An image is worth more than a thousand words, so I'm going to start my talk by stop talking and show you a few images that I recently captured.
圖片能傳達的訊息,勝過千言萬語 因此我的演講 將以緘默和幾張最近捕捉的影像作為開頭 將以緘默和幾張最近捕捉的影像作為開頭
So by now, my talk is already 6,000 words long, and I feel like I should stop here.
截至目前為止我的演講已多達六千字 因此我認為這次演講就到此為止
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
At the same time, I probably owe you some explanation about the images that you just saw. What I am trying to do as a photographer, as an artist, is to bring the world of art and science together. Whether it is an image of a soap bubble captured at the very moment where it's bursting, as you can see in this image, whether it's a universe made of tiny little beads of oil paint, strange liquids that behave in very peculiar ways, or paint that is modeled by centrifugal forces, I'm always trying to link those two fields together.
但我猜想我還虧欠你們 有關這些影像的一些說明 身為一名攝影師、 同時也是一位藝術家,我致力於 將藝術和科學的世界結合在一起 無論是肥皂泡沫 在破裂瞬間所捕捉到的畫面 如同你們所見的這張 無論是油漆的微小粒子組成的世界 無論是油漆的微小粒子組成的世界 以非常奇特方式呈現的特殊液體 或者油漆因離心力所產生的圖案 我不斷嘗試將這兩個領域做結合 我發現,兩者引人入勝之處
What I find very intriguing about those two is that they both look at the same thing: They are a response to their surroundings. And yet, they do it in a very different way. If you look at science on one hand, science is a very rational approach to its surroundings, whereas art on the other hand is usually an emotional approach to its surroundings. What I am trying to do is I'm trying to bring those two views into one so that my images both speak to the viewer's heart but also to the viewer's brain. Let me demonstrate this based on three projects.
在於一個共同點: 都是對於周遭環境的回應 但卻是以截然不同的方式 單就科學而論 科學以一種十分理性的角度 回應周遭的環境 而另一方面呢 藝術則常以感性作為切入 我正在做的是 試者把兩者的觀點合而為一 因此,我拍攝的影像不僅與觀眾感性對談 也進行理性討論 我將以三個實驗來向各位說明
The first one has to do with making sound visible. Now as you may know, sound travels in waves, so if you have a speaker, a speaker actually does nothing else than taking the audio signal, transform it into a vibration, which is then transported through the air, is captured by our ear, and transformed into an audio signal again. Now I was thinking, how can I make those sound waves visible? So I came up with the following setup. I took a speaker, I placed a thin foil of plastic on top of that speaker, and then I added tiny little crystals on top of that speaker. And now, if I would play a sound through that speaker, it would cause the crystals to move up and down. Now this happens very fast, in the blink of an eye, so, together with LG, we captured this motion with a camera that is able to capture more than 3,000 frames per second. Let me show you what this looks like.
第一是聲音的形象化 眾所皆知的是 聲音以聲波形式傳遞 假設有一台揚聲器 其實揚聲器只用來接收音頻訊號 將其轉換為振頻 並藉由空氣的傳播 由我們的耳朵所感知 然後再次轉換成音頻訊號 因此我不斷思索 如何將聲波形象化呢? 我想到以下的裝置 我找了一個揚聲器 在上面鋪上一層塑膠薄片 並放了小小的水晶 在揚聲器上 這樣一來,使用揚聲器播放聲音時 上面的水晶會上下跳動 這一切都在轉瞬間發生 以迅雷不及掩耳的速度進行 我們藉助一部 LG 的攝影機 以每秒捕捉三千張圖像以上的速度 拍下了一切 以下是我們所捕捉到的圖像
(Music: "Teardrop" by Massive Attack)
(音樂:強烈衝擊合唱團的《淚珠》)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you very much. I agree, it looks pretty amazing.
