John Hockenberry: It's great to be here with you, Tom. And I want to start with a question that has just been consuming me since I first became familiar with your work. In you work there's always this kind of hybrid quality of a natural force in some sort of interplay with creative force. Are they ever in equilibrium in the way that you see your work?
John Hockenberry: Super je biti ovdje s tobom Tom. I želim započeti s pitanjem koje me prožimalo otkad sam se prvi put upoznao s tvojim radom. U tvom radu postoji uvijek ta neka vrsta hibridne kvalitete prirodne sile u nekoj vrsti međuigre s kreativnom silom. Jesu li one ikada u ravnoteži na način na koji ti vidiš svoj rad?
Tom Shannon: Yeah, the subject matter that I'm looking for, it's usually to solve a question. I had the question popped into my head: What does the cone that connects the sun and the Earth look like if you could connect the two spheres? And in proportion, what would the size of the sphere and the length, and what would the taper be to the Earth? And so I went about and made that sculpture, turning it out of solid bronze. And I did one that was about 35 feet long. The sun end was about four inches in diameter, and then it tapered over about 35 feet to about a millimeter at the Earth end. And so for me, it was really exciting just to see what it looks like if you could step outside and into a larger context, as though you were an astronaut, and see these two things as an object, because they are so intimately bound, and one is meaningless without the other.
Tom Shannon: Tema koju ja tražim je obično vezana uz rješavanje pitanja. Sinulo mi je pitanje u glavu kako stožac koji povezuje sunce i zemlju izgleda kada spojite dvije sfere? I u proporciji, kako bi veličina sfere i dužina, i što bi bio šiljak okrenut prema zemlji? I stoga sam se pozabavio time i izradio ovu skulpturu, od čiste bronce. I izradio sam jednu koja je bila oko 11 metara dugačka. Kraj kod sunca je bio oko 10 centimetara u promjeru, a šiljak je bio preko 11 metara do oko milimetar na zemljinom kraju. I tako je za mene, bilo je uistinu uzbudljivo samo vidjeti kako izgleda kada biste mogli iskoračiti u veći kontekst, kao da ste astronaut, i vidjeti te dvije stvari kao predmet, jer su tako intimno povezane. Jedan bez drugog nemaju smisla.
JH: Is there a relief in playing with these forces? And I'm wondering how much of a sense of discovery there is in playing with these forces.
JH: Postoji li olakšanje u igranju s tim silama? I pitam se koliko smislenog otkrića ima u igranju s tim silama.
TS: Well, like the magnetically levitated objects -- like that silver one there, that was the result of hundreds of experiments with magnets, trying to find a way to make something float with the least possible connection to the ground. So I got it down to just one tether to be able to support that.
TS: Pa, poput magnetsko levitirajućih predmeta poput onog srebrnog tamo. To je bio rezultat stotina pokusa s magnetima, pokušavajući naći način da nešto pluta s najmanjom mogućom povezanosti s tlom. Stoga sam uspio to smanjiti na samo jedan konopac koji će to podupirati.
JH: Now is this electromagnetic here, or are these static?
JH: Sada je li ovo ovdje elektromagnetsko ili su one statičke?
TS: Those are permanent magnets, yeah.
TS: To su trajni magneti, da.
JH: Because if the power went out, there would just be a big noise.
JH: Jer kada bi struje nestalo, ostala bi samo velika buka.
TS: Yeah. It's really unsatisfactory having plug-in art.
TS: Da. Doista je nezadovoljavajuće imati umjetnost koja se ušteka.
JH: I agree.
JH: Slažem se.
TS: The magnetic works are a combination of gravity and magnetism, so it's a kind of mixture of these ambient forces that influence everything. The sun has a tremendous field that extends way beyond the planets and the Earth's magnetic field protects us from the sun. So there's this huge invisible shape structures that magnetism takes in the universe. But with the pendulum, it allows me to manifest these invisible forces that are holding the magnets up. My sculptures are normally very simplified. I try to refine them down to very simple forms. But the paintings become very complex, because I think the fields that are supporting them, they're billowing, and they're interpenetrating, and they're interference patterns.
