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這個故事跟重視想像力有關。14年前,我第一次認識這個普通材料-漁網,它們數世紀以來都以相同的方式被使用。今天,我用它在世界各地的城市中,創造出永久、如波浪般翻騰、豔麗、且風格迥異的建築物規模作品。我是個不太可能做這個的人,我從未學過雕塑、工程或建築。事實上,大學畢業後,我申請了七間藝術學校,七間都拒絕了我。
我開始自修成為一位藝術家。我作畫已有10年,獲得Fullbright獎學金到印度進修。我答應開個畫展,所以將畫作托運,並抵達Mahabalipuram。展覽日期到了,我的畫作卻沒抵達,我得做些什麼才行。這個漁村以雕塑聞名,於是,我試著以青銅鑄造,但製作大型作品既太沉重又太昂貴。我在海灘上散步,看著漁民將漁網捆起,成堆放在沙灘上,我每天都看見這景像,但這次我用不同的眼光看它。這是一種新雕塑法,一種不用沉重的固體材料製作立體作品的方法。
我第一個滿意的雕塑是與這些漁民合作完成,這是一幅自畫像,標題為「寬臀」。(笑聲)我們將它懸掛在桿上來拍攝,我發現它柔軟的表面,隨著每一陣風的波動,而顯現出不斷變化的圖案。我被迷住了,我繼續研究傳統工藝,並和工藝師合作,接著在立陶宛與蕾絲製造者合作。我喜歡它精緻的細節,這形成了我的作品。但我想將它們放大,將它從一個你眼中所見的平凡物體,轉變成讓你著迷的事物。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
This story is about taking imagination seriously. 14 years ago, I first encountered this ordinary material, fishnet, used the same way for centuries. Today, I'm using it to create permanent, billowing, voluptuous forms the scale of hard-edged buildings in cities around the world. I was an unlikely person to be doing this. I never studied sculpture, engineering or architecture. In fact, after college I applied to seven art schools and was rejected by all seven.
I went off on my own to become an artist, and I painted for 10 years, when I was offered a Fullbright to India. Promising to give exhibitions of paintings, I shipped my paints and arrived in Mahabalipuram. The deadline for the show arrived -- my paints didn't. I had to do something. This fishing village was famous for sculpture. So I tried bronze casting. But to make large forms was too heavy and expensive. I went for a walk on the beach, watching the fishermen bundle their nets into mounds on the sand. 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.
My first satisfying sculpture was made in collaboration with these fishermen. It's a self-portrait titled "Wide Hips." (Applause) We hoisted them on poles to photograph. I discovered their soft surfaces revealed every ripple of wind in constantly changing patterns. I was mesmerized. I continued studying craft traditions and collaborating with artisans, next in Lithuania with lace makers. I liked the fine detail it gave my work, but I wanted to make them larger -- to shift from being an object you look at to something you could get lost in.
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我返回印度,跟這些漁民一起合作,做出了一百五十萬個手編結,暫時裝置在馬德里。成千上萬的人看見了,其中一個是城市規劃專家Manual Sola-Morales,他重新設計了葡萄牙Porto的河岸區。他問我能不能將它建造成這個城市的永久性作品,我不知道我是否能做到這一點,並保存我的藝術。耐用、工程化、永久,這些都是跟特殊質材、細緻、短暫相反的特質。
兩年來,我尋找著一種能在紫外線、含鹽空氣、污染中長存的纖維,同時能保持足夠的軟度,使其能在風中自由擺動。我們需要某種能在圓環中心將網撐起的東西,因此,我們立起這個45000磅重的鋼圈。我們必需進行工程,使它優雅地在一般微風中擺動,並在颶風中屹立不搖。但沒有工程軟體能模擬一種多孔且會擺動的物體,我找到一位傑出的航空工程師,名叫Peter Heppel,他為美洲盃帆船賽設計風帆,他幫助我解決以下兩大挑戰:精確的形狀和輕柔的擺動。
以我所知的方式無法建出這樣的東西,因為手編結無法承受颶風。因此,我與一間漁網工廠接洽,學習他們變化多端的機器,並想出用它們編織蕾絲的方法。沒有一種語言,能將這古老、特殊的手工藝,翻譯成以機器操作可生產出的東西,因此,我們必須創造一個。經過三年,生了兩個孩子後,我們立起這個50000平方英尺的蕾絲網。很難相信我想像中的東西已建成,它是永久的,在轉換過程中一點原貌都沒失去。
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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. Thousands of people saw it, and one of them was the urbanist Manual Sola-Morales who was redesigning the waterfront in Porto, Portugal. He asked if I could build this as a permanent piece for the city. I didn't know if I could do that and preserve my art. Durable, engineered, permanent -- those are in opposition to idiosyncratic, delicate and ephemeral.
For two years, I searched for a fiber that could survive ultraviolet rays, salt air, pollution, and at the same time remain soft enough to move fluidly in the wind. We needed something to hold the net up out there in the middle of the traffic circle. So we raised this 45,000-lb. steel ring. We had to engineer it to move gracefully in an average breeze and survive in hurricane winds. But there was no engineering software to model something porous and moving. I found a brilliant aeronautical engineer who designs sails for America's Cup racing yachts named Peter Heppel. He helped me tackle the twin challenges of precise shape and gentle movement.
