身為藝術家和 TED Fellow 的 Aparna Rao 把熟悉的事物以令人驚訝而更常常具帶幽默感的方式重新想像。
在屏幕上消失的攝影機 - 把尋常的物件和互動作一下好玩的旋轉。
Artist and TED Fellow Aparna Rao re-imagines the familiar in surprising, often humorous ways.
With her collaborator Soren Pors, Rao creates high-tech art installations -- a typewriter that sends
emails, a camera that tracks you through the room only to make you invisible on screen -- that put a
playful spin on ordinary objects and interactions.
With her collaborator Soren Pors, Rao creates high-tech art installations -- a typewriter that sends
emails, a camera that tracks you through the room only to make you invisible on screen -- that put a
playful spin on ordinary objects and interactions.
Hi. Today, I'm going to take you through glimpses of about eight of my projects, done in collaboration
with Danish artist Soren Pors. We call ourselves Pors & Rao, and we live and work in India.
大家好!今天，我會讓你一睹 我與丹麥藝術家 Soren Pros 合作的8個作品。 我們叫自己 Pors 與 Rao， 我們在
印度生活和工作。
with Danish artist Soren Pors. We call ourselves Pors & Rao, and we live and work in India.
大家好!今天，我會讓你一睹 我與丹麥藝術家 Soren Pros 合作的8個作品。 我們叫自己 Pors 與 Rao， 我們在
印度生活和工作。
I'd like to begin with my very first object, which I call "The Uncle Phone." And it was inspired by my
uncle's peculiar habit of constantly asking me to do things for him, almost like I were an extension of
his body -- to turn on the lights or to bring him a glass of water, a pack of cigarettes. And as I grew up,
it became worse and worse, And I started to think of it as a form of control. But of course, I could
never say anything, because the uncle is a respected figure in the Indian family. And the situation that
irked me and mystified me the most was his use of a landline telephone. He would hold on to the
receiver and expect me to dial a number for him. And so as a response and as a gift to my uncle, I made
him "The Uncle Phone." It's so long that it requires two people to use it. It's exactly the way my uncle
uses a phone that's designed for one person.
我想從我最初的作品開始， 我稱它爲 "叔叔的電話"。 我的靈感來自叔叔的古怪行為， 他恆常要我幫他做點事
情， 令我好像是他身體的延續 - 幫他開燈或拿杯開水， 拿包香煙之類。 我長大後，他更變本加厲， 令我開始
覺得這是某種形式的操控。 但當然我不容罝喙， 因為叔父在印度家庭中 是受尊敬的人物。 最令我忿怒和不解
的是 他使用固網電話的時候。 他會手持聽筒等我替他撥號。 所以作爲回應和送給叔叔的小禮物， 我造了這
台"叔叔的電話"。 它長到需要兩個人才能使用。 這正好符合我叔叔使用為一人設計的電話的方式。
But the problem is that, when I left home and went to college, I started missing his commands. And so
I made him a golden typewriter through which he could dispense his commands to nephews and nieces
around the world as an email. So what he had to do was take a piece of paper, roll it into the carriage,
type his email or command and pull the paper out. This device would automatically send the intended
person the letter as an email. So here you can see, we embedded a lot of electronics that understands
all of the mechanical actions and converts it to digital. So my uncle is only dealing with a mechanical
interface. And of course, the object had to be very grand and have a sense of ritualism, the way my
uncle likes it.
但問題是當我離家上大學後， 我開始懷念他的指令。 所以我又為他造了一部金色的打字機 他可以用它向世界各
地的侄兒侄女 發出電郵的指令。 他要做的是拿張紙，捲入打字機滾軸， 打出電郵或指令，再把紙張拉出來。
這部儀器會自動把那封信以電郵方式 發送到指定的人仕。 所以你在這裡可以看到我們嵌入了大量 可以了解所有
機械動作然後再把它們數碼化 的電子零件。 所以我的叔叔只是接觸機械的介面。 當然，這件物件還要合乎我叔
叔喜歡的 要很有氣派和儀式的味道。
The next work is a sound-sensitive installation that we affectionately call "The Pygmies." And we
wanted to work with a notion of being surrounded by a tribe of very shy, sensitive and sweet creatures.
So how it works is we have these panels, which we have on the wall, and behind them, we have these
little creatures which hide. And as soon as it's silent, they sort of creep out. And if it's even more silent,
they stretch their necks out. And at the slightest sound, they hide back again.
另一件作品是對聲音敏感的裝置 我們親切地稱它們為"俾格米人"。 我們想營造一個 被一群非常害羞、敏感和甜
美的生物圍繞的感覺。 我們在牆上裝上這些面板， 在面板背後匿藏了這些小生物。 當環境靜下來，他們便會立
刻爬出來的樣子。 更靜一點的話，他們更伸長脖子。 當有輕微聲響時，它們又會躲起來。
So we had these panels on three walls of a room. And we had over 500 of these little pygmies hiding
behind them. So this is how it works. This is a video prototype. So when it's quiet, it's sort of coming out
from behind the panels. And they hear like humans do, or real creatures do. So they get immune to
sounds that scare them after awhile. And they don't react to background sounds. You'll hear a train in
moment that they don't react to. (Noise) But they react to foreground sounds. You'll hear that in a
second. (Whistling) So we worked very hard to make them as lifelike as possible. So each pygmy has its
own behavior, psyche, mood swings, personalities and so on. So this is a very early prototype. Of
course, it got much better after that. And we made them react to people, but we found that people
were being quite playful and childlike with them.
