130 - Back to the Future(ism)

Kurt: 0:34

Hey, Jimmy, we're live. Guess what? I forgot to do the yeah, you forgot the intro, the intro. Well we, we could do it again. This is like a, like

Jamie: 0:45

a cut scene.

Kurt: 0:50

Oh, look, so updates live. You know, there's lots of technology that works in my favor these days. I was just thinking about it before we started you know, how. You can just kind of plug things in these days and they work. I mean, yeah, well, I mean, remember when things didn't work when you plug them in and you had to in the in the

Jamie: 1:17

socket,

Kurt: 1:18

like, that's more metaphorical. But, like. Purchasing a piece of technology, plugging it in and it not working right out of the box was common now. Things work except for now. It's more like user error, you know, right? I mean, humans are fallible, right?

Jamie: 1:42

Is this hopefully

Kurt: 1:43

people were man. I'm sorry, I

Jamie: 1:48

forgot to text

Kurt: 1:50

change the text. Yeah, I edited. I have fixed it. Yeah. Yeah. And now I finally fixed it. So, so, you know, I should probably, I forgot the

Jamie: 2:00

intro. It's, it's cool. It's okay. I know we haven't done this in a bit, a little rusty and it's a Wednesday and not a

Kurt: 2:06

Tuesday. So I, all kinds of things, you know yeah, I probably owe the apology to our audience for the sort of gap in between episodes. I've been dealing with a, an injured dog, which is, is, is. It's not the empty bed doesn't mean it doesn't exist anymore. The dog's still alive, but it's just not in the room. But, yeah, the, the room's a mess. The dog has become a mess, but she's on the mend. But that's, that's the latest from from my neck of the woods. So how about you, Jamie? I see you have some. Some new apparel,

Jamie: 2:50

our good friend Jason got back from his, his time over. In the UK and brought this very sharp Rexxum AFC hat from Rexxum, indeed. Cool. Oh yeah. So he actually went and and paid his respects and made his own little pilgrimage. So. Got a text from him while he was over there. He's like, which kind of hat do you want? So sending me pictures and I was like, I knew exactly which one.

Kurt: 3:22

So I want that hat too. Yeah. Wasn't it Rob McElhinney wasn't it like something he made that, cause I watched the TV show. It wasn't necessarily the official hat. And then he made 1 and now I think everybody wants that hat. At least that's the way I understand

Jamie: 3:45

it. I'm going to just believe you because I

Kurt: 3:47

became it's become the apparel. Well, I mean, you know,

Jamie: 3:51

definitely their, their whole presence and apparel is, you know, I know this was when I looked at this hat online. It was like always sold out. So cause I, they, they had a, they have a couple others with their logo and stuff, which are actually pretty cool too. But this one was just sort of classic clean, you know, it's

Kurt: 4:12

so as seen on TV, as seen on

Jamie: 4:16

TV season two, ready to drop soon. It's fun and good. I'm, I'm, their season has already started, so I'm, I'm watching when I get a chance. Is,

Kurt: 4:30

Paul Mullen healthy again? He is,

Jamie: 4:33

he is injured at the very moment. Still? Yeah.

Kurt: 4:36

Still? The rib, punctured lung

Jamie: 4:38

thing? Yeah, I think he's, he's, he's coming back though. Good. But yeah, the yeah, that was sort of terrible. Like he comes over to the U S and then gets. Injured in a friendly of all things. Yeah,

Kurt: 4:53

right. Yeah, right. Yeah. What if kind of, I mean, yeah, I'm not a sports doctor, but it's kind of a rough puncture along in a soccer game.

Jamie: 5:04

Oh, well, I mean, you know, bruised ribs are pretty common. Actually, so the punctured lung part isn't that farfetched in my mind when

Kurt: 5:14

I heard about it. I suppose he cracked a rib and the rib poked his lung.

Jamie: 5:19

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, and that's, when I played, I, I. I probably had bruised ribs like two or three times, you know like serious bruised

Kurt: 5:28

ribs. It happened to me in high school football, American style football. It's not fun. It hurts a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Because you use all these muscles. Without even knowing it, but, you know, again, not a doctor,

Jamie: 5:46

not a doctor, don't even pretend to be but I, I will say as a football fan and, you know, the quirkiness is of the beautiful game. So rexum is now in a league. That they will actually play Crawley town.

Kurt: 6:07

Excellent. Yeah. And, and where is Crawley town?

Jamie: 6:11

In Crawley. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's near London.

