I was asked to come here and speak about creation. And I only have 15 minutes, and I see they're counting already. And I can -- in 15 minutes, I think I can touch only a very rather janitorial branch of creation, which I call "creativity." Creativity is how we cope with creation. While creation sometimes seems a bit un-graspable, or even pointless, creativity is always meaningful. See, for instance, in this picture. You know, creation is what put that dog in that picture, and creativity is what makes us see a chicken on his hindquarters.
Pozvali su me da pričam o stvaranju. Imam samo 15 minuta, a vidim da sat već otkucava. Mislim da u 15 minuta mogu samo da zagrebem priču o čuvaru stvaranja, a to je "kreativnost". Kreativnost je način na koji se nosimo sa stvaranjem. Stvaranje može ponekad biti neshvatljivo, besmisleno, kreativnost uvek nosi smisao u sebi. Na primer, pogledajte ovu sliku. Znate, stvaralaštvo je ono što je postavilo psa u kadar, ali kreativnost vam pruža sliku kokoške na zadnjim nogama.
When you think about -- you know, creativity has a lot to do with causality too. You know, when I was a teenager, I was a creator. I just did things. Then I became an adult and started knowing who I was, and tried to maintain that persona -- I became creative. It wasn't until I actually did a book and a retrospective exhibition, that I could track exactly -- looks like all the craziest things that I had done, all my drinking, all my parties -- they followed a straight line that brings me to the point that actually I'm talking to you at this moment. Though it's actually true, you know, the reason I'm talking to you right now is because I was born in Brazil. If I was born in Monterey, probably would be in Brazil.
Kada razmislite malo, uvidite da kreativnost ima puno veze sa uzročnim vezama. Kada sam bio tinejdžer, bio sam stvaralac. Samo sam radio razne stvari. Potom sam odrastao i počeo da uviđam ko sam i pokušao sam da održim tu ličnost - postao sam kreativan. Nisam to shvatio dok nisam napisao knjigu i napravio retrospektivnu izložbu, tada sam uočio da sve te naizgled lude stvari koje sam činio u životu, opijanja, zabave, sve me je to vodilo pravo ka ovome, da sada održim predavanje. U principu, razlog što ovde govorim pred vama je što sam rođen u Brazilu. Da sam rođen u Montereju, verovatno bih sada bio u Brazilu.
You know, I was born in Brazil and grew up in the '70s under a climate of political distress, and I was forced to learn to communicate in a very specific way -- in a sort of a semiotic black market. You couldn't really say what you wanted to say; you had to invent ways of doing it. You didn't trust information very much. That led me to another step of why I'm here today, is because I really liked media of all kinds. I was a media junkie, and eventually got involved with advertising. My first job in Brazil was actually to develop a way to improve the readability of billboards, and based on speed, angle of approach and actually blocks of text. It was very -- actually, it was a very good study, and got me a job in an ad agency. And they also decided that I had to -- to give me a very ugly Plexiglas trophy for it.
Rođen sam u Brazilu i odrastao sam u '70-im u toku nemirnog političkog perioda i morao sam da naučim da se izražavam na veoma poseban način -- koristeći metafore crnog tržišta. Niste baš mogli da kažete ono što želite, trebalo je da izumete načine da to uradite. Niste puno verovali informacijama. To me je dovelo korak bliže ka onome zbog čega sam danas ovde, a to je moja pasija prema svim vrstama medija. Bio sam zavisan od medija i na kraju sam se obreo u reklamama. Na svom prvom poslu u Brazilu sam imao zadatak da poboljšam čitljivost bilborda na osnovu brzine kretanja, ugla posmatranja i osobina ispisanog teksta. To je ustvari bila veoma dobra studija na osnovu koje sam dobio posao u agenciji za reklame. Takođe su odlučili da treba da mi dodele ružnjikav pehar od pleksiglasa.