我們在一個房間的三面牆上裝上這些面板。 後面躲著超過 500個這些小俾格米人。 它就是這樣操作的。 這是
一個原型的錄像。 因此，當環境靜下來，他們就會從面板背後爬出來。 他們像人類或真正生物一樣有聽覺。 因
此，當他們聽過能嚇倒他們的聲音一段時間後，便會產生免疫作用。 而不再對背景聲音作出反應。 一息間你會
聽到火車的聲音，而他們不會作出反應的。 （火車聲） 但他們會對前景的聲音有反應。跟著你就會聽到。 (口
哨聲) 所以我們很努力 盡量把他們造得像真人一樣。 使每一個俾格米人都有自己的行為，心理狀態、 情緒波動
和性格等。 這是一個很早期的原型。 當然，之後就越來越好了。 我們讓他們對人有所反應， 我們發現，人們
對他們表現得相當頑皮和稚氣。
This is a video installation called "The Missing Person." And we were quite intrigued with playing with
the notion of invisibility. How would it be possible to experience a sense of invisibility? So we worked
with a company that specializes in camera surveillance, and we asked them to develop a piece of
software with us, using a camera that could look at people in the room, track them and replace one
person with the background, rendering them invisible.
這是一個稱為“失踪者” 的錄像裝置。 我們對把玩隱形的概念 很有興趣。 如何才能體驗到隱形的感覺呢？ 所
以，我們與一家 專門從事攝像監視的公司合作， 我們要求他們與我們一起開發一種軟件， 利用攝影機 觀察在
房間裡的人，然後追踪他們 再用背景取代一個人，使他們隱形。
So I'm just going to show you a very early prototype. On the right side you can see my colleague Soren,
who's actually in the space. And on the left side, you'll see the processed video where the camera has
made him invisible. Soren enters the room. Pop! He goes invisible. And you can see that the camera is
tracking him and erasing. It's a very early video, so we haven't yet dealt with the overlap and all of
that, but that got refined pretty soon, later. So how we used it was in a room where we had a camera
looking into the space, and we had one monitor, one on each wall. And as people walked into the room,
they would see themselves in the monitor, except with one difference: one person was constantly invisible wherever they moved in the room.
我現在給你看看一個非常早期的原型。 在右邊你可以看到我的同事 Soren， 他實際處於那個空間內。 在左邊，
你會看到處理過的視頻 那裡攝影機使他隱形。 Soren 進入房間。噗一聲!他就變成隱形。 你可以看到相機一直
跟踪他然後把他的影像擦除。 這是一個非常早期的視頻， 那時我們尚未處理影像重疊和其他的問題， 但很快之
後我們就把它改善了。 我們在房間內放罝攝影機， 在每面牆上裝上視屏監視器。 當人們走進房間， 他們會照
常在監視器中看到自己，但是有一處不同： 那就是其中一人 無論他走到那裡都不斷隱形。
So this is a work called "The Sun Shadow." And it was almost like a sheet of paper, like a cutout of a
childlike drawing of an oil spill or a sun. And from the front, this object appeared to be very strong and
robust, and from the side, it almost seemed very weak. So people would walking into the room and
they'd almost ignore it, thinking it was some crap laying around. But as soon as they passed by, it
would start to climb up the wall in jerky fashion. And it would get exhausted, and it would collapse
every time.
這件作品稱為“太陽的影子”。 它幾乎就像一張紙， 好像是充滿童真的兒童剪貼畫中 的油污或太陽。 從正面
看，這個物件似乎是非常強壯和有力的， 從側面看，它又顯得很虛弱。 所以人們會走進房間，幾乎都會忽略
它， 以為是隨意放置的垃圾。 但當他們從旁邊走過時， 它會開始抽搐地爬上牆壁。 但每次都會耗盡氣力而倒
下來。
So this work is a caricature of an upside-down man. His head is so heavy, full of heavy thoughts, that
it's sort of fallen into his hat, and his body's grown out of him almost like a plant. Well what he does is
he moves around in a very drunken fashion on his head in a very unpredictable and extremely slow
movement. And it's kind of constrained by that circle. Because if that circle weren't there, and the floor
was very even, it would start to wander about in the space. And there's no wires. So I'll just show you
an instance -- so when people enter the room, it activates this object. And it very slowly, over a few
minutes, sort of painfully goes up, and then it gains momentum and it looks like it's almost about to fall.
