Improvisation Is a Word for Something That Can’t Keep a Name
By Steve Paxton, translated by Yin Haolong
文/史蒂夫帕克斯顿
译/尹浩龙
The arts can be related to the senses, roughly speaking—music for the ears, painting for the eyes, dance for the body. But dance suggests an exception, because in the West it has become a spectator art, and it is through the eyes that the audience begins a kinetic response, or a physical empathy with the dancer.
艺术可以与感官有关，粗略地说——音乐为耳朵，绘画为眼睛，舞蹈为身体。但舞蹈暗示了一个例外，因为在西方，它已成为一种观赏性艺术，观众通过眼睛对舞者产生动能回应，或身体上的共情。
The way the arts relate to the senses gets more and more complicated to describe when we consider the senses as interrelating. We notice that the muscles of the eyes move the visual apparatus to scan and focus. The neck and torso muscles move the head to expedite the eye movement. We move the whole body through space to look at sculpture. And we are able to dance on time to music by virtue of the fact that hearing, which is one of our fastest sensing systems, drives our kinetic response.
当我们考虑感官的相互关联时，艺术与感官的关系变得越来越难以描述。我们注意到眼睛的肌肉会移动眼球以进行扫描和聚焦。颈部和躯干肌肉移动头部以加快眼球运动。我们通过空间移动整个身体以观察雕塑。我们能够随着音乐的节奏跳舞，因为听力是我们最快的感知系统之一，听力可以驱动我们的动能回应。
In their creation or execution, the arts are deeply connected to specially trained kinetic systems which, in a painting for instance, produce not only images, but characteristic strokes and lines. The “touch” of a musician is as characteristic.
在它们的创作或执行中，艺术与经过专门训练的动能系统密切相关，例如，在一幅画中，这些系统不仅产生图像，而且产生特征性的笔触和线条。 音乐家的“触感”同样是特别的。
These are ways of regarding the senses which are far from the “five senses” model, which is the way children are taught about the senses and their perceptions of the world. And it seems that little is added to this initial picture in the adult popular mind. I have read newspa- per articles about “the five senses and the mysterious sixth sense” just this year. I am not right up to date on the current material analyzing the senses into all their component bits, but they were up to about twenty-five separate senses (each with identifiable independent nerves) in the late s, which is a much more interesting number. If you are interested in other models, read J. J. Gibson’s The Senses Considered As Perceptual Systems, read Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s work on Developmental Movement Systems (in past CQs), investi- gate the premises of yoga, acupuncture, or any of the Oriental physical systems which have been imported into the U.S., and read the provocative and heart- moving The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks. I think we can’t have too many models of the senses and their operation when considering a topic like improvisation.
这些是与传统“五种感官”模式非常不同的认识感官的方式，我们通过“五种感官”模式教导儿童关于感官的认识方式和他们如何对世界的产生观念和看法的方式。在成人大众心目中，这幅最初的画面似乎并没有增加什么新东西。就在今年，我读过报纸上关于“五种感官和神秘的第六感”的文章。我不了解目前最新的对感官的研究和分析将其如何分类，但在70年代后期，研究人员发现有多达大约 25 个独立的感官（每一个都有可识别的独立神经），这是一个更有趣的数字。如果你对此感兴趣，可以去阅读 JJ Gibson 的《被视为知觉系统的感官》（The Senses Considered As Perceptual Systems），阅读 Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen 关于发育运动系统（Developmental Movement Systems）的研究（在过去的 CQ 中），研究瑜伽、针灸或任何介绍到美国的东方身体体系，阅读了奥利弗·萨克斯 (Oliver Sacks) 所著启发思考而感动人心的作品《将妻子误认为帽子的男人》（The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat）。我认为在讨论即兴之类的话题时，我们需要不同的对于感官的认识模型，并了解其中是如何运作的。
It is a bit self-referential to say that the model I’m working on in this essay is about the effect of models upon the mind, but I can’t see any way around it. I should mention in this regard that Buddhist thinking includes the mind as one of the senses. I am fond of that thought for the questions which arise for the analysts (how fast do we sense our thought?). If this is an amusing poser to throw at the sensoral analysts, it is because most of their work on the senses relates to those of the surface, disregarding questions about our sense of gravity, our feeling of the muscles of the body when they are quiet, or the sense of “being,” if I may propose such a sense.
