The Astonishing Future of Immersive Live Entertainment | Willie Williams | TED

翻译人员: Yip Yan Yeung 校对人员: Lening Xu

I would love to show you something brand new

我想给你们展示一件 拉斯维加斯刚刚发生的新鲜事。

that just happened in Las Vegas.

(“Even Better Than the Real Thing” by U2 plays)

（U2 乐队表演《比现实更好》）

(Music ends)

（音乐结束）

(Cheers and applause)

（欢呼和掌声）

Thank you.

谢谢。

Thank you.

谢谢。

The Irish rock band U2, of course, inaugurating the Sphere in Las Vegas:

当然，爱尔兰摇滚乐队 U2 在拉斯维加斯为 Sphere 揭幕：

a brand new facility

这个全新的场馆

which is somewhere between an IMAX theater and a planetarium,

介于 IMAX 影院和天文馆之间，

large enough to contain the Statue of Liberty.

规模足以容纳自由女神像。

After decades of big rock shows being staged mostly in sports facilities

数十年来，大型摇滚表演 主要在体育场馆中进行，

for 40 shows,

表演 40 场，

18,000 people a night were immersed in sound and vision

如今每晚有 18000 人 以全新的方式沉浸在声音和视觉中。

in a whole new way.

And did anybody go, by the way?

顺便问一句，有人去过了吗？

I know some people did.

我知道有人去过了。

Oh, yeah, OK.

哦，是的，好的。

Did anybody not go?

有人没去吗？

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Great, well, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

太棒了， 那你就知道我在说什么。

So I design and direct live shows.

我设计、导演现场演出。

The foundations of my work were in concert touring,

我的工作基于巡回演唱会，

and I got to work with some really cool people,

我和一些非常酷的人共事，

including George Michael, R.E.M., David Bowie and many more.

包括乔治·迈克尔（George Michael）、 R.E.M.、大卫·鲍伊（David Bowie）等等。

And for 40 years I've been creative director for U2's live performances,

40 年来，我一直担任 U2 现场演出的创意总监，

going from small clubs to football stadiums

从小型俱乐部到足球场，

and having done well over 1,000 shows with them

和他们一起在 40 个国家的 250 个城市

in 250 cities in 40 countries.

制作了 1000 场演出。

Yeah, it's been a journey.

是的，漫漫长路。

I head up U2's long-standing creative team,

我领导着 U2 长期以来的创作团队，

and every time we go to make a new show,

每当我们去制作一场新演出时，

we're trying to reinvent the form in some way,

我们都在尝试以某种方式重塑形式，

starting with a blank slate

从一张白纸开始，

and chucking out everything that's gone before.

把以前的东西都扔掉。

Except for one thing,

除了一点，

which is always the goal of creating emotional connection

那就是始终以建立观众和表演者 之间的情感联系为目标。

between the audience and the performers.

So in the very early '80s,

80 年代相当早期，

U2 was building on the roots of punk,

U2 承袭朋克的根源，

which came from this very pure and minimal place

从极度纯粹和微小出发，

where making any effort at all with your stage visuals

在舞台视觉上付出的任何努力

was considered extremely gauche and very uncool.

都被认为是格格不入和非常不酷的。

But as the scale of U2 shows increased,

但是随着 U2 演出规模的扩大，

we coined the phrase “maximum minimalism,”

我们创造了“最大限度极简主义”一词，

and that got us into a place

把我们带到了一个

where we could kind of hang on to some of this imagined authenticity

既能保持这种想象中的真实性，

whilst catering to the needs of playing arenas and football stadiums.

又能满足竞技场和足球场需求的地方。

And it really worked.

它也确实成功了。

I mean, the raw energy of those shows was incredible,

这些演出直接展现的能量 太令人震撼了，

but from a design point of view,

但从设计的角度来看，

there's really only so far you can take that idea before you hit a wall.

这就是挖空心思 能达到的最好效果了。

So we were looking for new possibilities in visual storytelling

整个 90 年代，我们一直在寻找 视觉叙事的新可能性，

and through the '90s,

completely fell in love with all the new emerging visual technologies

我们完全爱上了各种新兴的视觉技术，

and so embraced those, threw away the handbook

接受这些技术，丢掉指导手册，

and decided to see what we could do with them.

我们决定要看看能用它们做些什么。

And on a pair of U2 tours, "Zoo TV" and "Popmart,"

在两场 U2 巡回演出中， 即 《Zoo TV》和《Popmart》，

we pretty much introduced the style of multiscreen, big-video presentation

我们初次尝试了 现在巡回演唱会中

that’s still around today in concert touring.

