I'm going to tell you about why I became a sculptor, and you may think that sculptors, well, they deal with meta, they deal with objects, they deal with bodies, but I think, really, what I care about most is making space, and that's what I've called this talk: Making Space. Space that exists within us, and without us.
我想告訴大家我為何成為雕塑家 你或者覺得雕塑家 與概念打交道,與物件打交道 與身體打交道 但我真的認為,我最關心的是 創造空間,這也是我這個演說的題目 創造空間 那存在於我們之內 和我們之外的空間
So, when I was a child, I don't know how many of you grew up in the '50s, but I was sent upstairs for an enforced rest. (Laughter) It's a really bad idea. I mean, after lunch, you're, you know, you're six, and you want to go and climb a tree. But I had to go upstairs, this tiny little room that was actually made out of an old balcony, so it was incredibly hot, small and light, and I had to lie there. It was ridiculous. But anyway, for some reason, I promised myself that I wasn't going to move, that I was going to do this thing that Mummy wanted me to do. And there I was, lying there in this tiny space, hot, dark, claustrophobic, matchbox-sized, behind my eyes, but it was really weird, like, after this went on for days, weeks, months, that space would get bigger and darker and cooler until I really looked forward to that half an hour of enforced immobility and rest, and I really looked forward to going to that place of darkness.
我還是小孩時 我不知道在座有多少人成長於50年代 我會被迫到樓上睡午覺 這真是一個鬼主意。我的意思是,在午飯後 你不過六歲,你會想出去爬樹 但我要到樓上去,到一間細小房間 它其實是舊陽臺改建的 因此它極之悶熱、狹小和明亮 而我要躺在那裏,真是荒謬 無論如何,為了某些原因,我答應自己 我要靜止不動 我要做媽咪要我做的 這件事 於是我躺在這細小的空間裏 又熱又黑,火柴盒大小的幽閉空間 但真是不可思議的是 這樣子持續了多日、星期和月後 那空間變得越來越大、黑和清涼 直至我簡直渴望那半小時 被迫午睡和休息的時間 我真的期望去到那個 黑暗的空間
Do you mind if we do something completely different? Can we all just close our eyes for a minute? Now, this isn't going to be freaky. It isn't some cultic thing. (Laughter) It's just, it's just, I just would like us all to go there. So I'm going to do it too. We'll all be there together.
大家介意做些完全另類的事嗎? 大家可否閉上眼睛一分鐘? 我不會要大家做怪異的事情 這不是甚麼邪教勾當 這不過是,我只想大家一起到那裏去 我會跟大家一起做,我們會一起到那裏去
So close your eyes for a minute. Here we are, in a space, the subjective, collective space of the darkness of the body. I think of this as the place of imagination, of potential, but what are its qualities? It is objectless. There are no things in it. It is dimensionless. It is limitless. It is endless.
請閉上眼睛一分鐘 我們現在身處一個空間 身體內那個主觀、集體的黑暗空間 我覺得這是個充滿想像 和潛能的空間 但這空間有何特質? 它空無一物,甚麼都沒有 它沒有維度,無邊無界 無窮無盡
Okay, open your eyes.
好了,大家張開眼睛
That's the space that I think sculpture -- which is a bit of a paradox, sculpture that is about making material propositions -- but I think that's the space that sculpture can connect us with.
就是這個空間,我認為雕塑就是 這說法有點弔詭,雕塑就是 要造出實體的陳述 而我認為雕塑可以 把我們與那空間聯繫起來
So, imagine we're in the middle of America. You're asleep. You wake up, and without lifting your head from the earth on your sleeping bag, you can see for 70 miles. This is a dry lake bed. I was young. I'd just finished art school. I wanted to do something that was working directly with the world, directly with place. This was a wonderful place, because it was a place where you could imagine that you were the first person to be there. It was a place where nothing very much had happened. Anyway, bear with me. I picked up a hand-sized stone, threw it as far as I was able, it was about 22 meters. I then cleared all the stones within that radius and made a pile. And that was the pile, by the way. And then, I stood on the pile, and threw all of those rocks out again, and here is rearranged desert.
