1
00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:08,039
Speaker 1: We meet again, listener, connecting across time and space to

2
00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: share a story and to think, I'm Dessa. This is

3
00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:14,560
Speaker 1: deeply human and we're headed into the beating heart of symmetry.

4
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,599
Speaker 1: Why are we particularly attracted to faces that look the

5
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,919
Speaker 1: same on both sides? How and why is symmetry tied

6
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,480
Speaker 1: into our ideas of what's beautiful. We'll start by speaking

7
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:27,840
Speaker 1: with a woman named Mafi. Although she's an effervescent grown up,

8
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:30,960
Speaker 1: as a kid, Marfi was acutely and uncomfortably aware of

9
00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:37,800
Speaker 1: our preference for symmetrical faces because hers wasn't remember being

10
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:42,640
Speaker 1: asleepover once at this girl's house this guy went to

11
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,960
Speaker 1: school with, and she was like really rich, and she

12
00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:48,720
Speaker 1: had like you know these like white carpets and like

13
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:54,400
Speaker 1: mini tobler own bars and the company. I know. She

14
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:57,520
Speaker 1: had this blonde brat stole and I like looking at

15
00:00:57,560 --> 00:00:59,639
Speaker 1: it and like saying a prayer to God and being

16
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:03,240
Speaker 1: like please, please, God, Like, can I look try this

17
00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:05,920
Speaker 1: one day. If you're not familiar with the Brad's brand,

18
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:08,320
Speaker 1: it's a line of dolls with big heads and tiny waists,

19
00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:12,840
Speaker 1: wearing nightclub fashions and runaway makeup. They've got exaggerated potty lips,

20
00:01:13,319 --> 00:01:16,880
Speaker 1: enormous almond eyes, and almost no nose because you don't

21
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,160
Speaker 1: need a nose to be sexy, and they are, of

22
00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:26,400
Speaker 1: course perfectly symmetrical, as you might have already gleaned. I

23
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,160
Speaker 1: am not a huge fan of hyper sexualized dolls with

24
00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:33,679
Speaker 1: alien proportions marketed as playthings for young girls. I've had

25
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:36,560
Speaker 1: this aversion since I myself was a small girl and

26
00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:39,000
Speaker 1: was once discovered lecturing on the topic while standing at

27
00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:40,800
Speaker 1: a box in the middle of my day care center.

28
00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,400
Speaker 1: I digress back to Mafi, who was painfully aware of

29
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,680
Speaker 1: her own facial asymmetry. Mafi's mom was awesome, always telling

30
00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:52,440
Speaker 1: Mafi how beautiful she was. But moms are so easy

31
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,040
Speaker 1: to write off, like they have to say that right.

32
00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: I had such a kind of fixed idea of myself

33
00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:03,040
Speaker 1: as someone that wasn't physically beautiful at all. I wore

34
00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:06,400
Speaker 1: really serious, full long glasses, and I also wore an

35
00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 1: eye patch on my stronger eye to make my weaker

36
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:12,079
Speaker 1: I have to work harder for years, and they try

37
00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,160
Speaker 1: and kind of kind of sex it up for me

38
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,400
Speaker 1: with stickers and stuff to kind of compensate in some

39
00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:24,040
Speaker 1: way for the humiliation at school. Mafi has stra business

40
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,680
Speaker 1: a lazy eye, and that's sometimes made eye contact difficult

41
00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:29,760
Speaker 1: because the other kids weren't sure where she was looking,

42
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,280
Speaker 1: so she spent a lot of time looking down at

43
00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:36,720
Speaker 1: her hands. Although mafia is asymmetry is obvious, none of

44
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:40,760
Speaker 1: us are quite the same on both sides. Chris mcmannus

45
00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:43,160
Speaker 1: is a medic and a psychologist who wrote a book

46
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,040
Speaker 1: called Right Hand, Left Hand that splits us open to

47
00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:48,960
Speaker 1: study both halves, how they're built, while we use them

48
00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:51,320
Speaker 1: the way we do, and even our attitudes about each side.

49
00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:54,560
Speaker 1: Chris is a professor at the University of London. We

50
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:57,120
Speaker 1: met at the BBC Studios to sit down for a

51
00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:02,000
Speaker 1: serious intellectual exchange. Can you lift an eyebrow? One? Which one? No,

52
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:05,560
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I didn't even I need some feedback.

