My work is about the behaviors that we all engage in unconsciously, on a collective level. And what I mean by that, it's the behaviors that we're in denial about, and the ones that operate below the surface of our daily awareness. And as individuals, we all do these things, all the time, everyday. It's like when you're mean to your wife because you're mad at somebody else. Or when you drink a little too much at a party, just out of anxiety. Or when you overeat because your feelings are hurt, or whatever. And when we do these kind of things, when 300 million people do unconscious behaviors, then it can add up to a catastrophic consequence that nobody wants, and no one intended. And that's what I look at with my photographic work.
私の仕事は社会全体で無意識に行う 行動についての研究です つまり私達が気付かずに 日常の 意識下で行っている行動の事です 私達は個人的にそれらの行動を毎日行っています 誰かに怒っている為 自分の妻に当たったり 心配事があってパーティーで飲み過ぎたり 傷ついて過食に走るというような事です これらの事を 3億人が無意識に行う時 誰も思いもよらないような 悲劇的な結果がもたらされます 写真を通してこの事をお見せしたいと思います
This is an image I just recently completed, that is -- when you stand back at a distance, it looks like some kind of neo-Gothic, cartoon image of a factory spewing out pollution. And as you get a little bit closer, it starts looking like lots of pipes, like maybe a chemical plant, or a refinery, or maybe a hellish freeway interchange. And as you get all the way up close, you realize that it's actually made of lots and lots of plastic cups. And in fact, this is one million plastic cups, which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights in the United States every six hours. We use four million cups a day on airline flights, and virtually none of them are reused or recycled. They just don't do that in that industry.
これは最近完成したもので 遠くから見ると 新ゴシック様式の 公害を出す工場の 漫画のように見えます 少し近づくと 化学工場や精油所のパイプや 入り組んだ高速道路に見え始めます ずっと近づくと実は 本当にたくさんのプラスチックコップだと気が付きます これは実際 6時間ごとの アメリカの飛行機で使われる100万個の プラスチックコップです 1日の飛行で400万個のプラスチックコップが使われ 再利用やリサイクルは この業界では行われません
Now, that number is dwarfed by the number of paper cups we use every day, and that is 40 million cups a day for hot beverages, most of which is coffee. I couldn't fit 40 million cups on a canvas, but I was able to put 410,000. That's what 410,000 cups looks like. That's 15 minutes of our cup consumption. And if you could actually stack up that many cups in real life, that's the size it would be. And there's an hour's worth of our cups. And there's a day's worth of our cups. You can still see the little people way down there. That's as high as a 42-story building, and I put the Statue of Liberty in there as a scale reference.
さてこの数は コーヒーなどの熱い飲物の為に 毎日使われる4千万個の紙コップと比べて 小さく見えます 4千万個のコップはキャンバスに入りませんでしたが 41万個は入りました これで41万個です 15分間の消費量です 実際積み重ねると こうです 1時間分のコップです 1日分のコップです 人が下に小さく見えますね 42階建てのビルと同じ高さで 比較の為 自由の女神を載せました
Speaking of justice, there's another phenomenon going on in our culture that I find deeply troubling, and that is that America, right now, has the largest percentage of its population in prison of any country on Earth. One out of four people, one out of four humans in prison are Americans, imprisoned in our country. And I wanted to show the number. The number is 2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2005. And that's gone up since then, but we don't have the numbers yet. So, I wanted to show 2.3 million prison uniforms, and in the actual print of this piece, each uniform is the size of a nickel on its edge. They're tiny. They're barely visible as a piece of material, and to show 2.3 million of them required a canvas that was larger than any printer in the world would print. And so I had to divide it up into multiple panels that are 10 feet tall by 25 feet wide. This is that piece installed in a gallery in New York -- those are my parents looking at the piece. (Laughter) Every time I look at this piece, I always wonder if my mom's whispering to my dad, "He finally folded his laundry." (Laughter)
正義と言えば 私達の文化で 起きているもう一つの憂慮すべき現象があります アメリカは現在地球上のどの国よりも 人口における 囚人の割合が多いのです 刑務所にいる4人に1人は アメリカで収監されているアメリカ人です 数をお見せしましょう 230万人のアメリカ人が2005年に投獄されています 今はもっといますが まだ数字は出ていません 230万の実際の囚人服をお見せします それぞれは 5セントの厚さです とても小さくて 何であるかほとんどわかりません 230万着分をお見せするには 世界のどのプリンターがプリントするより 大きなキャンバスが必要です そこで何枚かのパネルに分け 縦3.5m 横7.5mの大きさになりました ニューヨークのギャラリーに展示されており これは私の両親が見ているところです (笑) これを見ると 母が父に 「息子もやっと洗濯物を畳むようになって」と ささやいているように思えます (笑)
I want to show you some pieces now that are about addiction. And this particular one is about cigarette addiction. I wanted to make a piece that shows the actual number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking. More than 400,000 people die in the United States every year from smoking cigarettes. And so, this piece is made up of lots and lots of boxes of cigarettes. And, as you slowly step back, you see that it's a painting by Van Gogh, called "Skull with Cigarette." It's a strange thing to think about, that on 9/11, when that tragedy happened, 3,000 Americans died. And do you remember the response? It reverberated around the world, and will continue to reverberate through time. It will be something that we talk about in 100 years. And yet on that same day, 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And the day after that, another 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And every single day since then, 1,100 Americans have died. And today, 1,100 Americans are dying from cigarette smoking. And we aren't talking about it -- we dismiss it. The tobacco lobby, it's too strong. We just dismiss it out of our consciousness. And knowing what we know about the destructive power of cigarettes, we continue to allow our children, our sons and daughters, to be in the presence of the influences that start them smoking. And this is what the next piece is about.
