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

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. From a boy setting off small explosions in his living room to the creator of world-famous pyrotechnic events, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo Chang has always been drawn to gunpowder. In this archive talk, he gives a stunning tour of his work, including his firework spectacle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his sky ladder of fire reaching to the clouds, and new work created with AI. He shares why he believes art is one of the best mediums to explore the great tensions of our world, violence and beauty, control and freedom, destruction and construction.

0:51Please note this talk was delivered in Mandarin Chinese and translated live into English. The translation was put through a custom AI model of Cai Guachang's voice, powered by technology from metaphysic. In this episode, you'll hear how Cai would sound if he were speaking English.

1:15More than 1 ,000 years ago, when Chinese alchemists were developing elixir of immortality, one recipe caused an explosion. Deng!

1:30They named their discovery fire medicine, the Chinese word for gunpowder. From the very beginning, Gunpowder has been about accidents, loss of control, and destruction. But it's also been about the healing power and unseen energies. I dreamed of becoming an artist when I was little, but like my father, who was an avid painter himself, I was cautious and timid. Caution is a fine quality in life, but not so in art. And Chinese society was also very controlling when I was young, so I longed for an artistic medium that could help me free myself and lose control. I came from an Asian city in Southeast China called Quanzhou.

2:15The city had many firecracker factories when I was young, so it was easy to get gunpowder. When I first began using gunpowder to create art, I would lay out a canvas in the living room and set off small explosions on it. Seeing the canvas on fire one day, my grandmother threw a leaner rack over the flame and put it out with a small puff. It was my grandma who taught me that while it's important to light fires, it's more important to know how to put them out.

2:50Over the decades, I've run closer to gunpowder and mastered more techniques. My creations forever oscillate between destruction and construction, control and freedom, dictatorship and democracy. For example, I first painted my imagination of paradise, a mirage of temptations. I exploded colored gum powder to create a sensual and dazzling garden, so beautiful that I didn't want to lay a finger on it. However, I picked up my courage and scattered black gum powder all over this beauty. I hovered it with a blank canvas and ignited again. Dung! When I removed the canvas on top, the once enchanting garden was now forever sealed beneath the black.

3:41What shocked me the most was the canvas on top, which now looked like an apparition of that heavenly garden. At the end of 1986, I moved to Japan. my cosmology, which till then was a simple one, developed by stargazing and studying feng shui in Quanzhou, suddenly expanded to include the latest developments in modern astrophysics. As a young artist from China, my growing experiences with getting visas around the world inspired me to explore a chain of big footprints that traverse the earth. The footprints would evoke extraterrestrials racing across several kilometers, bam, bam, bam, in only a few strides, ignoring artificial borders and disappearing into the distance.

4:31After decades of attempts around the world, this concept was finally realized as 29 footprints fireworks at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. the big footprints walked across the 15 kilometers central axis of Beijing like an invisible giant in the sky. Witnessed by 1.5 billion people in person and through live broadcasts, this work symbolized the era's idealistic delusion of globalization. In the early 90s, I conceived a work titled Sky Ladder, a ladder made of fireworks that would connect heaven and earth. I made many failed attempts to realize the idea over 21 years. The difficulty of the project, laying its technical requirements.

5:25We needed a helium balloon of over 6 ,000 cubic meters in order to raise a ladder as high as a World Trade Center. Once up, the balloon could easily be blown away And because it would carry lots of dangerous materials We had to acquire numerous permits for land, sea, and air In my hometown It's said that 500 meters is the height of the clouds So the letter symbolized a useful dream of reaching for the stars and touching the clouds. I've created so much art around the world, but my grandma has never seen any of them in person. So I was determined to do something awesome for her to see. One morning in 2015, at the Krakow Down, a golden ladder rose into the sky.

6:26It was a birthday present for my grandmother. who turned 100 that year.

6:36She passed away one month later. In 1995, I moved from Japan to New York with my wife and daughter. After I came to New York, my work became more site-specific, addressing more social-political themes and reflecting the changes I've developed from living in the West. This transition also allowed me to better thrive in different cultures around the world. Some have asked why I never deal with the subject of sex. I would often say, isn't explosion sexy in itself?

7:21Ten years ago, I was invited to create an artwork in Paris. I decided to invite 50 couples from around the world to a sightseeing boat on the Seine, where they would first enjoy a 12-minute firework display that simulates the process of lovemaking. Why 12 minutes? Because that seems to be the average duration of French lovemaking.

7:49According to the Internet.

7:56Excited by the passionate climax of the fireworks, the couples then entered individual tents to do whatever they wanted. When satisfied, they could press a button and trigger fireworks from a small boat nearby.

8:14I had prepared 300 shots of fireworks. However, the couples didn't use them all. In the end, the fireworks spelled out words, Sorry, gotta go.

8:32Nighttime fireworks are visible because of light and are more focused on the explosions themselves. Daytime fireworks rely on smoke. They are like a painter's brush moving across the sunlit sky in real time. In Shanghai, I realize the daytime fireworks allergy, lamenting the severe environmental problems China faces. On the day, clouds loomed low over the Huangfu River and the fireworks smoke lingered in the air long afterwards like an ink painting with its gentle sour. For my solo exhibition at Uffizi Galleries, I created fireworks in the shapes of flowers and plants from Renaissance paintings.

9:16People from across the city could see the fireworks as they launched from the Mekuangzhou Square, reigniting the spirit of the Renaissance. Last year, I realized the project When the Sky Blimps with Sakura in Fukushima, which suffered the earthquake and tsunami 12 years ago. On a June day, we had a rare collaboration of the winds and the waves to realize these daytime fireworks. like a symphony of reverence for nature.

9:54I've realized over 600 solo exhibitions and projects worldwide often facing numerous challenges such as weather conditions, legal regulations, and social-political hurdles. But such is the nature of my art Behind the momentary magic lies countless unknown factors. Gumpfather and I have been travel companions on a 40-year-long fantastical journey, yet I have never grown tired of it thanks to its uncertainty and uncontrollability. And it's the same fascination with the unforeseeable that led to my research in artificial intelligence that began in 2017. This led to the launch of my AI Cai, my custom AI model.

10:49AI Cai deep learns from my artworks, archives, and areas of interest. It also mimics contemporary and historical figures I admire, developing distinct personas. They can debate with each other, forming an independent and free community. AI Tsai is my artwork, but it's also a partner for dialogue and collaboration. In the future, it may even create art by itself. Recently, we also enabled AI Tsai to sprinkle and ignite gum powder on canvases. Nowadays, if I burn through a canvas, it's usually an intentional loss of control for effect. But when A.I. Cai burns something, it's a genuine accident. Perhaps A.I.

11:41Cai is that rash, clumsy boy Cai. People often assume that I like fireworks, but what I really like are explosions. I like their energy and magic over the years. the goal of my Gumhoder creations has never been political, but their results do carry political significance. At a recent Nobel Prize event, I said, Using explosions to create beauty, rather than warfare and violence, provides a sliver of hope for our shared human future.

12:52as contemporary art seems weak and conservative. I hope that AI can help me unleash creativity, transcending the current dimensions of human cognition. Can AI reveal heavenly secrets and open a door to interspecies civilizations for us? If the disruptive nature of gun harder can bring hope to people through the beauty of explosions? Then, can the unsettling power of AI do the same, bringing hope to mankind's future by expanding the unknown world? I'm always at the beginning of the next great journey. Thank you, everyone. And thank you, AI. Thank you. Thank you.

14:12Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.