53
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:09,240
Speaker 1: I've got no idea what I'm doing. Do you do

54
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:13,040
Speaker 1: your best to lift your left eyebrow and I'll tell you, Okay,

55
00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:17,440
Speaker 1: that's not happening. Do your best to lift your right eyebrow. God,

56
00:03:17,440 --> 00:03:21,320
Speaker 1: this isn't video. Now there is a movement that is

57
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:25,680
Speaker 1: not okay. Chris is not likely to be cast as

58
00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:28,880
Speaker 1: an arch villain in the next blockbuster. When I asked

59
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:31,840
Speaker 1: him why we're generally symmetrical in the first place. The

60
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,040
Speaker 1: answer was pretty forthright. It's easier to navigate through the

61
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:37,400
Speaker 1: world on legs that are roughly the same length and

62
00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:39,600
Speaker 1: with ears that work in pretty much the same way

63
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:42,120
Speaker 1: and are in the same position on our head. But

64
00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:45,360
Speaker 1: growing into a symmetrical organism might be harder than it

65
00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,760
Speaker 1: seems on first glance. Think think about a fetus in

66
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 1: the womb, all its individual parts forming separately. How his

67
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:54,880
Speaker 1: fingers are he is or its knees get to be

68
00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:57,600
Speaker 1: the same on both sides. Well, the answer is that

69
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:01,000
Speaker 1: they both take the same set of instructions, the same DNA,

70
00:04:01,600 --> 00:04:03,400
Speaker 1: But by the time the knees, the ears, and the

71
00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:06,720
Speaker 1: fingers are developing, they're stuck out miles away from each other.

72
00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 1: So they both read the same instructions and they try

73
00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:14,240
Speaker 1: and produce the same organ by using that codebook. Okay,

74
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:19,479
Speaker 1: same pattern book. But if stuff goes wrong during that process,

75
00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 1: if there's noise, there's interference, stuff happens. I mean literal noise,

76
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,080
Speaker 1: I mean biological noise, but it might be physical noise

77
00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:32,160
Speaker 1: as well. Stresses stresses anything, some radioactivity, the old cosmic

78
00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:37,640
Speaker 1: ray coming through, perhaps some drugs or something, but anything

79
00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:42,279
Speaker 1: can happen, then the two sides get slightly different. You

80
00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:46,360
Speaker 1: and I are both making duck allourage and separate kitchens. I, however,

81
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:49,480
Speaker 1: have had three martinis, so we have the same recipe,

82
00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:52,640
Speaker 1: but an intervening factor that means that I'm going to

83
00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 1: burn the duck. Yeah, that's what we call biological noise.

84
00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:02,240
Speaker 1: But normally, for most of us, there's what we call buffering.

85
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 1: There's enough control over it to make sure the two

86
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:10,080
Speaker 1: things stay the same. So if that goes wrong, then

87
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,320
Speaker 1: of course the two sides become slightly different, but it

88
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:18,600
Speaker 1: means actually other things are going wrong in development as well.

89
00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:23,640
Speaker 1: If an organism's symmetry has been thrown off, there might

90
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:26,799
Speaker 1: be other problems beneath the surface too, And that's probably

91
00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:29,200
Speaker 1: why we look for symmetry and faces and that sort

92
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:32,520
Speaker 1: of thing. People with symmetric faces, it's probably they've got

93
00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:36,440
Speaker 1: good genes, they're well buffered, they can respond to stress

94
00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:39,920
Speaker 1: and survive it. And that's why we think that symmetry

95
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:42,960
Speaker 1: is beauty in faces in particular. So we have this

96
00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:47,599
Speaker 1: idea that seeing someone and appraising their faces symmetrical and beautiful,

97
00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:52,000
Speaker 1: is that sort of shorthand for appraising their reproductive health

98
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:56,920
Speaker 1: in biological terms, yes, all organisms are looking for somebody

99
00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:00,680
Speaker 1: to mate with in order to produce offspring, probably having

100
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:06,320
Speaker 1: a symmetric faces part of that story. So far, Chris

101
00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:08,520
Speaker 1: and I have been discussing the symmetries that we can

102
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:12,400
Speaker 1: see in one another are external appearances, but inside we're

103
00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:18,120
Speaker 1: not so symmetrical at all. So, for instance, our heart

104
00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:22,520
Speaker 1: is asymmetric, and what it's like that is interesting because