I couldn't build this the way I knew, because hand-tied knots weren't going to withstand a hurricane. So I developed a relationship with an industrial fishnet factory, learned the variables of their machines, and figured out a way to make lace with them. There was no language to translate this ancient, idiosyncratic handcraft into something machine operators could produce. So we had to create one. Three years and two children later, we raised this 50,000 sq. ft. lace net. It was hard to believe that what I had imagined was now built, permanent and had lost nothing in translation.
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這個路口曾是平凡而不知名的地點,現在成了一個能產生感知的地方。我第一次走到它下方,當我看到風的舞蹈展現時,我覺得受到庇護,同時與無垠的天空相連,我的生命將不再相同。(音樂)我要在世界各地的城市空間創建這些雕塑綠洲,我想分享我工作上的兩個新方向。
歷史悠久的費城市政廳,我覺得它的廣場需要一個比織網還輕的雕塑材料,因此,我們嘗試用細小而霧化的水顆粒,創造一個能由風塑形的乾霧。在測試中發現,它也可以由人們塑形,人們可以跟它互動並穿過它,不會被弄濕。我使用這個雕塑材料,在地面上即時追蹤地鐵列車的路徑,就像展現城市循環系統的X光片。
下一個挑戰是,在丹佛舉辦的美國雙年展詢問我,是否能在雕塑上呈現出西半球35個國家和它們之間的聯繫。(笑聲)我不知道從哪裡著手,但我答應了。我閱讀關於最近的智利地震和波及整個太平洋海嘯的資料,它移動了地球板塊,加快了地球自轉,並確實縮短了一天的長度。因此,我連絡了NOAA(美國國家海洋和大氣管理局),問他們是否能分享海嘯的資料,並將它轉變成這個作品。它的標題是「1.26」,代表地球一天縮短的微秒數。
我無法以我所知的方式,用鋼圈來建造這個,它的造型太複雜了,因此,我用柔軟的細網取代了金屬骨架。它是一種比鋼堅固15倍的纖維,現在,這個雕塑是完全柔軟的,這使得它相當輕盈,可以綁在現有的建築物上,實際成為城市中的纖維部份。沒有軟體可以繪出這複雜的網狀形式,並模擬它們在受到重力影響之後的結果,因此,我們必須創造它。
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This intersection had been bland and anonymous. Now it had a sense of place. I walked underneath it for the first time. As I watched the wind's choreography unfold, I felt sheltered and, at the same time, connected to limitless sky. My life was not going to be the same. I want to create these oases of sculpture in spaces of cities around the world. I'm going to share two directions that are new in my work.
Historic Philadelphia City Hall: it's plaza, I felt, needed a material for sculpture that was lighter than netting. So we experimented with tiny atomized water particles to create a dry mist that is shaped by the wind. And in testing discovered that it can be shaped by people who can interact and move through it without getting wet. 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.
Next challenge, the Biennial of the Americas in Denver asked could I represent the 35 nations of the Western hemisphere and their interconnectedness in a sculpture. (Laughter) I didn't know where to begin, but I said yes. I read about the recent earthquake in Chile and the tsunami that rippled across the entire Pacific Ocean. It shifted the Earth's tectonic plates, sped up the planet's rotation and literally shortened the length of the day. So I contacted NOAA, and I asked if they'd share their data on the tsunami, and translated it into this. Its title: "1.26" refers to the number of microseconds that the Earth's day was shortened.
I couldn't build this with a steel ring, the way I knew. Its shape was too complex now. So I replaced the metal armature with a soft, fine mesh of a fiber 15 times stronger than steel. The sculpture could now be entirely soft, which made it so light it could tie in to existing buildings -- literally becoming part of the fabric of the city. There was no software that could extrude these complex net forms and model them with gravity. So we had to create it.
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然後我接到一通從紐約市來的電話,問我是否能將這些概念用在時代廣場或高線公園。這種新的軟結構方法,讓我能形塑並建立這些有摩天大樓規模的雕塑。他們還沒有資金,但我現在夢想著將這些雕塑帶到全世界最有需要的城市。
14年前,我在傳統物品的工藝形式中尋找美,現在,我將它們與高科技材料及工程結合,創造出豔麗、如波浪般翻騰、具建築物規模的作品。我的藝術視野不斷擴大。
我將以這個故事做結束。我接到一通來自鳳凰城朋友的電話,她是一位每天埋首辦公的律師,對藝術從不感興趣,從未參觀過當地藝術博物館。她儘可能將每個認識的人拖出室內,帶他們到戶外,躺在這個雕塑下方。他們穿著上班服,躺在草坪上,在不認識的人身邊感受風的變化模式,共享這個再度發現的奇蹟。
謝謝。
(掌聲)
謝謝,謝謝,謝謝,謝謝。
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Then I got a call from New York City asking if I could adapt these concepts to Times Square or the Highline. This new soft structural method enables me to model these and build these sculptures at the scale of skyscrapers. They don't have funding yet, but I dream now of bringing these to cities around the world where they're most needed.
14 years ago, I searched for beauty in the traditional things, in craft forms. Now I combine them with hi-tech materials and engineering to create voluptuous, billowing forms the scale of buildings. My artistic horizons continue to grow.
I'll leave you with this story. I got a call from a friend in Phoenix. An attorney in the office who'd never been interested in art, never visited the local art museum, dragged everyone she could from the building and got them outside to lie down underneath the sculpture. There they were in their business suits, laying in the grass, noticing the changing patterns of wind beside people they didn't know, sharing the rediscovery of wonder.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.