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."
Obraćala sam se grupi od oko 300 dece, starih od šest do osam godina, u jednom muzeju za decu i sa sobom sam ponela vreću nogu, sličnih ovima koje vidite ovde. Poređala sam ih po stolu pred tom decom. I, kao što znamo iz iskustva, deca su po prirodi radoznala kad je reč o onome što ne poznaju, što ne razumeju ili što im je strano. Takvih razlika ona nauče da se boje tek kad ih neka odrasla osoba nauči takvom ponašanju, eventualno cenzuriše njihovu prirodnu radoznalost ili zauzda njihovo postavljanje pitanja u želji da od njih napravi lepo vaspitanu dečicu. I baš sam zamišljala učiteljicu prvog razreda s tom nemirnom decom kako im kaže: "Radite šta hoćete, samo joj ne gledajte u 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?"
Naravno, u tome je cela stvar. Zbog toga sam bila tamo, želela sam da im ponudim da gledaju i proučavaju. Zato sam se dogovorila s odraslima da deca uđu na dva minuta bez ijedne odrasle osobe, dakle, sama. Vrata su se otvorila, deca su se sjurila na taj sto s nogama, počela da ih pipkaju, čačkaju, mrdaju im prste, pokušavaju da prebace svu težinu na nogu za sprint i vide šta će da se desi. Onda sam im rekla: "Deco, slušajte, Probudila sam se jutros i zaključila da bi bilo dobro da mogu da preskočim kuću, ne neku ogromnu, već od dva-tri sprata. Sad brzo razmislite, kad biste mogli da birate neku životinju, super-heroja, lik iz crtanih filmova, šta god vam padne na pamet, čije biste mi noge dali?"
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.
Neko je odmah uzviknuo "Kengur!" "Ne, ne, ne! Bolje da bude žaba!" "Ne. Bolje Go Go Gadget!" "Ne, ne! Bolje Izbavitelji." I druge stvari koje mi nisu poznate. A onda je jedan osmogodišnjak rekao sledeće: "A zašto ne bi i letela?" I svi u sobi, uključujući mene, rekli su: "Pa, da". (Smeh) Tek tako sam prestala da budem žena koju bi ta deca vremenom naučila da smatraju "invalidom" i postala sam neko ko raspolaže fizičkim mogućnostima koje oni još nemaju. Čak neko s nadljudskim sposobnostima. Interesantno.
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.
Neki od vas su me verovatno gledali na TED-u pre 11 godina. Mnogo se pričalo o tome kako ta konferencija utiče na život, kako izlagača, tako i publike, i ja nisam izuzetak. TED je bukvalno bio odskočna daska za narednu deceniju istraživanja mog života. U to vreme proteze za noge koje sam prikazala bile su najnoviji krik u protetici. Imala sam proteze za sprint napravljene od upletenih ugljeničnih vlakana konstruisane po uzoru na zadnje noge geparda, koje ste juče možda videli na sceni. Takođe sam imala ove veoma uverljive, prirodno obojene noge od 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.
To je za mene bila prilika da pozovem inovatore izvan polja tradicionalne medicinske protetike da svoj talenat primene u nauci i umetnosti izrade nogu, kako bismo prestali da pravimo razliku između forme, funkcije i estetike i pridajemo im različite vrednosti. Srećom po mene, odazvao se veliki broj ljudi. I putovanje je otpočelo, zamislite, s osobom koja je bila na toj konferenciji TED-a. To je bila Či Perlman, koja je, nadam se, i danas negde u publici. Radila je kao urednik časopisa "ID" i posvetila mi je priču s naslovne strane.
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)
Tako je počelo jedno neverovatno putovanje. U to vreme sam imala neobične susrete. Prihvatala sam brojne pozive da govorim širom sveta o konstrukciji nogu po uzoru na noge geparda. Ljudi su mi prilazili posle konferencija, posle mog izlaganja, i muškarci i žene. I obično bi razgovor tekao ovako: "Znaš, Ejmi, ti si veoma privlačna osoba. Ne izgledaš kao invalid." (Smeh) Tad bih pomislila: "Prosto neverovatno, pošto se i ne osećam kao invalid." I to mi je zapravo ukazalo da bi se ta interakcija vezana za lepotu, mogla istražiti. Kako treba da izgleda lepa žena? Šta je seksi telo? I, ono što je zanimljivo, sa stanovišta identiteta, šta znači biti invalid? Pa razmislite, Pamela Anderson ima u sebi više protetike nego ja. I niko je ne zove invalidom. (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.