105
00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:26,880
Speaker 1: if you go to more primitive animals earth worms or insects,

106
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,640
Speaker 1: or even some primitive vertebrates, then they have a small

107
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,320
Speaker 1: heart which is in the middle of the body and

108
00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:36,279
Speaker 1: it's not at all asymmetric. We seem to get large

109
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:39,400
Speaker 1: hearts when we have a lot of muscles, and when

110
00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:41,320
Speaker 1: you start to pump a lot of blood through a

111
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:45,400
Speaker 1: symmetric heart, you get turbulence. And what seems to have

112
00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 1: happened is that the heart is evolved so that the

113
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:53,560
Speaker 1: blood spirals through it and stops the turbulence. So you know,

114
00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:55,880
Speaker 1: if you want to open up the chest, you'll find

115
00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:58,240
Speaker 1: that if you look at the lungs, then the right

116
00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:00,440
Speaker 1: lung has three lobes and the left lung has too.

117
00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:03,880
Speaker 1: If you look inside the abdomen, you'll find that there's

118
00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:06,279
Speaker 1: the liver on one side, the spleen on the other,

119
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,720
Speaker 1: the stomach, the intestines, all of them are asymmetric. Famously,

120
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:14,440
Speaker 1: the testicles even are asymmetric, and they're larger on one

121
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 1: side than the other, and higher on one side and

122
00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:20,360
Speaker 1: the other and so on, and all of those asymmetries

123
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:23,120
Speaker 1: seem to really follow on from the fact that the

124
00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,960
Speaker 1: heart is asymmetric. So if you find the rare people

125
00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:29,160
Speaker 1: it's about one in ten thousand people in the world

126
00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:32,800
Speaker 1: who have their heart on the right side, then they

127
00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:35,320
Speaker 1: will tend to have their liver, their stomach, their spleen,

128
00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:39,000
Speaker 1: even their testicles reversed, so they're a mirror image. They're

129
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,640
Speaker 1: flipped over. We're not at all behaviorally symmetrical either. Somebody

130
00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:46,960
Speaker 1: parts are stronger or more flexible, more nimble than their

131
00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:49,680
Speaker 1: partners on the other side. About nine out of ten

132
00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:52,000
Speaker 1: of us favor our right hands, though men are more

133
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:54,720
Speaker 1: likely to be left handed than women, and there's evidence

134
00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:58,080
Speaker 1: that handedness actually starts in utero. So if you spy

135
00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:00,600
Speaker 1: on babies with an ultrasound while they are in the

136
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 1: presumed privacy of their mother's stomachs, you'll see that they

137
00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:06,640
Speaker 1: often suck the thumb of the preferred hand. And sitting

138
00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:09,320
Speaker 1: here watching you interview me, I noticed you've just clasped

139
00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:12,640
Speaker 1: your hands together. And hand clasping where you grip the

140
00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:16,640
Speaker 1: hands together, then there's usually one thumb on top. In

141
00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:18,960
Speaker 1: my case, it's the right thumb on top right for

142
00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,960
Speaker 1: me to write, but half the population it's the other

143
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,640
Speaker 1: way around. And if if I force myself to the

144
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,560
Speaker 1: other way around, it feels so disgusting I want to

145
00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:32,319
Speaker 1: leave my own company. What are the other behavioral asymmetries

146
00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,480
Speaker 1: besides right handed dominants? Like what are the part of

147
00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 1: our bodies are asymmetrically used? Almost all of them. Although

148
00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:41,240
Speaker 1: about ten percent of people are left handed, about twenty

149
00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:45,400
Speaker 1: percent of people who left footed. What about like for

150
00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:49,480
Speaker 1: our sense organs? Even the eyes are the obvious one.

151
00:08:49,480 --> 00:08:53,520
Speaker 1: Eyes are slightly tricky about people are right eye the

152
00:08:53,559 --> 00:08:57,319
Speaker 1: other left died. But it's in the sense of which

153
00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:00,960
Speaker 1: I we choose to look with. So it's a strange question.