And another point -- why I'm here -- is that the day I went to pick up the Plexiglas trophy, I rented a tuxedo for the first time in my life, picked the thing -- didn't have any friends. On my way out, I had to break a fight apart. Somebody was hitting somebody else with brass knuckles. They were in tuxedos, and fighting. It was very ugly. And also -- advertising people do that all the time -- (Laughter) -- and I -- well, what happened is when I went back, it was on the way back to my car, the guy who got hit decided to grab a gun -- I don't know why he had a gun -- and shoot the first person he decided to be his aggressor. The first person was wearing a black tie, a tuxedo. It was me. Luckily, it wasn't fatal, as you can all see. And, even more luckily, the guy said that he was sorry and I bribed him for compensation money, otherwise I press charges. And that's how -- with this money I paid for a ticket to come to the United States in 1983, and that's very -- the basic reason I'm talking to you here today: because I got shot. (Laughter) (Applause)
Drugi uzrok koji me dovodi ovde, je skriven u danu kada sam otišao po trofej, tada sam po prvi put iznajmio smoking, pokupio sam trofej, nisam imao prijatelje. Kada sam izlazio, morao sam da rastavim tuču. Jedan čovek je udarao drugog bokserom. Bili su u smokinzima i tukli su se. Bilo je gadno. Ljudi u marketingu rade to sve vreme -- (smeh) -- sledeća scena se dešava na putu ka mojim kolima; čovek koga su tukli je potegao pištolj, ne znam zašto je nosio pištolj -- i upucao prvu osobu za koju je odlučio da ga je napala. A ta prva osoba je nosila crnu kravatu i smoking. To sam bio ja. Na sreću, to nije bio fatalan hitac, kao što vidite. Na još veću sreću, tipu je bilo žao a ja sam ga ucenio da mi da novac da ne bih pokrenuo optužbu. Tim parama sam platio kartu do Sjedinjenih Država 1983. a to je suštinski razlog zašto sam ovde danas: bio sam upucan. (smeh) (aplauz)
Well, when I started working with my own work, I decided that I shouldn't do images. You know, I became -- I took this very iconoclastic approach. Because when I decided to go into advertising, I wanted to do -- I wanted to airbrush naked people on ice, for whiskey commercials, that's what I really wanted to do. (Laughter) But I -- they didn't let me do it, so I just -- you know, they would only let me do other things. But I wasn't into selling whiskey; I was into selling ice. The first works were actually objects. It was kind of a mixture of found object, product design and advertising. And I called them relics. They were displayed first at Stux Gallery in 1983.
Kada sam počeo da se bavim svojim radom, odlučio sam da ne pravim slike. Znate, imao sam poprilično buntovnički pristup. Kada sam odlučio da se bavim reklamiranjem, želeo sam da -- želeo sam da slikam gole ljude na ledu, kako bih reklamirao viski, to je zaista ono što sam želeo. (Smeh) Ali mi nisu dozvolili da to radim, znate, hteli su da radim druge stvari. Nije me zanimalo da prodajem viski, hteo sam da prodajem led. Moja prva dela su predstavljala objekte. To je bila mešavina realnih objekata, dizajna i marketinga. Nazivam ih relikvijama. Prvi put su ta dela izložena 1983. u galeriji "Stux".
This is the clown skull. Is a remnant of a race of -- a very evolved race of entertainers. They lived in Brazil, long time ago. (Laughter) This is the Ashanti joystick. Unfortunately, it has become obsolete because it was designed for Atari platform. A Playstation II is in the works, maybe for the next TED I'll bring it. The rocking podium. (Laughter) This is the pre-Columbian coffeemaker. (Laughter) Actually, the idea came out of an argument that I had at Starbucks, that I insisted that I wasn't having Colombian coffee; the coffee was actually pre-Columbian. The Bonsai table. The entire Encyclopedia Britannica bound in a single volume, for travel purposes. And the half tombstone, for people who are not dead yet.
