Sculpted space, within and without
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0:01 - 0:05I'm going to tell you about why I became a sculptor,
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0:05 - 0:07and you may think that sculptors,
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0:07 - 0:12well, they deal with meta, they deal with objects,
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0:12 - 0:15they deal with bodies,
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0:15 - 0:20but I think, really, what I care about most
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0:20 - 0:24is making space, and that's what I've called this talk:
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0:24 - 0:26Making Space.
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0:26 - 0:31Space that exists within us,
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0:31 - 0:33and without us.
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0:33 - 0:37So, when I was a child,
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0:37 - 0:39I don't know how many of you grew up in the '50s,
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0:39 - 0:44but I was sent upstairs for an enforced rest. (Laughter)
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0:44 - 0:48It's a really bad idea. I mean, after lunch, you're, you know,
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0:48 - 0:51you're six, and you want to go and climb a tree.
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0:51 - 0:53But I had to go upstairs, this tiny little room
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0:53 - 0:54that was actually made out of an old balcony,
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0:54 - 1:00so it was incredibly hot, small and light,
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1:00 - 1:03and I had to lie there. It was ridiculous.
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1:03 - 1:06But anyway, for some reason, I promised myself
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1:06 - 1:08that I wasn't going to move,
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1:08 - 1:10that I was going to do this thing that Mummy
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1:10 - 1:12wanted me to do.
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1:12 - 1:15And there I was, lying there in this tiny space,
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1:15 - 1:22hot, dark, claustrophobic, matchbox-sized, behind my eyes,
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1:22 - 1:26but it was really weird, like, after this went on
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1:26 - 1:33for days, weeks, months, that space would get bigger
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1:33 - 1:36and darker and cooler
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1:36 - 1:41until I really looked forward to that half an hour
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1:41 - 1:45of enforced immobility and rest,
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1:45 - 1:50and I really looked forward to going to that place
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1:50 - 1:52of darkness.
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1:52 - 1:55Do you mind if we do something completely different?
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1:55 - 1:57Can we all just close our eyes for a minute?
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1:57 - 1:59Now, this isn't going to be freaky.
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1:59 - 2:00It isn't some cultic thing. (Laughter)
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2:00 - 2:03It's just, it's just, I just would like us all to go there.
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2:03 - 2:06So I'm going to do it too. We'll all be there together.
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2:06 - 2:09So close your eyes for a minute.
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2:09 - 2:13Here we are, in a space,
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2:13 - 2:20the subjective, collective space of the darkness of the body.
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2:20 - 2:24I think of this as the place of imagination,
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2:24 - 2:27of potential,
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2:27 - 2:30but what are its qualities?
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2:30 - 2:36It is objectless. There are no things in it.
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2:36 - 2:42It is dimensionless. It is limitless.
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2:42 - 2:46It is endless.
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2:46 - 2:49Okay, open your eyes.
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2:49 - 2:53That's the space that I think sculpture --
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2:53 - 2:56which is a bit of a paradox, sculpture that is about
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2:56 - 2:59making material propositions --
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2:59 - 3:01but I think that's the space
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3:01 - 3:06that sculpture can connect us with.
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3:06 - 3:10So, imagine we're in the middle of America.
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3:10 - 3:13You're asleep. You wake up,
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3:13 - 3:16and without lifting your head from the earth
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3:16 - 3:22on your sleeping bag, you can see for 70 miles.
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3:22 - 3:25This is a dry lake bed.
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3:25 - 3:29I was young. I'd just finished art school.
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3:29 - 3:32I wanted to do something that was working
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3:32 - 3:37directly with the world, directly with place.
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3:37 - 3:40This was a wonderful place, because it was a place
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3:40 - 3:42where you could imagine that you were the
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3:42 - 3:44first person to be there.
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3:44 - 3:49It was a place where nothing very much had happened.
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3:49 - 3:52Anyway, bear with me.
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3:52 - 3:56I picked up a hand-sized stone,
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3:56 - 3:58threw it as far as I was able,
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3:58 - 4:00it was about 22 meters.
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4:00 - 4:07I then cleared all the stones within that radius
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4:07 - 4:11and made a pile.
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4:11 - 4:13And that was the pile, by the way.
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4:13 - 4:16And then, I stood on the pile,
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4:16 - 4:20and threw all of those rocks out again,
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4:20 - 4:26and here is rearranged desert.
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4:26 - 4:28You could say, well, it doesn't look very different
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4:28 - 4:30from when he started.
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4:30 - 4:31(Laughter)
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4:31 - 4:32What's all the fuss about?
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4:32 - 4:34In fact, Chris was worried and said,
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4:34 - 4:35"Look, don't show them that slide,
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4:35 - 4:37because they're just going to think you're another one of
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4:37 - 4:40those crazy modern artists who doesn't do much.
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4:40 - 4:42(Laughter)
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4:42 - 4:49But the fact is, this is evidence
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4:49 - 4:52of a living body on other bodies,
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4:52 - 4:58rocks that have been the subject of geological formation,
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4:58 - 5:03erosion, the action of time on objects.