如果说我在这篇文章中研究的模型是对心智认知模型研究的结果，这有点参照我自己的经历，但我看不到任何更好的解决方法。 在这方面我应该提到，佛教的思想讲”心智“（mind）也包括在感官的范畴之中，是感官中的一个。 我很喜欢这对研究人员提出的问题，我们感受到我们的想法的速度有多快？对于感官研究人员来说，这是一个有趣的挑衅，因为他们在感官上的大部分研究都与表面的东西有关，而无视很多更深的问题，关于我们对重力的感受，关于静止时我们对身体肌肉的感受 ，关于对“存在”的感受，如果我可以提出这样的感官的存在。
Yet the analysts’ labor to discover the special nerves for each sensoral aspect is of interest, if only to explain the mechanism which allows us to dance to music, a most popular form of improvisation. If we can bop at a party because our perception of sound is faster by four milliseconds than our perception of our limbs’ relative positions, we may surmise something about how the brain interrelates the senses. We could also look at time itself as a thing modified by each of the senses, instead of being an objective measure of duration. In other words, in trying to describe the sensing of time, we must refer to the perception of times. These times then must be collated into how long we think an event took, which is a very complex computation involving which of the senses experienced the event.
然而，研究人员为每个感官都发现了独特的神经，这个努力是有意思的，即使只是为了解释我们如何伴随着音乐跳舞的机制，这是最流行的即兴形式。 如果我们能在派对上尽情起舞，那是因为我们对声音的感知比我们对四肢相对位置的感知要快四毫秒，从这里，我们可能会推测出大脑如何将感官相互关联。 我们也可以将时间本身视为由每种感官在调整的对象，而不是对持续时间的客观度量。 换句话说，在试图描述对时间的感受时，我们必须提及对时间的感知。 然后必须将这些时间整理成我们认为事件发生的时间，这是一个非常复杂的计算，涉及判断出哪些感官经历了这个事件。
For instance, if we drop an object from a known height, we have the math to calculate how fast it will be moving when it hits the floor. This formula indicates that, barring air resistance, any object increases its rate of falling constantly. With this mathematical tool, we feel satisfied that we comprehend the event. It is objectively clear.
例如，如果我们从一个已知的高度放下一个物体，我们就可以通过数学计算它撞击地板时的移动速度。 这个公式表明，除了空气阻力，任何物体都会不断增加它的下落速度。 有了这个数学工具，我们对理解事件感到满意。 客观上一切是清楚的。
However, if we drop a soapy dish and before it smashes on the floor, manage to catch it, we can appreciate the sensoral complexity and precision of another point of view—the subjective feeling of gravity’s effect on the dish, which enables us to save it. We treasure this facility in sports—eye-hand-body coordination of time, space, and posture getting you there to snag the pop fly.
然而，如果我们洗碗的时候不小心摔下了一个沾满洗碗液的盘子，在它砸在地板上之前，设法抓住它，我们可以从另一个角度欣赏感官的复杂性和精确性——我们主观角度判断重力对碟子的影响的感觉，这使我们能够接住它。 在运动中，这个能力变得很重要，在时间、空间和姿势中，眼睛，手和身体的协调，让你在那里可以抓住飞行的苍蝇。
I was deeply impressed by seeing a blind woman drop and catch a plate she was washing. For once, the eyes didn’t have it. It “makes sense,” as the phrase goes, that our bodies are completely attuned to the gravitic effect—that the rate a body falls is abundantly obvious to our own bodies; that any discussion of subjective time should mention the gravitic factor in tuning the human time senses.
看到一个失明的女人也接住了掉落下来的她正在洗的盘子，给我留下了深刻的印象。 这里没有用到眼睛。 有什么东西在创造感受，让一切符合道理，it makes sense，正如这句话所说，我们的身体完全适应重力效应是“在创造感受“（有道理的），一个物体下落的速度对我们自己的身体来说是非常明显的； 任何关于主观时间的讨论都应该提到调节人类对时间的感受的重力因素。
And we might as well put in right here yet another factor, the state of our endocrine system, which can speed up or retard our experience of these times—just to indicate how extraordinary a job the brain is doing and to get some glimpse of how quickly it does it.
我们不妨把另一个因素放在这里，我们内分泌系统的状态，它可以加速或延迟我们对这些时刻的体验——只是为了表明大脑正在做的工作有多么不寻常，并了解一下它工作的速度有多快。
“Quickly,” compared to what? Ah, “quickly” compared to how long it would take for the conscious mind to do the job. (This is my conscious mind writing, and I just wish you knew how long it’s taking me to describe the little I can deduce about what my unconscious mind is doing.)
