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.
我被邀請來談論創作。 我只有15分鐘,而且我看他們已經在倒數了。 在15分鐘內,我想我只能觸及創作的入門面, 我稱之為創意。 創意是我們處理創作的方式。 有時創作看起來似乎無法掌握,甚至是毫無意義, 但創意永遠都有意義的。 舉例來說,這張圖片。 你知道,創作是把那隻狗放進圖片內, 而創意則讓我們看到在牠後腿上的雞。
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.
當你想想--你知道,創意也涉及到許多因果關係。 你知道,當我是青少年時,我是個創作家。 我做了很多事。 當我長大且開始了解自己, 也試著去維持自我特色--我變得有創意。 在我寫了書和辦了回顧展後,我才確切的回想出來的-- 好像我曾做過的所有瘋狂事情,那些伶仃大醉,那些派對-- 全都依循著一條直線行進且引領我到目前的位置 讓我在此時此刻跟你們講話。 真是如此的,你知道, 我能在這裡和大家說話的原因是因為我出生於巴西。 如果我當初生於蒙特里的話,或許現在人反而會在巴西。
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.
我在巴西出生并成長於70年代, 當時政治環境低迷, 而且我被迫學習用種非常特別的方式溝通-- 像是種符號黑話 你不能說出你真正想說的, 你不得不想方設法用別的方法來表達。 你不太相信訊息。 我今天在這的另一個原因, 是因為我喜歡各式各樣的媒體。 我是個媒體癡,最後也從事廣告行業。 我在巴西的第一份工作 其實是根據車輛行進的速度、角度和實際的文字方塊, 來改善廣告看板的易讀性。 這真的是一次非常好的學習機會, 也讓我得到了一份在廣告公司的工作。 而他們也決定了-- 要給我一個非常醜的塑膠玻璃獎盃來獎勵成果。
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)
至於--這為何和我現在人在這裡相關-- 則是當我去拿那個獎盃那天, 我生平第一次租了一套晚禮服, 領了獎--沒有任何朋友到場。 在我離開的時候,我勸了一場架。 有人用銅製手指虎攻擊另外一個人。 雙方都穿著禮服打架,畫面非常的醜陋。 而且--廣告人都常這樣-- 而我 -- 當我要走回我的車時, 被打的那位老兄決定拿了把槍-- 我不知道為何他會有槍 -- 他要去射他覺得第一位挑釁他的人。 那個人打著一條黑領帶,穿著晚禮服。那個人就是我。 幸運的是,如你們所看到的,這並不致命。 更幸運的是,那個人感到很抱歉, 而我向他索得一筆賠償金,否則我要提出上訴。 而這就是所有的來龍去脈--用這筆錢我在1983年買了機票來到美國。 而這也是--今天我能在這講話的真正原因。 因為我中槍了。
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.
當我開始做自己的工作的時候,我決定不做圖像。 你知道,我已變得--我不遵循傳統方法。 因為當初我決定要走廣告業時,我想做的是-- 我想用噴槍繪製在冰上裸體的人們,作威士忌宣傳, 那才是我真的想要實踐的。 但我--他們並沒讓我這樣做,於是我--你也知道, 他們只准許讓我做其他事情。 但我其實也沒很想賣威士忌,我對賣冰比較有興趣。 最初的作品是實質的物體。 是隨手拾來的東西,產品設計和廣告的混合物。 我稱之為遺跡。 1983初次在司塔克斯美術館展出。
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.
這是小丑的頭顱。 --一種高度進化演藝界人種的殘骸。 在很久之前,他們住在巴西。(笑聲) 這是亞香緹搖桿。 很不幸的,這已經被淘汰了,當初是為了Atari遊戲平台所設計的。(Atari公司在美國推出史上第一部家用遊戲機) 作品裏還有一個PS2搭配使用的,或許下次我會把它帶來。 搖擺的講台。 這是比哥倫布發現新大陸還早出現的咖啡機。 事實上,這個點子來自我在星巴克的一場爭吵, 我堅持說我喝得不是哥倫比亞咖啡, 這實際上是比哥倫布發現新大陸還早的咖啡 (壞掉的咖啡豆)。 盆栽桌。 大英百科全書一本裝,方便旅行攜帶。 還有半個墓碑,為還沒死的人準備的。
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."
