【TED演讲】珍惜想象力

TED英语演讲课

给心灵放个假吧

演讲题目：Taking imagination seriously

演讲简介：

当用于展览的绘画展品丢失后，珍妮特·艾克曼不得不寻找非正统的新艺术材料来代替，也因而找到了她真正的艺术心声。现在，她塑造的作品站在科技前沿，有建筑般大小，且能随风波动。在这里，她用10分钟来传播真正的创造力。

中英文字幕

This story is about taking imagination seriously.
这个故事是想告诉大家要珍惜想象力。

Fourteen years ago, I first encountered this ordinary material, fishnet, used the same way for centuries.
14年前我第一次接触到这个普通的材料，渔网，几百年来人们一直用它捕鱼。

Today, I'm using it to create permanent, billowing, voluptuous forms the scale of hard-edged buildings in cities around the world.
今天，我用它来创造永久的，随风飘逸的，动感十足的如坚固建筑物大小的雕塑，竖立在世界各地的城市中。

I was an unlikely person to be doing this.
我本来不太可能做出这样的成就。

I never studied sculpture, engineering or architecture.
我从未学习过雕塑工程设计或者建筑学。

In fact, after college I applied to seven art schools and was rejected by all seven.
事实上，大学毕业后我申请了七所艺术学院，无一例外地都遭到了拒绝。

I went off on my own to become an artist, and I painted for 10 years, when I was offered a Fulbright to India.
我决定自己走上艺术家之路，我画了十年的画，终于拿到傅尔布莱特奖学金，被邀请去印度。

Promising to give exhibitions of paintings, I shipped my paints and arrived in Mahabalipuram.
我许诺了要办画展，我将画送上船运，然后抵达了玛玛拉普兰。

The deadline for the show arrived -- my paints didn't.
画展快要开幕了，可画还没运到。

I had to do something.
我必须找到代替品。

This fishing village was famous for sculpture.
这个渔村以雕塑闻名。

So I tried bronze casting.
因此我尝试了铜雕。

But to make large forms was too heavy and expensive.
但要雕刻大型的铜像很笨重且很费钱。

I went for a walk on the beach, watching the fishermen bundle their nets into mounds on the sand.
一日我去海滩散步，看着渔民在沙滩上将网捆绑成型。

I'd seen it every day, but this time I saw it differently -- a new approach to sculpture, a way to make volumetric form without heavy solid materials.
每天经过这里时我都看到这一场景，但这一次，我观察的角度变了，我看到了一种新的雕塑方式，它可以塑造立体几何的造型，而不必运用沉重坚实的材料。

My first satisfying sculpture was made in collaboration with these fishermen.
我第一个令人满意的雕塑是和这些渔人们合作的成果。

It's a self-portrait titled "Wide Hips."
它是一个自画像，名为“宽臀”。

We hoisted them on poles to photograph.
我们用杆将它支起来拍照。

I discovered their soft surfaces revealed every ripple of wind in constantly changing patterns.
我发现它柔软的表面展现了风的褶皱，伴随着不断变化的图案。

I was mesmerized.
我被迷住了。

I continued studying craft traditions and collaborating with artisans, next in Lithuania with lace makers.
我继续学习工艺传统，与工匠们合作，随后在立陶宛与花边编织者合作。

I liked the fine detail it gave my work,
我喜欢将这精美的细节赋予到我作品中，

but I wanted to make them larger -- to shift from being an object you look at to something you could get lost in.
但我想把作品放大，让它不仅能供人观赏还能让人迷失其中。

Returning to India to work with those fishermen, we made a net of a million and a half hand-tied knots -- installed briefly in Madrid.
回到印度后，我与渔人们合作编织了一张网，有一百五十万个半手工编制的结，在马德里短暂安置。

Thousands of people saw it, and one of them was the urbanist Manual Sola-Morales who was redesigning the waterfront in Porto, Portugal.
数千人看到了这件作品，其中一人是城市规划专家索拉莫拉雷斯，当时他正在重新设计葡萄牙波尔图的海滨。

