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事實上,我的故事大約是兩年前開始於拉賈斯坦此地,當時我跟蘇菲宗教歌手Mukhtiar Ali在沙漠的星空下,我們談論的話題是,從古印度史詩「摩訶婆羅多」時期後,世事幾乎沒什麼變化。
因此,回顧過去,當我們印度人想旅行時,就跳進馬車,在廣闊的天際下徜徉;現在我們藉由飛機做同樣的事。回顧當時,當Arjuna-偉大的印度戰士王子,當他口渴時,就拿出一把弓,將箭射入地面,讓泉水湧出;現在我們藉由鑽井機和機械裝置做同樣的事。
我們得到的結論是,這個魔法已被機器取代,這讓我感到相當悲傷。我發現自己逐漸對科技感到恐懼,我被這個想法嚇壞了。當我身上沒有相機,當我無法將這些感受貼上網與朋友分享時,我失去了享受和欣賞日落的能力。我覺得科技應該是呈現魔法,而不是讓它消失。
當我還是個小女孩時,我祖父將他的小銀懷錶送我,這件有50年歷史的科技裝置成了對我來說最神奇的東西;它成了一扇鍍金的大門,帶我進入一個充滿海盜、船隻殘骸,及我想像中景象的世界。所以我覺得,我們的手機、我們新奇的手錶和相機,已讓我們停止夢想,它們抹殺了我們的靈感,所以我縱身躍入這個科技世界,看看我如何能用它來創造魔法,而不是讓魔法消失。
我16歲起開始繪製插畫書,所以當我看到iPad時,就將它視為一種說故事的裝置。它可以連接世界各地的讀者,它知道我們如何拿它,它知道我們身處何方,它將圖片、文字動畫、聲音和觸摸結合在一起;說故事逐漸成為越來越感官性的東西。但我們可用它來做什麼?
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
My story begins right here actually in Rajasthan about two years ago. I was in the desert, under the starry skies with the Sufi singer Mukhtiar Ali. And we were in conversation about how nothing had changed since the time of the ancient Indian epic "The Mahabharata."
So back in the day, when us Indians wanted to travel we'd jump into a chariot and we'd zoom across the sky. Now we do the same with airplanes. Back then, when Arjuna, the great Indian warrior prince, when he was thirsty, he'd take out a bow, he'd shoot it into the ground and water would come out. Now we do the same with drills and machines.
The conclusion that we came to was that magic had been replaced by machinery. And this made me really sad. I found myself becoming a little bit of a technophobe. I was terrified by this idea that I would lose the ability to enjoy and appreciate the sunset without having my camera on me, without tweeting it to my friends. And it felt like technology should enable magic, not kill it.
When I was a little girl, my grandfather gave me his little silver pocket watch. And this piece of 50-year-old technology became the most magical thing to me. It became a gilded gateway into a world full of pirates and shipwrecks and images in my imagination. So I felt like our cellphones and our fancy watches and our cameras had stopped us from dreaming. They stopped us from being inspired. And so I jumped in, I jumped into this world of technology, to see how I could use it to enable magic as opposed to kill it.
I've been illustrating books since I was 16. And so when I saw the iPad, I saw it as a storytelling device that could connect readers all over the world. It can know how we're holding it. It can know where we are. It brings together image and text and animation and sound and touch. Storytelling is becoming more and more multi-sensorial. But what are we doing with it?
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所以,事實上我所做的是推出Khoya這個iPad互動應用程式。所以程式說,「將你的手指放在每一道光上。」所以-(音樂)它說,「這個箱子屬於…」所以我輸入我的名字,然後我變成書中的一個角色。在不同階段,會有一封短信落在我面前-因為全球定位系統的功能,iPad知道你身處何方,事實上這是一封寄給我的信,這種可能性讓我心中孩子氣的部分相當興奮。
現在我已談了很多關於魔法的事,我指的不是巫師和龍,而是孩子心目中的魔法,那些我們孩提時都曾懷著的想法。這個罐中螢火蟲的想法,不知怎麼的總是令我感到相當興奮,所以在這裡,你需要傾斜你的iPad,讓螢火蟲飛出來,事實上牠們會為你照亮通過這本書其餘部分的路徑。
另外一個讓我如孩子般著迷不已的想法是,整個銀河系可以被包含在一顆彈珠中,所以在這裡,每本書和每個世界成為一小顆彈珠,我將它拖進這個神奇的裝置裡面,它會展開,變成一張地圖。一直以來,所有奇幻書籍中總會出現地圖,但這些地圖是靜態的;這是一張會變化和發光的地圖,為本書其餘部分的路程進行導航,它也會在本書特定的地點自行展開,所以我只要進入即可。
另一件對我來說相當重要的事是,創造與印度有關、但極具現代感的內容。在這裡,這是阿普薩拉絲天女。所以我們都聽過精靈和仙女,但在印度之外,有多少人知道她們在印度神話中的對應角色-阿普薩拉絲天女?這些可憐的阿普薩拉絲天女被困在因羅陀(印度教眾神之首)的宮室內,幾千年來一直被困在古舊而發霉的書中,所以我把她們帶回當代兒童故事中。這個故事事實上與人類的新問題有關,例如環境危機。(音樂)
談到環境危機,我認為過去10年有一個很大的問題,就是孩子們老是鎖在房間內,黏在電腦上,難以脫身。但現在,隨著行動通訊科技的發展,我們可以帶著孩子和他們的科技裝置到戶外的大自然世界中。這本書其中一個互動應用,就是你接收到這個任務,必須到戶外去,拿出iPad上的相機,收集不同自然界物體的相片。
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So I'm actually just going to go in and launch Khoya, an interactive app for the iPad. So it says, "Place your fingers upon each light." And so -- (Music) It says, "This box belongs to ... " And so I type in my name. And actually I become a character in the book. At various points, a little letter drops down to me -- and the iPad knows where you live because of GPS -- which is actually addressed to me. The child in me is really excited by these kinds of possibilities.
