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 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."
Govorila sem pred skupino 300 otrok, starih od šest do osem let, v otroškem muzeju, in s seboj sem prinesla polno vreco nog, podobne tem, ki jih vidite tukaj, Položila sem jih na mizo, za otroke. Otroci so, vsaj po mojih izkušnjah, naravno radovedni glede stvari, ki jih ne poznajo ali ne razumejo, ali pa so jim tuje. Strahu pred tem se naučijo šele, ko na njih vplivajo odrasli s svojo vzgojo, jim morda cenzurirajo to naravno radovednost, oziroma omejijo naravno otroško spraševanje, v upanju, da bi bili otroci bolj vljudni. Tako sem si predstavljala učiteljico prvega razreda zunaj na hodniku s temi nekontroliranimi otroci, kako jim govori "Karkoli naredite, ne glejte v njene noge."
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?"
Ampak, ravno to je poanta. Zato sem bila tam. Povabila sem jih da gledajo in raziskujejo. Zato sem imela dogovor z odraslimi, da otroci lahko pridejo v sobo, brez odraslih, za dve minuti, čisto sami. Vrata so se odprla, otroci so se zvrstili okrog mize z vsemi mojimi nogami, se jih dotikali, radovedno raziskovali in zvijali prste, poskušali so z vso težo upogniti tekaške noge, da bi videli, kaj bi se lahko zgodilo. Rekla sem jim, "Otroci, na hitro -- danes zjutraj, ko sem se zbudila, sem se odločila, da bi rada preskočila hišo -- ne preveč visoko, dve ali tri nadstropja -- zdaj pa, če si lahko izmislite katerokoli žival, super heroja, junaka iz risanke, karkoli, kar vam pade na pamet, kakšne noge bi mi naredili?"
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.
Nemudoma se je oglasil nekdo, "Kenguru!" "Ne, ne, ne! Morala bi biti žaba!" "Ne. Morala bi biti Go Go Gadget!" "Ne, ne, ne! Morala bi bila ena od Neverjetnih." In ostale stvari, ki jih sploh ne poznam. In potem, je nek osemletnik rekel, "Hej, zakaj pa ne bi še letela?" In cela soba, skupaj z mano, je rekla "Jaaaa". (Smeh) In enostavno, sem se iz ženske, ki so jo otroci navajeni videti kot invalidno, postala nekdo, ki ima zmožnosti, ki jih oni nimajo. Nekdo, ki bi lahko bil celo super-sposoben. Zanimivo.
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.
Nekateri od vas so me videli na TED-u pred 11 leti in veliko se govori, kako ta konferenca spreminja življenja govornikov in udeležencev - no jaz nisem nobena izjema. TED je bila zame dobesedno odskočna deska za mojih naslednjih 10 let. Takrat so bile noge, ki sem jih predstavila, novost v prostetiki. Noge za hiter tek so bile narejene iz ogljikovih vlaken, oblikovane po zadnji nogi geparda, ki ste jih morda včeraj videli na odru. In tudi te noge zelo naravnega videza, iz barvanega silikona.
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.
Takrat sem imela priložnost, da apeliram na inovatorje zunaj tradicionalne zdravstvene prostetične skupnosti, da doprinesejo svoj talent k znanosti in k umetnosti ustvarjanja umetnih nog. Tako lahko nehamo s predalčkanjem oblike, funkcije in estetike, in s pripisovanjem različnih vrednosti. No, na srečo se je veliko ljudi odzvalo mojemu klicu. Vse skupaj se je začelo, pav zanimivo, z udeleženko TED konference -- Chee Pearlman, za katero upam, da je danes tukaj med nami. Ona je bila takrat urednica časopisa, ki se imenuje ID in je o meni naredila naslovno zgodbo.
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. And 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)
S tem se je začelo neverjetno potovanje. Zanimiva stvari so se mi dogajale v tistem času; Prejela sem številna vabila, da bi predavala o oblikovanju gepardovih nog - po celem svetu. Ljudje so prihajali do mene po konferenci, po mojem govoru, moški in ženske. In pogovor je tekel nekako takole, "Veš, Aimee, zelo si privlačna. Ne izgledaš kot invalidna oseba." (Smeh) Mislila sem si, "To je res čudno, saj se ne počutim invalidna." To mi je zares odprlo oči glede dialoga, ki bi ga lahko imeli na temo lepote. Kako mora izgledati lepa ženska? Kaj je seksi telo? In zanimivo, s stališča identitete, kaj sploh pomeni biti invalidna oseba? Recimo, -- Pamela Anderson ima več umetnih delov v telesu kot jaz. In nihče ji ne reče, da je invalidna. (Smeh)
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.
