There's an old saying, "Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it's not there." My work is -- it's a reflection of myself. What I wanted to do is to show the world that the little things can be the biggest things. We all seem to think that, you know, if we look down on the ground, there's nothing there. And we use the word "nothing." Nothing doesn't exist, because there is always something. My mother told me that, when I was a child, that I should always respect the little things.
有句老话说:“你看不见的, 不见得是不存在的”。 我的作品——它是我内心的反映。 我想借此 向世界证明小不点 也能有大作为。 我们似乎都认为 地上什么都没有。 注意我们用的词语是“什么都没有”。 “什么都没有”是不存在的,那里总会有些什么。 我小时候,母亲告诉我, 要尊重那些不起眼的东西。
What made me do this work? I shall go into my story. This all started when I was age five. What made me do it? At school, I will admit this: academically, I couldn't express myself. So I was, more or less, classed as "nothing." My world was seen as less. So I decided I didn't really want to be a part of that world. I thought, I need to retreat into something else. So when my mother used to take me to school, she thought I was at school, and I used to do a U-turn, when her back was turned, and run off and hide in the shed at the back of the garden.
想知道我怎么开始这项工作的吗?下面我将和大家分享一下我的故事。 这一切开始于我五岁的时候。 我是怎么开始的呢?我必须承认,在学校的时候 在学习上我无法展现自己的能力。 所以,或多或少的,我在班级里仿佛“不存在”。 我的世界总是被忽视。 因此我下定决心不想成为那个世界的一部分。 我想,我得退入 别的世界。 当我母亲送我去学校时, 她以为我会在学校呆着。 等她一转过身,我就会跟着调头, 一遛小跑溜到花园后面的棚子里躲起来。
Now, the one time I was in the shed, and my mother suspected something, thinking I was at school. My mother was like the woman in Tom and Jerry. So you'd just see her feet. (Laughter) So I was hiding in the shed, like that. And all of a sudden ... And then I saw her legs. And then she said -- grabbed me like that, because my mother was quite big -- and she lifted me up and she says, "How come you're not at school?" I told her I couldn't face it because the way the teacher was treating me, ridiculing me, and using me as an example of failure. So I told her. At that age, obviously, I couldn't express it that way, but I told her I didn't feel right. And then she just said, "You're going back to school tomorrow." And walked off. And I didn't expect that, because I expected one of these ... But I didn't get it.
有一次,我躲在棚子里, 我妈妈好像感觉到了什么, 怀疑起我是否在学校里。 她就像动画片《猫和老鼠》里的那个女人一样, 你只能看见她的脚。 (观众笑) 我就那么猫在窝棚里。 突然…… 我看见了她的腿。 她一把抓住我,就像这样,因为她体格很壮。 她把我拎起来,对我说: “你怎么没在学校里?” 我告诉她我没法面对校园生活,因为 老师待我不好,总是嘲弄我, 而且总是拿我做反例。 虽然我想告诉她这些情况。 但我那时很小,显然不可能用这种方式表达。 所以我告诉她我不喜欢上学。 她对我说:“明天你必须回学校。” 然后就走开了。这有些出乎我的意料。 我以为她会……(打屁股) 但是她没有。
So I'm sitting there thinking. And as I looked down on the ground, I noticed there was some ants running around. And I went into this little fantasy world. And I thought, "These ants, are they looking for the queen ant? Or do they need somewhere to live?" So I thought "Perhaps, if I made these ants some apartments, they'll move in." (Laughter) So I did. And how I set about that, I got some splinters of wood. And I sliced the little splinters of wood with a broken shard of glass, constructed this little apartment. Well it looked like a little shanty shed when I'd finished. But I thought, perhaps the ant won't know, it'll probably move in. And so they did. That was a bit crude, at the time. And I made all these little apartments and little merry-go-rounds, seesaws and swings, little ladders. And then I encouraged the ants to come 'round by putting sugar and things like that. And then I sat down and all the ants came along. And all I could hear was "Is this for us?"