TS: Magnetsko djelovanje je kombinacija gravitacije i magnetizma, stoga je to neka vrsta tih ambijentalnih slika koje utječu na sve. Sunce ima ogromno polje koje se proteže daleko iza planeta. A zemljino magnetsko polje nas štiti od sunca. Stoga postoje tu te ogromne nevidljive strukture oblikovanja koje magnetizam nosi u svemir. Ali s njihalom, dozvoljava mi odraziti te nevidljive sile koje drže magnete u zraku. Moje skulpture su normalno veoma pojednostavljene. Pokušavam ih pročititi na vrlo jednostavne oblike. Ali slike postaju jako kompleksne, jer mislim kako polja koja ih podržavaju, stvaraju valove i interpenetriraju, i ona su uzorci smetnji.
JH: And they're non-deterministic. I mean, you don't know necessarily where you're headed when you begin, even though the forces can be calculated. So the evolution of this -- I gather this isn't your first pendulum.
JH: I one su nedeterminističke. Mislim, ne znaš nužno kuda ideš kada počneš, čak i ako se sile mogu izračunati. Stoga evolucija ovoga -- pretpostavljam kako ovo nije tvoje prvo njihalo.
TS: No. (JH: No.)
TS: Ne. (JH: Ne.)
TS: The first one I did was in the late 70's, and I just had a simple cone with a spigot at the bottom of it. I threw it into an orbit, and it only had one color, and when it got to the center, the paint kept running out, so I had to run in there, didn't have any control over the spigot remotely. So that told me right away: I need a remote control device. But then I started dreaming of having six colors. I sort of think about it as the DNA -- these colors, the red, blue, yellow, the primary colors and white and black. And if you put them together in different combinations -- just like printing in a sense, like how a magazine color is printed -- and put them under certain forces, which is orbiting them or passing them back and forth or drawing with them, these amazing things started appearing.
TS: Prvo koje sam napravio je bilo kasnih 70-ih, i imao sam samo jednostavan stožac sa čepom na kraju. Bacio sam ga u orbitu, i imalo je samo jednu boju, i kada sam ga donio u centar, boja je silazila dolje, stoga sam ga morao tamo koristiti, nisam imao nikakvu kontrolu nad čepom. Stoga mi je to odmah reklo kako trebam uređaj za daljinsku kontrolu. Ali onda sam počeo sanjati o šest boja. Na neki način mislim o tome kao DNK -- te boje, crvena, plava, žuta, primarne boje i bijela i crna. I ako ih stavite zajedno u različitim kombinacijama -- na neki način poput printanja, kao što je boja u časopisu isprintana -- i stavim ih pod djelovanje određenih sila, što znači njihovo orbitiranje ili njihovo premještanje naprijed i natrag ili crtanje s njima, te čudnovate stvari su se počele pojavljivati.
JH: It looks like we're loaded for bear here.
JH: Čini se kao da se ovdje pripremamo za sezonu lova na medvjede.
TS: Yeah, well let's put a couple of canvases. I'll ask a couple of my sons to set up the canvases here. I want to just say -- so this is Jack, Nick and Louie.
TS: Da, pa stavimo nekoliko platna. Zamolit ću par mojih sinova kako bi posložili ovdje platna. Reći ću samo kako -- dakle, to su Jack, Nick i Louie.
JH: Thanks guys.
JH: Hvala momci.
TS: So here are the --
TS: Dakle, ovdje su --
JH: All right, I'll get out of the way here.
JH: U redu. Maknut ću se s puta.
TS: I'm just going to throw this into an orbit and see if I can paint everybody's shoes in the front.
TS: Samo ću baciti ovo u orbitu i vidjeti mogu li naslikati svačije cipele sprijeda.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
JH: Whoa. That is ... ooh, nice.
JH: Wow. Ovo je ... Ooh. Lijepo.