我想把這些帶到影像的領域裡, 而且我決定要做帶有相同本體衝突感的東西, 所以我決定要用雲來創作。 因為雲可以代表任何你想要的東西。 但我想要用簡單的技術來完成, 因此也同時也代表著, 一大團棉花,一片雲以及Durer的祈禱的雙手 (Durer是文藝復興時期的德國藝術家)-- 雖然這看起來比較像米老鼠的祈禱的雙手。 但我還是繼續創作 -- 這是一個貓咪雲。 根據Alfred Stueglitz(近代攝影之父)的作品,這些被稱作等值物。 "蝸牛"。 但我仍在作雕刻, 且我很努力地將它平面化, "茶壺"。
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."
我有個機會到佛羅倫斯--我記得是在1994年時, 我看到了Ghiberti 的"天堂之門" (義大利文藝復興青銅雕刻家), 而他做了非常有意思的事情, 他結合了來自兩個不同時期的不同媒體。 最初,他用最傳統的製作方式,也就是浮雕, 而且他採用了三點透視法,這在當時是最新的技術。 它太具有殺傷力了。 你的眼睛似乎找不到可以切入的層次。 而且你會深陷於這種圖像中。 於是我決定製作一些簡單的翻版, 最初是用線條來表現。 最簡單的表達方式--我用鐵絲來做。 這個點子是--因為大家易忽略白色--就像鉛筆畫一樣,你知道吧? 而他們會看著話說--阿,這是鉛筆畫。 然後你當裏看著看著,就了解這是當時真正存在的另一種東西。 當它有了實體時, 你就會開始對它更深入的詮釋, 這樣延續下去形成了圖像。這是"猴子與徠卡相機"。 "放輕鬆"。 "Fita燈"。
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.
正如藝術呈現方式的歷史 從線條畫發展到陰影畫, 我想要接觸其他主題。 我開始將這些元素轉為製作風景畫, 這可說是什麼都沒有的畫。 我製作這些稱為線之畫的圖像, 而且我用呈現每張圖像所使用的線碼數來命名。 這些最後總是變得像張照片, 或許這張更像蝕刻畫。 這是一個燈塔。 這是"6500碼",臨摹Corot的作品(法國19世紀畫家)。"9000碼",臨摹Gerhard Richter的作品(德國當代藝術家)。 至於這幅我不知道用了多少碼數,臨摹自John Constable的作品(英國風景畫家)。
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."
揮別線條後,我決定著手於點的概念, 類似我們在照片中可看到的影像呈現方式。 我在加勒比海的聖啟斯島上遇到一群小孩, 我跟他們一起工作和玩樂。 我有一些他們的照片。 一當我回到紐約,我決定-- 他們是蔗糖農場工人的小孩。 藉由把糖灑在黑紙上,我作了他們的肖像。 這些是--(掌聲)-- 謝謝。這位是"速度最快的Valentina"。 這是小孩的名字, 有和某人短暫相遇時,你得到的信息很少。 "Valicia"。 "Jacynthe"。
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.
但另外一層次的表現手法仍然存在。 因為當我製作這些圖像時,我得舔手指。 於是我了解到我可以添加別的東西進去。 我試著做一個主題-- 就是不同的主題可以互相干涉。 所以巧克力是非常好的媒介,因為它 --可以帶來從糞便到浪漫的各種聯想。 因此我決定要做這些圖像, 它們非常大,所以你必須走遠一點才能觀看。 它們被稱作巧克力圖。 Freud或許可以在解釋巧克力方面做得比我更好。他是第一個主題。 這是Jackson Pollock(20世紀美國抽象派畫家)。
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.
群眾的照片特別有趣, 因為,你知道,你-- 你試著把它和你很輕易可以定義的東西聯繫起來, 像一張臉,變成只是單一的組織。 "狗仔隊"。 我使用惠特尼博物館的灰塵來呈現他們的館藏作品。 我選了極簡抽象派藝術家的作品,因為他們非常具有特殊性。 而你使用並不特殊的材質來表現它們, 也就是灰塵。 你知道,你有每個博物館參觀者的皮膚微粒。 他們做了DNA掃描,結果是一張數量可觀的郵寄列表。 這是Richard Serra(美國的極簡主義雕刻家)。
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."
我買了一台電腦,他們告訴我裡頭有上百萬的顏色。 你知道藝術家聽到的第一個反應是,是誰計算的?你知道嗎? 然後我發現我從來不使用顏色, 因為我很難控制自己使用單一顏色。 但是我套用數值的結構, 所以你看了會覺得比較舒服。 於是我第一次使用多種顏色來製作彩通色卡的馬賽克畫。 結果是非常大的圖像, 而我用非常大的相機拍攝-- 一台8x10相機。 所以你可以看到每張色卡的表面-- 就像這張Chuck Close的照片一樣(美國照片寫實主義藝術家)。 而你必須走得非常遠才能看出整幅畫。 另外還有,使用色卡臨摹Gerhard Richter的作品-- 接著我想踏入另一個今日相當普見的藝術表現領域, 也就是點陣圖。 我最後將主題定為Monet的乾草堆。
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.
這是我習慣用的開玩笑手法-- 你知道,仿做--Robert Smithson(美國藝術家)螺旋防波堤-- 留下一些蛛絲馬跡,彷彿這是在桌上完成的。 我試著證明他不是在猶他州鹽湖城做這個地景藝術。 但是藉由做這個模型,我嘗試探討 模型和原創物之間的關係。 我覺得我必須真的到當地且自己做些地景藝術。 我選擇非常簡單的線條圖--看起來有點愚蠢。
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.
同時,我把它們做得非常大, 有150公尺長。 然後我做些非常小的,就像是-- 在同樣的燈光下,我將它們並排展示, 所以參觀者必須弄清楚他在看得是哪一個。 我沒有對特別大的,或者小的東西感到興趣。 我對介於中間尺寸的東西比較有興趣, 你知道,因為你可在其中留下極大的模糊地帶。 這是你見到的--一個人的尺寸。 這是一個煙管。 一個衣架。
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.
而這是我做得另一件事 -- 你也知道,工作 -- 人們都喜歡看別人畫圖, 但不是很多人有機會看一個人畫圖 -- 很多人同時圍觀,見證一個線條誕生。 而且我喜歡這個作品, 因為我在兩個月的期間內,在曼哈頓上空做這些卡通圖樣的雲。 這經驗很美好,因為我很久以前就對劇場感到興趣, 這也驗證在這個作品上。 在劇場內,角色和演員共處一室, 試著在觀眾前互相協商。 而在這個作品內,你看到 -- 一個像雲的東西,它同時也是雲, 所以這些就像是完美的演員。
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.
我對演戲的興趣,特別是不好的演出,執著很長一段時間。 事實上,我有次付了60塊美金 去看一位傑出演員扮演李爾王(莎士比亞四大悲劇之一), 但我覺得我被搶了,因為當那位演員開始演李爾王的時候, 他不再是我付錢想要看的那位傑出演員。 往另一個方向想,你知道,我想我付了大概3塊美金-- 我去皇后區的一間倉庫 看一個業餘團體的奧賽羅演出(莎士比亞四大悲劇之一)。 演出相當令人滿意,因為有個人 -- 他叫作Joey Grimaldi -- 他扮演這位摩爾人將軍 -- 你知道,前三分鐘他真的是位將軍, 然後他回去當水管工,他的工作是水管工,所以 -- 水管工,將軍,水管工,將軍 -- 所以我只付了三塊錢,以單場票價看到兩場悲劇。
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.
所以,我想,人們迷戀一個完美的幻象, 其實不是真的跟印象有關, 正如同 -- 我通常用最低的成本創造視覺幻象。 因為這跟愚弄某人沒關係, 這實際上是讓人檢測他們自己的信仰: 你多想被愚弄。 這解釋了我們付錢去看魔術秀這類表演的原因。 我想就是那麼多了。 我的時間到了。 謝謝各位。