Let's start with silence. Silence is one of the most precious conditions for humans, because it allows us to feel the depth of our presence. This is one of the reasons why the advent of electric cars has generated lots of enthusiasm among people. For the first time, we could associate the concept of cars with the experience of silence. Cars can finally be quiet: peace in the streets, a silent revolution in the cities.
让我们从安静开始。 安静是人类一种最珍贵的环境, 因为这会让我们感到我们存在的深度。 这也是电动车的出现 在人们中间引起极大的 热情的一个原因。 第一次,我们可以 把汽车的概念 和安静的体验联系起来。 汽车终于可以安静下来了。 街道的安宁, 一场城市的安静革命。
(Hum)
(安静的发动机声音)
But silence can also be a problem. The absence of sound, in fact, when it comes to cars, it can be quite dangerous. Think of blind people, who can't see a car which is approaching. And now, if it's electric, they can't even hear it. Or think of every one of us as we are walking around the city, we are absorbed in our thoughts, and we detach from the surroundings. In these situations, sound can become our precious companion.
但安静也可能成为问题。 事实上,当汽车没有声音后, 可能会非常危险。 想想盲人, 当车开过来时看不见车。 现在,如果是电动车, 他们连听都听不到。 或者想想我们每一个人, 当我们漫步在城市时, 我们陷入在自己的思绪中, 没有注意到周遭的环境。 在这些场景中,声音可以 成为我们宝贵的伙伴。
Sound is one of the most wonderful gifts of our universe. Sound is emotion and sound is sublime, and when it comes to cars, sound is also information. In order to protect pedestrians and to give acoustic feedback to the drivers, governments around the world have introduced several regulations which prescribe the presence of a sound for electric vehicles. In particular, they require minimum sound levels at specific frequency bands up to the speed of 30 kilometers per hour. Besides this speed, the natural noise of the car is considered as sufficient.
声音是我们宇宙中一件 最为神奇的礼物。 声音是情感, 声音是绝妙的, 当涉及到车时,声音也是信息。 为了保护行人 并给驾驶员提供声音反馈, 世界各国的政府都 出台了一些规定, 规定电动车必须有声音。 特别是,它们要求在特定频段 的最低声级达到 汽车30公里时速时的声噪。 超过这个速度, 汽车的自然噪声 被认为是足够的。
These regulations have generated different reactions among those who favor sounds and those who fear the presence of too much noise in the city. However, I don't see it as the noise of the car. I rather see it as the voice of the car. And this is one of my biggest challenges, and privileges, at the same time.
这些规定引起了城市里 喜欢声音的人和害怕 有太多噪声的人 的不同反应。 然而,我不认为这是汽车的噪音。 我更愿意视其为汽车的声音。 这是我最大的挑战之一, 同时也是我最大的特权。
I design the voice of electric cars. We all know how a combustion engine sounds like, and we do actually also know how an electric engine sounds like. Think of the electric tramway. As soon as it moves, it creates this ascending high-frequency pitch sound, which we called "whistling" sound. However, if we would just amplify this sound, we would still not be able to fulfill the legal requirements. That's also why we need to compose new sound.
我设计电动车的声音。 我们都知道内燃机的声音, 我们其实也知道 电动发动机的声音。 想想电车轨道。 它一移动, 它产生这种上升的高频音高, 我们称之为“口哨声”。 然而,如果我们放大这个声音, 我们仍然无法达到法规的要求。 所以我们需要创作新的声音。
So how do we go after it? In many cities, the traffic is already very chaotic, and we don't need more chaos. But the streets of the 21st century are a great case study teeming with transience, cross purposes and disarray. And this landscape offers a great opportunity for developing new solutions on how to reduce this chaos.
