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:很高興認識你,Tom 我想要問你一個問題 一個一直很困擾我的問題 自從我開始認識你的作品後 我發現在你的作品中一直有著某種 自然元素 與創意互相影響的呈現 以你看作品的眼光來看 自然與創意甚麼時候會出現平衡呢?
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.
TM:在我尋找的素材中 通常都是為了要解決一個問題 我腦中一直有一個疑惑 什麼樣的圓錐體可以聯繫著太陽與地球 如果你可以使他們連結在一起呢? 並且,這兩個星球大小與長度的比例應該如何 以及到達地球這端時這個錐體會是怎麼樣的樣子? 所以我往這方面思考並且做出了雕塑品 最後用青銅做出了成品 它大約有35公尺長 在太陽端直徑有4吋 接著以錐狀延伸約35公尺長 到了地球端直徑約1毫米 對我來說,光是看到它會長成什麼樣子 是非常有趣的事情 假如你可以踏出去,進入一個更大的空間 就像你是個太空人一樣 並且看到這兩個星球像是個物體一般 因為他們是如此親近的結合著 如果其中一個失去另一個那麼它就會毫無意義了
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:當你在思考這個問題時 是否有感覺到放鬆的時候? 並且,我在想當你在探討這些事情的時候 在這個問題上到底有多少的可能性可以開發?
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:唔,就像那邊那個用銀做成 磁性吸引力原理的作品 那是個經過數百次材料實驗 的結果 我在尋找一個可以使用最少與地表連結 並且漂浮的方法 所以我只做了一個栓繩 來支撐它
JH: Now is this electromagnetic here, or are these static?
JH:所以這是使用電磁學的還是固定的?
TS: Those are permanent magnets, yeah.
TS:它們是永久性磁石沒錯
JH: Because if the power went out, there would just be a big noise.
JH:因為如果它的磁力消失了當他掉下來會產生很大的聲音
TS: Yeah. It's really unsatisfactory having plug-in art.
TS:是阿 使用插電式的藝術實在令人非常不滿意
JH: I agree.
JH:我同意
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:電磁學作品是一種 地心引力與磁力的結合 所以這算是一種混合了影響周遭一切 的素材創作而成的結合 太陽光有著極大的活動範疇 並且擴張越過了星球 而地球有磁場可以保護我們免於太陽的力量 所以,其實在宇宙中 磁力有種非常巨大 並且隱形的結構 然而,有了鐘擺 它讓我明白了 這個構成磁力的 隱形的力量 我的雕塑作品 都非常的簡單 我嘗試著去使它們更精煉 變成一個很簡單的構造 但是在繪畫上它們變得非常的複雜 因為我認為 那個支持著它們的力量 是波浪似並且互相滲透貫穿 而且互相干擾的圖形
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:而且他們是無法預測的 我是指,儘管那些素材可以被計算出來,然而 當你一開始做的時候你並不知道你會往哪個方向走 所以以現在的進展來看 我想這不是你的第一個鐘擺吧
TS: No. (JH: No.)
TS:不 (JH:不)
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:我做的第一個是在1970年後期 而且我只有一個很簡單的圓錐體 有個一個小小的栓在它的底部 我把它丟進一個軌道 而且他只有一個顏色 當他到了中心的時候,顏料一直跑出來 所以我必須跑進裡面 我無法在外面遙控那個栓 所以這件事情告訴我,我需要一個遙控裝置 然後從那次之後我一直想著要有6個顏色 我有一點把它想成DNA的感覺 這些顏色,紅的藍的黃的 這些主要的顏色以及白色跟黑色 如果你把他們使用不同的合併方式放在一起 某方面來說就像是在畫畫 像是雜誌的顏色是如何被印出來的 並把它們放在一些條件下 使它們繞軌道運行 或是讓他們前後交替運動 或是用他們畫畫 接著這些驚人的事情就開始發生了
JH: It looks like we're loaded for bear here.
JH: 我們已經準備好要面對了
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:是阿,我叫我兒子 把兩片帆布 放在這裡 這是 Jack, Nick和Louie
JH: Thanks guys.
JH:謝謝你們
TS: So here are the --
TS: 所以這是....
JH: All right, I'll get out of the way here.
JH: 我應該要到這裡來
TS: I'm just going to throw this into an orbit and see if I can paint everybody's shoes in the front.
TS:我現在要將它隨著軌道推出去 我想想看看你們放在前面的腳會不會被上色
(Laughter)
(大笑)
JH: Whoa. That is ... ooh, nice.
JH:哇嗚,這真是.... 太好了
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:就像我 示範的這樣 那麼好玩 錯誤 是不可避免的 只要一層又一層 的覆蓋上去 就可以改變這幅畫 我讓它就這樣繞一兩個禮拜 在這段時間 我會再做另外一個 更高難度的 讓這一切 成為背景
JH: That's fantastic. So the valves at the bottom of those tubes there are like radio-controlled airplane valves.