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5:03 - 5:06This is a place, in a way, that I just
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5:06 - 5:09would like you to, in a way, look at differently
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5:09 - 5:13because of this event that has happened in it,
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5:13 - 5:15a human event,
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5:15 - 5:19and in general, it just asks us to look again
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5:19 - 5:21at this world, so different from, in a way,
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5:21 - 5:24the world that we have been sharing with each other,
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5:24 - 5:27the technological world,
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5:27 - 5:32to look again at the elemental world.
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5:32 - 5:37The elemental world that we all live in is that space
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5:37 - 5:42that we all visited together, the darkness of the body.
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5:42 - 5:45I wanted to start again with that environment,
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5:45 - 5:49the environment of the intimate, subjective space
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5:49 - 5:53that each of us lives in, but from the other side
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5:53 - 5:55of appearance.
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5:55 - 5:58So here is a daily activity of the studio.
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5:58 - 6:02You can see I don't do much. I'm just standing there,
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6:02 - 6:04again with my eyes closed, and other people
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6:04 - 6:09are molding me, evidential.
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6:09 - 6:12This is an indexical register of a lived moment
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6:12 - 6:16of a body in time.
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6:16 - 6:21Can we map that space, using the language of neutrinos
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6:21 - 6:26or cosmic rays, taking the bounding condition of the body
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6:26 - 6:32as its limit, but in complete reversal of, in a way,
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6:32 - 6:34the most traditional Greek idea of pointing?
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6:34 - 6:38In the old days they used to take a lump of Pentelic marble
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6:38 - 6:43and drill from the surface in order to identify the skin,
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6:43 - 6:44the appearance,
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6:44 - 6:47what Aristotle defined as the distinction
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6:47 - 6:49between substance and appearance,
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6:49 - 6:52the thing that makes things visible,
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6:52 - 6:56but here we're working from the other side.
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6:56 - 7:00Or can we do it as an exclusive membrane?
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7:00 - 7:06This is a lead case made around the space
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7:06 - 7:09that my body occupied, but it's now void.
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7:09 - 7:13This is a work called "Learning To See."
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7:13 - 7:19It's a bit of, well, we could call it night,
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7:19 - 7:24we could call it the 96 percent of gravity
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7:24 - 7:27that we don't know about, dark matter,
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7:27 - 7:31placed in space, anyway, another version of a human space
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7:31 - 7:34in space at large, but I don't know if you can see,
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7:34 - 7:40the eyes are indicated, they're closed.
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7:40 - 7:43It's called "Learning To See" because it's about an object
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7:43 - 7:47that hopefully works reflexively and talks about that
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7:47 - 7:51vision or connection with the darkness of the body
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7:51 - 7:56that I see as a space of potential.
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7:56 - 7:59Can we do it another way, using the language
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7:59 - 8:03of particles around a nucleus, and talk about the body
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8:03 - 8:04as an energy center?
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8:04 - 8:08No longer about statues, no longer having to take that
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8:08 - 8:11duty of standing, the standing of a human body,
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8:11 - 8:14or the standing of a statue, release it,
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8:14 - 8:18allow it to be an energy field, a space in space
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8:18 - 8:25that talks about human life, between becoming an entropy
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8:25 - 8:30as a sort of concentration of attention,
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8:30 - 8:35a human place of possibility in space at large.
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8:35 - 8:39Is there another way?
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8:39 - 8:45Dark matter now placed against a horizon.
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8:45 - 8:49If minds live in bodies, if bodies live in clothes,
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8:49 - 8:52and then in rooms, and then in buildings,
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8:52 - 8:58and then in cities, do they also have a final skin,
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8:58 - 9:00and is that skin perceptual?
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9:00 - 9:03The horizon.
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9:03 - 9:05And is art about
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9:05 - 9:11trying to imagine what lies beyond the horizon?
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9:11 - 9:20Can we use, in a way, a body as an empty catalyst
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9:20 - 9:25for a kind of empathy with the experience
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9:25 - 9:30of space-time as it is lived, as I am standing here
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9:30 - 9:35in front of you trying to feel and make a connection
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9:35 - 9:39in this space-time that we are sharing,
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9:39 - 9:42can we use, at it were, the memory of a body,
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9:42 - 9:45of a human space in space to catalyze
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9:45 - 9:49an experience, again, firsthand experience,
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9:49 - 9:52of elemental time.
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9:52 - 9:56Human time, industrial time, tested against
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9:56 - 9:59the time of the tides, in which these memories
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9:59 - 10:04of a particular body, that could be any body,
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10:04 - 10:09multiplied as in the time of mechanical reproduction,
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10:09 - 10:14many times, placed over three square miles,
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10:14 - 10:17a mile out to sea,
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10:17 - 10:22disappearing, in different conditions of day and night.
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10:22 - 10:25You can see this work. It's on the mouth of the Mersey,
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10:25 - 10:28just outside Liverpool.