He asked if I could build this as a permanent piece for the city.
他问我能不能把作它建成一座永久的作品，立在城市中。

I didn't know if I could do that and preserve my art.
我不知道我能否在这样做的同时保留我作品的艺术性。

Durable, engineered, permanent -- those are in opposition to idiosyncratic, delicate and ephemeral.
耐用，工程度高，永久这些特点都与独特，精致，短暂，恰恰相反。

For two years, I searched for a fiber that could survive ultraviolet rays, salt, air, pollution,
我花了两年的时间，寻找一种纤维能够抵抗紫外线、盐、空气、污染，

and at the same time remain soft enough to move fluidly in the wind.
而同时能够保持足够的柔软度在风中游动。

We needed something to hold the net up out there in the middle of the traffic circle.
我们需要一些东西支撑大网，让它能竖立在交通环道的中央。

So we raised this 45,000-pound steel ring.
因此我们架起了这座45,000镑重的钢圈。

We had to engineer it to move gracefully in an average breeze and survive in hurricane winds.
我们必须进行工程设计，让网能在微风中优雅地流动，同时又能抵御飓风的袭击。

But there was no engineering software to model something porous and moving.
但当时没有设计软件来模拟这种多孔物体的移动。

I found a brilliant aeronautical engineer who designs sails for America's Cup racing yachts named Peter Heppel.
我找到了一个优秀的航空学工程师，他设计了美国杯竞赛帆船的帆，他是彼得·赫普尔。

He helped me tackle the twin challenges of precise shape and gentle movement.
彼得帮助我解决了这个二重挑战，模拟了精确的外形和优雅的运动。

I couldn't build this the way I knew because hand-tied knots weren't going to withstand a hurricane.
我不能按照旧的方式来塑造这次的作品，因为手捆的结承受不了飓风的袭击。

So I developed a relationship with an industrial fishnet factory, learned the variables of their machines,
因此我与一个渔网工厂结成合作伙伴，学习了他们机器的不同变量，

and figured out a way to make lace with them.
并找出了一种方式通过机器来制作花边。

There was no language to translate this ancient, idiosyncratic handcraft into something machine operators could produce.
当时没有语言来翻译这古老的，独特的手工艺，将它转为程序，让机器操作者可以用来生产。

So we had to create one.
因此，我们不得不创建一个。

Three years and two children later, we raised this 50,000-square-foot lace net.
三年后，我有了两个孩子，我们终于竖立起这张50,000平方英尺的花边网。

It was hard to believe that what I had imagined was now built, permanent and had lost nothing in translation.
难以置信我曾经的想象现在被建成了永久的作品，而在这转化过程中仍保持了原有风味。

This intersection had been bland and anonymous.
这个十字路口曾经是乏味，毫不起眼的。

Now it had a sense of place.
而现在已成为一道风景线。

I walked underneath it for the first time.
我第一次漫步于雕塑下。

As I watched the wind's choreography unfold, I felt sheltered and, at the same time, connected to limitless sky.
看着风的舞姿慢慢伸展，我感到被庇护，而同时又与无尽的天空相连。

My life was not going to be the same.
我的生活从那时改变。

I want to create these oases of sculpture in spaces of cities around the world.
我想要创造出这些绿洲雕塑，让他们竖立于世界各地城市的空隙之中。

I'm going to share two directions that are new in my work.
我想要与大家分享我工作中两个新的方向。

Historic Philadelphia City Hall: its plaza, I felt, needed a material for sculpture that was lighter than netting.
历史悠久的费城城市大厅，这是它的广场，我当时认为，我们需要的雕塑材料要比网还轻。

So we experimented with tiny atomized water particles to create a dry mist that is shaped by the wind and in testing,
我们实验了这些微型原子化水离子，创造出一种干的薄雾，能够被风改变形状，在测试中，

discovered that it can be shaped by people who can interact and move through it without getting wet.
我们发现它也能被人改变外形，并且穿行其中的人们不会被沾湿。