這真是太棒了 所以在這個管子下面 有個像是無線電遙控飛機的閥
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:只要用這個遙控器 就可以控制他 可以讓它動的比較快或是讓他停止 你也可以就讓他打開 這些顏色 是從底部的中心點 出來的 你可以改變想要的顏色 你可以放顏料或放任何有顏色的東西 番茄醬也可以 什麼都可以放 沙子,粉 諸如此類的
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:你用了很多力學的原裡 像是動力,離心力 還有流體動力學 每一幅 漂亮的畫 都有被為記錄 稱為鐘擺理論 的物理事件
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:我只是想要做一個 簡單的標誌 就像那幅 兩個連在一起的波紋 右邊的那個波紋 先完成然後 左邊的波紋再上去 你可以從依些差距 看出先後順序 當我做第二個的時候 有點不安 因為這條藍色的線 沒有隨著軌道上去 但是他卻表現出了張力和重疊 這些左邊的線條疊在右邊的線條上 右邊的線條在左邊的線條下 變成了不一樣的平面 雖然對... 只是一個 滲透現象
JH: Two stars, or --
JH:兩個星星或...
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:對兩件事情 這只是一個干涉的圖樣,然而第三件事情就發生了 這是一個圖片 就像是兩個人遇到了 然後就結婚了 我覺得 疊紋原理很有趣 就像是這幅我在十年前 做的畫 看一看 上面第三個 這裡有些疊紋和滲透原理 像是無線電圖案 在所有畫作上 我從來沒有看過 像這樣的 一種無線電干擾圖樣 是無所不在的 以及在我們日常生活中是非常重要的
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: 那是文字的部分圖像 或是在我眼中所顯現的干擾圖樣? 我完成那個干擾圖樣了嗎?
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:那是真的畫 使他變真實 他真的是在那邊 如果我丟一個同心圓 或一個同心橢圓 他將會使 這些變成線狀 那些同心圓或同心橢圓會越來越靠近 這可以解釋重力如何運作 這有些事非常吸引人 有關於科學的正確性 我非常享受在其中 而且我喜歡我所看到的形狀 在科學的觀察 以及儀器 特別是天文學領域 以及它無邊無際的想法 它的規模 非常使我感到興趣
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.
我這幾年所專注的領域 有慢慢往生物學移動 當你非常靠近得看這些畫時 奇怪的事情發生了 它們看起來真像馬或是鳥 或者是鱷魚以及大象 有好多種東西同時出現 當你往裡面看時,他有點像在看雲 但他們有時很像模型且畫得很真實 然後有這些形式 那些我們不知道它們是什麼的東西 但他們同樣地很好解決 且複雜 所以我認為那些可以想像的將可以被預測 因為它們有能力 去做那些形式 就像我們熟悉的形式一樣 在生物學中 他也可以做另一種我們不熟悉的形式 且也許是某種形式 某人可以發現火星的地表下面 有湖泊 有魚在水裡游泳
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,讓我們祈禱吧 拜託,我想去那 你知道,那似乎 是在你生命中的某一階段 你也非常個人的 在這種比較的狀況下 有一種不和諧的來源 我提議一個電磁力量 那是種控制巴金森氏症的東西 而且他創造的力量 都是藝術家 誰現在在這 而且是一種你整個生命裡的弧形 這跟你的工作有關係嗎
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:結果證明是 這個裝置是一種手持式的裝置 因為我不必去擁有 一個精巧的馬達技術去做 我可以利用滑動來操作他 這是種行為的過程 我在尋找他並做結論 它需要更多紅色,也需要很多的藍色 它也需要不同的形狀 所以我創造出這些有創意的結論 而且可以執行它們 在一個非常簡單的方法之下 我的意思是,我得到了一些徵兆 我猜巴金森氏症是一種在近幾年不知不覺發現的症狀 但在某些特定的情況下,你可以看到一些徵兆 在我的例子裡 我的左手有劇烈的顫抖 我的左腿也是 我是左撇子,所以我可以畫畫 在我的創意裡 真的從小的畫作開始 現在已經有成千上萬個了 而且這是我的所想像的方式 我用一隻簡單的鉛筆畫 一開始,巴金森氏症患者 是非常不開心的 因為我不行讓鉛筆靜止不動
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:所以你不是這些力量的把關人 你不必把你自己想像成這種力量的專家 你把你自己想像成是一個公僕
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:自然是--好吧,那是個天賜之物 它有很多東西在那裏面 並且我認為自然 想要表達他自己 在我們都是自然的那種感覺下 人類是在宇宙之中的 宇宙它在我們的心裡 而且我們的心靈是在宇宙中的 我們是表達 基本上在宇宙中 像人類一樣 最後的將成為宇宙的一部分 我們是一種發言人 或是一種觀察員 全體選民的 在宇宙中 且要聯繫它 藉由一種裝置使得這些力量 可以在任何地方出現 行動或是顯示什麼可以做 給它們一些顏料和畫就像一個藝術家一樣 是個很好的夥伴 這是種嚇人的工作室助手
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:很好,我喜歡這個想法 何時何地我曾想過這個想法 藉由精確的行動以及控制 以及擁有傳統的技能 你的手所擁有的 某種自然力的來源被揭發 並且這是非常美麗的 非常謝謝你Tom,今天的談話非常的愉快
TS: Thank you, John.
TS:John,謝謝你
(Applause)
(掌聲)