Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology
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0:06 - 0:09These are sequences from a play called
"The Lehman Trilogy," -
0:09 - 0:14which traces the origins
of Western capitalism -
0:14 - 0:16in three hours,
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0:16 - 0:18with three actors and a piano.
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0:19 - 0:23And my role was to create a stage design
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0:23 - 0:27to write a visual language for this work.
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0:28 - 0:31The play describes Atlantic crossings,
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0:31 - 0:33Alabama cotton fields,
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0:33 - 0:35New York skylines,
-
0:35 - 0:40and we framed the whole thing
within this single revolving cube, -
0:41 - 0:45a kind of kinetic cinema
through the centuries. -
0:46 - 0:48It's like a musical instrument
-
0:48 - 0:50played by three performers.
-
0:51 - 0:54And as they step their way
around and through -
0:54 - 0:57the lives of the Lehman brothers,
-
0:57 - 0:59we, the audience,
-
0:59 - 1:03begin to connect
with the simple, human origins -
1:03 - 1:08at the root of the complex
global financial systems -
1:08 - 1:10that we're all still in thrall to today.
-
1:11 - 1:15I used to play musical instruments
myself when I was younger. -
1:16 - 1:17My favorite was the violin.
-
1:19 - 1:21It was this intimate transfer of energy.
-
1:22 - 1:26You held this organic sculpture
up to your heart, -
1:26 - 1:29and you poured the energy
of your whole body -
1:29 - 1:33into this little piece of wood,
and heard it translated into music. -
1:34 - 1:37And I was never particularly
good at the violin, -
1:37 - 1:42but I used to sit at the back
of the second violin section -
1:42 - 1:45in the Hastings Youth Orchestra,
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1:45 - 1:46scratching away.
-
1:47 - 1:50We were all scratching
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1:50 - 1:54and marveling at this symphonic sound
that we were making -
1:54 - 1:56that was so much
more beautiful and powerful -
1:56 - 1:59than anything we would ever
have managed on our own. -
2:00 - 2:04And now, as I create
large-scale performances, -
2:04 - 2:06I am always working with teams
-
2:06 - 2:10that are at least the size
of a symphony orchestra. -
2:10 - 2:12And whether we are creating
-
2:12 - 2:16these revolving giant
chess piece time tunnels -
2:16 - 2:19for an opera by Richard Wagner
-
2:19 - 2:23or shark tanks and mountains
for Kanye West, -
2:23 - 2:29we're always seeking to create
the most articulate sculpture, -
2:29 - 2:32the most poetic instrument
of communication to an audience. -
2:33 - 2:35When I say poetic,
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2:35 - 2:39I just mean language
at its most condensed, -
2:39 - 2:40like a song lyric,
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2:41 - 2:45a poetic puzzle
to be unlocked and unpacked. -
2:45 - 2:50And when we were preparing
to design Beyoncé's "Formation" tour, -
2:50 - 2:52we looked at all the lyrics,
-
2:52 - 2:56and we came across this poem
that Beyoncé wrote. -
2:57 - 3:02"I saw a TV preacher when I was scared,
at four or five about bad dreams -
3:02 - 3:06who promised he'd say a prayer
if I put my hand to the TV. -
3:06 - 3:12That's the first time I remember prayer,
an electric current running through me." -
3:12 - 3:16And this TV that transmitted prayer
to Beyoncé as a child -
3:16 - 3:19became this monolithic revolving sculpture
-
3:19 - 3:23that broadcast Beyoncé
to the back of the stadium. -
3:24 - 3:27And the stadium is a mass congregation.
-
3:29 - 3:32It's a temporary population
of a hundred thousand people -
3:32 - 3:35who have all come there to sing along
with every word together, -
3:35 - 3:41but they've also come there
each seeking one-to-one intimacy -
3:41 - 3:42with the performer.
-
3:43 - 3:46And we, as we conceive the show,
we have to provide intimacy -
3:46 - 3:48on a grand scale.
-
3:49 - 3:51It usually starts with sketches.
-
3:51 - 3:55I was drawing
this 60-foot-high, revolving, -
3:55 - 3:58broadcast-quality portrait of the artist,
-
3:59 - 4:01and then I tore
the piece of paper in half. -
4:01 - 4:03I split the mask
-
4:03 - 4:07to try to access the human
underneath it all. -
4:08 - 4:11And it's one thing to do sketches,
but of course translating from a sketch -
4:11 - 4:15into a tourable revolving
six-story building -
4:15 - 4:19took some exceptional engineers
working around the clock for three months, -
4:19 - 4:23until finally we arrived in Miami
-
4:23 - 4:25and opened the show in April 2016.
