A firework ladder to the sky — and the magic of explosive art | Cai Guo-Qiang

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From a boy setting off small explosions in his living room to the creator of world-famous pyrotechnic events, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo-Qiang has always been drawn to gunpowder. He gives a stunning tour of his work — including his fireworks spectacle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his "sky ladder" of fire reaching to the clouds and new work created with AI — and shows how his art probes the line between destruction and construction, control and freedom, violence and beauty. (This talk was delivered in Mandarin and translated live into English. The translation was put through a custom AI model of Cai Guo-Qiang's voice, powered by technology from Metaphysic. You'll hear how Cai would sound if he were speaking English.)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	You're listening to Ted Talks daily,
0:11.0	where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.
0:15.0	I'm your host, Elise Hugh.
0:17.0	Yall, we have a real treat today from multidisciplinary artist Saiguachang.
0:21.6	He doesn't speak English. He speaks Mandarin Chinese. But thanks to
0:26.2	advancements in AI from developer Tom Graham and his team at Metaphysic, Saai was able to speak about his art in his native tongue and have it real-time
0:36.2	translated into his voice by translator Song-Lao for one of the most memorable experiences at TED in recent memory.
0:44.0	But don't take my word for it, the folks who saw it agree.
0:47.0	The artist was actually one of the most profound talks
0:50.0	this week.
0:51.0	The profundity is coming up after the break.
0:56.0	At radio lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science,
1:00.8	neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs.
1:12.0	Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous
1:16.8	curiosity to get you the answers.
1:19.3	And hopefully make you see the world anew.
1:21.0	Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know
1:24.0	wherever you get your podcast and now our TED Talk of the day.
1:29.3	More than one000 years ago.
1:34.0	When Chinese alchemists were developing
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.