非常感謝 我也覺得那令人嘆為觀止
But I have to tell you a funny story. I got an indoor sunburn doing this while shooting in Los Angeles. Now in Los Angeles, you could get a decent sunburn just on any of the beaches, but I got mine indoors, and what happened is that, if you're shooting at 3,000 frames per second, you need to have a silly amount of light, lots of lights. So we had this speaker set up, and we had the camera facing it, and lots of lights pointing at the speaker, and I would set up the speaker, put the tiny little crystals on top of that speaker, and we would do this over and over again, and it was until midday that I realized that I had a completely red face because of the lights pointing at the speaker. What was so funny about it was that the speaker was only coming from the right side, so the right side of my face was completely red and I looked like the Phantom of the Opera for the rest of the week.
但我要告訴你們一個有趣的事 在洛杉磯拍攝時 我居然在室內曬傷了 這個季節,到洛杉磯任一海灘 都可以曬出一身美麗的古銅色 但我卻是在室內 而原因是 若你想以每秒三千個畫面去拍攝 所需光量將非常可觀、無比大量的光 我們把揚聲器準備好 攝影機朝它拍攝 並投以大量的光線 一切準備就緒之後 再將水晶珠子放在揚聲器上 不斷重複這樣的步驟 直到中午我才發現 我的臉被揚聲器上投射的強光 曬得像關二哥一樣 有趣的是 揚聲器架設在我的右邊 所以只有右半邊的臉被曬紅 後來的幾天 我看起來就像歌劇魅影裡的魅影
Let me now turn to another project which involves less harmful substances. Has anyone of you heard of ferrofluid? Ah, some of you have. Excellent. Should I skip that part?
我的第二個構想 涉及了一些低強度的有害物質 在座有人聽過鐵磁流體嗎? 有人聽過,太棒了! 我要省略那個部份嗎?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Ferrofluid has a very strange behavior. It's a liquid that is completely black. It's got an oily consistency. And it's got tiny little particles of metal in it, which makes it magnetic. So if I now put this liquid into a magnetic field, it would change its appearance.
鐵磁流體的特性非常奇妙 它是一種極黑的液體 濃稠度和油相似 含有微小的金屬微粒 金屬微粒使它具有磁性 若是將液體注入磁場中 外觀就會改變
Now I've got a live demonstration over here to show this to you. So I've got a camera pointing down at this plate, and underneath that plate, there is a magnet. Now I'm going to add some of that ferrofluid to that magnet.
我準備現場示範讓各位更加清楚 這台攝影機朝著下方薄板拍攝 薄板下面,有一塊磁鐵 現在我要在磁鐵上方 注入一些鐵磁流體
Let's just slightly move it to the right and maybe focus it a little bit more. Excellent.
然後稍微地向右移 調整一下焦距,很好!
So what you can see now is that the ferrofluid has formed spikes. This is due to the attraction and the repulsion of the individual particles inside the liquid. Now this looks already quite interesting, but let me now add some watercolors to it. Those are just standard watercolors that you would paint with. You wouldn't paint with syringes, but it works just the same. So what happened now is, when the watercolor was flowing into the structure, the watercolors do not mix with the ferrofluid. That's because the ferrofluid itself is hydrophobic. That means it doesn't mix with the water. And at the same time, it tries to maintain its position above the magnet, and therefore, it creates those amazing-looking structures of channels and tiny little ponds of colorful water paint. So that was the second project.
現在可以發現 鐵磁流體形成尖刺狀 成因是鐵磁流體內 金屬微粒相吸與相斥的作用 這已經相當有趣 我現在要加點水彩進去 就只是一般的水彩 平常用來畫畫那種 你可能不會用針筒來畫 但原理是一樣的 你看到的是 當水彩流進這個結構裡 水彩不會和鐵磁流體相融合 因為鐵磁流體本身具有疏水性 也就是不和水融合 同時它也盡量在磁鐵上方 保持原來的位置 因而產生了 令人驚豔的 水彩運河和迷你池塘 這是我第二個構想 而最後一個實驗
Let me now turn to the last project, which involves the national beverage of Scotland. (Laughter)
會用到 蘇格蘭的國民飲料 (笑聲) 這個影像,還有這個
This image, and also this one, were made using whiskey. Now you might ask yourself, how did he do that? Did he drink half a bottle of whiskey and then draw the hallucination he got from being drunk onto paper? I can assure you I was fully conscious while I was taking those pictures.