TS: So something like this. I'm doing this as a demo, and it's more playful, but inevitably, all of this can be used. I can redeem this painting, just continuing on, doing layers upon layers. And I keep it around for a couple of weeks, and I'm contemplating it, and I'll do another session with it and bring it up to another level, where all of this becomes the background, the depth of it.
TS: Dakle, nešto poput ovoga. Radim ovo kao demonstraciju, i više je zaigrano. Ali neizbježno, sve ovo se može iskoristiti. Mogu ispuniti ovu sliku, samo nastavljati stavljati sloj na sloj. I držim to okolo na par tjedana. I kontempliram, i napraviti ću još jednu seriju s time i dovesti na iduću razinu, gdje sve to postaje pozadina, dubina svega toga.
JH: That's fantastic. So the valves at the bottom of those tubes there are like radio-controlled airplane valves.
JH: To je fantastično. Stoga su ventili na krajevima cijevi ovdje poput radio kontroliranih avionskih ventila.
TS: Yes, they're servos with cams that pinch these rubber tubes. And they can pinch them very tight and stop it, or you can have them wide open. And all of the colors come out one central port at the bottom. You can always be changing colors, put aluminum paint, or I could put anything into this. It could be tomato sauce, or anything could be dispensed -- sand, powders or anything like that.
TS: Da, to su servi s kamerama koji prikliješte te gumene cijevi. I mogu ih prikliještiti vrlo čvrsto i zaustaviti ih, ili ih mogu širom otvoriti. A sve boje izađu van iz jednog središnjeg otvora na dnu. Uvijek možete mijenjati boje, staviti aluminijsku boju, ili mogu staviti bilo što u to. Može biti umak od rajčice, ili bilo što može biti upotrijebljeno -- pijesak, prah, bilo što poput toga.
JH: So many forces there. You've got gravity, you've got the centrifugal force, you've got the fluid dynamics. Each of these beautiful paintings, are they images in and of themselves, or are they records of a physical event called the pendulum approaching the canvas?
JH: Toliko mnogo sila je ovdje. Imate gravitacijsku, imate centrifugalnu silu, imate fluidnu dinamiku. Svaka od tih prekrasnih slika, je svoja iznutra ili je snimka fizičkog događaja zvana njihalo koje se približava platnu?
TS: Well, this painting here, I wanted to do something very simple, a simple, iconic image of two ripples interfering. So the one on the right was done first, and then the one on the left was done over it. And then I left gaps so you could see the one that was done before. And then when I did the second one, it really disturbed the piece -- these big blue lines crashing through the center of it -- and so it created a kind of tension and an overlap. There are lines in front of the one on the right, and there are lines behind the one on the left, and so it takes it into different planes. What it's also about, just the little events, the events of the interpenetration of --
TS: Pa, ova slika ovdje, htio sam učiniti nešto jako jednostavno, jednostavnu, ikonsku sliku dva žubora koja se isprepliću. Dakle, onaj s desne je prvi napravljen, a zatim je onaj s lijeve strane napravljen preko njega. I zatim sam ostavio praznine tako da možete vidjeti onaj koji je napravljen prije. A zatim kada sam napravio drugi, doista je poremetio mir -- te velike plave linije koje udaraju kroz centar toga. I stoga je to kreiralo neku vrstu napetosti i preklapanja. Tamo su linije ispred onoga s desne strane, i tamo su linije iza onoga s lijeve strane. I stoga ih nosi u različita područja. Ono o čemu se radi, samo mali događaji, događaji koji interpretiraju --
JH: Two stars, or --
JH: Dvije zvijezde, ili --
TS: Two things that happened -- there's an interference pattern, and then a third thing happens. There are shapes that come about just by the marriage of two events that are happening, and I'm very interested in that. Like the occurrence of moire patterns. Like this green one, this is a painting I did about 10 years ago, but it has some -- see, in the upper third -- there are these moires and interference patterns that are radio kind of imagery. And that's something that in painting I've never seen done. I've never seen a representation of a kind of radio interference patterns, which are so ubiquitous and such an important part of our lives.