Ovo je lobanja klovna. Ovo su fosili jedne rase -- veoma napredne rase zabavljača. Pre mnogo godina su živeli u Brazilu. (smeh) Ovo je Ašanti džojstik. Na nesreću, zastareo je jer je dizajniran za platformu Atari. Plejstejšn II je u fazi razvoja, možda će biti spreman za sledeći TED. Ljuljajuće pobedničko postolje. (smeh) Ovo je mašina za kafu iz pre-kolumbijskog perioda. (smeh) Ustvari, ideju sam dobio u toku rasprave u "Strabaksu", kada sam tvrdio da ne pijem kafu iz Kolumbije, već iz pre-kolumbijskog perioda. Ovo je Bonsai sto. Potpuno izdanje enciklopedije Britanika u jednoj knjizi, zgodno za putovanja. Polovina grobnice, za one ljude koji još nisu umrli.
I wanted to take that into the realm of images, and I decided to make things that had the same identity conflicts. So I decided to do work with clouds. Because clouds can mean anything you want. But now I wanted to work in a very low-tech way, so something that would mean at the same time a lump of cotton, a cloud and Durer's praying hands -- although this looks a lot more like Mickey Mouse's praying hands. But I was still, you know -- this is a kitty cloud. They're called "Equivalents," after Alfred Stieglitz's work. "The Snail." But I was still working with sculpture, and I was really trying to go flatter and flatter. "The Teapot."
Želeo sam sve to da prenesem u carstvo slika, i želeo sam da stvaram stvari koje bi imale istu krizu identiteta. Tako sam odlučio da predstavljam oblake. Oblaci mogu značiti šta god poželite. Želeo sam da radim na tehnološki nesofisticiran način, želeo sam nešto što bi istovremeno predstavilo komad pamuka, oblak i Durerove ruke u molitvi -- iako ovo više liči na ruke Mikija Mausa u molitvi. I dalje sam bio, znate... ovo je oblak-mače. Naziv im je "Ekvivalenti", po delu Alfreda Štiglica. Puž. I dalje sam se bavio skulpturom, a želeo sam da radim u jednoj ravni. Čajnik.
I had a chance to go to Florence, in -- I think it was '94, and I saw Ghiberti's "Door of Paradise." And he did something that was very tricky. He put together two different media from different periods of time. First, he got an age-old way of making it, which was relief, and he worked this with three-point perspective, which was brand-new technology at the time. And it's totally overkill. And your eye doesn't know which level to read. And you become trapped into this kind of representation. So I decided to make these very simple renderings, that at first they are taken as a line drawing -- you know, something that's very -- and then I did it with wire. The idea was to -- because everybody overlooks white -- like pencil drawings, you know? And they would look at it -- "Ah, it's a pencil drawing." Then you have this double take and see that it's actually something that existed in time. It had a physicality, and you start going deeper and deeper into sort of narrative that goes this way, towards the image. So this is "Monkey with Leica." "Relaxation." "Fiat Lux."
Bio sam u prilici, misim '94., da odem u Firencu, i tada sam video Gibertijeva "Vrata raja". On je uradio nešto vrlo komplikovano. Iskombinovao je dva različita medijuma iz različitih vremenskih perioda. Pre svega, sa olakšanjem sam uvideo da je koristio staru tehniku praveći to delo, ali je istovremeno koristio najnoviju tehnologiju tog vremena, perspektivu tri tačke nedogleda. To je zaista preterano. Vaše oči se zbune, ne znaju koji sloj svega toga da posmatraju. Prosto budete zarobljeni u takvoj vrsti umetničkog predstavljanja. Odlučio sam da to predstavim jednostavnom tehnikom kreiranja, da ih na prvi pogled doživite kao crtež linija, znate, nešto što je veoma... ali sam to uradio sa žicom. Vođen sam bio idejom - jer svi previdimo belo - kao na crtežima olovkom, znate? Pogledali bi to i rekli: "Oh, crtež olovkom." A onda biste na drugi pogled uočili da je to nešto što zapravo postoji u vremenu. Poseduje entitet, onda zalazite dublje i dublje u jedan vid priče koja se razvija u ovom smeru, ka samoj slici. Ovo je "Majmun sa Leikom". Opuštanje. Neka bude svetla.