154
00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:03,720
Speaker 1: But if you had to look through a keyhole, which

155
00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:08,120
Speaker 1: I would you view? In some ways eyes themselves or

156
00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:10,720
Speaker 1: keyholes through which our brain peers out at the world

157
00:09:10,760 --> 00:09:13,840
Speaker 1: from inside its skull. I asked Matthew what it was

158
00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:18,520
Speaker 1: like to see the world through her eyes. I only

159
00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:21,240
Speaker 1: really focus with one eye at a time. I've got

160
00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:23,320
Speaker 1: one that I use for far away, and I've got

161
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,200
Speaker 1: one that I I used to close up. The interesting thing

162
00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:28,040
Speaker 1: about it, though, is that I can look at two

163
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:32,080
Speaker 1: things at once. Um, it's just yeah, it's just that one.

164
00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:36,280
Speaker 1: It's just that one is kind of performs a kind

165
00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:39,120
Speaker 1: of peripheral function in the sense that I don't focus

166
00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:41,320
Speaker 1: on it, so I'm able to kind of shut one

167
00:09:41,360 --> 00:09:45,000
Speaker 1: of them off. But it's it's probably quote. I think

168
00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:48,760
Speaker 1: you'd probably been pretty freaked out, like if we could,

169
00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:51,400
Speaker 1: if we could trade little feed for a second. But

170
00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:53,600
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you'd probably be pretty freaked out

171
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:55,840
Speaker 1: to like, why could this girl only see like four

172
00:09:55,880 --> 00:09:58,120
Speaker 1: degrees in front of her? She's going to pop down.

173
00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:01,360
Speaker 1: You'll be glad to learn that Marphy had a much

174
00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:03,360
Speaker 1: better time of it as a teenager than as a

175
00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,040
Speaker 1: grade schooler. I remember when I got to secondary school

176
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:09,880
Speaker 1: and suddenly boys fancied me and I just could not

177
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,480
Speaker 1: believe my love. I was like, oh my god, I've

178
00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:16,160
Speaker 1: got all this sexual power and I don't know what

179
00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,440
Speaker 1: to do with that, as it happens, marfy did find

180
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:23,199
Speaker 1: something to do with all that sexual power. When you're

181
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:25,400
Speaker 1: at a caffeh shop or or if you're at a bar,

182
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:29,680
Speaker 1: do you ever get the sense that maybe people recognize you? Yeah,

183
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:31,840
Speaker 1: it does happen a bit. Now, will you tell me

184
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:35,120
Speaker 1: what you do for a living? I am a I

185
00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:40,480
Speaker 1: suppose model, and that's the idea. It was kind of

186
00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:45,040
Speaker 1: an accident. Really, I got scouted at a festival when

187
00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:48,440
Speaker 1: I was fourteen or fifteen and did a test shoot

188
00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:52,520
Speaker 1: and really, like I thought it was intolerable. She tried modeling,

189
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: hated it and built completely and then essentially gets discovered

190
00:10:56,160 --> 00:10:58,840
Speaker 1: again a few years later, like modeling will only roll on.

191
00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:04,079
Speaker 1: Someone introduced me to this photographer called Tyrone Nabon, who

192
00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:08,520
Speaker 1: now is a really good friend of mine, and he

193
00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:13,080
Speaker 1: wanted someone that wasn't kind of fashion e and he

194
00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:14,880
Speaker 1: took some photos of me and they ended up on

195
00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:16,800
Speaker 1: the cover of Pop So what did that mean? Like?

196
00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 1: How big a deal is that? I suppose? Maybe? Still

197
00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:24,880
Speaker 1: do I really know? I mean, they've had lots of

198
00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 1: other kind of big celebs. Um uh much? You hate this?

199
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:32,600
Speaker 1: You hate name dropping? Like you really hate this? Part?

200
00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:37,320
Speaker 1: Is that right. I find it quite embarrassing. Yeah, okay, stop,

201
00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:40,000
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take over. Pop is a UK fashion and

202
00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,640
Speaker 1: culture magazine that's featured people like Naomi Campbell and Britney

203
00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:46,719
Speaker 1: Spears on its covers, and Storm, the modeling agency that

204
00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:50,520
Speaker 1: signed Mafi, discovered people like Kate Moss. Mafi is kind

205
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:54,000
Speaker 1: of crushing it and I ended up being her calling card.