“快”，那是和什么做对比而言？ 啊，这里所说的“快”是和有意识的大脑完成这项工作所需的时间相比。 （这是我的有意识思维在写作，我只希望你知道我花了多长时间来描述我可以通过推断而得到的无意识思维正在做什么。）
Language, a medium in its own right, is deployed to analyze experiences. Language is either written or spo- ken. It is either for the eye or ear, but finally it is intended to be sensed by portions of the brain which decode sounds or symbols into meanings. We rely extensively upon it to communicate what we feel and think. We use it to qualify, quantify, and confirm and in general to hold our societies together. It is the major medium, I would estimate. Julian Jaynes has speculated (in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind ), that consciousness itself arose with the advent of the written word.
语言本身就是一种媒介，用于分析经验。 语言要么是书面的，要么是说出来的。 它要么是针对眼睛的，要么是针对耳朵的，但最终它会被大脑中将声音或符号解码为意义的部分所感受到。 我们广泛依赖它来传达我们的感受和想法。 我们用它来限定、量化和确认，并在一般情况下将我们的社会团结在一起。 它是主要的媒介，我可以如此推断。 朱利安·杰恩斯 (Julian Jaynes) 在《两元心智分析中的意识起源》（The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind）中提出，意识本身随着文字的出现而出现。
The link of language to consciousness suggests many avenues for speculation. (It might explain the relative slowness of conscious thought, for instance.) I think it is well understood that there is much we experience which language cannot touch and should not be used for, but it is such an extraordinary medium that we keep applying it to all sorts of things, in hopes, perhaps, of contriving a successful new formulation; bringing the unconscious, un-“knowable,” or unspeakable into literate consciousness.
语言与意识的联系为我们提示了许多理解的方式。 （例如，这可能解释了为什么有意识思维是相对缓慢的。）我认为，就如同大家都广泛理解的，我们经历了很多语言无法触及，也不应该在此使用的体验，但语言是如此非凡的一个媒介，以至于我们不断将其应用在各种各样的事情上，希望，也许，想出一个成功的新方法； 将无意识、不“可知”或不可言说的东西带入有文字的意识。
I would bet that no dancer ever reviewed, however positively, has ever felt their dance captured in print. Yet language, used to describe other arts, forms a very important part of what we think about a work of art. It can certainly influence our point of view and may even suggest what can be thought about—that is, limit our perception or experience to the forum encompassed by language. It does seem to me that if we spend much time communicating with others via language about a painting, music, or a dance, we accustom our minds to the language version of the experience.
我敢打赌，没有一个舞者曾经评论过，无论多么积极，感觉到他们的舞蹈被印刷品准确呈现了。 然而，用来描述其他艺术的语言，构成了我们对艺术作品的看法的一个非常重要的部分。 它当然可以影响我们的观点，甚至可以提出可以思考的内容——也就是说，将我们的看法或经验限制在语言所涵盖的范畴内。 在我看来，如果在我们讨论绘画、音乐或舞蹈的时候，我们花很多时间通过语言和他人交流，我们就会习惯于局限在语言版本内的体验。
There are sensible reasons for this. Human societies deeply appreciate evaluations which, like mining for gold, mean eliminating dirt and concentrating on what is considered valuable. Our actual experience of something can include much that is irrelevant to its evaluation. An apt evaluation of a work will likely be repeated by others to their friends. The further it goes from the source of the experience to a verbal or printed version, the less recourse we have to elaborations or answers to our questions. We put such a rendered experience into our own version of a context. It is an idea we flesh out with our own images. As such, it has become a fictionalized picture, it has become un-true, but we do it continually.