試想像我們身處美國中部 你睡着了。然後你醒來 你不用抬起頭,離開地面 離開睡袋,便可以望見70哩之內的東西 這是一個乾涸的河牀 那時我年輕,剛從藝術學院畢業 我希望從事與世界 與地方直接有關的工作 這是個奇妙的地方,因為在那裏 你可以想像自己是 第一個來到那裏的人 那是一個藉藉無聞的地方 無論如何,請聽我說 我撿起一塊拳頭大小的石頭 盡力擲了出去 它落在約22公尺之外 然後我清除了那半徑範圍內的石頭 把它們堆在一處 這就是那堆石頭 之後,我站在那堆石上 再次把那些石擲出去 形成這個重新排列的沙漠
You could say, well, it doesn't look very different from when he started. (Laughter) What's all the fuss about? In fact, Chris was worried and said, "Look, don't show them that slide, because they're just going to think you're another one of those crazy modern artists who doesn't do much. (Laughter)
你或會說,唔,這跟他開始之時 沒有甚麼不同啊 (笑聲) 有甚麼值得大驚小怪? 事實上,基斯有點擔心地說 “不要給他們看那張幻燈片 因為他們會覺得你不過是另一個 無所事事的現代瘋狂藝術家" (笑聲)
But the fact is, this is evidence of a living body on other bodies, rocks that have been the subject of geological formation, erosion, the action of time on objects. This is a place, in a way, that I just would like you to, in a way, look at differently because of this event that has happened in it, a human event, and in general, it just asks us to look again at this world, so different from, in a way, the world that we have been sharing with each other, the technological world, to look again at the elemental world. The elemental world that we all live in is that space that we all visited together, the darkness of the body. I wanted to start again with that environment, the environment of the intimate, subjective space that each of us lives in, but from the other side of appearance.
但事實上 這是一個活體在其他物體上存在的憑證 那些石頭是地質形成 風化,被時光磨蝕的東西 這個地方,某意義上 我想大家會以不同目光去看它 因着這件曾在那裏發生的事情 一件人為的事情 大體而言,它只要求我們 以不同的目光再看這個世界 這個我們與其他人共享的世界 這個科技的世界 再看看這個最根本的世界 我們存在於其中的根本世界 就是那個我們曾一起探訪的空間,身體的黑暗 我想在那個處境裏再一次開始 那處境是一個熟悉和主觀的空間 我們每人都活在那處境裏 卻在表相的另一邊
So here is a daily activity of the studio. You can see I don't do much. I'm just standing there, again with my eyes closed, and other people are molding me, evidential. This is an indexical register of a lived moment of a body in time.
這是我工作室的日常工作 大家見到我沒有做些甚麼,我只是站在那裏 我閉上眼睛 讓其他人為我造模 這是一個身體在某個時刻 存活的標示記錄
Can we map that space, using the language of neutrinos or cosmic rays, taking the bounding condition of the body as its limit, but in complete reversal of, in a way, the most traditional Greek idea of pointing? In the old days they used to take a lump of Pentelic marble and drill from the surface in order to identify the skin, the appearance, what Aristotle defined as the distinction between substance and appearance, the thing that makes things visible, but here we're working from the other side.
我們可以描繪出那空間嗎,利用中微子 或宇宙射線,以身體的界限為這空間的邊界 以與傳統希臘有關指向的思想完全相反的方法 去描繪它,可以嗎? 在古時,他們採用一塊潘泰列克大理石 在表面上鑽挖,以塑造出皮膚 樣貎 亞里士多德所界定的 本質與表相的分別 他們造出了肉眼可見的物件 但現在我們卻從另一邊開始
Or can we do it as an exclusive membrane? This is a lead case made around the space that my body occupied, but it's now void. This is a work called "Learning To See." It's a bit of, well, we could call it night, we could call it the 96 percent of gravity that we don't know about, dark matter, placed in space, anyway, another version of a human space in space at large, but I don't know if you can see, the eyes are indicated, they're closed. It's called "Learning To See" because it's about an object that hopefully works reflexively and talks about that vision or connection with the darkness of the body that I see as a space of potential.
我們可以把它當作一塊排斥外物的薄膜? 這是一個鉛鑄的外殼,它包圍着 我身體佔據的空間,但它是中空的 這件作品名為 “學習去看” 它有點,嗯,我們可稱之為黑夜 我們可稱之為我們所不認識 那百分之九十六的重力,黑暗物質 存在於太空,是人類空間的另一個版本 存在於外太空,但我不知大家可否看到 那雙眼意有所指,它們是閉上的 這作品名 “學習去看” 因為它關乎一件物體 我們希望它能讓人反省,讓人論及 它與身體的黑暗之間的關連和意像 這就是我認為充滿潛能的空間
Can we do it another way, using the language of particles around a nucleus, and talk about the body as an energy center? No longer about statues, no longer having to take that duty of standing, the standing of a human body, or the standing of a statue, release it, allow it to be an energy field, a space in space that talks about human life, between becoming an entropy as a sort of concentration of attention, a human place of possibility in space at large.
讓我們換另一種表達方式 例如環繞原子核的粒子,而我們的身體 就是能量的中心? 我們不再談雕像,不再需要有人 站在那裏,要人的身體站起來 或豎立一個雕像,放開這想法 讓它成為一個力場,空間中的空間 這力場論及人的生命,生命成為熵的歷程 成為一種關注的焦點 在外太空充滿可能的人類空間
Is there another way? Dark matter now placed against a horizon. If minds live in bodies, if bodies live in clothes, and then in rooms, and then in buildings, and then in cities, do they also have a final skin, and is that skin perceptual? The horizon. And is art about trying to imagine what lies beyond the horizon? Can we use, in a way, a body as an empty catalyst for a kind of empathy with the experience of space-time as it is lived, as I am standing here in front of you trying to feel and make a connection in this space-time that we are sharing, can we use, at it were, the memory of a body, of a human space in space to catalyze an experience, again, firsthand experience, of elemental time. Human time, industrial time, tested against the time of the tides, in which these memories of a particular body, that could be any body, multiplied as in the time of mechanical reproduction, many times, placed over three square miles, a mile out to sea, disappearing, in different conditions of day and night. You can see this work. It's on the mouth of the Mersey, just outside Liverpool. And there you can see what a Liverpool sea looks like on a typical afternoon. The pieces appear and disappear, but maybe more importantly -- this is just looking north from the center of the installation -- they create a field, a field that involves living and the surrogate bodies in a kind of relation, a relation with each other and a relation with that limit, the edge, the horizon.
還有其他表達方式嗎? 這黑暗物質現在被擺放在水平線上 如果心智存活於身體之內,如果身體存活於衣服下面 然後存活於房間之內,建築物之內 然後城市之內,那麼它是否也有一個最終的表皮 而這表皮是永恆的? 水平線 藝術是否在於 試圖去想像水平線之外有甚麼東西? 我們可否把身體當作一種空無的催化劑 對身體在時空下的經歷 產生移情作用,正如我現在站在 大家面前,嘗試去感覺和連接 我們所共享的這個時空一樣 我們可否利用身體對人體在空間 中的記憶去催化 一種經驗,一種第一手的 對根本時間的經驗 人類的時間、工業的時間,與潮汐的時間 來比併時,某個身體的這些記憶 這可以是任何一個身體 在機械生產的時間下倍增 把這些身體放在方圓三哩之地 海外一哩的地方 在日夜不同的條件下它們會消失 你可以看見這件作品,它就在默西河的河口 就在利勿浦的外圍 在那裏你可以看到利勿浦的海 在平日下午是甚麼樣子 這些雕塑會出現然後消失 但可能更重要的是 這只是從這些裝置的中心向北望的情形 它們營造了一個場域,場域裏包含了 生物體和代替物,它們之間有某種關係 這是它們每個之間的關係 亦是與極限、與邊陲、水平線之間的關係
Just moving on, is it possible, taking that idea of mind, body, body-building, to supplant the first body, the biological body, with the second, the body of architecture and the built environment.