206
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:05,800
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is easy to answer from

207
00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:08,559
Speaker 1: the inside, but do you have a sense of how

208
00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:13,680
Speaker 1: much the lazy eye defines your career? Oh? No, yeah,

209
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:21,200
Speaker 1: I mean it, it is my career. Basically, a bit

210
00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:24,719
Speaker 1: of asymmetry might have an attraction all its own. To

211
00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,880
Speaker 1: talk aesthetics more generally, for a moment, I have wrangled

212
00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:32,880
Speaker 1: my design friend Vance Wallenstein. Vance and I met in

213
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:36,120
Speaker 1: our early twenties, having crossed paths in the Minneapolis indie

214
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:40,400
Speaker 1: music scene and conveniently for future podcasting me, He ended

215
00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:43,080
Speaker 1: up the head of design at Moment PS one, a

216
00:12:43,160 --> 00:12:45,880
Speaker 1: branch of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. I

217
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:49,360
Speaker 1: asked Vance to explain how symmetry is understood and treated

218
00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:53,920
Speaker 1: in his field. I think historically, you know, symmetry represented

219
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:58,640
Speaker 1: the ideal perfection the most beautiful. It was the most elegant,

220
00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:01,480
Speaker 1: it was the most you know, wealthy. You know, you

221
00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:06,880
Speaker 1: think of places of worship, religious texts, even tombstones for example,

222
00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:10,880
Speaker 1: you rarely see you know, a name left justified or

223
00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,160
Speaker 1: right justified. It's going to be centered. It's the most

224
00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:19,520
Speaker 1: kind of respectful, maybe precious way to present information. Symmetry

225
00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:23,920
Speaker 1: also had class connotations. It was refined. Vance who has

226
00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:27,959
Speaker 1: a special expertise and typography can see those class connotations

227
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,160
Speaker 1: play out in our type treatments. At least in the

228
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:36,559
Speaker 1: Western world. You have, you know, the emergence of data

229
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:41,080
Speaker 1: to still Russian constructivism, you know, bau House, all of

230
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:45,920
Speaker 1: these sorts of movements in Europe that are advocating for

231
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:50,280
Speaker 1: an asymmetrical approach to typography and reading as a way

232
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:55,120
Speaker 1: to kind of socialize the experience of reading and advertising,

233
00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:56,920
Speaker 1: to make it for the people in a way. It

234
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:02,760
Speaker 1: wasn't absolute perfect. Symmetry is also like totally impossible to

235
00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 1: find in nature. Absolutely it's the ideal, but as we

236
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:08,960
Speaker 1: all know, the ideal with regards to anything doesn't exist,

237
00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:11,520
Speaker 1: which does not stop us from trying to find it.

238
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,280
Speaker 1: I do think that you know, the eye is trying

239
00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:20,040
Speaker 1: to make connections between forms, etcetera, and create lines. When

240
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:24,200
Speaker 1: things are asymmetrical, the experience of viewing something from a

241
00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: visual standpoint becomes much more dynamic as a result, and

242
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 1: I would say charged exciting in a way because you

243
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:33,360
Speaker 1: have to do more work and optically, once you've done

244
00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:36,480
Speaker 1: that work to actually figure out the alignments, the experience

245
00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:38,920
Speaker 1: just becomes so much more rewarding. What do you mean

246
00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:40,720
Speaker 1: when you say that we're doing more work, Does that

247
00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:43,120
Speaker 1: mean that, like, my eyes are literally moving all around

248
00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:46,840
Speaker 1: the picture. Yes, because your eyes do want, just by nature,

249
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:51,000
Speaker 1: to have things be balanced, to be symmetrical. So when

250
00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,120
Speaker 1: they're not, you have to create those visuals. Those you're

251
00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:57,160
Speaker 1: you're you're creating those points, You're finding those points to

252
00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:00,920
Speaker 1: create those lines for it to become symmetrical. Asymmetry being

253
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:04,520
Speaker 1: a much more I would argue, challenging but rewarding experience,

254
00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:07,920
Speaker 1: And I think that can be applied to just about anything,

255
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,880
Speaker 1: whether it's type setting, whether it's art, whether it's a human,

256
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:25,240
Speaker 1: whether it's how they look, how they act. Part of

257
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:31,040
Speaker 1: the reason that evolutionary biologists give for a general attraction

258
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:35,280
Speaker 1: to symmetrical human faces is that human beings that were

259
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:37,720
Speaker 1: able to develop one eye that looks pretty much like

260
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:41,120
Speaker 1: the other eye, like grew up in an environment without

261
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:44,280
Speaker 1: too many developmental strains, and they got some genes that

262
00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:46,920
Speaker 1: were able to express themselves evenly across the body, like

263
00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 1: it might be an indicator for reproductive health. And then

264
00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:57,000
Speaker 1: to balance that against like every adolescent girls crush to

265
00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:00,120
Speaker 1: be real heteronormative on like the classic scar over just

266
00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:03,280
Speaker 1: one eye, or the Monroe piercing on one side of

267
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:06,840
Speaker 1: the mouth, you know, or like if you imagine flappers,

268
00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,000
Speaker 1: like the parting your hair really far to one side.