那么我们该怎么做? 在很多城市,交通 已经足够混乱了, 我们不需要更多的混乱。 但21世纪的街道是 一个很好的充满了 转瞬即逝,交叉目的 和混乱的研究案例。 并且这个场景提供了很好的机会 去开发新的解决方案 来减少这种混乱。
I have conceived a new approach that tries to reduce the chaos by introducing harmony. Since many people don't know how an electric car could sound like, I have to define, first of all, a new sound world, something that doesn't belong to our previous experience but creates a reference for the future. Together with a small team, we create lots of sonic textures that are able to transmit emotion. Just like a painter with colors, we are able to connect feelings and frequencies so that whenever one is approaching a car, we can feel an emotion which, besides fulfilling the legal requirements, speaks also about the character and the identity of the car.
我构思了一个新的方法, 试图通过引入和谐 来减少混乱。 因为很多人不知道 电动车听起来什么样, 首先,我得去定义 一个新的声音世界, 这种不属于我们先前的体验, 但为未来提供一个参考的东西。 通过与一个小团队的合作, 我们创造了许多 能够传递情感的声音纹理。 就像画家的色彩一样, 我们能够链接感觉和频率, 这样当车驶近某个人时, 我们可以感到情感, 这,除了满足法律要求外, 也传达了这辆汽车的 性格和身份。
I call this paradigm "sound genetics." With sound genetics, I define, first of all, an aesthetic space of sound, and at the same time, I search for new, innovative methods for generating soundscapes that we don't know, soundscapes that allow us to envision abstract worlds, to make them tangible and audible. Sound genetics is based on three steps. The first one is the definition of a sonic organism, the second one is a description of sonic variations, and the third one is the composition of sound genes. The description of a sonic organism is based on a cluster of properties that every sound that I compose should have.
我这个范式称为“声音基因”。 通过声音基因学,我首先 定义了声音的审美空间, 同时,我寻找新的,创新的方法 来生产我们不知道的声音场景, 声音场景能让我们 抽象世界的音景, 让它们摸得着,看得见。 声音基因基于三个步骤。 第一个是声音有机体的定义, 第二个是声音变化的描述, 第三个是声音基因的组成。 对声音有机体的描述 是基于我所创作的 每一个声音都应该 具有的一组特性。
[Sound is moving.]
[移动的声音]
I transfer to a small sound entity, such as the sound of a car, the power of the motion of music, so that sound can move so.
我把声音转换成一个小实体, 比如汽车的声音, 音乐运动的力量, 所以声音可以这样移动。
[Sound is acting.]
[声音是运动]
And just like a dancer on a stage, sound will project trajectories of sound in the air.
跟舞台上的舞者一样, 声音会在空气中 投射出声音的轨迹。
[Sound is memory.]
[声音是记忆]
And it's not just about the sound of a car. It's the memory of my father coming back home.
声音不仅是汽车的声音。 它也是我父亲到家的回忆。
[Sound is hypnotizing.]
[声音是催眠]
And sound has the power to create an unexpected sense of wonder, which hypnotizes. And ultimately,
声音能够创造意外的惊奇感, 使人昏昏欲睡。 并且最终,
[Sound is superhuman.]
[声音是超人]
sound goes beyond the human condition, because it allows us to transcend. As a second step, we define the sonic variations.
声音超越了人类状态, 因为它能让我们超越。 第二步,我们定义了声音的变化。
[Identity prism]
[身份棱镜]
Just like humans, where different bodies generate different voices, also different car shapes have a different acoustic behavior which depends on the geometry and the materials. So we have to know, first of all, how this car propagates the sound outside by means of acoustic measurements. And just like a single voice is able to produce different tones and timbres, at the same time, we produce different sonic variations within a space of eight words that I defined. And some of them are, to me, really important, such as the concept of "visionary," of "elegance," of "dynamic," of "embracing." And once we have defined these two aspects, we have what I call the identity prism, which is something like the sonic identity card of a car.