Now I've been talking a lot about magic. And I don't mean wizards and dragons, I mean the kind of childhood magic, those ideas that we all harbored as children. This idea of fireflies in a jar, for some reason, was always really exciting to me. And so over here you need to tilt your iPad, take the fireflies out. And they actually illuminate your way through the rest of the book.
Another idea that really fascinated me as a child was that an entire galaxy could be contained within a single marble. And so over here, each book and each world becomes a little marble that I drag in to this magical device within the device. And it opens up a map. All along, all fantasy books have always had maps, but these maps have been static. This is a map that grows and glows and becomes your navigation for the rest of the book. It reveals itself to you at certain points in the book as well. So I'm just going to enter in.
Another thing that's actually really important to me is creating content that is Indian and yet very contemporary. Over here, these are the Apsaras. So we've all heard about fairies and we've all heard about nymphs, but how many people outside of India know about their Indian counterparts, the Apsaras? These poor Apsaras have been trapped inside Indra's chambers for thousands of years in an old and musty book. And so we're bringing them back in a contemporary story for children. And a story that actually deals with new issues like the environmental crisis. (Music)
Speaking of the environmental crisis, I think a big problem has been in the last 10 years is that children have been locked inside their rooms, glued to their PCs, they haven't been able to get out. But now with mobile technology, we can actually take our children outside into the natural world with their technology. One of the interactions in the book is that you're sent off on this quest where you need to go outside, take out your camera on the iPad and collect pictures of different natural objects.
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當我還是個孩子時,有許多像木棍、石塊、卵石和貝殼等收集品,不知怎麼的,孩子們不再這麼做了。因此,為了讓這個童年儀式重現,你必須走到戶外。在某一章中,你得拍攝一張花的相片,然後標記;在另一章中,你必須拍攝一張樹皮的相片,然後標記。結果是,你創造了一個數位相片收藏,你可以將它們貼上網。一個倫敦的孩子上傳了一張狐狸相片,他說,「哦,我今天看見一隻狐狸。」一個印度的孩子說,「我今天看見一隻猴子。」它創造了這種由你實際拍攝的數位相片收藏形成的社群網路。
在這個將魔法、地球和科技連接在一起的可能性中,存在多種可能性。在下一本書中,我們計劃的互動方式是,你將iPad帶到戶外,打開攝影鏡頭,透過擴增實境技術,你可以看到一群群動畫精靈出現在你屋外的盆栽植物中。在某個階段,你的螢幕會佈滿樹葉,你需要製造風聲,將它們吹散,才能閱讀本書其餘部分。
我們進入,我們都進入這裡,進入一個擁有大自然力量的世界,與科技更加緊密結合。魔法與科技更加緊密地結合在一起,我們利用來自太陽的能量,我們使孩子和自己更接近大自然世界,而其中的魔法、喜悅及孩提時的喜好,都可以透過故事這個簡單的媒介獲得。
謝謝。
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When I was a child, I had multiple collections of sticks and stones and pebbles and shells. And somehow kids don't do that anymore. So in bringing back this childhood ritual, you need to go out and, in one chapter, take a picture of a flower and then tag it. In another chapter, you need to take a picture of a piece of bark and then tag that. And what happens is that you actually create a digital collection of photographs that you can then put up online. A child in London puts up a picture of a fox and says, "Oh, I saw a fox today." A child in India says, "I saw a monkey today." And it creates this kind of social network around a collection of digital photographs that you've actually taken.
In the possibilities of linking together magic, the earth and technology, there are multiple possibilities. In the next book, we plan on having an interaction where you take your iPad out with the video on and through augmented reality, you see this layer of animated pixies appear on a houseplant that's outside your house. At one point, your screen is filled up with leaves. And so you need to make the sound of wind and blow them away and read the rest of the book.
We're moving, we're all moving here, to a world where the forces of nature come closer together to technology, and magic and technology can come closer together. We're harnessing energy from the sun. We're bringing our children and ourselves closer to the natural world and that magic and joy and childhood love that we had through the simple medium of a story.
Thank you.