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4:26 - 4:31(Video: Cheers)
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4:31 - 4:34(Music: "Formation," Beyoncé)
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4:34 - 4:38Beyoncé: Y'all haters corny
with that Illuminati mess -
4:38 - 4:42Paparazzi, catch my fly,
and my cocky fresh -
4:42 - 4:46I'm so reckless when I rock
my Givenchy dress -
4:46 - 4:50I'm so possessive so I rock
his Roc necklaces -
4:50 - 4:52My daddy Alabama
-
4:52 - 4:54Momma Louisiana
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4:54 - 4:56You mix that negro with that Creole
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4:56 - 4:58make a Texas bama
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4:59 - 5:00(Music ends)
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5:00 - 5:02I call my work --
-
5:02 - 5:03(Cheers, applause)
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5:03 - 5:04Thank you.
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5:04 - 5:06(Cheers, applause)
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5:06 - 5:09I call my work stage sculpture,
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5:10 - 5:14but of course what's really being sculpted
is the experience of the audience, -
5:14 - 5:16and as directors and designers,
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5:16 - 5:18we have to take responsibility
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5:18 - 5:20for every minute
that the audience spend with us. -
5:21 - 5:23We're a bit like pilots
-
5:23 - 5:28navigating a flight path
for a hundred thousand passengers. -
5:28 - 5:32And in the case of the Canadian
artist The Weeknd, -
5:32 - 5:35we translated this flight path literally
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5:35 - 5:39into an origami paper folding airplane
-
5:39 - 5:42that took off over the heads
of the audience, -
5:42 - 5:44broke apart in mid-flight, complications,
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5:44 - 5:48and then rose out of the ashes restored
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5:48 - 5:49at the end of the show.
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5:50 - 5:51And like any flight,
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5:52 - 5:55the most delicate part
is the liftoff, the beginning, -
5:55 - 5:57because when you design a pop concert,
-
5:57 - 6:00the prime material
that you're working with -
6:00 - 6:05is something that doesn't take trucks
or crew to transport it. -
6:05 - 6:06It doesn't cost anything,
-
6:06 - 6:12and yet it fills every atom of air
in the arena, before the show starts. -
6:12 - 6:14It's the audience's anticipation.
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6:16 - 6:19Everyone brings with them
the story of how they came to get there, -
6:19 - 6:20the distances they traveled,
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6:20 - 6:23the months they had to work
to pay for the tickets. -
6:23 - 6:26Sometimes they sleep overnight
outside the arena, -
6:26 - 6:31and our first task is to deliver
for an audience on their anticipation, -
6:31 - 6:34to deliver their first sight
of the performer. -
6:36 - 6:38When I work with men,
-
6:39 - 6:44they're quite happy to have their music
transformed into metaphor -- -
6:44 - 6:45spaceflights, mountains.
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6:47 - 6:52But with women, we work a lot with masks
and with three-dimensional portraiture, -
6:52 - 6:54because the fans of the female artist
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6:54 - 6:56crave her face.
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6:58 - 7:03And when the audience arrived to see
Adele's first live concert in five years, -
7:03 - 7:06they were met with this image
of her eyes asleep. -
7:07 - 7:09If they listened carefully,
-
7:09 - 7:13they would hear her sleeping breath
echoing around the arena, -
7:13 - 7:15waiting to wake up.
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7:15 - 7:16Here's how the show began.
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7:17 - 7:22(Video: Cheers, applause)
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7:22 - 7:23(Music)
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7:23 - 7:25Adele: Hello.
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7:25 - 7:31(Cheers, applause)
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7:36 - 7:39Es Devlin: With U2,
we're navigating the audience -
7:39 - 7:44over a terrain that spans three decades
of politics, poetry and music. -
7:45 - 7:49And over many months, meeting
with the band and their creative teams, -
7:49 - 7:50this is the sketch that kept recurring,
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7:50 - 7:53this line, this street,
-
7:54 - 7:57the street that connects
the band's past with their present, -
7:57 - 8:01the tightrope that they walk
as activists and artists, -
8:01 - 8:03a walk through cinema
-
8:03 - 8:06that allows the band
to become protagonists -
8:06 - 8:07in their own poetry.
