I'm an artist and I cut books. This is one of my first book works. It's called "Alternate Route to Knowledge." I wanted to create a stack of books so that somebody could come into the gallery and think they're just looking at a regular stack of books, but then as they got closer they would see this rough hole carved into it, and wonder what was happening, wonder why, and think about the material of the book. So I'm interested in the texture, but I'm more interested in the text and the images that we find within books.
我是藝術家,我切割書本。 這是我早期的書作品, 稱為「通往知識的替代道路」。 我想創作很多書,讓大家進藝廊時心想 只是來看一堆普通的書, 結果他們靠近一看 卻發現書被挖了粗糙的洞, 然後好奇發生什麼事,思考為什麼, 開始想這本書是什麼材料做的。 我對質感很有興趣, 但我對在書裡找到的圖文更感興趣。
In most of my work, what I do is I seal the edges of a book with a thick varnish so it's creating sort of a skin on the outside of the book so it becomes a solid material, but then the pages inside are still loose, and then I carve into the surface of the book, and I'm not moving or adding anything. I'm just carving around whatever I find interesting. So everything you see within the finished piece is exactly where it was in the book before I began.
我通常用黏膠密封書緣, 就像在書上做一層皮膚, 書變成硬媒材,但內頁還是鬆的, 我挖開書皮, 不會移動或添加任何東西上去。 我只是到處挖我覺得有趣的東西。 所以你在成品裡面看到的 都是書裡原本的東西。
I think of my work as sort of a remix, in a way, because I'm working with somebody else's material in the same way that a D.J. might be working with somebody else's music. This was a book of Raphael paintings, the Renaissance artist, and by taking his work and remixing it, carving into it, I'm sort of making it into something that's more new and more contemporary. I'm thinking also about breaking out of the box of the traditional book and pushing that linear format, and try to push the structure of the book itself so that the book can become fully sculptural.
我的作品有點像是再製品, 因為我用的是別人的媒材, 跟音樂主持人用同樣的方式 處理別人的音樂。 這是拉斐爾的畫冊, 他是文藝復興時期的藝術家, 透過再製、雕刻他的作品, 我似乎把書做成更新穎、具現代感的東西了。 我也想打破傳統書本的方形邊界, 推開原本的橫排設定, 試著推開書原來的結構, 就能雕刻整本書。
I'm using clamps and ropes and all sorts of materials, weights, in order to hold things in place before I varnish so that I can push the form before I begin, so that something like this can become a piece like this, which is just made from a single dictionary. Or something like this can become a piece like this. Or something like this, which who knows what that's going to be or why that's in my studio, will become a piece like this.
我用夾鉗、繩子和各種媒材再施重, 讓書在上漆前可以黏緊, 開工前我就能推開構造, 因此像這樣的東西 就可以變成這樣的作品, 這原先是一本字典。 或是像這樣的東西, 可以變成這件作品。 或是像這樣的東西, 沒人知道會變什麼樣子、 為什麼會在我的工作室, 最後會變成這樣一件作品。
So I think one of the reasons people are disturbed by destroying books, people don't want to rip books and nobody really wants to throw away a book, is that we think about books as living things, we think about them as a body, and they're created to relate to our body, as far as scale, but they also have the potential to continue to grow and to continue to become new things. So books really are alive. So I think of the book as a body, and I think of the book as a technology. I think of the book as a tool. And I also think of the book as a machine. I also think of the book as a landscape. This is a full set of encyclopedias that's been connected and sanded together, and as I carve through it, I'm deciding what I want to choose. So with encyclopedias, I could have chosen anything, but I specifically chose images of landscapes. And with the material itself, I'm using sandpaper and sanding the edges so not only the images suggest landscape, but the material itself suggests a landscape as well.
