. When we think about if we had all been born in the UK 500 years ago, we all would have known who Robin Hood was. What's weird is that we would all have had a different vision of Robin Hood in our heads. But we all would have had all of those visions would have been totally different, but they would have enough qualities of Robin Hoodness, whatever the heck that is, to be able to have a common conversation. But today, with special effects and all that, you can see everything. Darth Vader is a photograph of the helmet. So we're actually denied the beauty of ambiguity. So what we do is create disputed likenesses with these folks. So I worked with the kids in this village and told them the stories and they did a lot of different renderings. And we made this mural together. That's Cool of Larsa. She's the one who tricked the gods into not helping their believers. But she's, as you can tell, quite an impressive character. By the end of her tricking the gods, she built an echelon de crewella. So it was one of these things that was built by her telling the story. And so then the kids and I built the five corners of that. Not really the five corners, but kind of a talisman of those quarters. And that's what's there now. And the kids will be happy to tell you the story. We also did this in Madrid with a group of artists. I'm not sure if you've seen this animal. It's called the Nasien. And Nasien's are seven-legged, deer-like creatures. And their prime-numbered legs are very nutritious. In fact, if you take one bite, it'll sustain you for a month. But if you eat the non-prime-numbered legs, it's poisonous unto death. So it's another reason to study math, because the elector of Empadraza, he thought one was a prime number. And we know what happened to him. So we also told that story to a group of embroiderers in Namibia. And they did these versions of the Nasien. So what's nice is that Nasien-ness is somewhere in between all these things. And even what you're imagining in your head. So I worked with Martha Malu, who founded this right after Namibian independence. And it's a group of embroiderers. Went there and told the stories. It took about 10 months. Not that I was there the whole time, but we used Skype and things like that. And then this is their version of the Tower of Wisdom. And so you can see. The other thing is that, again, it's another one of these creatures that doesn't get enough. But you can see that there's a lizard sort of thing on the shoulders of this girl. And you can see it here in the village. And that's a rock-mary lizard. And these are the only lizards that are telepathic. And so they can read your mind, which is pretty cool. And I just want to kind of wrap up with this idea of the shared experience where the truth is kind of between all the different versions of the story. And so this is back to the kid's version of it. So I think you gave a great conversation piece where people come and ask you, how do you come up with these characters? So thank you for sharing us with your journey and taking us into the parallel universe. OK. Thank you. Thanks.