I'm using this sculpture material to trace the paths of subway trains above ground in real time -- like an X-ray of the city's circulatory system unfolding.
我用这种雕塑材料在地表来追踪地铁即时的路径，这就像城市循环系统扩散的X射线。

Next challenge, the Biennial of the Americas in Denver asked,
这是下一个挑战，在丹佛召开两年一次的美洲会议有人问我，

could I represent the 35 nations of the Western hemisphere and their interconnectedness in a sculpture?
能否将西半球的三十五个国家和他们的关联性表现在一件作品当中？

I didn't know where to begin, but I said yes.
我不知从何开始，但我说能。

I read about the recent earthquake in Chile and the tsunami that rippled across the entire Pacific Ocean.
我读到了最近智利的地震，海啸的余波动荡了整个太平洋。

It shifted the Earth's tectonic plates, sped up the planet's rotation and literally shortened the length of the day.
它改变了地球的构造板块，加速了地球的自传，甚至缩短了地球一天的长度。

So I contacted NOAA, and I asked if they'd share their data on the tsunami, and translated it into this.
我联系了美国国家海洋和大气局，询问他们是否能够提供海啸的数据，然后我将那些数据转变成了这件作品。

Its title: "1.26" refers to the number of microseconds that the Earth's day was shortened.
它名为“1.26”，指代的是地球天数被缩短的微妙。

I couldn't build this with a steel ring, the way I knew.
我不能依靠钢圈，以我原有的方式来搭建这座雕塑。

Its shape was too complex now.
因它的形状太过复杂。

So I replaced the metal armature with a soft, fine mesh of a fiber 15 times stronger than steel.
我将金属的支架用一种柔软，细孔状的纤维代替，它比钢强韧15倍。

The sculpture could now be entirely soft,
雕塑现在完全是柔软的，

which made it so light it could tie in to existing buildings -- literally becoming part of the fabric of the city.
这使得它非常轻，可以被固定在已有的建筑上，名副其实地成为城市建筑构筑的一部分。

There was no software that could extrude these complex net forms and model them with gravity.
当时没有软件能够模拟这种复杂的网状结构并模拟重力对它的影响。

So we had to create it.
因此我们必须制作一个。

Then I got a call from New York City asking if I could adapt these concepts to Times Square or the High Line.
然后我接到一通来自纽约的电话，问我能否将这些概念应用到时代广场或者高线公园。

This new soft structural method enables me to model these and build these sculptures at the scale of skyscrapers.
新的软构架模式让我能够模拟这些雕塑外形，并且将它们建得如摩天大厦一般高大。

They don't have funding yet, but I dream now of bringing these to cities around the world where they're most needed.
邀请方还未筹集到资金，但我现在梦想着将这些雕塑带给世界各地的城市，给那些最需要的地方。

Fourteen years ago, I searched for beauty in the traditional things, in craft forms.
14年前，我处处搜寻美，在传统事物中，在手工艺中寻找。

Now I combine them with hi-tech materials and engineering to create voluptuous, billowing forms the scale of buildings.
现在，我将其与高科技材料和工程设计结合来创造撩人的，随风波动的如建筑般大小的作品。

My artistic horizons continue to grow.
我艺术的边界不断扩展。

I'll leave you with this story.
最后，我要告诉你们这个故事。

I got a call from a friend in Phoenix.
我接到了凤凰城一个朋友的电话。

An attorney in the office who'd never been interested in art, never visited the local art museum,
她是一个办公室律师，从未对艺术感兴趣过，从未去过当地的艺术博物馆，

dragged everyone she could from the building and got them outside to lie down underneath the sculpture.
但却把所有她能号召的人拉出大楼，让大家一起躺在雕塑的下方。

There they were in their business suits, laying in the grass, noticing the changing patterns of wind beside people they didn't know,
他们躺在那儿，穿着商务套装，躺在草地中，看着雕塑的形状随风而变，与陌生人一起，

sharing the rediscovery of wonder.
分享这重新发现的美。

Thank you.
谢谢。

Thank you.
谢谢。

视频、演讲稿均来源于TED官网

在看点这里