269
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:12,720
Speaker 1: When you talk about like asymmetry being more of a

270
00:16:12,800 --> 00:16:17,280
Speaker 1: challenge and more interesting, fundamentally, there's also a limit to that. Right.

271
00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:20,680
Speaker 1: It's like at a certain point, if we're to asymmetrical,

272
00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,120
Speaker 1: generally we consider that's considered less beautiful. Like if one

273
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:27,080
Speaker 1: side of your face is super different than the other, right, Like,

274
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:29,560
Speaker 1: is there is there a sweet spot? Yeah? Absolutely, And

275
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: I think with regards to any sort of whether it's

276
00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:36,080
Speaker 1: the human form or arch design, it's you know, finding

277
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,920
Speaker 1: that point of tension and how does asymmetry kind of

278
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:44,120
Speaker 1: react against symmetry and that kind of that liminal place

279
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: where things vibrate. The Monroe the piercing, the scar, the

280
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,200
Speaker 1: hair part, I think is where the experience becomes the

281
00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 1: most charged. So if it's everything is purely symmetrical, it's

282
00:16:55,960 --> 00:17:00,360
Speaker 1: a very static experience. If it's completely asymmetrical, it's going

283
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:03,760
Speaker 1: to be chaos. That sweet spot in between and finding

284
00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,800
Speaker 1: those moments of yeah, vibration, we respond in the most

285
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:25,000
Speaker 1: exciting kind of ways. Do you think that if you'd

286
00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:28,119
Speaker 1: been born like ten or twenty years earlier, that you

287
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:30,640
Speaker 1: would have still had a shot at a modeling career. No,

288
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:33,440
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Like what's changed in the industry.

289
00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:39,120
Speaker 1: I think generally attitudes have changed towards people that previously

290
00:17:39,119 --> 00:17:41,960
Speaker 1: would have been kind of mothered by society. Like there's

291
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,679
Speaker 1: lots of disabled models now, and transgender models and plus

292
00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 1: sized models, and you know, it's much more of a

293
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,720
Speaker 1: culture of tolerance. Do you think that you're asymmetry is

294
00:17:51,760 --> 00:17:56,679
Speaker 1: like accepted by the industry because you're otherwise very beautiful

295
00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,159
Speaker 1: and symmetrical in a classic way? I think of like

296
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 1: Cindy Crawford's more, you know, this kind of calling card

297
00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:08,359
Speaker 1: against a backdrop of supermodel beauty. Um, yeah, I do

298
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,480
Speaker 1: think so. It's funny. I mean, whenever I've been told

299
00:18:12,520 --> 00:18:16,040
Speaker 1: to lose weight, which obviously has happened. I always think,

300
00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:19,480
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, such a cheek, isn't it? Like

301
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:21,080
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to have a lazy eye as long as

302
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:26,119
Speaker 1: I haven't got like back rolls or a fatass. But

303
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:28,439
Speaker 1: I also think that the truth is that it's you know,

304
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,760
Speaker 1: usually it's the imperfection that gives something its own kind

305
00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:35,560
Speaker 1: of sparkle. And also it's what kind of draws interest

306
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:38,680
Speaker 1: because the meaning is kind of closed, otherwise there's nowhere

307
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:40,560
Speaker 1: to go with it, Like, what do you mean by that?

308
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:45,280
Speaker 1: How do you see the relationship generally between beauty and symmetry.

309
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:49,920
Speaker 1: I think that physical imperfections are suggestive of something internal,

310
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:52,760
Speaker 1: and they invite analysis in a way that perfection doesn't

311
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:54,879
Speaker 1: really And that's what I mean when I say that

312
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:57,639
Speaker 1: the meaning is closed. A perfection is that there's no

313
00:18:57,680 --> 00:18:59,520
Speaker 1: past to read into it, and there's no kind of

314
00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:04,800
Speaker 1: future to extrapolate it. Just it doesn't suggest identity or individuality.