于是我就坐在那儿开始思考。 当我低头看着地面的时候, 我发现有些蚂蚁在四周爬来爬去。 我不由自主地沉浸到这个小小的奇妙世界里了。 我想 “这些蚂蚁是在寻找它们的蚁后吗? 还是在找安身的地方?” 于是我又想,“也许, 要是我给它们造一些公寓, 它们就会搬进来住了。” (观众笑) 我的确这么做了。 怎么做的呢?我找了一些碎木块, 然后用一片碎玻璃把木块切成更小的木片, 用这些木片搭成蚂蚁的小公寓。 完工后的公寓看起来就像个破旧的小窝棚。 不过我想蚂蚁大概不会知道这点,它会搬进去的。 它们的确搬进去了。 那个小公寓现在看来相当粗糙,但所有的小房间都是我亲手做的。 还有那些小旋转木马,小跷跷板,小梯子等等。 我把糖粒之类的食物摆在周围做诱饵,把蚂蚁们引到房子附近。 然后就坐下来看着蚂蚁们纷至沓来。 我听见它们说:“这是给我们的吗?”
(Laughter)
(笑)
And I say, "Yes, they're all for you." And they moved in, and decided not to pay me any rent. (Laughter) And from there I was watching this little world. It became part of me.
我回答说:“是的,都是给你们的。” 它们就搬进去了,而且不打算付房租给我。 (笑) 由此我开始关注这个微型世界。 它成为了我的一部分。
When I discovered that I had this gift, I wanted to experiment with this world that we can't see. So I realized that there was more to life than just everything that we see around us that's huge. So I started to educate myself on this molecular level. And as I got older, I continued. I showed my mother. My mother told me to take it smaller.
我发现自己的这个天赋后, 就想在这个微型世界里检验一下。 这是个微小到肉眼不可见的世界。 我意识到,这里有更丰富的生命的意义, 相比我们肉眼可见到的周围巨大的世界而言。 我开始自学这种接近分子水平的微型雕刻。 随着年龄的增长,我一直都在持续练习。我向我母亲展示我的作品。 她说我还可以做得更小些。
Now I shall show you something here. And I'll explain. As you can see, that's a pinhead.
我现在想给你们看点东西。 让我说明一下。 正如你们所见, 那是大头针的顶端。
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
(Applause)
(掌声)
Now that is called the Huf Haus. The gentleman who commissioned me to do this was a gentleman called Peter Huf. And he says to me "Willard, can you put my house on a pinhead?"
这个小建筑名为霍夫屋。 委托我做这个的那位先生, 他的名字叫彼得·霍夫。 有一天他对我说:“维拉德,你能把我的房子放在大头针头上吗?”
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
So I say, "How are you going to fit in there?"
我回答说:“那你要怎么住进去呢?”
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
And then he said to me, "I don't believe you can do it. Can you really do it?"
然后他说: “我不相信你能做到。你真能做到吗?”
And I says, "Well, try me." And then he said, "But I don't believe that you can do this." So I said, "OK."
我回答他:“那就试试吧。” 他接着又说:“我实在不太相信你真的能做到。”“那好吧。”我说。
So, to cut a long story short, I went home, went underneath the microscope, and I crushed up a piece of glass, crushed it up. And underneath the microscope there were splinters of glass. Some of them were quite jagged. So I was crushing up these pieces of glass, which, as you can see, that's the actual frame of the house. And the actual roof is made up of a fiber, which I found in my sister's old teddy bear. (Laughter) So I got the teddy bear and I said, "Do you mind if I pull out one of your fibers?" So I did. And I looked at it beneath the microscope. And some of it was flat. So I decided to slice these up with the tool that I make by -- I sharpen the end of a needle into a blade. And then I actually slow down my whole nervous system. And then I work between my heartbeat, I have one-and-a-half seconds to actually move. And at the same time I have to watch I don't inhale my own work, at the same time. (Laughter) (Applause) Because that has happened to me.