TS: Dvije stvari koje su se dogodile, postoji uzorak preklapanja i zatim se treća stvar dogodi. Postoje oblici koji dolaze samo do braka dva događaja koji se događaju. I to me jako interesira. Poput ponavljanja uzoraka mramornih oblika. Poput ove zelene, ovo je slika koju sam napravio prije 10 godina. Ali ima neke -- vidite, u gornjoj trećini -- postoje ti mramorasti oblici i uzorci preplitanja koji su vrsta radio zamišljanja. A to je nešto u slikarstvu što nikada nisam vidio. Nikada nisam vidio prikaz neke vrste uzoraka radio preplitanja, koji su toliko sveprisutni i toliko važni dijelovi naših života.
JH: Is that a literal part of the image, or is my eye making that interference pattern -- is my eye completing that interference pattern?
JH: Je li to doslovni dio slike, ili se u mojim očima stvara uzorak preplitanja? Dovršavam li ja taj uzorak preplitanja?
TS: It is the paint actually, makes it real. It's really manifested there. If I throw a very concentric circle, or concentric ellipse, it just dutifully makes these evenly spaced lines, which get closer and closer together, which describes how gravity works. There's something very appealing about the exactitude of science that I really enjoy. And I love the shapes that I see in scientific observations and apparatus, especially astronomical forms and the idea of the vastness of it, the scale, is very interesting to me.
TS: Slika je zapravo, čini stvarnom. To je uistinu prikazano ovdje. Ukoliko ubacim jako koncentričan krug, ili koncentričnu elipsu, samo poslušno napravi te jednako razmaknute linije, koje se sve više približavaju, što objašnjava kako gravitacija funkcionira. Postoji nešto vrlo privlačno o točnosti znanosti u kojoj doista uživam. I volim oblike koje vidim u znanstvenim opažanjima i aparatima, naročito astronomske forme i ideju o prostornosti iste, ljestvica, mi je jako zanimljiva.
My focus in recent years has kind of shifted more toward biology. Some of these paintings, when you look at them very close, odd things appear that really look like horses or birds or crocodiles, elephants. There are lots of things that appear. When you look into it, it's sort of like looking at cloud patterns, but sometimes they're very modeled and highly rendered. And then there are all these forms that we don't know what they are, but they're equally well-resolved and complex. So I think, conceivably, those could be predictive. Because since it has the ability to make forms that look like forms that we're familiar with in biology, it's also making other forms that we're not familiar with. And maybe it's the kind of forms we'll discover underneath the surface of Mars, where there are probably lakes with fish swimming under the surface.
Moj fokus se s godinama više nagnuo prema biologiji. Neke od tih slika, kada ih pogledate iz neposredne blizine, čudne stvari se pojave koje doista izgledaju poput konja ili ptica ili krokodila, slonova. Ima puno stvari koje se pojavljuju. Kada pogledate u njih, to je nešto nalik na uzorak oblaka, ali ponekad su jako modelirani i imaju visoku rezoluciju. I zatim su tu svi ti oblici za koje ne znamo što su, ali oni su jednako tako dobro riješeni i kompleksni. Stoga mislim, jako smisleno, oni se mogu predvidjeti. Jer kako ima mogućnost poprimanja oblika koji izgledaju poput oblika s kojima smo mi upoznati u biologiji, isto tako poprimaju druge oblike s kojima nismo upoznati. I možda će neke vrste oblika netko otkriti ispod površine Marsa, gdje se vjerojatno nalaze jezera s ribama koje plivaju ispod površine.
JH: Oh, let's hope so. Oh, my God, let's. Oh, please, yes. Oh, I'm so there. You know, it seems at this stage in your life, you also very personally are in this state of confrontation with a sort of dissonant -- I suppose it's an electromagnetic force that somehow governs your Parkinson's and this creative force that is both the artist who is in the here and now and this sort of arc of your whole life. Is that relevant to your work?