315
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:07,919
Speaker 1: Marphi says she has mixed feelings about the fact that

316
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:11,119
Speaker 1: her lazy eye receives so so much attention in her career.

317
00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:14,359
Speaker 1: None of us are reducible to just one feature, but

318
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:16,800
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I think it's kind of wonderful.

319
00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:21,000
Speaker 1: And if it's, you know, managed to function as a

320
00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of invitation for other people to exercise a bit

321
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,640
Speaker 1: of self forgiveness for their flaws and all the rest

322
00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:29,520
Speaker 1: of it, then I feel, you know, really kind of

323
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:32,840
Speaker 1: touched and quite humbled really to have anything to do

324
00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:43,280
Speaker 1: with that. The throngs of crazed fans camped outside my

325
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:45,920
Speaker 1: podcast mansion often tell me that I have a perfectly

326
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 1: symmetrical broadcast voice, so you may be surprised to learn

327
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:53,520
Speaker 1: that my face is not particularly symmetrical at all. The

328
00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:55,879
Speaker 1: left side of my mouth tilts up. It's always the

329
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:58,359
Speaker 1: first to start smiling, which can make the right half

330
00:19:58,359 --> 00:20:00,320
Speaker 1: of my face look like it's just a it was

331
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:02,960
Speaker 1: disappointed in you, like there were staff cuts. So I

332
00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:05,240
Speaker 1: am playing both good cop and bad cop at the

333
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 1: same time. Why is symmetry beautiful? Symmetrical faces indicate good

334
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:19,040
Speaker 1: genes and developmental resilience, strong reproductive stock. But we ask

335
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 1: more of faces than to be only beautiful. We want

336
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,639
Speaker 1: to connect, to see the flash of anger or delight,

337
00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,480
Speaker 1: the lust or tenderness as it breaks across the brow

338
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,240
Speaker 1: or ripples the muscles of the jaw. We want to

339
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:34,480
Speaker 1: know who the face belongs to and what she makes

340
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:37,160
Speaker 1: of us. We don't just look at faces. We look

341
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,600
Speaker 1: to them to reveal an inner life, fortified by past

342
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:44,080
Speaker 1: triumphs and freighted with the old hurts. We want to

343
00:20:44,080 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 1: know how the pretty face on the magazine is related

344
00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 1: to the little girl at the sleeve bar with a

345
00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:54,280
Speaker 1: doll and a private prayer. Next time I'm deeply human,

346
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 1: we'll be asking why do you see faces and clouds?

347
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 1: And why does the creaking of an old house freak

348
00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 1: you out, even though you are positive you're the only

349
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,720
Speaker 1: one home. In short, why are we so eager to

350
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: perceive other creatures everywhere and in everything? Within the human brain,

351
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: we have specialized systems for detecting other social animals, and

352
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:28,360
Speaker 1: we have, if you like, dedicated mechanisms for identifying others

353
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 1: and their form and their shapes and their movements. I mean,

354
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,120
Speaker 1: I could hear his voice so clearly. I didn't feel

355
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:39,000
Speaker 1: a worn Somebody said, Oh, I feel like there was

356
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,679
Speaker 1: somebody behind me touching me. He was not me, he

357
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,639
Speaker 1: felt creepy. Guy said, I felt like that there was

358
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 1: a monkey replicating my movements on my back. Deeply Human

359
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 1: is a BBC World Service in American public media co

360
00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 1: production with I Heart Media. Oh and if you want

361
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 1: to know what happens when you ask a very modest,

362
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 1: self effacing model describe her own face, it's pretty cute.

363
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: They are kind of thick at the bit where they

364
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:15,879
Speaker 1: kind of approach each other in between my um, you know,

365
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 1: upstairs with my nose? Did you say hold on? Did

366
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 1: you just say the upstairs of your nose? Is that

367
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 1: this phrase that you just said? And my cheeks are

368
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: probably quite cheeky as well. Quite my mouth is kind

369
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: of medium size. I'd say stop, So I'm going to

370
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:47,439
Speaker 1: cut in. You know, I'm gonna cut in because like

371
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: as someone who's read about your face, like as other

372
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 1: people are writing about it. Um, this is just hilarious

373
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,399
Speaker 1: because I'm you know, other writers are like her lips

374
00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 1: are pillowy, like I got a medium sized mouth, ask