仍在使用的多屏、 大型视频的呈现方式。

And that included, for “Popmart,”

包括了《Popmart》中

the building of the world's very first stadium-scale LED video screen,

打造世界上第一块 体育场规模的 LED 视频屏幕，

which was hand-built from components for the tour.

是为这次巡演人工组装完成的。

They're not unambitious, these people.

这些人并非没有野心。

Since then, we've made shows large and small,

从那时起，我们举办了 大大小小的演出，

some leading into audio-visual ideas,

一些采用了视听创意，

others taking a more architectural stance

一些采用了更具建筑风格的形式，

and along the way collaborating with a veritable who's who

在此过程中，与响当当的 当代艺术界名人合作。

of the contemporary art world.

But always with the goal of trying to challenge and reinvent

但是，始终以尝试挑战和重塑

the notion of what a rock concert can be.

摇滚演唱会的形式为目标。

After 40 years of reinvention,

经过 40 年的重塑，

I suppose maybe there was another wall looming.

我觉得也许又到了江郎才尽的时候了。

So when we heard about this new building that was going up in Las Vegas,

因此，当我们听说拉斯维加斯 即将建成这座新建筑时，

we went to check it out.

我们去看了一下。

And the Sphere is designed essentially for showing movies

Sphere 原本是为了放映

at humongous scale,

超巨型画幅、 极高分辨率的电影而设计的。

at extremely high resolution.

But I found myself looking at the space

但我看着这个空间，

and wondering if there was some other way

思考有没有其他

that we might be able to inhabit this wrap-around immersive space.

身处这一环绕沉浸式空间的方式。

And the thing that occurred to me, the thing that really struck me,

我突然想到， 真正让我印象深刻的是

was the absence of corners.

里面没有转角。

We navigate space via corners,

我们借助转角探索空间，

and you know how big the room is that you're in

你能得知这个空间有多大，

because you can see the corners, and that helps you feel grounded.

因为你看得见转角， 这会让你感觉有实感。

Whereas at the Sphere, not only are there no corners,

而在 Sphere 中， 不仅没有转角，

but I wondered if we were to introduce virtual corners of our own,

而且我在思考，如果我们 能够创造我们自己的虚拟转角，

would we be able to manipulate the audience's sense of perspective

我们是不是就能 操纵观众的视角感官，

and apparently alter the space radically?

直接彻底改变空间？

So I made a whole load of test material

于是，我制作了大量的测试材料，

and was absolutely overjoyed at how well it worked.

对它的效果喜出望外。

The degree to which your brain wants to buy into the illusion is extraordinary.

你的大脑想要接受幻觉的程度非同一般。

And I found that I could take the Sphere

我发现我可以把 Sphere 变成一个无限高的圆柱体，

and turn it into an infinitely tall cylinder,

and then maybe into a cube,

然后可能变成一个立方体，

and then bring the roof down on top of everybody.

再把屋顶降低到每个人的头顶上。

And everything you're seeing,

而你所看到的一切，

all of this is just video on a curved surface.

这些都只是曲面上的视频。

But what it informed me

但是它告诉了我

was that I needed to stop thinking about this as being a screen

我不能再把它想作一块屏幕，

and start thinking of it as being a place,

而是把它想作一个场所，

a three-dimensional audio-visual space,

一个三维视听空间，

and that the kind of environments that would work here

能在这里运行的那种环境

might be the kind of thing you'd make for VR,

可能是你为虚拟现实 而不是为电影创造的那种环境。

rather than for cinema.

Now to make the illusion work, it’s vital never to break the spell.

要让幻觉起作用， 关键的是不能打破魔咒。

So this sense of place has to be established

这种对空间的感觉 得在观众抵达前就建立完毕。

before the viewer even gets there.

And when the U2 audience arrived at the Sphere,

当 U2 的观众抵达 Sphere 时，

they walked into this gigantic optical illusion.

他们就走进了这个巨型的视觉幻象。

The scale of it really was shocking.

它的规模确实令人震惊。

And they walked into this thing

他们走进了这座建筑，

which looked like an oversized version of the Pantheon in Rome,

看起来是罗马万神殿的超大版，

but made out of giant concrete slabs and open to the night sky.

但是由巨型混凝土板建成， 矗立在夜空中。

And I used to love eavesdropping on audience conversations

我曾经很喜欢偷听观众的对话，

with people just trying to figure out what they were looking at,

人们只是想弄明白自己在看些什么，

you know, what was real and what wasn't.

什么是真的，什么不是。

But it had a genuine materiality that was really hard to resist.

但它确实惟妙惟肖， 让人实在难辨真假。

So over time, I added some features to make it even harder to resist.

