Stanley Donwood|可视化 Radiohead 的专辑 Visualizing Radiohead's Albums
Stanley Donwood, "Slight Femme" (2007)
From deepening cries of the song “Creep” to the melancholic chimes of “No Surprises” the band Radiohead created some of the best experimental alternative rock music of the 1990s and 2000s. At the forefront of any musician’s tunes are the visual representations they chose to represent them on their album covers. This has always been a pain for vocalist Thom Yorke. In comes Stanley Donwood, an English artist and writer who knew Thom since the first day studying art at the University of Exeter. While Yorke recalls having doubts about Donwood, it would be the start of a lifelong partnership that would last up to this day. Donwood would go on to produce cover art for Radiohead's iconic albums such as Amnesiac as well as artworks for the solo albums of Thom Yorke and Yorke’s personal band, Atoms for Peace.
从歌曲“Creep”的低沉呐喊到“No Surprises”忧郁的钟声， 在1990和 2000年代，Radiohead 乐队创作了一些最好的实验性另类摇滚音乐。任何一张唱片，专辑封面都是作者挑选出的最能对这张专辑音乐风格可视化的一张图像。这一直是令歌手 Thom Yorke 痛苦的一件事。Stanley Donwood是位英国艺术家和作家，他从在埃克塞特大学学习艺术的第一天起就认识了Thom。虽然据Yorke回忆，最初对Donwood的态度其实是怀疑的，但这仍然开始了一段持续至今的友谊。Donwood为 Raidiohead 的标志性专辑（如 Amnesiac）以及 Thom Yorke 和 Yorke 的个人乐队 Atoms for Peace 的个人专辑制作封面。
Stanley Donwood (left左) & Thom Yorke (right右)
"I met him first day at art college ... I figured I'd either end up really not liking this person at all, or working with him for the rest of my life.”
““我在艺术学院的第一天就遇到了他......我想我要么会不喜欢这个人，要么会和他一起工作一辈子。”
-Thom Yorke, Vocalist of Radiohead 主唱
Since Radiohead’s first success through their song “Creep”, the band created “My Iron Lung” which crushed notions of the band being one-hit wonders. Yorke tasked Donwood with creating the cover art for their 1994 single, “My Iron Lung” which would go on to be included on their second album, The Bends (1995). For Donwood it was a new territory that had never been explored, but working alongside Thom Yorke, he would begin experimenting with digital art. At the same time, he had been taking photographs of videos played back on analog TV screens where the lines of the television breaking into the moving images would be processed and digitally manipulated to create the final product.
自从 Radiohead 通过他们的歌曲“Creep”取得第一次成功以来，乐队又创作了 "My Iron Lung"，打破了一个乐队只有一首主打歌的固有观念。Yorke 委托 Donwood 为他们 1994 年的单曲 "My Iron Lung" 创作封面，这首单曲收录在他们的第二张专辑 "The Bends (1995)" 中。对于 Donwood 来说，这是一个从未探索过的新领域，与 Thom Yorke 一起工作时，他开始尝试数字艺术。同时，他一直在拍摄模拟电视屏幕上播放视频的照片，这些视频中，电视上的线条变成运动的图像，这些都将被数字化处理成最后的作品。
Stanley Donwood, “Hole” (2001)
Donwood recalls the whole process of roaming around with a VHS camera to film inside a big hospital to find a mannequin used to practice resuscitation. He remarked:
Donwood回忆起整个过程，他拿着 VHS 摄像机四处游荡，在一家大医院里拍摄，找到一个用来练习心脏复苏的人体模型。他评论道：
“In another room was the equipment for resuscitation and the dummies or mannequins that were used to practice this. One of them had an expression that looked to me to be somewhere between ecstasy and agony, like the face of a suffering martyr. I filmed it, we played the videotape on the TV back at Thom’s, photographed it, took the film into town, dropped it at the developer’s, waited, went home, scanned the photos, and made the cover. Just before the deadline.”
“在另一个房间里有复苏设备，以及用来练习这个的假人或人体模型。其中一个的表情在我看来介于狂喜和痛苦之间，就像受难殉道士的脸。我把它拍摄下来，我们在 Thom的电视上回放了录像带，拍摄了它，把胶卷带进了城里，给了处理的人，等待，然后回家，扫描了照片并制作了封面。一切都刚刚好在截止日期之前。”
Stanley Donwood. Used as the album cover for Radiohead’s OK Computer, (1997)
Stanley would continue working with Radiohead, creating artworks as the band created their songs. In 1997, the artist would challenge the recording company on the artwork for Ok Computer. In fact, Thom Yorke remarks in his book that Stanley had a “persuasive presence” during the record company meetings. For this cover, the artist was immersed in thought about the aftermath of a nuclear war, nothingness, and unease. This led him to devise a digital process in which he was not allowed to undo but rather, cover up– the result being a ghostly apparition of landscape juxtaposed with washed-out figures and shapes above a highway filled with blotches of wide spreading white space.