长话短说。 我回到家,趴在显微镜前, 碾碎了一小片玻璃, 碾碎后, 放在显微镜下, 可以看到很多玻璃碎片, 有一些非常参差不齐。 我碾碎的这些玻璃碎片, 就如你们看到的, 是这间小屋的主体结构材料。 屋顶部分是用一根纤维制成的, 那根纤维是从我妹妹的旧泰迪熊身上取来的。 (观众笑) 我找到泰迪熊,对它说, “你介意我抽走一根纤维吗?” 我拔了一根, 把它放到显微镜下观察,发现纤维的某些部分是扁平的。 我打算把这些部分切割成更小的薄片。 就用我自己制作的工具。 我把一根针的尖端打磨成薄薄的刀刃。 然后, 我开始平心静气,放慢呼吸, 聚精会神地开始小心翼翼的工作。 我有1.5秒钟的时间 移动工具, 同时我还得小心, 别把自己的工作成果吸入鼻子里。 (观众笑) (掌声) 那种事情的确发生过。
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
So what I did, like I said, come back to the glass. I found these little bits of glass. And I had to make them square. So I'm thinking "How can I do this?" So what I did, I got an oilstone. Broke the edge of an oilstone off. And what I did, I took pieces of glass. And I started to rub them. I used a little tweezer which I made from a hair clip. And I built rubber around the end of the tweezer so it wouldn't crush the glass. And then I started rubbing, very very gently, till some of the edges were quite square. And then I constructed it. And how I constructed it, is by making grooves in the top of the pinhead. And then pushing the glass in with its own friction. And as I was doing it, what happened? The instrument that I used turned into a catapult. And it went like this ... And then that was it.
我的工作又回到玻璃上。 我找到了一些小玻璃片, 但需要把它们弄成方形。 于是我就想,“怎么弄呢?” 我找了块油磨石,把边角敲了一点下来。 然后把玻璃片放到油磨石碎块上打磨。 我用的是一把用小发卡改造成的镊子, 为了防止镊子夹坏玻璃,我还在镊子顶部涂上了橡胶。 然后我开始小心翼翼地打磨玻璃, 直到玻璃的边角变得十分齐整后,我才开始搭建房屋。 我是怎么搭起这座小屋的呢? 首先,我在大头针顶端刻出沟槽。 然后,借用玻璃本身的摩擦力把玻璃片插入槽里。 就在我这么做的时候,出了点状况。 我用的工具成了一个弹弓, 就像这样…… 我的工作成果化为乌有。
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
Gone. So I'm thinking, "Mr. Huf isn't going to be very happy when I told him his house has gone to another, into the atmosphere somewhere." So to cut the story short, I decided that I had to go back and do it. So I found some more. And I decided to, sort of, construct it very, very slowly, holding my breath, working between my heartbeat, and making sure everything is leveled. Because it's such a small sculpture, nothing can go wrong. And I decided to build it up. Then I used fibers out of my jumper, which I held and stretched. And made the beams going around the house. And the actual windows and the balcony had to be sort of constructed. I used a money spider's web to actually attach certain things, which sent me insane. But I managed to do it. And when I finished it, I came back the next day. I noticed that the house was occupied. Have we ever heard of a dust mite? Darren dust mite and his family moved in.
烟消云散。 “霍夫先生一定不怎么高兴,”我想, “当我告诉他他的小屋已经去了另一个…… 已经消失在空气中的时候。” 还是长话短说吧。 我决定重新开始。 我找到一些玻璃片。这次我打算, 慢慢地,非常小心地搭建它们。 我屏气凝神,小心翼翼地工作, 确保每一个部分都保持平稳。 这么小的雕塑, 一点点差错都是不允许的。 而其,这次我下定决心要完成这个作品。 这回我用的是自己毛衣上的纤维。 我抽出纤维,拉伸它们, 做成房屋四周的梁柱。 窗户和阳台 也需要搭建出来。 我用了一些蛛丝 来粘合一些部件。 这些蛛丝简直快让我疯掉了, 但我还是做成了。 完工后第二天, 我发现房子里竟然有了住客。 你们有没有听说过尘螨? 尘螨达伦一家住进了我的小屋。
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
So basically I'd completed the house. And there you are.