次は依存症についての作品をお見せします これは煙草依存症についてです 喫煙で死ぬアメリカ人の 実際の数をお見せしましょう 毎年アメリカで40万人以上が 喫煙で亡くなっています この作品はたくさんの煙草の箱からできています ゆっくり後ろに下がると ゴッホが描いた「煙草を吸う骸骨」が見えます 9月11日の悲劇で3千人のアメリカ人が 亡くなった時の反響を考えると おかしな感じです この事件は世界中に反響を呼び これからもずっと影響を与えるでしょう 100年先まで語り続けられる事でしょう しかし同じ日に1100人のアメリカ人が喫煙で死んでいます 次の日も又1100人のアメリカ人が そしてそれ以降も毎日1100人ずつ死に 今日も1100人のアメリカ人が喫煙で死んでいます 私達はそれについては語ろうとせず 関心を持とうとしません 煙草の団体が強過ぎるからです 私達は煙草の害を意識から追いやり その破壊力を知りながら 自分達の娘や息子に煙草を始めるような 環境を提供してしまうのです これが次の作品のテーマです
This is just lots and lots of cigarettes: 65,000 cigarettes, which is equal to the number of teenagers who will start smoking this month, and every month in the U.S. More than 700,000 children in the United States aged 18 and under begin smoking every year.
6万5千箱もの煙草でできています これは今月 そして毎月煙草を吸い始める 十代の若者の数と同じです 70万人以上の18歳以下の子ども達が アメリカで 毎年煙草を吸い始めるのです
One more strange epidemic in the United States that I want to acquaint you with is this phenomenon of abuse and misuse of prescription drugs. This is an image I've made out of lots and lots of Vicodin. Well, actually, I only had one Vicodin that I scanned lots and lots of times. (Laughter) And so, as you stand back, you see 213,000 Vicodin pills, which is the number of hospital emergency room visits yearly in the United States, attributable to abuse and misuse of prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety medications. One-third of all drug overdoses in the U.S. -- and that includes cocaine, heroin, alcohol, everything -- one-third of drug overdoses are prescription medications. A strange phenomenon.
皆さんにお知らせしたい アメリカのもっとおかしな病は 処方薬の乱用や悪用です これはたくさんのバイコディン(鎮痛剤)の映像です 実際は一つのバイコディンを 何度もコピーしたものですが― (笑) 離れると21万3千個のバイコディンが見えますが この数はアメリカで処方の痛み止めと抗不安剤の 乱用や悪用で 救急病院に運ばれた人数と 同じです アメリカで コカイン ヘロイン アルコールなどの 不法な麻薬を含め すべての過量摂取された薬の 3分の1は 処方された薬なのです おかしな現象です
This is a piece that I just recently completed about another tragic phenomenon. And that is the phenomenon, this growing obsession we have with breast augmentation surgery. 384,000 women, American women, last year went in for elective breast augmentation surgery. It's rapidly becoming the most popular high school graduation gift, given to young girls who are about to go off to college. So, I made this image out of Barbie dolls, and so, as you stand back you see this kind of floral pattern, and as you get all the way back, you see 32,000 Barbie dolls, which represents the number of breast augmentation surgeries that are performed in the U.S. each month. The vast majority of those are on women under the age of 21. And strangely enough, the only plastic surgery that is more popular than breast augmentation is liposuction, and most of that is being done by men.