这有一些可被理解的原因。 人类社会非常欣赏选择和评价的过程，就像开采黄金一样，意味着不断消除无用的杂质，并专注于提取那些被认为有价值的东西。 我们对某事的实际经验可能是更复杂的，包括了许多与“开采”过程得到的东西无关的内容。当我们听到别人对作品的评价时，我们会把我们喜欢的内容采纳到我们和其他朋友在分享时的语言中。 在这个过程中，语言的评价从实际经验的来源越来越走向口头或印刷版本，我们也越来越少需要这个源头来思考或回答我们的疑问。我们把这个投射的体验放入自己理解的版本当中。这是我们自己用想象力构建的一个想法。这满满成为了一个幻想的画面，这不是真实的，但我们不断在重复这个过程。
Much of what we know about ourselves is described to us via language. The very idea of the “imagination,” for instance. How did you learn it existed? In many such respects, we “imagine” ourselves according to categories, descriptions, and names of aspects of whatever we are told (or read) it means to be a human being. I have a soul, in other words, because the Bible tells me so. I have an ego and an id thanks largely to the writings of Freud, and an anima and animus courtesy of Jung. Not to belabor the point, we (think we) are conditioned to a considerable degree by our language.
我们对自己的大部分了解是通过语言向我们描述的。 例如，“想象力”的想法。 你是怎么知道它存在的？ 在许多这样的方面，我们根据类别、描述和我们被告知（或阅读）的任何方面的名称来“想象”自己，“想象”成为一个人意味着什么。 换句话说，我有灵魂，因为圣经告诉我这样。 我有一个自我和一个本我，这主要归功于弗洛伊德的著作，以及荣格的语言，我们有anima和animus。 不用多说，我们（认为我们）在很大程度上受到我们的语言的限制。
Not that the particular names, categories and descriptions we apply to ourselves have always been the same nor will they be used always. They reflect a consensus and will change or vanish as that consensus changes. Jaynes is fascinating as he tries to describe the state of the human mind prior to consciousness. But we don’t have to reach into the past to grasp some idea of how arbitrary our notions about ourselves are, we can examine ideas of cultures paralleling our own and feel the disconcerting void of (our own) recognizable terms of existence.
并不是说我们应用于自己的特定名称、类别和描述一直是相同的，我们也不是一直都在用它们。它们反应的是一个共识，当这个共识改变时，一切也会变化，或小时。Janes对此非常着迷，他试图去描述在意识之前的人类思维状态。也不会总是被使用。 它们反映了共识，并且会随着共识的改变而改变或消失。 杰恩斯（Jaynes）试图描述意识之前的人类思维状态时，他很着迷。 但是我们不必回到过去来了解我们对自己的看法是多么武断，我们可以检查与我们自己的文化平行的观念，并感受到（我们自己的）可认识到的存在方式中令人不安的空白。
Language is not only prominent, but it can be coercive. We may opt to disregard experiences which don’t work in language.
语言不仅是的重要而显而易见的，而且也是强制性的。 我们可能会选择忽略在语言中不起作用的体验。
Tom Wolfe wrote a scathing article called “The Painted Word,” wherein he suggests that painters in the New York school of abstract expressionism were in fact led by the writings of a few prominent critics to paint as they did. He seemed to feel that this was a degenerate situation which devalued the art produced.
汤姆·沃尔夫 (Tom Wolfe) 写了一篇名为《画出来的词》The Painted Word) 的评论文章，其中他提到了纽约抽象表现主义学派的画家实际上是在一些著名评论家的文字的带领下进行绘画的。 他认为这是一种退化的情况，贬低了所产生的艺术。
It could be said however that this was an exceptional case of painters and writers developing the ideas of a movement in concert—exceptional in that it was a very intimate scene with a mix of artists, musicians, dancers, and critics in close communication, and with regular forums for discussion. Language could then be developed to account for the paintings at the moment of their creation. What Wolfe and the rest of us are accustomed to is a five-to-ten-year lag, to give time for critical language to be invented to describe the work. When this has been accomplished it has the effect Wolfe was describing: people learn to imagine in and with the new concepts, and artists and student artists elsewhere paint in the described manner.
然而，可以说这是画家和作家协同共同发展运动理念的一个特殊案例——特殊之处在于这是一个非常熟悉的场景，一群艺术家、音乐家、舞蹈家和评论家密切交流，并且定期举办论坛进行讨论。 然后可以找到语言来解释他们创作时的绘画。 沃尔夫和我们其他人所习惯的语言有五到十年的滞后，这个滞后提供了时间来发明评论性的语言来描述作品。 当这一过程完成后，就会产生沃尔夫所描述的结果：人们学习新概念，并用新概念进行想象，艺术家和学生艺术家可以用所描述的方式进行绘画。
One medium may support another, rather like the sensoral model: one sense may support another. However, I have begun to think that one medium cannot accurately describe another. We are used to the attempt to make films of novels, and then read critiques in which, to no one’s surprise, the film is found a more or (usually) less successful “adaptation.” Films are now “novelized” to similar effect. Critiques do not adequately portray the art, either: it all seems to boil down to “you had to be there.” There is nothing like the real things, whatever version of “real” we happen to start with.