至此,霍夫小屋基本完成。 就是你们看到的这个样子。
(Applause)
(掌声)
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
Right. As you can see, Bart Simpson is having a little argument. I think they're arguing about the space on the pin. There's not enough room for the two of them. So I didn't think he was going to throw Bart off. I think he was just warning him actually. But this one was made out of a nylon tag out of my shirt. What I did, I plucked the tag out and put it underneath the microscope. I used the needle which has got a slight blade on the end. Can anybody see the blade on the end of that needle?
正如你们所见, 巴特·辛普森正和老爸发生了口角。 我想他们是在为大头针头上的空间而争吵。 好像空间不太够。 不过我不认为老爸真的会把巴特扔下去, 我想他只是在警告他。 这个雕塑是用一枚我衬衣上的 尼龙标签做的。 怎么做的呢?我把标签拔下来, 放到显微镜下。 还是用那种尖端有刀刃的针。 有人能看见这根针头上的刀刃吗?
Audience: No.
观众:不能。
WW: So what I did is the same process where I just kind of hold my breath and just work away very, very slowly, manipulating the plastic, cutting it, because it behaves different. Whenever you work on that level, things behave different. Because it's on this molecular level things change and they act different. And sometimes they turn into little catapults and things go up in the air. And, you know, all different things happen. But I had to make a little barrier, going around it, out of cellophane, to stop it moving. Then static electricity set in. And it went ... And I'm trying to remove it. And the static is interfering with everything. So there is sweat dripping off my head, because I have to carve Homer Simpson like that, in that position. And after I've cut out the shape, then I have to make sure that there is room for Bart's neck.
维拉德:所以,还是像之前一样, 我屏住气, 很慢很慢地进行一步一步的操作。 我捏住塑料,进行切割。塑料的质地会变得很不一样, 到了那么微小的程度,什么东西的质地都会变得很不一样。 因为在分子水平上,物体会发生变化, 它们的反应也会发生变化。 有时候它们会变成小弹弓,把零件弹上天。 有时候,各种各样稀奇古怪的事情都会发生。 我不得不用玻璃纸做一个小围栏,围住它们, 防止它们四散。 可是又出现了静电, 事情就变得…… 我试图去除静电,因为它干扰了所有的工作。 我急得满头大汗。 因为我必须把霍默辛普森刻成那个姿势,放在那个位置上。 形状出来后, 还得确保有足够的空间放下巴特的脖子。
So after I've done the same thing, then I have to paint it. And after I've actually sculpted them, I have to paint them. I experimented with a -- I found a dead fly. And I plucked the hair off the fly's head. Decided to make a paintbrush. (Laughter) But I would never do it to a living fly. (Laughter) Because I've heard a fly in pain. And they go "Meow! Ow!" Even though they get on our nerves, I would never kill an insect because, "All creatures great and small" -- there is a hymn that says that. So what I decided to do is to pluck fine hair out of my face. And I looked at it underneath the microscope. That was the paintbrush. And whilst I'm painting I have to be very careful, because the paint starts to turn into little blobs. And it starts to dry very quickly. So I have to be very quick. If I'm not, it will end up looking not like what it's supposed to look like. It could end up looking like Humpty Dumpty or somebody else. So I have to be very very careful.