都是威士忌的貢獻 你心想︰ 他怎麼辦到的? 他是乾掉半瓶的威士忌後 然後把酒醉的幻覺 畫在紙上嗎? 我保證在拍這些照片時 是完全清醒的
Now, whiskey contains 40 percent of alcohol, and alcohol has got some very interesting properties. Maybe you have experienced some of those properties before, but I am talking about the physical properties, not the other ones. So when I open the bottle, the alcohol molecules would spread in the air, and that's because alcohol is a very volatile substance. And at the same time, alcohol is highly flammable. And it was with those two properties that I was able to create the images that you're seeing right now.
威士忌含有 40% 的酒精 而酒精有些非常有趣的特性 也許你曾經體驗過 其中一些特性 但我說的物理特性 跟你們想的可不太一樣 當我打開酒瓶後 酒精分子會瀰漫在空氣中 因為酒精是易揮發的物質 同時也相當易燃 歸功於這兩個特性 我才有辦法創作出 你們眼前所見的這些影像
Let me demonstrate this over here. And what I have here is an empty glass vessel. It's got nothing in it. And now I'm going to fill it with oxygen and whiskey. Add some more. Now we just wait for a few seconds for the molecules to spread inside the bottle. And now, let's set that on fire.
讓我做個現場示範 這是一個空的玻璃容器 裡面什麼都沒有 我要在裡面填充氧氣 和威士忌 再多加一點 只要等個幾秒鐘 讓分子散佈在瓶子內 然後一把火燒了它
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So that's all that happens. It goes really fast, and it's not that impressive. I could do it again to show it one more time, but some would argue that this is a complete waste of the whiskey, and that I should rather drink it.
就是這樣 反應的速度真的很快,感覺沒什麼了不起的 我可以重做一遍 有些人可能會抗議 這簡直就是浪費威士忌,我寧願把它喝掉
But let me show you a slow motion in a completely darkened room of what I just showed you in this live demonstration. So what happened is that the flame traveled through the glass vessel from top to bottom, burning the mix of the air molecules and the alcohol. So the images that you saw at the beginning, they are actually a flame stopped in time while it is traveling through the bottle, and you have to imagine it was flipped around 180 degrees. So that's how those images were made.
但請看看慢動作版 這是在沒有光線的暗房裡拍攝的 如同我剛才在現場示範的一樣 火焰 從玻璃瓶口到瓶底 燃燒了空氣分子和酒精的混和物 燃燒了空氣分子和酒精的混和物 所以你們一開始所看到的影像 其實就是火焰在瓶子裡 燃燒時定格的畫面 試著想像 將影像翻轉180度後 就是我所呈現出來的圖片
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you.
謝謝
So, I have now showed you three projects, and you might ask yourself, what is it good for? What's the idea behind it? Is it just a waste of whiskey? Is it just some strange materials? Those three projects, they're based on very simple scientific phenomena, such as magnetism, the sound waves, or over here, the physical properties of a substance, and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to use these phenomena and show them in a poetic and unseen way, and therefore invite the viewer to pause for a moment and think about all the beauty that is constantly surrounding us.
我展示了以上三個實驗 你或許會納悶:這有什麼了不起的? 你究竟想表達些什麼? 學會怎麼浪費威士忌? 不過是些奇特的材質? 以上三個實驗基於非常簡單的 科學現象 例如:磁力、聲波、 或是物質的物理特性 而我希望呈現的 是利用這些科學現象 並以具詩意的、前所未見的方式 藉此邀請觀賞者 暫停片刻 思索一下 這些生活週遭的美麗事物
Thank you very much.
非常感謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)