-
8:07 - 8:10(Music: U2's "Where the Streets
Have No Name") -
8:10 - 8:13Bono: I wanna run
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8:14 - 8:17I want to hide
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8:18 - 8:22I wanna tear down the walls
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8:22 - 8:25That hold me inside
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8:27 - 8:29Es Devlin: The end of the show
is like the end of a flight. -
8:29 - 8:31It's an arrival.
-
8:31 - 8:35It's a transfer from the stage
out to the audience. -
8:36 - 8:38For the British band Take That,
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8:38 - 8:43we ended the show by sending
an 80-foot high mechanical human figure -
8:43 - 8:45out to the center of the crowd.
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8:45 - 8:52(Music)
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8:54 - 8:57Like many translations
from music to mechanics, -
8:57 - 9:00this one was initially deemed
entirely technically impossible. -
9:01 - 9:04The first three engineers
we took it to said no, -
9:04 - 9:07and eventually,
the way that it was achieved -
9:07 - 9:11was by keeping the entire
control system together -
9:11 - 9:12while it toured around the country,
-
9:12 - 9:15so we had to fold it up
onto a flatbed truck -
9:15 - 9:17so it could tour around
without coming apart. -
9:17 - 9:21And of course, what this meant
was that the dimension of its head -
9:21 - 9:23was entirely determined
-
9:23 - 9:28by the lowest motorway bridge
that it had to travel under on its tour. -
9:28 - 9:30And I have to tell you that it turns out
-
9:30 - 9:34there is an unavoidable
and annoyingly low bridge -
9:34 - 9:35low bridge just outside Hamburg.
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9:35 - 9:39(Laughter)
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9:39 - 9:45(Music)
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9:45 - 9:50Another of the most technically complex
pieces that we've worked on -
9:50 - 9:52is the opera "Carmen"
-
9:52 - 9:54at Bregenz Festival in Austria.
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9:55 - 10:00We envisaged Carmen's hands rising
out of Lake Constance, -
10:00 - 10:02and throwing this deck
of cards in the air -
10:02 - 10:05and leaving them suspended
between sky and sea. -
10:05 - 10:09But this transient gesture,
this flick of the wrists -
10:09 - 10:12had to become a structure
that would be strong enough -
10:12 - 10:14to withstand two Austrian winters.
-
10:15 - 10:18So there's an awful lot
that you don't see in this photograph -
10:18 - 10:20that's working really hard.
-
10:20 - 10:24It's a lot of ballast and structure
and support around the back, -
10:24 - 10:27and I'm going to show you the photos
that aren't on my website. -
10:28 - 10:30They're photos of the back of a set,
-
10:30 - 10:34the part that's not designed
for the audience to see, -
10:34 - 10:36however much work it's doing.
-
10:40 - 10:43And you know, this is actually the dilemma
-
10:44 - 10:46for an artist who is working
as a stage designer, -
10:46 - 10:51because so much of what I make is fake,
-
10:51 - 10:53it's an illusion.
-
10:54 - 10:59And yet every artist works in pursuit
of communicating something that's true. -
11:00 - 11:03But we are always asking ourselves:
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11:03 - 11:06"Can we communicate truth
using things that are false?" -
11:08 - 11:12And now when I attend
the shows that I've worked on, -
11:12 - 11:15I often find I'm the only one
who is not looking at the stage. -
11:16 - 11:22I'm looking at something
that I find equally fascinating, -
11:22 - 11:23and it's the audience.
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11:23 - 11:25(Cheers)
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11:25 - 11:27I mean, where else do you witness this:
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11:27 - 11:28(Cheers)
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11:28 - 11:31this many humans, connected, focused,
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11:31 - 11:35undistracted and unfragmented?
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11:37 - 11:39And lately, I've begun to make work
that originates here, -
11:40 - 11:43in the collective voice of the audience.
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11:45 - 11:48"Poem Portraits" is a collective poem.
-
11:49 - 11:51It began at the Serpentine
Gallery in London, -
11:51 - 11:57and everybody is invited
to donate one word to a collective poem. -
11:57 - 12:00And instead of that large
single LED portrait -
12:00 - 12:03that was broadcasting
to the back of the stadium, -
12:03 - 12:05in this case, every member of the audience
-
12:05 - 12:07gets to take their own portrait
home with them, -
12:07 - 12:10and it's woven in with the words
-
12:10 - 12:13that they've contributed
to the collective poem. -
12:13 - 12:17So they keep a fragment
of an ever-evolving collective work. -
12:18 - 12:21And next year, the collective poem
will take architectural form. -
12:24 - 12:29This is the design for the UK Pavilion
at the World Expo 2020. -
12:31 - 12:32The UK ...