重复前面的工作后, 该给雕塑上色了。 等我完完全全地把他们雕塑出来后, 准备给他们上色。 我拿了一个小东西做实验 —— 一只死苍蝇。 拔下它头上的一根毛, 打算拿这个做颜料刷。 (观众笑) 我可不会对一只活苍蝇这么做。 (观众笑) 因为我听到过苍蝇痛苦的呻吟, 就像这样,“呜嘤——呜嘤——” 虽然苍蝇总是让人烦躁, 但我不会杀死任何一只昆虫。 因为“所有的生命,无论大小……”—— 有一首赞美诗里这么写的。 于是我决定, 拔下自己脸上的一根汗毛。 我把它放到显微镜下, 发现很适合作画笔。 上色的时候必须非常小心, 颜料变成了小液滴, 很容易干掉。 我必须动作很快, 否则,它就会看上去 不像我想要的样子。 它可能会看上去像汉普蒂·邓普蒂(蛋壳先生)或者别的什么人。 所以我得非常小心。
This one took me approximately, I would say, six to seven weeks. My work, rough estimate, sometimes five, six to seven weeks; you can't always anticipate. (Applause) As you can see, that's Charlton Heston brought down to size. (Laughter) He says to me, "Willard" -- You can see him saying, "Why me?" I says, "I enjoyed your film. That's why." As you can see, there's an aphid fly there. That's just to show the scale and the actual size of the sculpture. I would say it probably measures ... a quarter of a millimeter. In America they say a period stop. So say if you cut a period stop in half, a full stop, that's about the size of the whole thing. It's made -- the chariot is made of gold.
这个雕塑花了我大概 六七个星期左右。 粗略估计,我的作品 一般会花五周,六周或七周时间。 有时也很难说。 (掌声) 如你们所见, 这是缩微的查尔顿·赫斯顿。 (观众笑) 他在对我说:“维拉德,” 你们可以看到他在对我说,“为什么是我?” 我的回答是,“因为我喜欢你演的电影。” 你们可以看到,那边有一只蚜蝇。 放在那儿是为了显示出照片的放大比例 和雕塑的真实大小。 我想大概是…… 四分之一毫米吧。 美国人把句号称作“period stop”, 如果你把一个句号切成两半, 一个句号的一半,大概就是这个雕塑的体积。 双轮战车是纯金制成的,
And Charlton Heston is made of a floating fiber, which I took out of the air. When the sunlight comes through the window you see these little fibers. And what I normally do is walk 'round a room -- (Laughter) -- trying to find one. And then I put it underneath the microscope. I remember one time I was doing it, and the window was open. And there was a lady standing by the bus stop. And she saw me walking around like this. (Laughter) And then she looked at me. And then I went ... And then she went, "Hmm, OK, he's not mad." Yeah, to actually do this thing -- the actual chariot is made of gold. I had a 24-karat gold ring. And I cut off a little flake of gold. And I bent it 'round, and made it into the chariot. And the horse is made from nylon. And the spider's web is for the reins on the horse. To get the symmetrical shape of the horse was very difficult, because I had to get the horse to rear up and look as though it was in some kind of action.
查尔顿·赫斯顿则是用一根漂浮的纤维做的。 我从空气里收集到的一根纤维。 当阳光照进窗户的时候,你会看到一些细小的纤维。 一般我都会这样在屋里四处走动, (观众笑) 试图收集一根纤维,然后我就把它放到显微镜下。 我记得有一次,窗户开着,我正在四处走动, 公交车站旁站着一位女士, 她看见我这样在屋里转来转去。 (观众笑) 她有些惊讶地看着我, 于是我就……(假装打个招呼) 她就走开了,想着“嗯,还好,他没疯。” 那么,这个作品是怎么完成的呢—— 战车是纯金的。 我有一枚24K的金戒指。 我从上面切下一小片金子, 加以切削,弯成环形, 然后做成战车的模样。 马是尼龙做的。 马的缰绳是蛛丝做的。 做出匀称的马的造型 非常难。 因为马前蹄扬起,我必须让马表现出跃起的姿态, 看上去有动感。
When I did this one, a gentleman seen it and said to me, "There's no way you can do this, you must have used some kind of machine. There's no way a man can do that. It must be a machine." So I says, "OK then, if you say it's a machine ..." (Laughter) (Applause) That one took me approximately six weeks. (Applause)
当我在做这个作品的时候, 有位先生见到了,他对我说, “你不可能靠手把它做出来,你肯定用了某种机器。 人手不可能做出这样的雕塑, 肯定是机器做的。” 我回答说:“好吧,如果你一定要说是机器做的话……” (观众笑) (掌声) 这个作品花了我大概六周的时间。 (掌声)