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10:28 - 10:31And there you can see what a Liverpool sea looks like
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10:31 - 10:34on a typical afternoon.
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10:34 - 10:37The pieces appear and disappear,
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10:37 - 10:39but maybe more importantly --
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10:39 - 10:43this is just looking north from the center of the installation --
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10:43 - 10:47they create a field, a field that involves
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10:47 - 10:53living and the surrogate bodies in a kind of relation,
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10:53 - 10:58a relation with each other and a relation with that limit,
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10:58 - 11:02the edge, the horizon.
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11:02 - 11:04Just moving on, is it possible,
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11:04 - 11:09taking that idea of mind, body, body-building,
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11:09 - 11:12to supplant the first body,
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11:12 - 11:14the biological body, with the second,
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11:14 - 11:17the body of architecture and the built environment.
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11:17 - 11:22This is a work called "Room for the Great Australian Desert."
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11:22 - 11:23It's in an undefined location
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11:23 - 11:27and I've never published where it is.
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11:27 - 11:28It's an object for the mind.
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11:28 - 11:32I think of it as a 21st-century Buddha.
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11:32 - 11:34Again, the darkness of the body,
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11:34 - 11:37now held within this bunker shape
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11:37 - 11:40of the minimum position that a body needs to occupy,
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11:40 - 11:42a crouching body.
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11:42 - 11:45There's a hole at the anus, penis level.
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11:45 - 11:48There are holes at ears. There are no holes at the eyes.
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11:48 - 11:52There's a slot for the mouth. It's two and a half inches thick,
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11:52 - 11:55concrete with a void interior.
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11:55 - 11:59Again, a site found with a completely flat
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11:59 - 12:04360-degree horizon.
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12:04 - 12:08This is just simply asking, again,
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12:08 - 12:13as if we had arrived for the first time,
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12:13 - 12:17what is the relationship of the human project
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12:17 - 12:21to time and space?
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12:21 - 12:24Taking that idiom of, as it were,
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12:24 - 12:29the darkness of the body transferred to architecture,
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12:29 - 12:33can you use architectural space not for living
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12:33 - 12:35but as a metaphor,
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12:35 - 12:38and use its systolic, diastolic
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12:38 - 12:43smaller and larger spaces to provide a kind of
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12:43 - 12:49firsthand somatic narrative for a journey through space,
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12:49 - 12:52light and darkness?
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12:52 - 12:58This is a work of some proportion and some weight
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12:58 - 13:03that makes the body into a city, an aggregation of cells
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13:03 - 13:05that are all interconnected
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13:05 - 13:10and that allow certain visual access
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13:10 - 13:13at certain places.
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13:13 - 13:19The last work that I just wanted to share with you
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13:19 - 13:23is "Blind Light," which is perhaps
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13:23 - 13:26the most open work,
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13:26 - 13:29and in a conference of radical openness,
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13:29 - 13:33I think maybe this is as radical as I get,
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13:33 - 13:37using light and water vapor as my materials.
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13:37 - 13:39Here is a box
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13:39 - 13:43filled at one and a half atmospheres of atmospheric pressure,
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13:43 - 13:47with a cloud and with very bright light.
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13:47 - 13:50As you walk towards the ever-open threshold,
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13:50 - 13:58you disappear, both to yourselves and to others.
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13:58 - 14:00If you hold your hand out in front of you,
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14:00 - 14:02you can't see it.
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14:02 - 14:05If you look down, you can't see your feet.
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14:05 - 14:12You are now consciousness without an object,
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14:12 - 14:16freed from the dimensionful
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14:16 - 14:22and measured way in which life links us
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14:22 - 14:25to the obligatory.
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14:25 - 14:30But this is a space that is actually filled with people,
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14:30 - 14:32disembodied voices,
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14:32 - 14:36and out of that ambient environment,
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14:36 - 14:40when people come close to your own body zone,
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14:40 - 14:44very close, they appear to you as representations.
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14:44 - 14:47When they appear close to the edge,
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14:47 - 14:51they are representations, representations in which
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14:51 - 14:55the viewers have become the viewed.
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14:55 - 15:01For me, art is not about objects of high monetary exchange.
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15:01 - 15:06It's about reasserting our firsthand experience
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15:06 - 15:09in present time.
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15:09 - 15:13As John Cage said,
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15:13 - 15:18"We are not moving towards some kind of goal.
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15:18 - 15:22We are at the goal, and it is changing with us.
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15:22 - 15:29If art has any purpose, it is to open our eyes to that fact."
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15:29 - 15:31Thank you very much.
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15:31 - 15:35(Applause)
- Title:
- Sculpted space, within and without
- Speaker:
- Antony Gormley
- Description:
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Legendary sculptor Antony Gormley riffs on space and the human form. His works explore the interior space we feel within our own bodies -- and the exterior space we feel around us, knowing that we are just dots in space and time.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:56
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Viktoria Martinova edited English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Viktoria Martinova edited English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Sculpted space, within and without | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |