■ 康河新书| 麦克法兰院士 对话 “奥斯卡奖“得主叶锦添《奇妙与艺术》在英国出版

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新书首发

《奇妙与艺术—麦克法兰对话叶锦添》

【作者】（英）艾伦·麦克法兰 & （中国香港）叶锦添

【编辑与校审】Levente Koroes & Irene Galstian

 及十余位参与本项目的实习生，他们来自剑桥康河出版社“读者俱乐部”‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

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图书介绍

左中括号

《奇妙与艺术—麦克法兰对话叶锦添》（Wonder and Art: Cambridge Conservation with Tim Yip）收录了剑桥大学社会人类学教授艾伦·麦克法兰院士与奥斯卡金像奖最佳艺术指导者叶锦添，在剑桥进行的6次深度对话，从各自的童年生活、成长环境、艺术/学术经历、作品成果，谈到由此而形成的世界观和价值观，涵盖了对时间与空间、现实世界与精神世界、创造力与能动性、宗教与哲学、科学与艺术、人文与自然、科技与未来、古典与时尚、东西文化互通与融合等多领域、多层次的思考。

叶锦添、Lili和朋友们拜访麦克法兰教授

在教授家中的图书馆合影留念

无论是李慕白《卧虎藏龙》的江湖情，还是《夜宴》中五代十国的宫廷恩怨，亦或是充满历史厚重感的《赤壁》“三国杀”，谍影重重、危机四伏的《风声》，都脱离不了时代性。叶锦添所做的，就是还原每个年代特有的质感，从而搭建起一个个特定的故事世界。看似乎与形象相关的工作，其本质是他自己对时间的感受和理解。除却耳熟能详的影视作品之外，他近几年创作的观念艺术作品“Lili”，也让人们再次感受到这位“全才”艺术家对于时空与虚实的思考，唤醒了人们对看不见的精神世界的关注。

“艺术是对抗时间的最佳载体”。在与麦克法兰教授的对话中，叶锦添多次提及自己希冀在艺术中寻找一个不受限于时间与空间的世界。同时，这两位分别来自中国和英国的跨文化创作者，都非常善于在两个看似极端的方向中找到彼此的共通之处。游走在东西方美学间的叶锦添时常借用西方文化来表现东方文化，双方都认为，任何文化都不应该孤立存在。

麦克法兰教授在新书发布会上介绍

《奇妙与艺术—麦克法兰对话叶锦添》

该对话集被收录在“剑桥大师对话”系列(中英文双语)之中。本项目是一个关于人类学研究的“口述历史”课题，由麦克法兰教授和著名人类学家杰克·古迪教授、爵士（Professor Sir Jack Goody 1919-2015）发起于1980年代初期。

该项目至今已访谈了近300位大师，其中有十余位诺贝尔奖得主，四位剑桥大学校长。这些大师不仅包括剑桥大学、牛津大学、耶鲁大学、哈佛大学、哥伦比亚大学、东京大学等世界一流大学的学者，还包括世界知名艺术家、设计师、音乐家等艺术工作者，专业领域涉及含人类学、科学、工程、历史、教育、艺术、音乐等。

关于访谈的内容，包括了大师的个人生活、家庭背景、成长经历、工作经历，以及他们获得成就所基于的契机与努力，强调以个人历史展现丰富的时代历史的画卷。

来自多个国家数十位实习生、志愿者，参与这个项目的访谈、视频编辑、文字编辑和翻译制作。该项目还在继续进行当中，我们期待更多合作伙伴加入。

与叶锦添的剑桥对话

在这篇前言中，我想要谈谈有关与叶锦添先生进行对话系列制作的一些印象。以我的日记打头是个不错的开始——那是2023年1月20日，在我与叶锦添的第一次见面之后写下的。

“那是一个凉爽、清新但阳光明媚的日子。我们在剑桥度过了大部分的时间，大约11点左右，我们就到了约定的地方，等待那位不可思议的多才艺术家叶锦添的到来（维基百科和他的个人网站有很多他的相关介绍）。他带着一个真人大小的人偶Lili到达了这里，他会带着她去到各个地方，在YouTube等平台上可以看到不少关于她的影片。接着，在我与他的45分钟采访里，感觉就像是在深入挖掘古代的中国。他重温着老子之前的朝代，像萨满一般谈论平行世界、灵魂、多重构想等等。他坐在我身边，给了Lily一本我的书《给莉莉的信》，并与她交谈。我感觉到，他的思想有一种奇怪的亲近感。好像有一种老友般的心境。非常奇怪。他因为李安的《卧虎藏龙》等电影进行服装和美术设计而闻名。我非常期待他的再次来访。Zilan和Sarah似乎都很高兴。”