これはつい最近完成した もう一つの悲劇的な現象の作品です 豊胸手術を望む女性が増えているという現象です 38万4千人のアメリカ人女性が 昨年豊胸手術を受けました これは大学に行く前に行われる最も人気のある 高校卒業プレゼントに急速になりつつあります このイメージをバービーで作りました 花の模様をかたどっていますが ずっと離れると3万2千体のバービーが見え その数は毎月アメリカで行われる 豊胸手術と同じ数です その大多数は21歳以下の女性です そしておかしなことに 豊胸手術より人気のある唯一の手術は脂肪吸引で そのほとんどは男性に施術されています
Now, I want to emphasize that these are just examples. I'm not holding these out as being the biggest issues. They're just examples. And the reason that I do this, it's because I have this fear that we aren't feeling enough as a culture right now. There's this kind of anesthesia in America at the moment. We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger and our grief about what's going on in our culture right now, what's going on in our country, the atrocities that are being committed in our names around the world. They've gone missing; these feelings have gone missing. Our cultural joy, our national joy is nowhere to be seen. And one of the causes of this, I think, is that as each of us attempts to build this new kind of worldview, this holoptical worldview, this holographic image that we're all trying to create in our mind of the interconnection of things: the environmental footprints 1,000 miles away of the things that we buy; the social consequences 10,000 miles away of the daily decisions that we make as consumers.
強調したいのは これらはただの例であるという事です 最大の争点というわけではありません ほんの例です このような例を挙げる理由は 我々の社会全体が 感情を失いつつあると危惧するからです 現在のアメリカはいわゆるマヒ状態です 我々の国や文化で今現在起こっている事や アメリカの名の下 世界中で 我々自身が行なっている非道に対する 怒り 憤り 悲しみを 私達は失ってしまいました これらの感情がなくなってしまったのです 文化的 国民的プライドはどこにも見られません その原因の一つは 我々個人が 物事は相互につながっていると観る世界観 つまり 世界のすべての物事全体を 頭の中で一度に思い描く世界観を 築こうとしてしまうからだと思うのです 我々が買う物が千マイル先の環境に及ぼす影響や 消費者としての決断が1万マイル先の社会に 及ぼす結果などを一遍に思い描こうとするからです
As we try to build this view, and try to educate ourselves about the enormity of our culture, the information that we have to work with is these gigantic numbers: numbers in the millions, in the hundreds of millions, in the billions and now in the trillions. Bush's new budget is in the trillions, and these are numbers that our brain just doesn't have the ability to comprehend. We can't make meaning out of these enormous statistics. And so that's what I'm trying to do with my work, is to take these numbers, these statistics from the raw language of data, and to translate them into a more universal visual language, that can be felt. Because my belief is, if we can feel these issues, if we can feel these things more deeply, then they'll matter to us more than they do now. And if we can find that, then we'll be able to find, within each one of us, what it is that we need to find to face the big question, which is: how do we change? That, to me, is the big question that we face as a people right now: how do we change? How do we change as a culture, and how do we each individually take responsibility for the one piece of the solution that we are in charge of, and that is our own behavior?
この世界観を築き上げ 我々の文化の巨大さを把握する為に 向き合わなければならないこれらの数字は 何百万 何億 何十億 いまや何兆という 巨大なものです ブッシュの新しい予算は何兆ドルで 私達には計り知れない数です これらの巨大な統計から意味を汲み取ることはできません 私が作品を通してしようとしているのは データの生の言語である これらの数や統計を より普遍的で感じる事のできる 視覚による言語へと翻訳する事です より深く感じる事ができれば これらの問題が今より 私達にとって重要なものになると信じるからです そして それができれば 各々が「私達はどう変わればいいのか」という 大きな課題に 必要なものは 何かがわかります これが現在 我々人類が向き合うべき大きな課題です 文化としてどう変わるべきか? 個人ができる小さな解決方法の為に 我々はどのように行動を変え どう責任を取るべきなのか
My belief is that you don't have to make yourself bad to look at these issues. I'm not pointing the finger at America in a blaming way. I'm simply saying, this is who we are right now. And if there are things that we see that we don't like about our culture, then we have a choice. The degree of integrity that each of us can bring to the surface, to bring to this question, the depth of character that we can summon, as we show up for the question of how do we change -- it's already defining us as individuals and as a nation, and it will continue to do that, on into the future. And it will profoundly affect the well-being, the quality of life of the billions of people who are going to inherit the results of our decisions. I'm not speaking abstractly about this, I'm speaking -- this is who we are in this room, right now, in this moment.
これらの問題に対して自分達を 責める必要はないと私は考えます アメリカを名指しで責めているわけではありません これが今の私達なのです もし私達の文化に 好ましくない部分があれば 選択肢はあります それは私達がどれだけ誠実にこの問題の解決に挑戦できるか 改善するためにどれだけ強い道徳心を持って 立ち向かえるかにかかっています この挑戦は私達の個人として 国としての本質を明らかにし 決定づけていくものになるでしょう そして私達の選択の結果を受け継ぐ何億人の子孫の 幸福や生活の質に 深い影響を及ぼすでしょう これは観念的な話ではありません ちょうど今この部屋にいる 私達自身の話なのです
Thank you and good afternoon. (Applause)
ありがとうございました (拍手)