And this is an important moment, because we wanted to instill in the viewer an instinct to almost go
and help, or save the subject. But it doesn't really need it, because it, again, sort of manages to pull
itself up.
這件作品 是一個上下顛倒的漫畫圖形人物。 他的頭部很重，充滿沈重的想法， 就像倒進他的帽子內， 身體像
植物一樣從中長出來。 他表現出來就是繞著頭部 像喝醉酒似的轉動 動作極之緩慢而難以預測。 像被那個圓圈
制約著。 因為如果沒有了那個圓圈，而地板是非常平滑的話， 它會開始在那個空間游走。 那裡沒有牽線。 讓
我給你看一個實例 - 人們進入房間會啟動這件物件。 它非常緩慢地，過幾分鐘後， 很痛苦的樣子地站起來， 然
後它得到動力 之後看來又要倒下去。 這是一個重要的時刻， 因為我們想觸動觀眾 去幫助或拯救那人物的本
能。 不過，實際上這是不必的， 因為它再次能夠把自己拉起來。
So this work was a real technical challenge for us, and we worked very hard, like most of our works,
over years to get the mechanics right and the equilibrium and the dynamics. And it was very
important for us to establish the exact moment that it would fall, because if we made it in a way that it
would topple over, then it would damage itself, and if it didn't fall enough, it wouldn't instill that
fatalism, or that sense of wanting to go and help it. So I'm going to show you a very quick video where
we are doing a test scenario -- it's much faster. That's my colleague. He's let it go. Now he's getting
nervous, so he's going to go catch it. But he doesn't need to, because it manages to lift itself up on its
own.
這件作品在技術上對我們來說是一項真正的挑戰， 像我們大多數的作品一樣，幾年來我們十分努力 去弄妥機械
力學，找出平衡和動力。 對我們來說，十分重要的是 要確立它將下跌的準確時刻， 因為如果我們把它弄到翻
倒， 它會損壞， 但是如果跌得不夠，又不能向人們傳達它即將倒地， 引起人們想要去扶助的感覺。 讓我給你
看看一段很快的視頻 我們正在進行測試 - 它的速度更快。 那是我的同事。他放開手讓它跌下。 現在他開始變得
緊張，所以他會去抓住它。 但他不需要這樣做， 因為它會自己爬起來。
So this is a work that we were very intrigued with, working with the aesthetic of fur embedded with
thousands of tiny different sizes of fiber optics, which twinkle like the night sky. And it's at the scale of
the night sky. So we wrapped this around a blob-like form, which is in the shape of a teddy bear, which
was hanging from the ceiling. And the idea was to sort of contrast something very cold and distant and
abstract like the universe into the familiar form of a teddy bear, which is very comforting and intimate.
And the idea was that at some point you would stop looking at the form of a teddy bear and you would
almost perceive it to be a hole in the space, and as if you were looking out into the twinkling night sky.
這是一件我們很喜歡的作品， 使用真皮，非常美。 其中嵌入數以千計的微小的不同大小的光纖 使它在夜空中閃
爍。 它是以夜空的規模製作。 我們把它包在泡狀物體上， 像個玩具熊的形狀， 掛在天花板上。 意念是想把 像
宇宙那樣寒冷、遙遠和抽象的東西 跟我們熟悉的形狀， 使我們感到舒適和親密的玩具熊作對比。 而這個藝術品
的概念是在某個時刻 你會不再把它看作為是玩具熊 而幾乎是將其視作太空中的一個洞， 就像你望向閃爍的夜空
一樣。
So this is the last work, and a work in progress, and it's called "Space Filler." Well imagine a small cube
that's about this big standing in front of you in the middle of the room, and as you approached it, it
tried to intimidate you by growing into a cube that's twice its height and [eight] times its volume. And
so this object is constantly expanding and contracting to create a dynamic with people moving around
it -- almost like it were trying to conceal a secret within its seams or something.
這是最後的一件作品，還未完成的作品， 它叫做“空間填充物”。 想像一個這樣大的小立方體 在你面前的房中
間， 當你接近它時，它會試圖嚇唬你 把自己增長成 兩倍高、四倍大的立方體。 這件物件不斷擴大縮小 與走近
它的人產生一種動力 － 就像它意圖 隱藏它的接縫或其他的秘密。
So we work with a lot of technology, but we don't really love technology, because it gives us a lot of
pain in our work over years and years. But we use it because we're interested in the way that it can help
us to express the emotions and behavioral patterns in these creatures that we create. And once a
creature pops into our minds, it's almost like the process of creation is to discover the way this
creature really wants to exist and what form it wants to take and what way it wants to move.
所以我們用到大量科技， 但我們並非真的鍾愛科技， 它給我們的工作帶來年復一年的苦惱。 我們利用科技只因
我們 對它可幫助我們通過創造的作品 表達情感和行為模式 而感到興趣。 當我們腦海中閃現一件創作物 就像是
一個創造的過程 去發掘這件作品真正想存在的方法 和它存在的形式以及移動的方式。
Thank you.
謝謝!
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