And the same way the history of representation evolved from line drawings to shaded drawings. And I wanted to deal with other subjects. I started taking that into the realm of landscape, which is something that's almost a picture of nothing. I made these pictures called "Pictures of Thread," and I named them after the amount of yards that I used to represent each picture. These always end up being a photograph at the end, or more like an etching in this case. So this is a lighthouse. This is "6,500 Yards," after Corot. "9,000 Yards," after Gerhard Richter. And I don't know how many yards, after John Constable.
Na isti način je to umetničko izražavanje evoluiralo od slikanja linijama do slikanja senčenjem. Želeo sam da se bavim i drugim pojmovima. Počeo sam to da prenosim u carstvo pejzaža, a to je nešto što je skoro pa slika ničega. Napravio sam ove slike koje zovem "Slike od konca", nazvao sam ih prema količini iskorišćenog materijala za svaku od slika. Na kraju od toga uvek ispadne fotografija ili nešto više nalik na gravuru u ovom slučaju. Ovo je svetionik. Ove je "5943,6 metara " po Korou. "8229,6 metara" po Gerhardu Rihteru. I ne znam koliko metara materijala, po Džonu Konstablu.
Departing from the lines, I decided to tackle the idea of points, like which is more similar to the type of representation that we find in photographs themselves. I had met a group of children in the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts, and I did work and play with them. I got some photographs from them. Upon my arrival in New York, I decided -- they were children of sugar plantation workers. And by manipulating sugar over a black paper, I made portraits of them. These are -- (Applause) -- Thank you. This is "Valentina, the Fastest." It was just the name of the child, with the little thing you get to know of somebody that you meet very briefly. "Valicia." "Jacynthe."
Udaljavajući se od linija, odlučio sam da se pozabavim tačkama, to je više nalik na vid predstavjanja slika na samim fotografijama. Na ostrvu Sveti Kits na Karibima sam upoznao grupu dece i igrao sam se i radio sa njima. Fotografisao sam neke od njih. Kada sam došao u Njujork shvatio sam da su to deca koja rade na plantažama šećera. Igrajući se šećerom na crnom papiru kao pozadini, pravio sam njihove portrete. Ovo su -- (aplauz). Hvala vam. Ovo je "Valentina, najbrža." To je samo ime deteta, povezano sa ono malo znanja koje imate o nekom koga površno upoznate. Valisija. Džakinte.
But another layer of representation was still introduced. Because I was doing this while I was making these pictures, I realized that I could add still another thing I was trying to make a subject -- something that would interfere with the themes, so chocolate is very good, because it has -- it brings to mind ideas that go from scatology to romance. And so I decided to make these pictures, and they were very large, so you had to walk away from it to be able to see them. So they're called "Pictures of Chocolate." Freud probably could explain chocolate better than I. He was the first subject. And Jackson Pollock also.
Još jedan sloj predstavljanja je uveden. S obzirom da sam pravio ove pokrete dok sam radio na slikama, shvatio sam da mogu da dodam još jednu stvar pokušavao sam da subjekt učinim -- trebalo mi je nešto što bi se mešalo sa temama, za to je čokolada veoma dobra, jer poseduje -- evocira razne ideje u glavi od skatologije do romanse. Odlučio sam da uradim ove slike i bile su prevelike, morate da se udaljite od njih kako biste ih videli. Njih sam nazvao "Slike od čokolade." Frojd bi verovatno fenomen čokolade objasnio bolje od mene. On je bio prvi subjekat. Kao i Džekson Polok.
Pictures of crowds are particularly interesting, because, you know, you go to that -- you try to figure out the threshold with something you can define very easily, like a face, goes into becoming just a texture. "Paparazzi." I used the dust at the Whitney Museum to render some pieces of their collection. And I picked minimalist pieces because they're about specificity. And you render this with the most non-specific material, which is dust itself. Like, you know, you have the skin particles of every single museum visitor. They do a DNA scan of this, they will come up with a great mailing list. This is Richard Serra.