Kurt: 6:17

Well, it's not in the, that Welsh territory where Rexon speaks a funny language. Look, there's the dog. She's, she's, she's. She's doing alright.

Jamie: 6:29

She's settling back in. It's okay. Yeah.

Kurt: 6:34

She thought maybe she could get a little special, you know, T R E A

Jamie: 6:39

T. Well, isn't that always the way? I mean, I mean, I've got one right here. She's just sort of patiently waiting. I think you can see her. She's sitting over there.

Kurt: 6:52

She's the color of shadows, so yeah, she's a hard to see. Well, you know, don't, don't

Jamie: 6:57

give her ideas. So

Kurt: 6:59

I forgot what I was going to say, of course, but that's okay. So it's, it's, it's chalk it up to the rust, but,

Jamie: 7:07

Well, we can stay on the soccer theme, but before that, I have to say what's in the coffee mug of late.

Kurt: 7:14

Well You know, what's in my coffee mug is our coffee, the coffee sketch coffee. Oh, you know, I should, let's, let's, let's you know, see if we can catch a, catch a sale here. But if you're watching live, the the merchandise shop has a batch of our. Our very own coffee, sketch, coffee, coffee, sketch, podcast, coffee, brewed by or roasted by rootless coffee here in flint. But yeah, so I, I finally got into a bag. I got it. I'm going to hold it to 1 bag. So, otherwise I can't, you know, it's like. Don't get high on your own supply, right? You can't drink all your own coffee if you're trying to sell some, but

Jamie: 8:00

I'm, I'm just in, I'm just in the phase of enjoying it cause it's been so long in coming. And, and it is quite good. What's your, what's your

Kurt: 8:09

your take on it? I can get the chocolatey notes out of it. I would say it's probably more like a medium to dark roast. The way, you know, my, my gauge is like when I grind them in my little hand grinder, lighter rows seem to be harder, like a harder bean, the darker rows seem to kind of crumble easier. If that makes sense. I'm sure that's, I got to imagine that's the case. I've been grinding a lot of beans, so I mean, I'm no pro, but it's good. Chocolate notes for very rich flavors in it. Probably suits the podcast pretty well, you know,

Jamie: 8:53

well, and what's interesting is that most of the coffee notes that are the chocolate notes that we have had and talked about in different blends, like little city and and even some other rootless ones to, they always have like a more of like a dark chocolate kind of, you know, almost a smokiness to the, to the, to the chocolate taste. But it's a, this one, you know, for our blend, it really does, they say it's milk chocolate notes, and it really does have that sort of like Cadbury milk chocolate. You know, kind of classic flavor to it.

Kurt: 9:37

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited. Now, now I'm hoping people will you know, also sample I've, I have gifted a couple to I sold one bag FYI. I did actually sell someone to to friends and family. So, so thanks. Thanks, mom. Actually, Joe, brother in law Joe. So he's probably listening. So we have to thank Joe and, and then we'll, we'll ask politely if Joe would post a image on Instagram or something, you know, social media. Let's just broaden it out to all the. All the media of coffee in the wild. Well, I mean, so you're drinking, I assume, then you're, you're, you said you were still, still savoring. I'm still, we're both on the, on the, on the own supply side of the equation. And then the other thing

Jamie: 10:31

though, is that the folks at rootless have been nice enough to also include our collaboration, our official collaboration on their collabs, Pat paid collabs. And so leave a review there too. It's they, they do some good stuff in Flint. And we're really appreciative of the, the opportunity.

Kurt: 10:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie: 10:55

They're fun on the socials.

Kurt: 10:57

Yeah. They do a good job. They have a very, we, I feel as on behalf of both of us honored to be included in their collabs because of the The cast of characters, other collaborations they have is quite diverse, a well rounded group. I think they have a motocross person, a wrestler, a pro wrestler a couple of artists, I think musicians. Oh, and they, I think they're. Working with these guys that make guitar guitars and guitar sound effects pedals. So anyway, it's exciting. You know, the rabbit hole of the internet that you can go down and kind of learn about these different collaborators, but I digress.

Jamie: 11:44

We've been hiding for the last couple of weeks is the internet rabbit hole,

Kurt: 11:48

but. Well, I can't go. I can't really leave my dog alone. Although she did sneak. The wife took her. Now she's back. But yeah, so yeah, my social life is a little insular at the moment. Sort of brings back the pandemic. Pandemic vibes,

Jamie: 12:08

but

Kurt: 12:10

the yeah, we, we should, I know you wanted to talk about, but we could save it for another day. Cause I think we need to dedicate like a whole episode to. To the football, but we'll, you know, like it's all I'll say right now, but for today, we're going to keep it simple, right? Because Kurt, Kurt's got to dust the dust, the rust off of his podcasting skill set, but the so. You know, Jamie's still been sketching. So the new sketch that I, I kind of, my eyeballs kind of glued to is is the one we have posted on the screen here and try and make it a little bit bigger and it's nice to see. The coffee sketch mug kind of make an appearance now in some of Jamie's posts. But, I mean, I, you know, right off the bat, I would just say that, you know, I really, I really enjoy these sketches, the, the, the sort of theme of sketches that you do that. I, I. You have the sort of a deconstruct of this architecture term but sort of abstract speculative sort of building design that that could be all kinds of things could be, you know, commercial residential you know, it doesn't necessarily fit. or ascribe itself to a particular use case. I don't, unless you think about one when you're drawing them could be interesting for you to expand on that. But the I think it's, it's, you know, we've talked a lot about like the particular techniques you use in your sketches with your various hatch patterns and line weights, and sometimes you're mixing media, but for. For this one, for me, it's, it's about the, the space that you've created the, the form. I hate to use the word form sometimes because it gets people thinking a little too sculptural, but the idea of shaping. Shaping a building or a structure of some kind. I don't know. I try to keep the window open, but also, you know, keep it architectural. But actually, it's kind of really interesting form factor. You know, the sort of almost like a tie fighter or something from Star Wars. If you're only listening to the show, you know, you'll see the image on the show notes. But, but if you're watching with us right now, the, sort of shape of this thing has this Star Wars aesthetic to it, which I suppose could be subliminal or not, but I don't know what, what, what do you say to that my friend?

Jamie: 15:03

I, I think that part might be subliminal on my part. I mean, you know, certainly all those influences, you know, exist in, in my brain. You know, and, and I have watched, you know, two of. Now four episodes of Ahsoka, so that probably does have some You know, influence at least sort of imagery wise in my, in my head kind of currently subconsciously. But yeah, no, this wasn't, this wasn't necessarily something that, that I had seen and was working, you know, working back from that I'm aware of. But I think that what it was, it was sort of, I mean, there's a lot of influences sort of in a sci fi kind of dystopian film architecture, film intersection, anime intersection. That we talk about because a lot of it has to do with concept art and drawing and people, you know, like real pure creatives trying to do the world building that we, that folks will folks will talk about in relationship to new drama series or. You know, you know, films or, you know, kind of adaptations or, you know, novelizations or, you know, whatever you know, kind of thematic arcs. And I think that concept art, you know, really, when you, when you look at the, the artists who are doing those things in those mediums there's, there's such a beautiful connection to architecture and architecture history and the influences of, you know, multiple periods. And how they get reimagined by the individual, the individual creative, you know, for this new world building and you know, recently, you know, on, on X Twitter, I'm still going to call it Twitter. I'm sorry. The other sounds stupid, but you know, I, I kind of posed the question and then, and then kind of nudged Cormac about it, but yeah. Yeah, sort of, you know, sort of this whole question about people who say that sci fi anime futurism really isn't a thing as an influence in architecture. And I'm like, you know, where, well, where do you think it's coming from? You know, where, you know, it's a circular loop. You know, it's, it's, you know, architecture has influenced those things to future think and then vice versa, that future, that future think has, you know, circulated back, you know, to the creatives in, in our discipline as architects to kind of push the envelope, you know, ask the question, what was the idea and, and here, this is where you kind of let your mind wander. In a sketch. So for me it was how do you position a building, a structure in a landscape? And then immediately as I start to place it on this precipice in the landscape, kind of this view, I'm always sort of fascinated with, with, I've always been fascinated with vistas and views. We've talked about this, the tower idea, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, in that sort of tower kind of concept you know, it's like, well, where did these things exist? And so then you try and ground that sketch. There's an impulse to kind of ground it in reality in a place that originally was just, you know, a spot in your mind. And so you've got sort of the sectional view of this precipice, and then as you kind of fill out and lay out the landscape landscape of the page of the sketchbook, there's this opportunity on the left side to start thinking about, you know, is this a series of these objects along, you know, along a line, along a bluff, you know, are they a series of kind of, Towers, you know, you know, are they, how are, how are they inhabited? How big are they? And then as I start to sketch it a little bit more, I realize they're big, but they're not too big because I actually insert some scale figures just subtly in, in the corner of the, the image. And, and a lot of that is just me working through it as I'm going, there isn't, there isn't sort of a, an end image in mind. And it becomes a bit iterative, but it's all this is all pending. There isn't an underlay.

