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當時我正與一群約有三百名的小孩說話,年齡為六至八歲,在一間兒童博物館。而我帶了一個裝滿義肢的袋子,跟你們在這裡看到的差不多,還將它們擺放在一張桌子上,給小孩看。就我的經驗而言,孩子天生充滿好奇心,尤其是對於他們不知道、不明白,或是對他們而言陌生的事物。他們只學到對差异性感到害怕,當大人影響他們做出那樣的表現,也或許是壓抑了他們本有的好奇心,又或是,不允許他們問問題,希望他們變成有禮貌的小孩。所以,我想像一年級的老師走出大堂,帶著一群不守規矩的孩子,老師會說:「好啦,不管怎樣,就是別盯著她的腿看。」
但是,問題就在這兒。我之所以會在那兒,就是想讓孩子們觀察和探索。所以我就和大人達成了協定,讓孩子們在沒有成人陪伴下進來待兩分鐘。門打開後,孩子們俯身擺弄起義肢。他們這兒戳戳那兒碰碰,搖搖腳趾頭,還試著把整個身體壓在短跑義肢上,看看會有什麼反應。我說道:「孩子們,動動腦-我今天早上醒來,決定要能夠跳過這幢房子,沒什麽大不了的,不過兩三層的高度。但是,如果你能想到,任何動物、超級英雄、卡通人物,任何你夢想成為的人、物,你會給我造一副什麼樣的腿呢?」
立即有孩子答道:「袋鼠!」 「不對,不對!應該是青蛙!」 「不對,應該是神探加傑特(上世紀80年代動畫人物)!」「不對,不對,都不對!應該是超人特攻隊(迪士尼2004年出品動畫電影)。」還有其他一些我不太熟悉的人物。然後,一個8歲的孩子說道:「嗨,為什麼你不想飛呢?」所有在場的人,包括我,都驚歎道「對啊」。(笑聲)就這樣,我從一個女人,從一個這些孩子被告知用「殘疾」來形容的人,變成了一個擁有他們所沒有之潛能的人,一個很有可能有超人能力的人。很有趣吧!
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I was speaking to a group of about 300 kids, ages six to eight, at a children's museum, and I brought with me a bag full of legs, similar to the kinds of things you see up here, and had them laid out on a table, for the kids. And, from my experience, you know, kids are naturally curious about what they don't know, or don't understand, or what is foreign to them. They only learn to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way, and maybe censors that natural curiosity, or you know, reins in the question-asking in the hopes of them being polite little kids. So, I just pictured a first grade teacher out in the lobby with these unruly kids, saying, "Now, whatever you do, don't stare at her legs."
But, of course, that's the point. That's why I was there, I wanted to invite them to look and explore. So I made a deal with the adults that the kids could come in, without any adults, for two minutes, on their own. The doors open, the kids descend on this table of legs, and they are poking and prodding, and they're wiggling toes, and they're trying to put their full weight on the sprinting leg to see what happens with that. And I said, "Kids, really quickly -- I woke up this morning, I decided I wanted to be able to jump over a house -- nothing too big, two or three stories -- but, if you could think of any animal, any superhero, any cartoon character, anything you can dream up right now, what kind of legs would you build me?"
And immediately a voice shouted, "Kangaroo!" "No, no, no! Should be a frog!" "No. It should be Go Go Gadget!" "No, no, no! It should be The Incredibles." And other things that I don't -- aren't familiar with. And then, one eight-year-old said, "Hey, why wouldn't you want to fly too?" And the whole room, including me, was like, "Yeah." (Laughter) And just like that, I went from being a woman that these kids would have been trained to see as "disabled" to somebody that had potential that their bodies didn't have yet. Somebody that might even be super-abled. Interesting.
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在座有些人11年前在TED見過我,當時人們熱烈討論這種演講是如何改變人生,不管你是聽衆還是發言人,我也不例外。TED可以說是開啓了我之後10年的探索。當時,我展示的義肢是修復術的創新技術,我當時接上了碳纖維製成仿獵豹後肢的短跑義肢,可能你們昨天有看過。而這些噴漆矽膠義肢是這樣的栩栩如生。
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So some of you actually saw me at TED, 11 years ago, and there's been a lot of talk about how life-changing this conference is for both speakers and attendees, and I am no exception. TED literally was the launch pad to the next decade of my life's exploration. At the time, the legs I presented were groundbreaking in prosthetics. I had woven carbon fiber sprinting legs modeled after the hind leg of a cheetah, which you may have seen on stage yesterday. And also these very life-like, intrinsically painted silicone legs.