Slike gužve su naročito zanimljive, jer, znate, kada pokušate to da uradite, pokušate da odredite granicu nečega što možete veoma lako definisati, kao što je lice i ono prosto postane deo teksture slike. Paparaci. Koristio sam prašinu Muzeja Vitni kako bih predstavio neka od dela iz njihove kolekcije. Odabrao sam ovde minimalistička dela jer poseduju specifičnost. A onda to predstavite uz pomoć najnespecifičnijeg materijala, uz pomoć prašine. Znate, to je kao da imate deliće kože od svakog posetioca muzeja. Ukoliko urade DNK analizu ovoga, imaće ogroman adresar. Ovo je Ričard Sera.
I bought a computer, and [they] told me it had millions of colors in it. You know an artist's first response to this is, who counted it? You know? And I realized that I never worked with color, because I had a hard time controlling the idea of single colors. But once they're applied to numeric structure, then you can feel more comfortable. So the first time I worked with colors was by making these mosaics of Pantone swatches. They end up being very large pictures, and I photographed with a very large camera -- an 8x10 camera. So you can see the surface of every single swatch -- like in this picture of Chuck Close. And you have to walk very far to be able to see it. Also, the reference to Gerhard Richter's use of color charts -- and the idea also entering another realm of representation that's very common to us today, which is the bit map. I ended up narrowing the subject to Monet's "Haystacks."
Kupio sam računar i rečeno mi je da ima milione boja. Znate li šta je prvi odgovor umetnika na to - ko ih je brojao? Znate? Shvatio sam da nikada nisam radio sa bojama jer mi je teško da kontrolišem ideju pojedinačnih boja. Kada to primenite na brojčane strukture, osećate se bolje, udobnije. Prvi put sam radio sa bojama kada sam pravio mozaik od Panton skale boja. Na kraju su to bile ogromne slike, fotografisao sam ih velikim foto-aparatom, veličine 8x10. Možete uočiti površinu svakog materijala, kao na ovoj slici Čaka Klouza. Morate se mnogo udaljiti od nje kako biste mogli da je vidite. Takođe, spomen na upotrebu skala boja, Gerharda Rihtera -- a ideja je prešla u novo carstvo predstavljanja umetnosti, koje je danas uobičajeno, a to je bit-mapa. Na kraju sam izabrao Moneove "Plastove sena."
This is something I used to do as a joke -- you know, make -- the same like -- Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" -- and then leaving traces, as if it was done on a tabletop. I tried to prove that he didn't do that thing in the Salt Lake. But then, just doing the models, I was trying to explore the relationship between the model and the original. And I felt that I would have to actually go there and make some earthworks myself. I opt for very simple line drawings -- kind of stupid looking.
Ovo sam radio kroz šalu, znate, napravio bih... ovo je "Spiralni Jeti" Roberta Smitsona, a onda bih ostavio tragove, kao da je to urađeno na stolu. Pokušao sam da dokažem da on ustvari nije uradio to u Solt Lejku. Ali baveći se modelom, trudio sam se da istražim vezu između modela i originala. Osetio sam da treba ustvari da odem tamo i sam napravim slike od same zemlje. Težio sam veoma jednostavnim crtežima linija -- malo luckasto to deluje.
And at the same time, I was doing these very large constructions, being 150 meters away. Now I would do very small ones, which would be like -- but under the same light, and I would show them together, so the viewer would have to really figure it out what one he was looking. I wasn't interested in the very large things, or in the small things. I was more interested in the things in between, you know, because you can leave an enormous range for ambiguity there. This is like you see -- the size of a person over there. This is a pipe. A hanger.