Ta časopis je potem, preko grafičnega oblikovalca Peter Savillea, prišel v roke modnega oblikovalca Alexandra McQueena in fotografa Nicka Knighta, ki ju je zanimalo raziskovanje tega dialoga. Tri mesece po TED konferenci, sem se znašla na letalu za London, kjer sem imela svoje prvo modno snemanje, katere rezultat je ta naslovnica -- Sposobna za modo? Tri mesece po tem, sem imela svoj prvi modni nastop za Alexandra McQueena na nogah iz ročno obdelanega jesenovega lesa. Nihče ni vedel -- vsi so mislili, da so bili leseni škornji. Pravzaprav, jih imam danes tukaj na odru: Trta, magnolije, resnično osupljivo. Poezija je pomembna. Poezija vzdvigne banalno in zapostavljeno v sfero umetnosti. Lahko transformira stvar, ki se je ljudje bojijo, v nekaj, kar privablja poglede, zadržuje poglede dlje časa, morda celo vzpodbuja razumevanje.
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.
Tega sem se naučila iz prve roke z naslednjo pustolovščino. Umetnik Matthew Barney in njegov filmski opus imenovan "The Cremaster Cycle". To je bila res prava stvar zame -- moje noge so postale skulpture, ki sem jih lahko nosila. Takrat, sem se začela premikati od potrebe kopirati človeka kot edini estetični ideal. Naredili smo noge, ki jih ljubkovalno imenujejo steklene noge, čeprav so iz prozornega poliuretana, bolj znanega kot material za bowling krogle. Težko! Naredili smo tudi te noge, v katerih je zemlja in v njej sistem krompirjevih korenin in na vrhu pesa ter z zelo ljubkim medeninastim prstom. To je dober pogled od blizu na to nogo. Naslednje bitje je pol žena, pol gepard -- spomin na moje atletsko življenje 14 ur prostetičnega make-upa da bi postala bitje z artikuliranimi tacami, kremplji in repom, ki maha naokrog, kot gekon. (Smeh) Drugi par nog, na katerih smo sodelovali... izgledajo kot noge od meduze. Tudi poliuretan. In edini namen, ki mu te noge služijo izven konteksta filma je, da provocira čute in vžiga domišljijo. Muhavost je pomembna.
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 Orthopedic 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.
Danes imam preko 12 parov umetnih nog, ki so mi jih naredili različni ljudje in z njimi se lahko različno obnašam do terena pod seboj. Lahko spremenim svojo višino -- imam pet različnih višin. (Smeh) Danes sem okrog 185 cm. Te noge so mi naredili pred malo več kot letom pri Dorset Orthopaedic v Angliji in ko sem jih prinesla domov na Manhattan, in šla na eminentno zabavo, je bilo tam dekle, ki me je poznala že vrsto let v moji normalni višini, 173 cm. Bila je popolnoma presenečena, ko me je zagledala in rekla, "Ti si vendar tako visoka!" In sem odgovorila, "Vem. Ali ni to zabavno?" Mislim, to je skoraj tako kot bi imeli hodulje na hoduljah, ampak zdaj imam čisto nov odnos do višine vrat, česar si nikoli nisem predstavljala. Prav uživala sem v tem. Tisto dekle me je pogledalo in dejalo, "Ampak, Aimee, to ni pravično." (Smeh) (Aplavz) Najbolj zanimivo je to, da je to resno mislila. Ni pravično, da lahko spremeniš svojo višino, kot se ti zahoče.
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. (Applause)
In takrat sem vedela -- takrat sem vedela, da se je ta dialog z družbo temeljito spremenil v tej zadnjih deseti letih. To ni več dialog o tem, kako premostiti pomanjkljivosti. To je dialog o rasti. To je dialog o zmožnostih. Umetni ud ne predstavlja več samo potrebe, da se nadoknadi izguba. Lahko stoji kot znamenje, da ima tisti, ki ga nosi, moč, da naredi, karkoli bi rad naredil v tem prostoru. Tako da ljudje, ki jih je družba označila kot invalide, zdaj lahko postanejo arhitekti svojih lastnih identitet in tudi neprestano menjajo svojo identiteto z oblikovanjem svojega telesa iz pozicije moči. In kar se mi zdi trenutno zelo razburljivo, je, da se s kombinacijo moderne tehnologije -- robotika, bionika -- in prastare poezije, se približujemo razumevanju naše skupne človečnosti. Če bi želeli odkriti celoten potencijal v našem človeštvu, moramo praznovati srce parajoče moči in veličastne omejitve, ki jih imamo vsi. Pomislim na Shakespeare-ovega Shylock-a: "Če nas prebodeš, mar ne krvavimo, in če nas žgečkaš, mar se ne smejimo?" Naša človečnost je tista, in ves potencijal z njo, ki nas naredi lepe. Hvala vam. (Aplavz)