The most famous statue in the world. This one, I would say, was a serious challenge. (Laughter) Because I had to put the torch on the top. That one is, more or less, the same type of process. The bottom of it is carved from a grain of sand, because I wanted to get a bit of the stone effect. I used a microscopic shard of diamond to actually carve the actual base. Well, I can look at this one and I can be very proud of this, because that statue has always sort of kept an image in my head of, you know, the beginning of people coming to America. So it's sort of Ellis Island, and seeing America for the first time. And that's the first thing they saw. So I wanted to have that little image. And this is it. (Laughter)
世界上最著名的雕像。 我得说,这个 的确是个挑战。 (观众笑) 因为我必须把火炬放在最顶上。 制作的过程和前面的多少有些类似。 雕像的基座由一粒沙子雕刻而成。 因为我想让它有一点石头的质感。 我用一片非常微小的钻石 雕刻出基座。 看着这个作品,我总是感到非常自豪。 这座雕像总是 萦绕在我的脑海中, 让我想起初到美国的人们。 就像埃利斯岛是第一次看到美国的地方, 这座雕像是他们看见的第一座标志性物体。 我一直想拥有那么一个雕像, 现在我做到了。 (观众笑)
And we all know that is the Hulk. I wanted to create movement in the eye of a needle. Because we know we see needles, but people aren't familiar with the eye of a needle apart from putting a thread through it. So I broke the needle. And made a needle look like the Hulk's broken it. It's -- I had to make little holes in the base of the needle, to shove his feet in. So most of my work, I don't use glue. They go in with their own friction. And that's how I managed to do it. As you can see, he's looking at the moment. He's got a little grimace on his face. And his mouth must be probably about three microns. So the eyes are probably about one micron or something.
众所周知,这个是绿巨人。 我起初想在针眼里创造一种动感。 我们都见过针, 但人们对针眼却并不那么熟悉, 除了穿针引线时会看看。 我把针眼打开了, 让它看上去像 是被绿巨人撑开的。 它是……我得在针头底部扎一些小洞, 以安放绿巨人的脚。 我的绝大部分作品都没有使用胶水。 它们只是靠自己的摩擦力固定在一起。 这就是我如何做到的。 你们可以看到,他正瞪着眼睛,面部有点狰狞。 他的嘴巴大概有 三微米左右。 眼睛大概是一微米左右。
That ship there, that's made from 24-karat gold. And I normally rig it with the web of a money spider. But I had to rig it with strands of glue. Because the web of the spider, it was sending me insane, because I couldn't get the web to move off. And that's 24-karat gold. And it's constructed. I built it. Constructed each plank of gold. And the whole thing is sort of symmetrical. The flag had to be made out of little strands of gold. It's almost like doing a surgical operation to get this thing right. (Applause)
那艘船 是由24K黄金雕刻而成。 通常我会用皿蛛的网丝做帆索, 但这次我不得不用胶水拉出的丝, 那些蛛丝已经让我快要疯了, 我没法把它们分开。 这是24K纯金,我把它们组装起来,搭建起来, 把每一块金片组装起来。 整体看上去还算匀称。 旗帜是小金丝做的。 做这个几乎就得像做外科手术一样精确。 (掌声)
As you can see, dressage. (Laughter) It's something I wanted to do just to show how I could get the symmetrical shape. The actual rigging on the reins on the horse are made from the same sort of thing. And that was done with a particle from my shirt. And the pinhead I've made green around there by scraping the particles off a green shirt and then pressed onto the needle. It's very painstaking work, but the best things come in small packages.
这个是,盛装舞步。 (观众笑) 我做这个小东西只是想看看如何做出匀称的造型。 马的缰绳等索具 都是用同等材质制造的。 是从我衬衣上取下的一点点材料。 大头针头部的绿色草地 是刮了一点绿衬衫上的材料做的, 然后按压在大头针顶部。 这是一项非常辛苦细致的工作, 但是快乐就在这一点一滴中积累起来。
(Laughter)
(观众笑)
Bruno Giussani: Willard Wigan!
布鲁诺·吉桑尼:维拉德·威根!
(Applause)
(掌声)