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當時,我有機會號召傳統醫學修復領域之外的革新者,讓他們把才智與科學、藝術相結合來製造義肢。這樣我們就不必把外觀、功能和美學劃分開來,並賦予不同的價值。幸運的是,很多人作出了回應,旅程就這樣開始了,很有趣。當時和我一起的還有一個TED與會者Chee Pearlman,希望她今天也在場。她當時是一本名為《ID》的雜誌編輯,她將我的照片放在封面。
接下來我開始了一場奇妙的旅程,當時我碰到了很多奇妙的人和事,許多人邀請我去世界各地演講,關於仿獵豹義肢技術。人們在演講後找上我。不論男女,談話內容不外乎「要知道,Aimme,你很迷人,一點不像有殘疾」。(笑聲)我想,這太好了,因為我一點也不自覺是殘障,這真的大大地打開了我對這個主題的眼界。美也可以被探索,一個美麗的女人應該長什麼樣?什麼是性感的身體?很有趣的是,從一個人的角度看,殘疾意味著什麼?我是說,有人-像Pamela Anderson(美國豔星,以胸大著稱)整形比我多,可沒人說她殘疾。(笑聲)
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So at the time, it was my opportunity to put a call out to innovators outside the traditional medical prosthetic community to come bring their talent to the science and to the art of building legs. So that we can stop compartmentalizing form, function and aesthetic, and assigning them different values. Well, lucky for me, a lot of people answered that call. And the journey started, funny enough, with a TED conference attendee -- Chee Pearlman, who hopefully is in the audience somewhere today. She was the editor then of a magazine called ID, and she gave me a cover story.
This started an incredible journey. Curious encounters were happening to me at the time; I'd been accepting numerous invitations to speak on the design of the cheetah legs around the world. People would come up to me after the conference, after my talk, men and women. And the conversation would go something like this, "You know Aimee, you're very attractive. You don't look disabled." (Laughter) I thought, "Well, that's amazing, because I don't feel disabled." And it really opened my eyes to this conversation that could be explored, about beauty. What does a beautiful woman have to look like? What is a sexy body? And interestingly, from an identity standpoint, what does it mean to have a disability? I mean, people -- Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do. Nobody calls her disabled. (Laughter)
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後來這期《ID》雜誌經美術設計師Peter Saville之手,傳到了時裝設計師Alexander McQueen和攝影師Nick Knight手中,他們也對探索相關方面很感興趣。參加完TED三個月後,我搭上了前往倫敦的航班,攝製我的第一組時尚雜誌照片。結果可以從這本雜誌封面看出「能夠-時尚」嗎?三個月後,我初次為Alexander McQueen走秀,穿戴著一副實木手工義肢,沒有人知道-大家都以為那是木靴。事實上,它們現在就在臺上,葡萄藤、木蘭花,令人驚豔。詩意很重要,能把陳腐和受忽視的東西提升到高層次,進入藝術的境界,能把令人生畏的東西轉化成引人入勝的東西,讓人駐足良久,甚至他們可能會理解。
這些是從我下一個冒險中學到的。藝術家Matthew Barney在他的影片《懸絲》,也就是這部影片讓我真正地察覺到,我的義肢竟可以成為雕塑品。這時,我開始不需要模仿人體,在美學上我是完美的。後來我們研製了人們稱為「玻璃腿」的義肢。雖然它們實際上是由剔透的聚胺甲酸酯製成,也就是製造保齡球的材料,很重!後來我們塑造了這種用泥土做的義肢,其中有馬鈴薯的根系,再把甜菜根種在頂端,還裝上了很可愛的銅質腳趾,就這樣完成了一項傑作。另一個造型是半女半豹,是對我運動員生涯的小小致敬,14個小時的義肢彩繪,才看起來像有靈活爪子,尾巴搖來搖去的生物,有點像壁虎。(笑聲)另一副我們合作的是這一雙腳,看起來有那麼一點像水母,同樣也是聚胺甲酸酯製成的。這副義肢唯一的用途就是除了電影裡的展示,就是給人們感官刺激並激發人們的想像,所以奇思妙想很重要。
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So this magazine, through the hands of graphic designer Peter Saville, went to fashion designer Alexander McQueen, and photographer Nick Knight, who were also interested in exploring that conversation. So, three months after TED I found myself on a plane to London, doing my first fashion shoot, which resulted in this cover -- Fashion-able? Three months after that, I did my first runway show for Alexander McQueen on a pair of hand-carved wooden legs made from solid ash. Nobody knew -- everyone thought they were wooden boots. Actually, I have them on stage with me: Grapevines, magnolias, truly stunning. Poetry matters. Poetry is what elevates the banal and neglected object to a realm of art. It can transform the thing that might have made people fearful into something that invites them to look, and look a little longer, and maybe even understand.