Kurt: 19:37

And we still 10 to 20 minutes to this

Jamie: 19:41

one. The, this one lat was more 15 to 20.

Kurt: 19:49

It's still fast though.

Jamie: 19:53

But it just sort of, you know, the, the landscape idea and sort of. Going back in and in this one, you can also see there's a lot of really rich hatch patterns. So there's a initial pass of some of that to create texture and and material. But then going back in kind of pausing, reading the image, interrogating it a bit, realizing where some of the shadows really need to be bumped up. Because again, I'm only working with one pen.

Kurt: 20:27

Well, so the the thing I wanted to jump in. About the, the idea of that, the sort of influential loop that you were talking about, sort of back and forth between architecture, sort of fantasy or sci fi and, and I, and I would say, you know, a lot of what we talk about are movies or pop culture referencing, but I think game. Design or computer game design is like another station on this loop, you know, if it was a circuit, right? So you go from architecture to movie to game design and keep bouncing around because, you know, at the university where I'm teaching there, there is a, so there's the college of architecture, Yeah. Yeah. And design. So we have the architecture and interior sort of side of the building. And then you have the design side, which includes game design, graphics, industrial design, transportation design. And, and, and, and the, the, it's interesting how they. You know, lump these two families together. But we've had a lot of interesting group conversations and, and, and from my perspective on, you know, on the practice side of things where I'm drawing, designing buildings, and then trying to find time to do renderings, which I've, I eek, I eeked out one this week on, I put it on Instagram. You know, I'm using twin motion, but also game design people. Are using twin motion as a rendering visualization tool, and it's all, it all like twin motion, all sort of ties back into the unreal engine, which is like the, yeah, I don't know, probably the, the, the engine, like literally what's under the hood that makes the whole thing work. Right. But that's based in computer game code, you know, the design and the

Jamie: 22:36

unreal engine is like, that's. Old school, like, but it's at the same time they've revamped it so many, so many times. Yeah. But yeah, that's an original, that's like an OG, like for, for game design.

Kurt: 22:50

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very well known for sure. Yeah. And it's really interesting. So I just wanted to add in the fact that like the, the two or three worlds of, you know, have a strong relationship to each other. And, and if architecture starts to become more. Influenced by or maybe open to the influence of some of these other other fields because I feel like, I mean, my opinion is that maybe we're holding back from participating at the table in the architecture world because we want to keep architecture. Not we, you and me, but we as the profession,

Jamie: 23:33

but something like that.

Kurt: 23:35

Yeah. And like, you know, that it's somehow the podcast

Jamie: 23:39

goodness. Jimmy found his vocabulary.

Kurt: 23:44

It's a well, anyway, I mean, that could be a, it was sort of a different conversation for another day, but the

Jamie: 23:49

But it's, it's interesting though, because what's your, you're onto something in, in I think the sharing of influences and sort of the, the etymology of it. I don't even know. Is that the right? I think that's the right. I think you would use that etymology. You know it's if you think about like Italian futurists. Okay, and you show an Italian futurist drawing, but you put it in the context of, say Blade Runner 2030. Or even like something like Inception you know, you know, kind of a Christopher Nolan, you know, film, you know, you could put that and say, Oh, well, here's some, here's some original concept sketches for the environments of this. And no one would, no one would argue with you. Yeah, they would say, sure. Okay. Yeah, we can see that we can see the parallels. And, and then if you kind of peel back the curtain, you say, well, yeah, this Italian futurist did this in, in 1915, and you're like, what, you know, 100 years, this drawings 100 years old, and you're telling me it's, you know, relatable to this, you know, world building that's going on in a movie in the 20s. The 2020s. Then, then, then I think that becomes the richer dialogue. And at that point too, I think you're getting into a level of, you know, art history and architectural theory and architectural history where, you know, and I'm, I'm, trust me, I'm bringing this back. I'm bringing it home right now. Oh, I got it. Is that, I, I think what it does though, is it demystifies. The, the idea that all this stuff is in some ivory tower that's inaccessible to, you know, the general public and, and that you can't have an appreciation or draw some comparison or see what you're seeing on the screen and see that comparison or draw those parallels yourself. You know, yes, it's important, you know, in some respects to know the names of some of these people and the times in which they lived and the work and, and digging and digging in a little deeper. But I think that for us today, you know, when we're, when you and I've talked about our pop culture influences, we'll say that in one breath and then the next breath we're talking about you know, an architect that we studied in school. And to us, I don't think that we're putting one on the pedestal and one not, you know, or one below, you know, as, as a true influence. And I think that that's just sort of our, and, and I don't think we're, we're alone in that. I think there's a whole lot more people who agree to that, but don't talk about it quite as much as we do. And, and I think that there, you know, there's certainly coursework and there's certainly opportunities and there's some great professors. In architecture schools who kind of, you know, kind of try and cut through the noise of that pop culture or that influence discussion. But at the same time, I still think that there's this sort of leveling out where they, you know, still like, well, you know, we're going to put this person here and this person here and put this, this kind of genre here. And and I think what you're saying about game design is in a very relative short amount of time, you have some creatives. You know, art directors, technical directors storyboard artists who are really coming up with some amazing thoughts about space and storytelling and world building that, you know, as an industry, you know, it proves itself out. There's so many people who, you know. Want that want that opportunity to experience those places, even if it's only online or in a game or something like that. I mean, our whole discussion about the peripheral this, you know, you know, earlier this year. I mean, it's, you know, that whole experience. You know, it speaks to that sort of innate curiosity about world building that I think that I think resonates with a really big audience. So, I mean, like you said, this sketch, I posted it on, like, Monday, like, 2 days ago, maybe maybe a Sunday, and, you know, of the ones of late, I mean, it's, it's clearly the most popular in the last couple of weeks.