之后Stanley继续与 Radiohead 合作，为乐队的歌曲创造作品。1997年，这位艺术家就“Ok Computer“ 这件作品向唱片公司提出挑战。事实上，Thom Yorke在他的书中提到说，Stanley在与唱片公司会议上的表现非常“有说服力”。在这张封面上，艺术家沉浸在对核战争后果、虚无和不安的思考中。这促使他设计了一个数字化进程，在这个进程中，他不允许撤消，而是掩盖——出来的结果是如幽灵般的，幻影一样的风景，与褪色的人物还有形状并列在高速公路上方。
Stanley Donwood, Kid-A Stanley Donwood, “Residential Nemesis” (1999)
Stanley Donwood, “Hotels and a Swimming Pool” (1999)
Radiohead would invite the artist again to complete the artwork for their next two albums, Kid A and Amnesiac. Donwood recalls the time as a dark and eerie period for both the band and himself. He states:
Radiohead 再次邀请这位艺术家为他们接下来的两张专辑 Kid A 和 Amnesiac 完成艺术作品。Donwood回忆说，那段时间对乐队和他自己来说都是一段黑暗而诡异的时期。他说：
“It was a very strange time, and when I look at KID A and Amnesiac now I’m baffled, horrified, and concerned. They are both just really weird objects, sonically, visually – and physically too… I have a fragmented memory of hearing even more frightening versions of what was released, with crashing music and chanting children, or screams, wailing; I don’t know. I might be imagining it. It was a darkly shaded time and nobody was very happy. Happiness was an unattainable luxury product available only in select areas to which we were not admitted”
“那是一个非常奇怪的时期，以至于当我现在看到 Kid A 和 Amnesiac 时，我都感到困惑、恐惧和担忧。它们都是非常奇怪的物体，无论是声音、视觉——还是身体……我有一段碎片化的记忆，听到过更可怕的版本，伴随着破碎的音乐和孩子们的吟唱，或者尖叫、哀号；我不知道。我可能在想象。那是一个阴暗的时期，没有人觉得幸福。幸福是一种遥不可及的奢侈品，只能在我们不被允许进入的特定领域中获得”
Work on Kid A would take Donwood 2 years to complete. He worked from Radiohead’s countryside studio using computer programs to change photographs into 3D landscapes and combine them with digital collages, paintings, and hand-drawn images. Kid A would go on to release with a small booklet of images, tracing paper, and fold-out pages which were inserted by hand into every CD pack. Furthermore, Amnesiac (Special Edition) would go on to win the Grammy for Best Recording Package in 2002.
Donwood 花了两年的时间来完成 Kid A 的工作。他在 Radiohead 的乡村工作室里，使用计算机程序将照片转换为 3D 风景，并将它们与数字拼贴画、绘画和手绘图像相结合。Kid A专辑上包含了图像、描图纸和折叠页的小册子，这些小册子被手工插入每个 CD 包中。此外，Amnesiac（特别版）赢得了 2002 年格莱美最佳唱片奖。
Stanley Donwood, "Cnut" (2006).
Besides his work on artworks for Radiohead, Stanley Donwood also created works for himself. The first would be a series of fourteen lino prints in an exhibition titled “London Views”. The prints showcased several landmarks in London ravaged by fire and flood. The style of the works follows the similar inspiration of his work on Yorke's first solo album, The Eraser (2006). Like his previous album works, destruction becomes the catalyst and is emphasized by a style inspired by the look of woodcuts in a 15th Century book called "The Nuremberg Chronicle" which details instances of biblical disasters.
除了为 Radiohead 创作艺术作品外，Stanley Donwood自己也会创作。第一个是名为“伦敦景观”的展览中的 14 幅亚麻版画系列。这些版画展示了伦敦遭受火灾和洪水摧残的几个地标。这些作品的风格与他在 Yokre 的第一张个人专辑 "The Eraser (2006)" 中的作品相似。与他之前的专辑作品一样，破坏是作品中的一种催化剂，这种风格受到 15 世纪名为“纽伦堡编年史”的书的木刻外观启发，这本书详细介绍了圣经灾难的实例。
Stanley Donwood, "Dalek Invasion" (1999)
Stanley Donwood, "Goat Banker (Chicago Boy)" (2009)
Stanley Donwood, “Get Out Before Saturday” (2000)
“Most of the lino cutting was done at an improvised desk in the studio where The Eraser (Album) was being recorded, and I think that the fact that we were both slightly obsessional about the same things led to a kind of unintended convergence. Strangely, even though the two elements of the eventual record release – music and artwork – had obvious contrasts, both shared a germination in Cornwall and both addressed some very old problems – political deceit, natural disaster, war – in an oddly modern manner.”
“大部分的亚麻油毡印花是在录制 The Eraser (专辑版) 的工作室的临时办公桌上完成的，我认为我们都对同一件事有点痴迷，这一相似导致了一种意外的融合。奇怪的是，尽管最终唱片发行，两个元素（音乐和艺术作品）有着明显的对比，但两者都在康沃尔共同发芽，并且都以一种奇怪的现代方式表明了一些非常古老的问题——政治欺骗、自然灾害、战争、等等。”
- Stanley Donwood, artist & writer 艺术家和作家
Stanley Donwood, “Minos Wall I” (2000)
Stanley Donwood, “Trade Center” (1999)
Stanely Donwood’s works on Radiohead’s art did not only help to define the band’s image that we know of today but they are also a testament to evocative visuals and tunes that make up the era they exist in. Since then, Donwood has continued creating works with Radiohead and Thom Yorke. He also published several books and writings thereafter. Come October 2021, Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke reunited to curate a special exhibition titled “How to Disappear Completely” at Christie’s headquarters in London where they auctioned works for Radiohead’s hit album Kid A. The highest selling work realized a value of over 1.2 million RMB and lots for bidding have closed since October 19th.
Stanely Donwood 为Radiohead 创作的作品不仅帮助定义了我们今天所知的乐队形象，而且还证明了构成他们所处时代的令人回味的视觉效果和曲调。从那时起，Donwood 继续与 Radiohead和Thom Yokre合作创作。此后，他还出版了几本书和著作。2021 年 10 月，Stanley Donwood和Thom Yorke重聚，在伦敦佳士得总部策划了一场名为“如何彻底消失”的特别展览，他们拍卖了 Radiohead 热门专辑 "Kid A"上的艺术作品。最高销量的作品价值超过 120 万人民币，大部分拍品自10月19日起就停止竞拍了。
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