I learned this firsthand with my next adventure. The artist Matthew Barney, in his film opus called the "The Cremaster Cycle." This is where it really hit home for me -- that my legs could be wearable sculpture. And even at this point, I started to move away from the need to replicate human-ness as the only aesthetic ideal. So we made what people lovingly referred to as glass legs even though they're actually optically clear polyurethane, a.k.a. bowling ball material. Heavy! Then we made these legs that are cast in soil with a potato root system growing in them, and beetroots out the top, and a very lovely brass toe. That's a good close-up of that one. Then another character was a half-woman, half-cheetah -- a little homage to my life as an athlete. 14 hours of prosthetic make-up to get into a creature that had articulated paws, claws and a tail that whipped around, like a gecko. (Laughter) And then another pair of legs we collaborated on were these ... look like jellyfish legs. Also polyurethane. And the only purpose that these legs can serve, outside the context of the film, is to provoke the senses and ignite the imagination. So whimsy matters.
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今天,我帶了至少十二副義肢,它們是由不同的人為我製作的。不同的義肢給了我對腳下大地的不同體驗。我還可以改變身高,我有五種不同的身高。(笑聲)今天,我有6尺1(約186cm)。我身上這副義肢大概是一年前做的,在英國的多西特整形外科做的,我把它們帶回曼哈頓的家裡。我回來後第一次外出是去參加一場高級宴會,舞會上有個我認識多年的女士,不過那時我只有5尺8(約177cm)。她看到我驚訝不已,她說道:「你怎麼那麼高!」我說道:「是啊,挺好玩的,不是嗎?」有點像站在踩高蹺,我從此對門框的高度有了全新體驗,這是始料未及的,我樂在其中。她看著我說道:「但是,Aimme,這可不公平」(笑聲)(鼓掌)最奇妙的是她是認真的,能隨意改變身高,可不公平。
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Today, I have over a dozen pair of prosthetic legs that various people have made for me, and with them I have different negotiations of the terrain under my feet. And I can change my height -- I have a variable of five different heights. (Laughter) Today, I'm 6'1". And I had these legs made a little over a year ago at Dorset Orthopaedic in England and when I brought them home to Manhattan, my first night out on the town, I went to a very fancy party. And a girl was there who has known me for years at my normal 5'8". Her mouth dropped open when she saw me, and she went, "But you're so tall!" And I said, "I know. Isn't it fun?" I mean, it's a little bit like wearing stilts on stilts, but I have an entirely new relationship to door jams that I never expected I would ever have. And I was having fun with it. And she looked at me, and she said, "But, Aimee, that's not fair." (Laughter) (Applause) And the incredible thing was she really meant it. It's not fair that you can change your height, as you want it.
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那時我才知道,也就是這時我才知道社會上人們的話題在近10年來已有了重大變革。不再只是克服先天障礙,是關於提升,是關於潛能。義肢的作用不再僅局限於代替身體缺失的部分,它們可以作為一種象徵,象徵使用者可以在屬於他們的空間裡隨心所欲地創造東西。所以那些社會一度認為是殘障的人,可以成為塑造自己個性的建築師,並且的確在繼續改變那些個性,僅憑設計自己的身體,從一個賦予你能力的地方獲取靈感。現在令我激動不已的是
通過尖端科技,機器人技術、仿生學及由來已久的詩意,我們向瞭解自身的集體人性邁進了一步。我認為要發掘自身人性的全部潛質,就要讚美那些令人心碎的力量,那些光榮的殘缺,人人都有。我想起了莎士比亞筆下的夏洛克:「你們要是用刀劍刺我們,我們不是也會出血的嗎?你們要是搔我們的癢,我們不是也會笑出來的嗎?」這就是我們的人性,及其所有的潛質,也正是這些讓我們熠熠生輝。謝謝。
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And that's when I knew -- that's when I knew that the conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. It's a conversation about augmentation. It's a conversation about potential. A prosthetic limb doesn't represent the need to replace loss anymore. It can stand as a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is that they want to create in that space. So people that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities and indeed continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place of empowerment. And what is exciting to me so much right now is that by combining cutting-edge technology -- robotics, bionics -- with the age-old poetry, we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity. I think that if we want to discover the full potential in our humanity, we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have. I think of Shakespeare's Shylock: "If you prick us, do we not bleed, and if you tickle us, do we not laugh?" It is our humanity, and all the potential within it, that makes us beautiful. Thank you.