就跟人类一样,不同的身体 产生不同的声音, 不同的汽车外形 也有不同的声学行为, 这取决于几何和材料。 所以我们必须知道,首先, 这辆车是如何通过声学特性 把声音传播出去的。 就像一个单一的声音可以 产生不同的音调和音高, 同时,在我定义的8个空间内, 我们制作了不同的声音变化。 其中有一些,对我而言,非常重要, 比如“远见” “优雅”、“动感”、“拥抱”的概念。 一旦我们定义了这两个方面, 我们就有了我们所说的声音棱镜, 这有点像汽车的声波身份证。
And as a third step, we enter the world of the sound design, where the sound genes are composed and a new archetype is conceived. Now let me show you another example of how I transform a sound field into a melody.
作为第三步,我们进入了 声音设计的世界, 在这里,声音基因被合成, 一个新的原型被制造出来。 现在让我给你们看另一个例子 我是如何把声场转换成旋律的。
Think that I am a violin player on stage. If I would start to play the violin, I would generate a sound field which would propagate in this hall, and at some point, the sound field would hit the side walls and would be scattered all over the place. And this is how it looked like. Some time ago, I captured several ways of sound to hit side walls. And last year, I was asked by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to compose ringtones that they were going to play. So one of them, I had the idea to start from this sound field. I took a section, I superimposed the section over the distribution of the musicians onstage, and then I followed the blooming of the sound field by means of three parameters: time, intensity and frequency. Then I wrote down all the gradients for each instrument, and as you can see, for instance, the piece will start with the string section playing very softly, and then it's going to have a crescendo as the brasses, the woods will jump in, and the melody will end with a harp and a piano playing on the highest range.
把我想象成舞台上的小提琴手。 如果我开始拉小提琴, 我会产生一个声场, 在这个大厅里传播, 在某种程度上, 这个声场会撞到侧壁, 散落到各处。 这就是它的样子。 前段时间,我捕捉到了几种声音 撞击侧壁的方式。 去年,我被巴伐利亚 广播交响乐团邀请 来创作他们要演奏的铃声。 其中一个,我有个想法 从这个声场开始。 我选取了一个部分, 我把它叠加在舞台上 音乐家的分布上, 然后通过三个参数跟踪 声场的绽放: 时间,响度和频率。 然后我写下了每个声音的梯度, 你们可以看到,例如, 这首曲子将以弦乐部分的 轻柔演奏开始, 然后随着铜管乐器的演奏, 木管乐器也会加入进来, 然后旋律将以竖琴和钢琴 在最高音域演奏结束。
Let's listen how it sounded like.
让我们听听这个声音的样子。
(Ethereal music)
[纯音乐]
(Music ends)
[音乐结束]
So this is the sound of my alarm clock, actually, in the morning.
所以这其实是我 早晨闹钟的声音。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And now let's go back to electric cars. And let's listen to the first example that I showed you.
现在让我们回到电动汽车。 让我们听听我为你们 展示的第一个例子。
(Hum)
[引擎音]
And now I would like to show you how a potential sound, based on the sound genetics for electric cars, could sound like.
现在我想向你们展示, 基于电动汽车 声音基因的的潜在 声音会是什么样。
(Ethereal music)
[纯音乐]
(Pitch rises with acceleration)
[音调随加速度增加]
Cars are a metaphor of time, distance and journey, of setting out and returning, of anticipation and adventure, but, at the same time, of intelligence and complexity, of human intuition and accomplishment. And the sound has to glorify all that.
汽车象征着时间、距离和旅程, 象征着出发和归来, 充满期待和冒险。 但同时,也是智力和复杂性, 是人类的直觉和成就。 声音必须颂扬这一切。
I see cars both as living creatures and as highly complex performative art installations. The sounds that we envision through sound genetics allow us not only to celebrate this complexity but also to make the world a more elegant and safe space.
我把汽车看作活的生物 也是高度复杂的表演艺术装置。 我们通过声音基因学想象的声音 让我们不仅可以庆祝这种复杂性 同时也让世界变得 更加优雅和安全。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)