#transcript included

Alexander Hamilton: Philip. I love you… more than words can describe. [Pause] But I would rather die [t]han become what you are.

An animated intro post of a person and their AAC tablet for communication, drawn in white over a tannish brown background. In the first few seconds the user’s avatar — a blobby line-art humanoid with no legs, a floating pair of hands, and a head with shaggy hair, dot eyes and a simple smile, waves to the viewer with text reading “Hi! My name is Ὀρφεύς (Orpheus) and l am a part-time AAC user!” He moves to the other side of the screen, gazing off to the side with a pensive expression with text reading “I am neurodivergent, verbalflux, and multiply disabled.” He moves back to the right side and puts a finger up with his mouth open with text reading “a few things to know; I am an adult, I use he&/they& pronouns (keep the &), I am a webdev and artist for AAC Image Library.“ Line-art of a tablet with an Apple-style floating island and camera replaces the avatar, with text reading “This is Καλλιόπη (Calliope), she uses any pronouns.” The line-art switches to a real-life picture of Calliope’s screen, reading “This iPad is a disability aide. It is my voice. I use it for AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and may need extra time to respond—please be patient. Do not touch my device [symbol of hand with red circle and cross-bar] / do not watch my screen unless asked [symbol of eye with red circle and cross-bar / remind me to keep it charged [icon of a battery with a red exclamation point].” A bracket shows that she is 11 inches in length. Text reads “she is an iPad Pro 4th gen.” Now a picture of Calliope appears, an iPad in a heavy-duty red-and-black case with a slot for a white Apple Pencil, attached to a strap like a guitar strap covered in pins. Gesture lines and exclamation points emphasize her. Text reads “she has a SEYMAC case to protect her while I carry her around!” Line-art of the avatar using Calliope to speak appears with text “Not only is she my AAC tablet”, Calliope flies out of the avatar’s hands, transforms and squashes the avatar. She is now in full frame, and a hand draws a figure on her. Text reads “she also acts as a portable canvas,” Calliope shows the YouTube icon with text reading “as well as providing ordinary tablet functions.” The avatar reappears holding cards that say “please be patient” among other things. Text reads “she is also not the only form of AAC I have.” The avatar and his cards fly off screen and text reads “Outside of AAC, I love music, and psychology, and advocating for human rights. Occasionally I will go LIVE to answer questions about AAC and chat with other AAC users, so stay tuned!” Numerous symbols flash up with the text—a fist for human rights, and a dot beside Live like it’s a live recording. The text vanishes and the screen goes black, replaced with a real photo of the account owner posing with a cane in a cubone mask and tail, surrounded by AAC images, drawing implements, communication cards, zines, the same cane folded up, a therian mask, and a tail. Text reads “This is the account of Ὀρφεύς and Καλλιόπη!”

Interviewer to Kate: You've actually gone on the record on other podcasts and have said that being an architect sucks ass. Kate: Yeah, this is a really important point. 
Essentially what's happened to architecture since the development of autoCAD, especially is that architecture has been largely deskilled in a lot of ways, so drawing, for example, is not commonly taught in schools. Everything becomes abstracted, essentially. The computer systems are so complex now that basically, you know, those five over one [cookie cutter buildings], the reason they look like that is that they're essentially the built version of a spreadsheet. 
So all of the materials, the aluminum panels, you can just plug and play, whereas like, if you wanted to add a curve to a building, then that takes like a huge amount of labor because you have to think about the flashing for like the rain. There's a possibility you could get sued if like something leaks. You know, then you have to add like additional construction drawings because it's more complex than just like slapping that stuff on there. 
And so everyone's like, why are all these buildings the same? And the answer is because one, you have to minimize liability at all costs for the firm, which means like, if you just play it by the rules and you just play it into these sort of systems, you're not going to get sued. Second of all, like it's the developer's bottom line. 
And third of all is that architecture itself is an abstraction. Back in the Middle Ages, when people were building the cathedrals, they were hand building and hand cutting the stone. There weren't plans. 
These were developments of the Renaissance. When you take a building plan that is already an abstraction from the actual act of building the building, you're coordinating the labor instead of doing the labor. And so essentially the computer is another layer on top of that because you are so disconnected from the material, you don't touch the material, you're just in revit, you're just in autoCAD, you're dragging and dropping. 
 Interviewer: It sounds like you're playing a video game. Kate: Exactly. You don't have any sense of, you know, the materiality of the building. 
 Interviewer: Or the sense of place. Kate: Or the sense of place. It just you just plot that building down on a. 
 Interviewer: Looks exactly the same in, you know, North Carolina, in Texas, in Atlanta. Kate: Exactly. And so getting an architecture degree now in a lot of the state schools, for example, it's just a technical program to learn these programs. 
And a lot of architects are very upset because, you know, they went to school because they wanted to make a better world. A lot of the time.

I know I’ve had a bit of an overflow of content this weekend, but that’s actually pretty cool because I was unmotivated to make content for a really long time (and have been really struggling with poetry).