一种媒介可能支持另一种媒介，就像感受模型：一个感官可能支持另一种感官。 然而，我开始认识到，一种媒介不能准确地描述另一种。 我们经常尝试把小说改编成电影，然后当我们阅读电影评论时，常常读到观众评价电影（通常）是不太成功的“改编”。 电影现在也被“小说化”，以达到类似的效果。 批评的语言无法充分描绘艺术：这一切似乎都归结为“你必须在那里”。 真实的东西时无法用语言重构的，无论我们碰巧从什么版本的“真实”开始。
Analysis of perceptions shows us the realms of “reality” we are able to tap with the senses. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, imagining are, to me, each so very different from each other, seen subjectively, that I am apt to think of them as sensoral dimensions. Again, we adapt one dimension to another; “loud” colors, for instance, is an “auralization” of a sight. But the point here is to notice how the sensoral dimensions are different, since we are so used to confirmations of events through their blending. Watch a carpenter drive nails at close range—eyes see and ears hear the hammer. Then, move into the distance—eyes see first . . . then ears hear. What we originally felt as one experience has been divided between the two senses. We are mildly bemused by the organic “analysis” we experience.
对感知的分析向我们展示了我们能够用感官挖掘的“现实”领域。 视觉、听觉、触觉、嗅觉、想象，对我来说，彼此之间非常不同，主观上看，我很容易将它们视为感官维度。 同样，我们使一个维度适应另一个维度； 例如，“响亮”的颜色是视觉的“听觉化”。 但这里的重点是注意感官维度是如何不同于彼此，因为我们已经习惯于通过感官的综合判断来确认事件的发生。 近距离观看木匠钉钉子——眼睛看得见，耳朵听得见锤子。 然后，向远处移动——眼睛先看到。 . . 然后耳朵听到。 我们最初的感觉是一种体验，现在已经被两种感官分开了。 我们对我们所经历的进行有机“分析”会感到有些困惑。
In the 1960s there arose an artistic movement called “mixed media” in which one saw dances, films, language, etc., used in the same work. Now that I understand the senses and the mind as “mixed media,” I am very surprised that the movement got this name. It seems to me that what was really going on was “unmixed media,” since the words usually did not relate to the dance or film which did not relate to each other in familiar ways. The audience was challenged with an event occurring in several sensoral dimensions, and the effect was similar to that of the lag between the visual and aural hammer-at-a-distance. The mind’s habit of synthesizing perceptions was confounded. This was for me an agreeable aesthetic experience, because it illuminated ordinary perceptions a bit. It served to train the mind to examine different modes of sensing, and created in the midst of life a new game to play.
在60年代中出现了一种称为“混合媒体”的艺术运动，人们可以看到在同一作品中使用舞蹈、电影、语言等不同元素。 现在我将感官和思想理解为“混合媒体”，我对这个名字的得来觉得很惊讶。 在我看来，真正发生的事情是“非混合媒体”，因为这些语言中的词汇通常与舞蹈或电影无关，它们之间没有以熟悉的方式相互关联。 观众面临着在多个感官维度上发生的事件的挑战，其效果类似于远距离观看木匠击锤，视觉和听觉之间的滞后。 我们打破了头脑的综合感知习惯。 这对我来说是一次特别的审美体验，因为它稍许让我们注意到了普通的感知。 它有助于训练大脑观察不同的感知模式，并在生活中创造一种新的可以玩的游戏。
As I recall, during that time no one mentioned that the theater, opera, and dance were already “mixed.” No one noticed that film had been mixed. Perhaps that was because people were excited over the possibilities for further mixes. Sounds emanated from sculptures. Words emanated from dancers. New mixes occurred even within the same media: for instance, Bach and rock together within a dance performance. Paintings became three-dimensional, sculptures were made with new materials such as cloth or compressed cars. Painters made happenings which were a kind of theater loaded with colors and shapes and textures and people and costumes and props; in fact, they were paintings moving freely into the third and fourth dimensions, using “in reality” what before would have been the models for two-dimensional works.
