Science and technology also plays a role in this conversation. How do you view these realms in your own work?
It’s nice that you raise this because I don’t employ designers. I have top parametric architectural model makers. I have car designers. I have yacht designers. I have people who understand oceanography, ecology, nature, and digital imaging. Within that realm, the conversations we have embrace biology, science, the concept of evolutionary forces, the Darwinian nature of how things evolve.
If you look at scientific processes or models, it’s about soul searching. They always say that the act of going into space is the most conflicting idea for humanity, ever. They say because men are staring into space, they want to go there. There’s the emotional, psychological, instinctive will to go. But then when you pass it through science, the scientists say, “Are you crazy? We’re not designed for that!” But then the will pushes the scientists to design something that gets us up there, and then the view from space changes our view of humanity. It’s fantastic, the full circle of that engagement, don’t you think?
The way we build things, how we wear devices, how we scan the mind—I’d like to be involved in the three-dimensional emergence of that relationship with human beings. Now is my time. I can talk about the past as much as you want, but I don’t wake up every morning and think, “Oh, look what I did!” Somebody has to spearhead this beautiful new age. I don’t mean this in the hippie way, because that just drags it back; I mean something sensual and feminine. I’d never design a Hummer as long as I live. I’d like to design a biological car that floats and feels womblike. I think people want these things. You can’t buy that which does not exist, so if the Googles and Facebooks and Apples—all the big money-generating machines, the Teslas of this world and so on—start having a dialogue with people like me, we’ve got a really great chance to go into a biological age.