讓我們繼續,我們可不可以 將這個關乎心智、身體和營造身體的想法 將第一個身體 即生物體,給第二個身體 即建築的實體和人建造的環境所取代
This is a work called "Room for the Great Australian Desert." It's in an undefined location and I've never published where it is. It's an object for the mind. I think of it as a 21st-century Buddha. Again, the darkness of the body, now held within this bunker shape of the minimum position that a body needs to occupy, a crouching body. There's a hole at the anus, penis level. There are holes at ears. There are no holes at the eyes. There's a slot for the mouth. It's two and a half inches thick, concrete with a void interior. Again, a site found with a completely flat 360-degree horizon. This is just simply asking, again, as if we had arrived for the first time, what is the relationship of the human project to time and space?
這件作品名為 “澳大利亞沙漠中的空間” 它沒有被標明位置 我也從沒有說出它的所在 這作品的主題是心智 我覺得它相當於21世紀的佛佗 再一次,身體的幽暗 被存放在這個箱狀 身體所需佔據的最少空間裏 當然是捲曲的身體 在肛門和陽莖的高度有一個孔 在耳朵高度也有孔。但在眼睛位置卻沒有孔 它有一個槽當作口。這槽厚兩吋半 它由水泥所造,中間是空的 再一次,這地點完全平坦 有360度視野 再一次,這只是提出一個問題 我們當作第一次去到那裏 那究竟這個人為的作物 與時空有何關係?
Taking that idiom of, as it were, the darkness of the body transferred to architecture, can you use architectural space not for living but as a metaphor, and use its systolic, diastolic smaller and larger spaces to provide a kind of firsthand somatic narrative for a journey through space, light and darkness? This is a work of some proportion and some weight that makes the body into a city, an aggregation of cells that are all interconnected and that allow certain visual access at certain places.
將這個慣用語,就是 身體的黑暗,轉移到建築物上時 你能否不把建築用作生活的空間 而是用作一個比喻 利用它的收縮、舒張 或大或小的空間去提出一種第一手 穿越空間、光明和黑暗 的身體故事? 這件作品有相當份量和重量 它把身體造成一個城市 由互相牽連的細胞所組成 這件作品可讓人有某些位置 可讓人望進去
The last work that I just wanted to share with you is "Blind Light," which is perhaps the most open work, and in a conference of radical openness, I think maybe this is as radical as I get, using light and water vapor as my materials. Here is a box filled at one and a half atmospheres of atmospheric pressure, with a cloud and with very bright light. As you walk towards the ever-open threshold, you disappear, both to yourselves and to others. If you hold your hand out in front of you, you can't see it. If you look down, you can't see your feet. You are now consciousness without an object, freed from the dimensionful and measured way in which life links us to the obligatory. But this is a space that is actually filled with people, disembodied voices, and out of that ambient environment, when people come close to your own body zone, very close, they appear to you as representations. When they appear close to the edge, they are representations, representations in which the viewers have become the viewed.
最後一件要和大家分享的作品 名 “令人目眩的光” 它可能是最開放的作品 在一個激進開放的會議裏 我相信它或許是我最激進的表達 我用了光和水氣為原材料 這是一個盒 內裏有一個半大氣壓力 裏面有雲霧和非常強的光 你走近那常開的門檻時 你自己和其他人都會看不見你 如果你把手伸向前方 你不能看到它。 如果你往下看,你不能看到你的腳。 你現在只剩下意識,沒有軀體 你再沒有維度 和其他生活上被迫要有 所有計量方式 但這個空間其實擠滿了人 充斥着脫離軀體的聲音 在這樣的環境底下 若有人走近你身體 走得非常接近時,他們看來就像雕像一樣 他們在接近邊沿地方出現時 他們成為了雕像,而觀看雕像的人 本身亦成為被觀看的雕像
For me, art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time. As John Cage said, "We are not moving towards some kind of goal. We are at the goal, and it is changing with us. If art has any purpose, it is to open our eyes to that fact." Thank you very much. (Applause)
對我來說,藝術不在於可高價交易的物件 藝術是關乎重新肯定我們在當下 的親身經驗 正如約翰凱奇說 "我們並非向目標邁進 我們已到達目標,而它正跟我們一起轉變 如果藝術有任何作用,這作用就是要幫我們認清這事實" 謝謝大家。 (掌聲)