我记得那个时候没有人提到戏剧、歌剧和舞蹈已经是“混合的”。 没有人注意到电影是混合的。 也许那是因为人们对进一步混合的可能性感到兴奋。 声音从雕塑中发出。语言来自舞者。 甚至在同一媒体中也会出现新的混合：例如，巴赫和摇滚在舞蹈表演中一起出现。 绘画变成了三维，雕塑是用布或压缩汽车等新材料制成的。 画家创造了一种充满色彩、形状、纹理、人物、服装和道具的戏剧； 事实上，它们是自由移动到三维和四维的绘画，使用了“现实中”以前的二维作品模型。
It was a period of radical interface. We were confronted with unaccustomed juxtapositions, and of course came to see things that way.
这是一个激进的互相交流时期。 我们遇到了不习惯的组合，当然也以这种方式看待事情。
It was rather different than our former way of seeing and from this contrast came little sparks of information. That is how I evaluate it anyway; or value it. When we have two things to contrast, it seems to cause one to notice, and to learn. It was difficult to appreciate exactly what we learned in the complex midst of a happening; I suppose it all got synthesized in the mind, and one began to notice things that had escaped notice previously. It led me to consider the process of learning, and I came to regard the overall experience as a rather powerful conceptual tool with which one could cause change in experienced reality.
它与我们以前的观察方式大不相同，从这种对比中产生了少许的信息火花。 无论如何，我就是这样评价它的； 或重视它。 当我们有两件事情要对比时，似乎会引起一个人去注意和学习。在一个事件发生的复杂过程中，我们很难准确地理解学到了什么。 我想这一切都在头脑中合成了，人们开始注意到以前没有注意到的事情。 它让我思考学习的过程，我开始将整体体验视为一种相当强大的概念工具，可以通过它来改变所体验的现实。
The question arises, why did we not notice media mixed before? That is what is so interesting. John Cage had been doing it for decades, and Duchamp’s work suggested it decades before that. The surrealists seemed to be concocting mixed media images, and Picabia and Picasso began to collage—to contrast painted images and real objects, to sculpt images from found materials.
问题来了，为什么我们之前没有注意到媒体的混合？ 这就是如此有趣的一件事情。 约翰凯奇已经这样做了几十年，而杜尚的作品在这之前几十年就已经揭示了这一点。 超现实主义者似乎在炮制混合媒体的图像，毕卡比亚和毕加索开始拼贴——这和绘画和真实物体产生对比，用找到的材料雕刻图像。
Perhaps the answer lies in language. Most folk couldn’t “get it” because they were still quite busy trying to “get” what had happened in impressionism and pointilism. Cubism caused folk further consternation. And who could include melting clocks or a urinal or a prepared piano or a bus ticket in the same conceptual frame? The critical thought and conceptual tools of the day were already busily employed elsewhere, and the media did not dispense images or rationales as quickly as they do now. The arts, in those days, had begun to change far more rapidly than our language could accommodate.
或许答案就在语言中。 大多数人无法“理解”，因为他们仍然忙于“理解”印象派和点画派中发生的事情。 立体主义引起了大众进一步的惊愕。 谁可以在同一个概念框架中想到这些元素都可以同存，融化的时钟，小便池，重新构建的钢琴或公共汽车票？ 当时的批判性思维和概念工具已经在其他地方被广泛使用，媒体并没有像现在这样快速发布照片或评论。 在那些日子里，艺术的变化速度已经远远超出我们的语言所能容纳的范围。
During this century it became clear that changes were occurring on every level more rapidly than before. But this experience needed time to be finally understood, and those early examples, such as the more radial examples of Duchamp, were put aside to accumulate a kind of critical mass. By , with enough hindsight, the times’ changing had provided us with the model for the mix, and many artists were at once ignited. By then the popular media and critical estab- lishment were ready, and the mixed medium event was considered seriously and widely announced, after more than a half-century gestation period.