A istovremeno sam pravio ove velike skalamerije, na udaljenosti od 150 metara. Ali sam pod istim osvetljenjem stvarao i veoma male delove, a prezentovao bih ih zajedno, tako da posmatrač zaista mora da shvati koje delo posmatra. Nisam bio zainteresovan za veoma velike ili za male stvari. Bio sam zainteresovan za nešto između toga, jer na taj način oslobađate prostor za neodređenost u tome. Ovo je kao što vidite, veličina jedne osobe tamo. Ovo je lula. Vešalica.
And this is another thing that I did -- you know working -- everybody loves to watch somebody draw, but not many people have a chance to watch somebody draw in -- a lot of people at the same time, to evidence a single drawing. And I love this work, because I did these cartoonish clouds over Manhattan for a period of two months. And it was quite wonderful, because I had an interest -- an early interest -- in theater, that's justified on this thing. In theater, you have the character and the actor in the same place, trying to negotiate each other in front of an audience. And in this, you'd have like a -- something that looks like a cloud, and it is a cloud at the same time. So they're like perfect actors.
I ovo sam radio dok sam stvarao -- svako voli da posmatra nekoga ko crta, ali nema mnogo ljudi priliku da posmatra nekoga kako oslikava grupu ljudi istovremeno i tako doživi osećaj jednog crteža. Volim ovaj rad jer sam se bavio ovim oblacima iz crtaća nad Menhentnom skoro dva meseca. To je bilo veličanstveno, jer me je zanimalo pozorište, zanimalo me je od ranije, a to je opravdano na ovim radovima. U pozorištu gledate tu osobu i glumca istovremeno, koji međusobno pregovaraju pred publikom. A ovde imate nešto što liči na oblak, a istovremeno jeste oblak. To su savršeni glumci.
My interest in acting, especially bad acting, goes a long way. Actually, I once paid like 60 dollars to see a very great actor to do a version of "King Lear," and I felt really robbed, because by the time the actor started being King Lear, he stopped being the great actor that I had paid money to see. On the other hand, you know, I paid like three dollars, I think -- and I went to a warehouse in Queens to see a version of "Othello" by an amateur group. And it was quite fascinating, because you know the guy -- his name was Joey Grimaldi -- he impersonated the Moorish general -- you know, for the first three minutes he was really that general, and then he went back into plumber, he worked as a plumber, so -- plumber, general, plumber, general -- so for three dollars, I saw two tragedies for the price of one.
Ja sam već veoma dugo zainterosovan za glumu, a naročito za lošu glumu. Ustvari, jednom sam platio oko 60 dolara da bih video odličnog glumca u jednoj verziji "Kralja Lira", osećao sam se opljačkanim, jer u momentu kada je glumac postao kralj Lir, on više nije bio taj veliki glumac zbog kojeg sam platio kartu. Sa druge strane, platio sam, čini mi se, oko tri dolara za predstavu u skladištu u Kvinsu da bih video izvođenje drame "Otelo" od strane amaterske grupe. Bilo je fascinantno, jer taj tip, njegovo ime je Džoi Grimaldi, on se pretvara u generala naroda Berbera, znate, tokom prva tri minuta zaista je bio general, a onda je ponovo bio vodoinstalater, radio je kao vodoinstalater, tako da... vodoinstalater, general, vodoinstalater, general - tako da sam za tri dolara video dve tragedije po ceni jedne.
See, I think it's not really about impression, making people fall for a really perfect illusion, as much as it is to make -- I usually work at the lowest threshold of visual illusion. Because it's not about fooling somebody, it's actually giving somebody a measure of their own belief: how much you want to be fooled. That's why we pay to go to magic shows and things like that. Well, I think that's it. My time is nearly up. Thank you very much.
Vidite, mislim da nije stvar u utisku, u navođenju ljudi da ih osvoji savršena iluzija, već treba da učinite... Ja uglavnom radim na donjoj granici vizuelnih iluzija. Ne radi se o nekim prevarama, pre treba dati merilo ljudima o njihovom verovanju koliko želite da budete prevareni. Zato odlazimo na mađioničarske nastupe i slične stvari. Pa mislim da bi to bilo to. Moje vreme je skoro isteklo. Mnogo vam hvala.