-
12:33 - 12:36In my lifetime,
it's never felt this divided. -
12:37 - 12:41It's never felt this noisy
with divergent voices. -
12:41 - 12:44And it's never felt this much
in need of places -
12:44 - 12:46where voices might connect and converge.
-
12:46 - 12:50And it's my hope
that this wooden sculpture, -
12:50 - 12:53this wooden instrument,
a bit like that violin I used to play, -
12:53 - 12:59might be a place where people
can play and enter their word -
12:59 - 13:00at one end of the cone,
-
13:00 - 13:03emerge at the other end of the building,
-
13:03 - 13:07and find that their word has joined
a collective poem, a collective voice. -
13:09 - 13:16(Music)
-
13:22 - 13:26These are simple experiments
in machine learning. -
13:27 - 13:32The algorithm that generates
the collective poem is pretty simple. -
13:32 - 13:34It's like predictive text,
-
13:34 - 13:40only it's trained on millions of words
written by poets in the 19th century. -
13:40 - 13:45So it's a sort of convergence
of intelligence, past and present, -
13:45 - 13:47organic and inorganic.
-
13:48 - 13:51And we were inspired
by the words of Stephen Hawking. -
13:51 - 13:54Towards the end of his life,
he asked quite a simple question: -
13:54 - 14:01If we as a species were ever
to come across another advanced life-form, -
14:01 - 14:03an advanced civilization,
-
14:03 - 14:05how would we speak to them?
-
14:06 - 14:09What collective language
would we speak as a planet? -
14:12 - 14:16The language of light
reaches every audience. -
14:16 - 14:19All of us are touched by it.
None of us can hold it. -
14:21 - 14:26And in the theater, we begin each work
in a dark place, devoid of light. -
14:26 - 14:30We stay up all night focusing the lights,
programming the lights, -
14:31 - 14:34trying to find new ways
to sculpt and carve light. -
14:35 - 14:39(Music)
-
14:39 - 14:44This is a portrait of our practice,
-
14:45 - 14:50always seeking new ways
to shape and reshape light, -
14:50 - 14:54always finding words for things
that we no longer need to say. -
14:57 - 15:00And I want to say that this,
-
15:01 - 15:04and everything that I've just shown you,
-
15:04 - 15:06no longer exists in physical form.
-
15:06 - 15:09(Music)
-
15:09 - 15:12In fact, most of what I've made
over the last 25 years -
15:12 - 15:13doesn't exist anymore.
-
15:13 - 15:18But our work endures in memories,
in synaptic sculptures, -
15:18 - 15:21in the minds of those
who were once present -
15:21 - 15:23in the audience.
-
15:23 - 15:25(Music)
-
15:25 - 15:30I once read that a poem learnt by heart
-
15:31 - 15:33is what you have left,
-
15:33 - 15:36what can't be lost,
-
15:36 - 15:40even if your house burns down
and you've lost all your possessions. -
15:40 - 15:45I want to end with some lines
that I learnt by heart a long time ago. -
15:45 - 15:47(Music)
-
15:47 - 15:50They're written by the English
novelist E.M. Forster, -
15:50 - 15:55in 1910, just a few years
before Europe, my continent, -
15:55 - 15:56(Music)
-
15:56 - 15:58began tearing itself apart.
-
15:58 - 16:00(Music)
-
16:00 - 16:03And his call to convergence
still resonates -
16:03 - 16:05through most of what
we're trying to make now. -
16:05 - 16:07(Music)
-
16:07 - 16:12"Only connect! That was
the whole of her sermon. -
16:12 - 16:15Only connect the prose and the passion,
-
16:15 - 16:18and both will be exalted,
-
16:18 - 16:22And human love will be seen at its height.
-
16:22 - 16:27Only connect! And live
in fragments no longer." -
16:29 - 16:30Thank you.
-
16:30 - 16:37(Applause)
- Title:
- Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology
- Speaker:
- Es Devlin
- Description:
-
It starts with a sketch. Then it evolves into a larger-than-life visual masterpiece, a celebration of human connection. Follow along as legendary artist and designer Es Devlin takes us on a visual tour of her work -- including iconic stage sculptures she's created for Beyoncé, Adele, Kanye West, U2 and more -- and previews her design for the upcoming World Expo 2020 in Dubai.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:52
Oliver Friedman edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Oliver Friedman edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Krystian Aparta accepted English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Mind-blowing stage sculptures that fuse music and technology |