JH: Oh, nadajmo se. O, moj Bože, da bar. O, molim te, da. O, toliko sam u tome. Znate, čini se u ovoj fazi vašeg života, vi ste isto jako osobno u tom stanju konfrontacije s nekom vrstom disonancije -- pretpostavljam kako je to elektromagnetska sila koja nekako vlada Parkinsonovom i ta kreativna sila koja je i umjetnik koji je ovdje i sada i taj cijeli luk vašeg života. Je li to važno za vaš rad?
TS: As it turns out, this device kind of comes in handy, because I don't have to have the fine motor skills to do, that I can operate slides, which is more of a mental process. I'm looking at it and making decisions: It needs more red, it needs more blue, it needs a different shape. And so I make these creative decisions and can execute them in a much, much simpler way. I mean, I've got the symptoms. I guess Parkinson's kind of creeps up over the years, but at a certain point you start seeing the symptoms. In my case, my left hand has a significant tremor and my left leg also. I'm left-handed, and so I draw. All my creations really start on small drawings, which I have thousands of, and it's my way of just thinking. I draw with a simple pencil, and at first, the Parkinson's was really upsetting, because I couldn't get the pencil to stand still.
TS: Ispostavlja se, ta naprava je prilično priručna, jer ne moram imati dobre motoričke vještine kako bih radio, da mogu upravljati slajdovima, što je više mentalni proces. Gledam u to i donosim odluke. Potrebno je više crvene, potrebno je više plave, potreban je drugačiji oblik. I stoga donosim te kreativne odluke i izvršavam ih na bitno, bitno jednostavniji način. Mislim, imam simptome. Nagađam kako se Parkinsonova nekako potkrade tijekom godina, ali u određenoj točki počnete vidjeti simptome. U mom slučaju, moja lijeva ruka ima poprilično podrhtavanje kao i moja lijeva noga. Lijevoruk sam i mislim da je to zato. Sve moje kreacije zapravo počinju na malim crtežima, kojih imam na tisuće. I to je moj način samo razmišljanja. Crtam s običnom olovkom. I isprva, Parkinsonova me doista uznemirila jer nisam mogao držati mirno olovku.
JH: So you're not a gatekeeper for these forces. You don't think of yourself as the master of these forces. You think of yourself as the servant.
JH: Dakle, vi niste čuvar tih sila. Ne razmišljate o sebi kao o majstoru tih sila. Razmišljate o sebi kao o sluzi.
TS: Nature is -- well, it's a godsend. It just has so much in it. And I think nature wants to express itself in the sense that we are nature, humans are of the universe. The universe is in our mind, and our minds are in the universe. And we are expressions of the universe, basically. As humans, ultimately being part of the universe, we're kind of the spokespeople or the observer part of the constituency of the universe. And to interface with it, with a device that lets these forces that are everywhere act and show what they can do, giving them pigment and paint just like an artist, it's a good ally. It's a terrific studio assistant.
TS: Priroda je -- pa, to je Bogom dano. Toliko je toga u tome. I mislim kako se priroda želi izraziti na način da smo mi priroda, ljudi su dio svemira. Svemir je u našem umu, a naši umovi su u svemiru. A mi smo ekspresije svemira, u osnovi. Kao ljudi, ultimativno kao dio svemira, mi smo na neki način zagovornici ili promatrački dio izborne jedinice svemira. A da bismo komunicirali s njime, s napravom koja dopušta tim silama koje su posvuda da djeluju i pokažu što mogu učiniti, dajući im pigment i boju baš poput umjetnika, to je dobar saveznik. To je odličan asistent u studiju.
JH: Well, I love the idea that somewhere within this idea of fine motion and control with the traditional skills that you have with your hand, some sort of more elemental force gets revealed, and that's the beauty here. Tom, thank you so much. It's been really, really great.
JH: Pa, sviđa mi se ideja kako negdje unutar te ideje glatke kretnje i kotrole s tradicionalnim vještinama koje imate sa svojom rukom, neka vrsta više elementarne sile bude otkrivena a to je ovdje ljepota. Tom, puno ti hvala. Bilo je stvarno, stvarno odlično.
TS: Thank you, John.
TS: Hvala ti, John.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)