在本世纪，很明显，各个层面的变化都比以前更快。 但这种体验需要一些时间才能最终理解，那些早期的例子，比如杜尚的激进的例子，被搁置一旁，积累着其能量。 到了六十年代，一切似乎都准备好了，时代的变迁为我们提供了融合混杂的模式，许多艺人一下子被点燃了。 到那时，大众媒体和评论机构都已经准备就绪，经过半个多世纪的酝酿，混合媒体事件立刻就被认真加以考虑，并得到广泛讨论。
Apparently an object doesn’t have a life of its own, an objective meaning, but is imbued with values by the way we, with our changing minds, evaluate it. For many people, an object such as Duchamp’s birdcage filled with small white cubes of marble was not illuminating, but only absurd. The mix can appear quite empty and gratuitous unless the mind has some context in which to work with it. So during the 1960s when so many artists began to mix images, terms were arrived at to convey the impressions. Then the Duchamp objects were re-evaluated and it was possible to see them, not as obscure Dada jokes, but as objects with a particular luminosity, which operate in some other dimensions of the mind than the linguistic one. They resolutely resist meaning anything; and as it turned out, this quality became highly prized in that period of intense critical and artistic interchange. The laughter changed from dismissal to delight, and the last laugh was probably Duchamp’s.
显然，一个物体没有自己的生命，没有客观的意义，而是通过我们不断变化的思想评估它，从而得到价值。 对许多人来说，杜尚装满了白色大理石块的鸟笼之类的东西，并不具有启发性，而只是荒谬的。 除非大脑有一些可以使用到的背景，否则这种混合可能会显得非常空洞和无缘无故。 因此，在六十年代期间，当如此多的艺术家开始混合图像时，对于表达这种印象，对应的语言词汇开始形成。 杜尚的物体得以在新的语汇下重新得到评估，这是大众可以看到，这不是达达主义式的玩笑，而是具有启发性的一个特别的物品。艺术家们在坚决地抵制任何意义； 但事实证明，在批判性和艺术性激烈交流的新时期，这种品质变得非常珍贵。 笑声从不屑一顾变成欣喜若狂，最后的笑声很可能是杜尚的。
The special gift of the mixed media was to provide a contrast to our conventional use of media and the senses. We had to admit that we did use conventions to convey our thoughts and feelings, and to run our society at large. The new mixes indicated that, once in place, conventions can dictate what the mind will allow itself to think. It seems to be the nature of the mind, the senses, the body, and of the society made up of these, to fall into habits, which are necessary for continuity, aids to individual survival and collective civilization. Individual habits and collective conventions prod us to adapt what we perceive into the most convenient shareable mental construct.
混合媒体带给我们的特殊礼物是与我们对媒体和感官的传统使用方式形成对比。 我们不得不承认，我们习惯使用惯例来传达我们的想法和感受，整个社会都以这个方式在运行。 新的组合表明，一旦到位，约定俗成就可以决定思想将允许自己思考什么。 似乎这是心灵、感官、身体以及由这些组成的社会的本性，去不断养成习惯，这是我们生命连续性所必需的，它有助于个人生存和集体文明。 个人习惯和集体习俗促使我们将我们所感知的事物转化为最方便的可共享的心理结构。
From the music we are accustomed to hearing, we form an idea of the intervals between notes. As our ears become more educated, we can become quite accurate in reproducing these intervals. Confronted with music in a different scale than usual, however, this aural edu- cation works against accurate reproduction. The unfamiliar intervals will be “adapted” to the nearest known intervals. This adjustment is so automatic and uncon- scious that the person attempting to reproduce the new intervals will probably not even realize their mistake.
从音乐中，我们习惯聆听，我们有关于音符之间的间隔形成的知识。 随着我们不断的教育加深，我们开始了解更多关于耳朵聆听的知识，我们可以非常准确地再现这些音符和间隔。 然而，面对与平时习惯音调不同的音乐，这种听觉教育不利于准确再现我们所听到的。因为 不熟悉的间隔将自动“适应”到最类似的已知间隔中。 这种调整是如此自动和无意识的，以至于试图重现新间隔的人甚至可能不会意识到他们的错误。
Given another level of training in the logic of different musical scales, reproduction becomes possible, if difficult. For those who don’t have such training, being confronted with an unfamiliar system can lead to confusion. Indian music, for instance, may remain opaque and possibly even disturbing; the intervals will seem wrong compared to the scale we are familiar with. In addition, it will be very difficult for the person to say why it seems wrong. The result may be a kind of unease and possible retreat from the unfamiliar system, a sensation of being lost. Not just lost, but without knowledge of how we are lost, for there are many dimensions in music where it is possible to go astray. Under these conditions, a little information about the nature of the systems is very useful for re-orientation.