Dakle, taj časopis je, preko grafičkog dizajnera Pitera Sevila, stigao do modnog kreatora Aleksandra MekKvina i fotografa Nika Najta koji su takođe bili zainteresovani da istraže tu interakciju. Tako sam se tri meseca posle TED-a našla u avionu za London, gde sam imala svoju prvu modnu foto-sesiju čiji je rezultat ova naslovna stranica. Fashion-able? /igra reči: modno sposoban/ Tri meseca kasnije, prvi put sam nastupila na modnoj reviji Aleksandra MekKvina hodajući na paru ručno rezbarenih drvenih nogu od pune jasenovine. Niko to nije znao - svi su mislili da se radi o drvenim čizmama. Zapravo, imam ih ovde kod sebe. S izrezbarenom vinovom lozom, magnolijama, zaista su neverovatne. Bitan je poetski element. Poezija je ta koja jedan banalan i zanemaren predmet uzdiže na nivo umetnosti. Ona može da transformiše nešto čega se ljudi boje u nešto što ih mami da pogledaju, da bace jedan duži pogled, i možda to čak i razumeju.
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.
To sam lično iskusila tokom svoje sledeće avanture. Umetnik Metju Barni, u svom filmskom ciklusu po imenu "Cremaster" Tad mi je u stvari sinulo da bi moje noge mogle da budu nosiva skulptura. I u tom trenutku počela sam da se udaljavam od potrebe da oponašam ono što je ljudsko kao jedini estetski ideal. Tako smo stvorili noge koje ljudi od milošte nazivaju staklenim, mada se radi o prozirnom poliuretanu, tj. materijalu od kojeg se prave kugle za kuglanje. Što su teške! Onda smo napravili noge izlivene od zemlje, sa sistemom korena krompira u njima i cveklama na vrhu, i veoma lepim mesinganim prstom. To je veoma dobar krupni plan. Zatim još jedan lik: pola žena - pola gepard, kojim je odata počast meni kao atletičarki. Trebalo je 14 sati protetskog šminkanja da bi se stvorilo biće sa zglobnim šapama kandžama i repom kojim maše kao neki gušter. (Smeh) Zatim, još jedan par nogu na kojima smo sarađivali... To su ove, koje izgledaju kao meduze. Takođe od poliuretana. Jedino čemu ove noge mogu da služe, van konteksta filma, jeste da pokrenu čula i podstaknu maštu. Dakle, kapric ima smisla.
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.
Trenutno imam više od dvanaest pari proteza za noge koje su za mene napravili razni ljudi, pomoću njih mogu da imam različite odnose s tlom kojim hodam, mogu da menjam visinu. Raspolažem s pet različitih visina. (Smeh) Danas sam visoka 185 cm. Ove noge mi je pre nešto više od godinu dana napravila firma Dorset Orthopaedic iz Engleske. Kad sam ih donela kući na Menhetn, i kad sam prvi put izašla, išla sam na veoma otmenu zabavu. Tamo je bila devojka koja me već godinama poznaje s mojoj normalnom visinom, što je 172 cm. Zinula je kad me je videla, i rekla: "Kako si visoka!" Odgovorila sam: "Znam. Smešno, je l' da?" Otprilike kao da sam na štule stavila štule. Ali sad imam poputno novi odnos prema okvirima vrata koji uopšte nisam očekivala. I to me zabavlja. Pogledala me je i rekla: "Ali, Ejmi, to nije fer." (Smeh) (Aplauz) I, što je neverovatno, ona je to zaista mislila. Nije fer da možeš da menjaš visinu kako ti se prohte.
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)
Tada sam shvatila - shvatila sam da se interakcija s društvom iz korena promenila tokom poslednje decenije. Više se ne radi o prevazilaženju nedostataka već o povećanju. Predmet te interakcije jeste potencijal. Veštački ekstremitet više nije samo zamena za nešto izgubljeno. On je simbol koji pokazuje da onaj koji ga nosi ima moć da stvori šta god želi umesto njega. Tako da oni koje je društvo nekad smatralo hedikepiranima sada mogu sami da grade svoj identitet pa čak i da ga dalje menjaju dizajnirajući svoje telo kao neko ko na to ima pravo. Ono što mi se čni posebno uzbudljivim jeste to što se kombinovanjem najnovije tehnologije robotike, bionike, i drevne poezije približavamo shvatanju celog ljudskog roda. Smatram da, ako želimo da otkrijemo sav potencijal naše ljudske vrste, moramo da odamo počast tim dirljivim moćima i veličanstvenim hendikepima koje sve imamo. Setila sam se šekspirovog Šajloka: Zar ja ne krvarim kad me ko poseče, zar se ne smejem kad me ko golica?" Naša čovečnost i potencijal koji u njoj počiva jesu ono što nas čini lepima. Hvala. (Aplauz)