Kurt: 28:36

Oh, that's interesting. A little data data point. The yeah, speaking of peripheral, you brought it up, but I actually heard a a story on NPR about a company that's building a carbon sequestering Machine or equipment, the building, a building that is, I did, I got to dig into the details because I wonder what the carbon footprint of the building that they're trying to make. That's going to sequester carbon, but it has those peripheral, the concept of peripheral, right? The, the, the, the structures or, you know, that have the capacity to sort of sequester carbon out of the atmosphere and it's starting to become a reality. I don't know if it's necessarily the the only sustainable path forward, but I, I don't, I'm not opposed to seeing it out. As, as a concept to see if it has the potential for making an impact on, you know, global climate change. But it's, it's just interesting that again, the, the, the influences, but then how I think faster and faster. We're starting to see these things sort of turn into reality or something real rather than stay in concept for decades. And I think that's due to a little more interaction between. Yeah. The, the realms and then also, you know, the technology that we have to design and build and, you know, fabricate things, you know, a lot faster these days, but I might be on off on a tangent, but it's just for interest. No, I

Jamie: 30:17

think that's that's great to hear. And it's certainly something I'm interested in as well. I mean, I. In sort of a similar vein, I'd read an article where somebody was sort of pushing back on our industry and saying, hey, architects, you know, it's, you know, it is, it is beyond time to look at existing buildings. As the solution and you know you know, and so I think that and not just from like a preservation angle, like a lot of the work that you and I, you know, both are involved in, but from this kind of climate kind of consciousness and carbon consciousness and that similar to the way you're talking about tools being implemented and sort of, you know, finding their way into the influence of our work. You know, something like this sketch is what would one of those towers look like? You know, you're going to build this new machine. You know, what is it going to look like in the peripheral? They sort of try and disguise them, you know, as almost like carotids. You know, like, you know, which is, you know, me hearkening back to my, you know, arch 101 history class, you know, of the, the figures who were effectively columns for temples, you know, and they were, you know, kind of carved figures to kind of masking the nature of what the column actually was structurally. So it's, you know, it's not that. Nothing's new anymore, but it's certainly fun to play with the influences.

Kurt: 31:59

Yeah. Yeah. And I yeah, I, I, sorry, I just had a thought and then I was going to open up another can of worms. Sorry about that. The you know, just thinking about these towers, this tower sketch again, but yeah, now I've, I've kind of lost, lost the thought, Jamie. Does that mean that it's time to, time to tie a bow on this one? Yeah.

Jamie: 32:25

If, if the threads are starting to unravel, it's time to tie the bow and, and call it a, call it an episode for now. Bail, bail

Kurt: 32:31

the ship out. Yeah, good thing. You know, the live folks, I appreciate your time in listening and you get all the, you, you get all the glitches here and there I can, I can go back and edit it out for the audio portion. So, so I have that. Benefit benefit to me to my skill set. But, yeah, thanks, Jamie. This, this is always fun. Actually, it would be exciting if some more of these towers sort of populated future pages in relationship to the orientation. You know, the sort of the sort of plan view and the precipice and, you know, but I'll No pressure, you know, just, just throwing the thought out there. Yeah. So, so I'll, I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Jamie.