Lili

怀抱艾伦·麦克法兰教授的著作《给莉莉的信》

那次访谈涵盖了一系列最终演变成六次对话的基本要素，分布在了接下来几个月我和叶锦添的对话当中。在第一次的访谈之后，我们认为将其变成一场对话会更有意思，我会问叶锦添一些问题，然后他也会问我一些问题。这种方式非常成功。在第一次对话时，我们由于才开始进行互相了解，所以显得有点拘束。但随着彼此间越来越多的信任和了解，以及更进一步的理解，这场对话演变成了一种真正深刻而有意义的交流。

叶锦添艺术装置Lili

在剑桥大学国王学院餐厅留影

这次交流存在许多问题。其中有一些问题出现在我这一边。我并不是艺术、艺术史、设计、电影，或是任何叶锦添主要谈论的领域方面的专家。我也不是中国美学和中国古代哲学方面的专家。所以，在很多情况下，我都感到有些力不从心。然而，这一项目的巨大吸引力使我努力继续下去。

叶锦添这里显然也存在很大的困难。其中一点在于，他试图谈论深层潜意识的事物，而如果你试图将其提升到明确的语言层面，你就会迷失和曲解。这显然是所有艺术家在描述他们的作品时都会面临的问题。你如何用语言来描述绘画或音乐呢？所以，叶锦添面临这个问题是因为他不仅仅是一位普通的艺术家，而是一个试图深入到许多艺术家甚至连做梦都不敢想的层次和水平的人。另一个难点在于，他需要试图将这些理念表达出来，并将其译成他从小学习却并非母语的英文。不过，他非常成功地克服了这些困难。

这些结合在一起的困难意味着有时我们在交流中偶尔会各执一词。在某些时候，叶锦添会说一些非常有趣的事情，但我当时不能完全理解。因而我不得不去猜测他的意思，有时会是错误的，而且我经常会忽略其他人可能会继续追问并提出有趣问题的线索。叶锦添对我的领域也不太了解，但我想我引起了他的好奇心，他似乎对我说的很多事情都很感兴趣。

叶锦添在麦克法兰教授家中的图书馆

结果我们是进行了六次采访的拍摄，然后使用AI软件进行转录。伊琳·加尔斯蒂安在编辑和简化文本方面做得非常出色。这本书很好的展现了她的专长。同时它也表明，尽管东西方哲学和美学之间存在巨大差异，但叶锦添和我之间存在足够的共同点，能够进行有意义的对话。

当然，我学到了很多关于中国艺术和思想的知识。能够深入了解一个我开篇所描述的那样多才多艺的人，一位摄影师、设计师、博物馆策展人、电影制片人，甚至具备其他身份的人的思想，是一种难能可贵的殊荣。我认为，叶锦添是一个全能、有趣、谦逊、温和且友好的人。所以，这是一次奇怪、困难但又非常有收获的经历。

最后我要说的是，尽管我在很多方面都不具备胜任这个项目的能力，但我和叶锦添在探索理性与沉迷之间的边界方面有着共同的兴趣，这一兴趣点在很大程度上已经被现代性所打破，也因此让我们有了一个共同的目标。我们都有兴趣探索我们的世界是如何以及为何会充满美妙和奇妙的事物。这就是为什么我们给这本书起的副标题是“奇妙与艺术”。叶锦添的生活，还有我的生活，都充满了对奇异且美丽的生命的好奇。

叶锦添通过许多不同的艺术形式来接近这种奇异，而我则是通过学术学科，特别是人类学和历史学来努力理解和表达我所发现的东西。所以，我们的方法不同，但最终我们的目标并无不同——即重新进入我们沉迷的领域，看看它是如何融入我们碎片化的现代世界的。

我希望你们会喜欢我们合作打造的这本书，同时也感谢我的团队关于这些对话的安排。我们还要感谢拉文特·克洛斯协助在技术方面提供的帮助，感谢叶锦添的助手郭雨珊为我们拍摄并协助我们带Lili到国王学院用午餐。萨拉·哈里森以她一贯的技巧检查了文本。在这里，我向他们所有人表示由衷的感谢，特别是叶锦添，他慷慨地授权我们在书中使用他的一些非凡的艺术作品。

艾伦·麦克法兰教授为叶锦添颁发

第九届剑桥徐志摩诗歌艺术节

“徐志摩终身成就奖（艺术类）”

Introduction to 

Cambridge Conversations with Tim Yip

In this introduction, I want to give some impression of the making of this conversation series with Tim Yip. A good way to start is from our diary entry on the 20th of January 2023 after my first meeting with Tim.