我想書破了有人會心煩是因為 大家都不想撕破書, 也沒有人真的想丟書, 也因為我們認為書有生命, 像它們擁有身體, 書是為了我們存在的 從比例上而言, 但書也有成長的潛力, 繼續變成新的東西。 書真的有生命。 我把書看作是身體, 我把書看作是工藝, 我把書看作是工具。 我也把書看作是機器。 我也把書看作是地景。 這是整套百科全書被磨平黏貼在一起, 我一邊雕刻, 一邊決定要留什麼下來。 有了百科全書,我可以選擇任何東西, 但我特別選擇地景的圖片。 呼應媒材本身,我用砂紙磨平邊緣, 這樣圖片能搭配地景之外, 媒材本身也變成一座地景。
So one of the things I do is when I'm carving through the book, I'm thinking about images, but I'm also thinking about text, and I think about them in a very similar way, because what's interesting is that when we're reading text, when we're reading a book, it puts images in our head, so we're sort of filling that piece. We're sort of creating images when we're reading text, and when we're looking at an image, we actually use language in order to understand what we're looking at. So there's sort of a yin-yang that happens, sort of a flip flop. So I'm creating a piece that the viewer is completing themselves.
我雕刻書的時候 也會思考書裡的圖片和文字, 我會用非常相似的方式思考, 因為有趣的是我們閱讀文字, 閱讀書本的時候, 腦海裡就有了影像, 就像是填補了那本書。 我們就像是邊讀文字、邊創作影像, 我們看圖片的時候,其實就使用了語言, 才能了解我們看的東西。 這樣的演變就像太極, 像一體兩面同時存在, 觀者可以親身參與完整我的作品。
And I think of my work as almost an archaeology. I'm excavating and I'm trying to maximize the potential and discover as much as I possibly can and exposing it within my own work. But at the same time, I'm thinking about this idea of erasure, and what's happening now that most of our information is intangible, and this idea of loss, and this idea that not only is the format constantly shifting within computers, but the information itself, now that we don't have a physical backup, has to be constantly updated in order to not lose it. And I have several dictionaries in my own studio, and I do use a computer every day, and if I need to look up a word, I'll go on the computer, because I can go directly and instantly to what I'm looking up. I think that the book was never really the right format for nonlinear information, which is why we're seeing reference books becoming the first to be endangered or extinct.
我的作品幾乎可以說是考古學, 我挖掘,試著發揮最大潛能, 盡可能鑿取更多 並在作品中展現。 但同時 我也在思考消除的概念, 現在的新聞都看不見實體訊息, 而這個失去的概念, 不只是指在電腦中不斷改變的形式, 更是指訊息本身, 現在我們不會有紙本備份, 不想失去就要不斷更新。 我的工作室有幾本字典, 我也每天用電腦, 如果要查單字,我會用電腦, 因為我可以直接找到答案。 我想書本從來就不是 複雜資訊的正確格式, 這就是為什麼我們會發現工具書 變成頭號岌岌可危快絕跡的東西。
So I don't think that the book will ever really die. People think that now that we have digital technology, the book is going to die, and we are seeing things shifting and things evolving. I think that the book will evolve, and just like people said painting would die when photography and printmaking became everyday materials, but what it really allowed painting to do was it allowed painting to quit its day job. It allowed painting to not have to have that everyday chore of telling the story, and painting became free and was allowed to tell its own story, and that's when we saw Modernism emerge, and we saw painting go into different branches. And I think that's what's happening with books now, now that most of our technology, most of our information, most of our personal and cultural records are in digital form, I think it's really allowing the book to become something new. So I think it's a very exciting time for an artist like me, and it's very exciting to see what will happen with the book in the future.
所以我不認為書會真的消逝, 大家認為當一切數位化 書就會消逝, 我們就會看著事物轉變、進化。 我認為書會進化, 就像曾有人說繪畫會消逝, 因為攝影和印刷 觸手可及的年代已來臨, 但繪畫反而因此得以 不用每天工作。 繪畫也不必再肩負 每日說故事這樣的雜務, 繪畫變得自由,能訴說自己的故事, 現代主義也因此起源, 發展出各種不同的流派。 我認為書現在的處境就像當時的繪畫, 現在我們大部分的技術、資訊, 以及私人和文化的記錄都數位化時, 我認為那反而促使書本發展新樣貌。 現在對像我這樣的藝術家來說 是讓人興奮的時刻, 預見書本未來的發展也讓人非常興奮。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)