如果感到困难的时候，对不同音阶的另一套逻辑进行有针对性的训练，我们就有可能学会演奏它。 对于那些没有接受过此类培训的人来说，面对一个不熟悉的系统可能会导致疑惑。 例如，印度音乐可能仍然不清楚，甚至可能令人不安； 与我们熟悉的音阶相比，那些发生的音符之间的间隔似乎是错误的。 此外，我们也很难去解释为什么我们会感到这是错误的。 结果可能是一种不舒适感，可能是从陌生的系统中撤离，一种迷失的感觉。 不仅迷失，而且不知道我们是如何迷失的，因为音乐中在许多方面都可能会迷失。 在这些条件下，有关系统本质的少量信息对于重新找到方向上非常有用。
However a very different sort of aid is an appreciation of the feeling of being lost.
Getting lost is possibly the first step toward finding new systems. Finding parts of new systems can be one of the rewards for getting lost. With a few new systems, we discover we are oriented again, and can begin to use the cross pollination of one system with another to construct ways to move on.
然而，我们也可以感激这个迷失的感受的发生，这是另一种非常不同的帮助。
迷失可能是寻找新系统的第一步。 寻找新系统可能是迷失过程的一个奖励。 有了一些新系统，我们发现我们再次找到方向，并且可以开始使用一个系统与另一个系统的互相交融借鉴来构建继续前进的方法。
Getting lost is proceeding into the unknown. To reject the familiar, so rooted in our nervous system and minds, requires discipline. The difficulty is that we have to know so much to understand what it is we do and why we do it, in order to know what to avoid. We are not attempting to simply eliminate the known systems, but also to realize how we have adapted to those systems. It is the habits of adaptation which will keep us reproducing the system. The system itself is not the problem, but rather this human capacity to imprint unconsciously a new system upon our old system—or to embody the maps of our acquaintance, however tenuous.
迷失是进入未知。 拒绝根植于我们的神经系统和思想中的熟悉事物，需要纪律。 困难在于，为了了解我们在做什么，以及为什么要这样做，我们需要知道如此之多，以便我们可以知道要避免什么。 我们不是试图简单地消除已知系统，而是要意识到我们是如何在习惯这些系统的。 正是适应的习惯让我们不断地复制系统。系统本身不是问题，而是人类无意识地根据自身旧系统来建立新系统——我们不考虑它是否是最优的，只要它是在我们熟悉的范畴内。
We are close to improvisation here. When lost, we will have to relate appropriately to unknown and changing conditions. The dictionary explains that improvisation means “extemporare,” or “out of the time.” I suggest that we interpret “out of the time” in two contradictory ways. I suggest we discard all notions of clocks, and the half-life of cesium, or celestial mechanics, none of which are capable of improvisation, and equate time with human experience of duration, which is to say the experiences accumulated in life, so that “the time” will mean who we have become. “Out of the time” will mean that, out of experience (conscious or not), there is material for making something.
我们聊到这里，话题越来越接近即兴。 当迷失时，我们将不得不适应和依靠未知，以及不断变化的条件。 字典解释说，即兴（improvisation）的意思是“未能准备好的”（extemporare）或“在时间之外的，不合时宜的”（“out of the time.”）。 我建议我们以两种相互矛盾的方式来解释时间之外（out of the time）。 我建议我们摒弃所有时钟的概念、铯的半衰期或天体力学，它们都不能即兴发挥，并将时间等同于人类的持续时间经验，即生活中积累的经验，“时间”在这里意味着我们已经成为的一个人。 时间之外意味着，没有在经验之内（有意识或无意识），在这个范畴下我们可以有机会创造新的东西。
Simultaneously, “out of” should be construed as “aside from.” We have to use what we have become in such a way as to not be so controlled by it that it is automatically reproduced.
Improvisation is a word for something which can’t keep a name; if it does stick around long enough to acquire a name, it has begun to move toward fixity. Improvisation tends in that direction.
同时，之外（“out of”）应理解为“aside from”（从某物之中还有什么别的东西）。对于我们已经成为的东西，我们可以利用起来，这样我们才不会被那些自动复制出来的东西所控制。即兴是一个无法保持自身名字的东西，如果它存在足够长的时间，我们需要给它一个名字，它就开始走向固定化。这是即兴的趋势的方向。
Dance is the art of taking place. Improvisational dance finds the places.
—to be continually continued.
舞蹈是随位置而发生的艺术。 即兴舞蹈在找这个位置。
——要不断地继续下去。