A cool, crisp but sunny day. We spent most of it in Cambridge, going in by 11 o'clock to await the arrival of an amazing polymath artist, TIM YIP – see Wikipedia and his website. He arrived with a life-sized doll called Lili, who he takes everywhere, again see films on her on YouTube, etc. And then I interviewed him for 45 minutes, like digging down into ancient China. He was reliving the dynasties before Laozi and talked like a shaman, about parallel worlds, spirits, multiple visions and so much more. Sitting with me, giving a copy of Letters to Lily to Lili and talking to her. Felt a strange affinity with his ideas. A brother spirit. Very strange. He is famous, for his designs for costumes and sets for Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, etc. Look forward to another visit. Zilan seemed delighted, as did Sarah.

That account catches a number of the elements of what turned into six conversations, spread over a number of months, in which Tim and I talked to each other. After the first session, which was an interview, we decided that it would be more interesting to turn it into a dialogue, whereby I would ask Tim a couple of questions and he would ask me a couple. That worked extremely well. During the first dialogue session, we were beginning to get to know each other, and so it was a little more constrained. But as trust, knowledge and understanding grew, it turned into something really deep and meaningful.

There were a number of problems in this communication. Some of them were on my side. I am not an expert either in art, art history, design, film, or any of the subjects Tim mainly talked about. Nor am I an expert on Chinese aesthetics and ancient Chinese philosophy. So, I was well out of my depth on many occasions. Yet the fascination of the subject made me struggle on.

On Tim’s side, obviously, there were also great difficulties. One was that he was trying to talk about things at a level of the deep subconscious, which if you try to bring up into explicit language, you lose and distort. That's obviously a problem that all artists face when describing their work. How can you describe painting or music in language? So, Tim he faced that problem, which was exacerbated by the fact that he wasn't just an ordinary artist, but someone who was trying to go deep into a layer and level which many artists don't even dream about. Struggling to bring that up and then to translate it into English, which he has learned from a child but is not his first language, was another difficulty. And yet he succeeded extremely well. 

Those combined difficulties meant that occasionally we talked past each other. On other occasions, Tim would say very interesting things, but I couldn't at the time entirely understand them. As a result, I had to guess, sometimes wrongly, and often I missed the clues which someone else might have followed and gone on to a very interesting line of questioning. Tim also didn't know much about my world, yet I think I sparked his curiosity, and he seemed genuinely interested in a lot of what I was saying.

The result, which was in the form of six filmed interviews, was then transcribed using AI software. Irene Galstian did a magnificent job editing and simplifying the texts. This book is a tribute to her skill. It is also an indication of the fact that, despite the huge differences between the philosophies and aesthetics of East and West, there was enough in common between Tim and me to make for a meaningful conversation.

Certainly, I learned a huge amount about Chinese art and thought. It was a rare privilege to go inside the mind of someone who, as I described at the beginning, is a polymath, a photographer, a designer, a museum curator, a filmmaker, and much more. I found Tim to be versatile, interesting, unassuming, gentle, and friendly. So, it was a strange, difficult but hugely rewarding experience. 

The last thing to say is that, although I was not qualified in many ways for this endeavour, the fact that I shared an interest with Tim in exploring the borderlands between rationality and enchantment, which has been shattered to a large extent by modernity, gave us a common goal. We are both interested in exploring how and why our world is filled with wonderful and wondrous things. That is why we've sub-titled the book Wonder and Art. Tim’s life, and mine, are filled with wonder at the strangeness and beauty of life.

Tim approaches this strangeness through many different forms of art, and I approach it through academic disciplines, particularly anthropology and history, in order to try to understand and communicate what I find. So, our methods are different, but in the end our goal is not dissimilar, namely to re-enter enchantment and see how it fits in our modern, fragmented, world.

I hope you will enjoy what we have jointly produced, also with the enormous help of Wang Zilan, who arranged the conversations. We would also like to thank Levente Koroes, who helped with the technical side, and Tim's PA Yushan Guo, who filmed and helped us to take Lili for lunches in King’s College. Sarah Harrison checked the texts with her customary skill. To all of them, and particularly Tim, who added to his kindness permission to use some of his extraordinary artwork, a huge thank you.

Alan Macfarlane

August 2023

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英国康河文化传播

康河文化传播是英国领先的数字资产管理企业，通过康河出版社、“康河音乐”唱片、书店及艺术中心，管理数十位具有世界影响力的学者、文学家、艺术家和音乐家的数字资产，于剑桥、北京、上海和苏州设有办事处，是东西方文化交流与创新的纽带。