于是我逐渐新增了一些 更令人难以辨别的景象。

My favorite being this pigeon,

我最喜欢的是这只鸽子，

which used to live up in the roof space

它会先呆在屋顶上，

and periodically fly around

每隔一会儿飞来飞去，

before eventually escaping through the oculus.

最后从中间的天窗飞出去。

And I put in a helium balloon, like a kid's helium balloon,

我还放了一个氦气球， 就是孩子的氦气球，

that got stuck in the roof, like it happens at a shopping mall.

卡在屋顶上， 就像购物中心里的情形。

And there was a work light that would come on and flicker.

还有一盏指示灯会亮起、闪烁。

And then right at show time,

到了演出开场时，

we'd fly the band's helicopter over the roof

我们会让乐队的直升机飞过屋顶，

with a suitable soundtrack.

播着合适的音乐。

Now in a reality check, the band doesn’t actually travel by helicopter,

现实情况是乐队成员 没有乘着直升机飞过，

and none of this is real anyway.

这一切都不是真实的。

But the point is,

但关键是，

you are in this environment for over an hour

你在这个环境中呆了一个多小时，

and you never stop believing in it.

对此深信不疑。

And that's before the show even started.

演出还没开始呢。

So during the show, we immerse the audience in new worlds,

演出时，我们让观众沉浸在新的世界中，

overwhelm their senses, push the horizon back to infinity,

冲击他们的感官， 将视野推向无限，

shape-shift the room,

改变房间的形状，

and then eventually make the building disappear altogether

最终让建筑物完全消失，

and reveal Las Vegas outside.

展现外面的拉斯维加斯。

So this is the moment that we find ourselves in,

我们身处的这一刻，

an entire audience's sensory perception being choreographed by the artist

观众所有的感官感知 由艺术家精心编排，

on a scale that overwhelms the physical being.

规模之大，超越躯体。

And U2's music,

而 U2 的音乐，

the emotive power of that music performed in this environment,

在这种环境中演奏的音乐 传达的情感力量，

that was what was so new, that produced something really unprecedented.

太新奇了，创造了前所未有的东西。

Well to say it was well received would be something of an understatement.

如果说它“受到好评”，那太保守了。

The critics raved, the internet broke.

评论家赞不绝口，互联网沸腾了。

A whole new era of live entertainment was declared

现场娱乐进入了一个全新的时代，

to the point where the reviews themselves were being reviewed.

以至于评论本身都要被人评论。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Some irony, I think, but I'll take it.

我觉得有点讽刺，但我会接受的。

I mean, jeez, you don't get that very often.

哎呀，这可不常见。

But what was more remarkable

但更重要的是，

was that it was just a couple of years after,

就在几年之后，

you know, we all wondered if we'd ever be able

我们都在思考我们能不能 再次把上千人聚集起来。

to gather thousands of people together ever again.

And the pandemic was, it was a really bleak time

对于每个现场娱乐参与者来说， 新冠疫情是一个相当惨淡的时期。

for everybody involved in live entertainment.

And I know you guys at TED had a tough time with it, too.

TED 的各位也一定过得很艰难。

But the brightest minds of the industry,

但是，业内最聪明的人 想出了替代方案作为补偿。

by way of compensation, started to come up with alternatives.

And we saw some really interesting ideas.

我们看到了一些非常有趣的想法。

We saw the construction of XR studios for live broadcast

我们看到有人成立了 XR 工作室， 用于 VR 头显的直播和演唱会，

and concerts for VR headsets

and virtual audiences like this,

还有像这样的虚拟观众

participating in real-time, online.

实时在线参与。

And really interesting ideas.

非常有趣的想法。

They got a ton of attention, loads and loads of investment.

他们收获了大量的关注、大量的投资。

Until lockdown ended,

解封后，

at which point nobody ever mentioned them again.

已经没有任何人会再提起他们了。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

So I've got to tell you, for those of us that do this for a living,

我必须得说，对于以此为生的人，

it was profoundly humbling to realize

我们会备受打击地意识到

that we can reproduce every part of the live experience

我们可以重现现场体验的每一个部分，

apart from the bit the audience actually wants the most.

除了观众最想要的那一小部分。

Look it turns out, humans are drawn to proximity.

事实证明，人类需要亲近感。

We want to come together in a specific place in real time

我们想实时地来到某个地方，

to share an experience,

分享经历，

kind of like we're doing this week.

就像我们这周（来到 TED）这样。

And it's been my task to understand how audiences work.

我的任务是了解观众的思路。

And there's certainly something to learn from our response

我们的反应一定有值得学习的地方，

as we look out at the ocean or up at the night sky,

当我们眺望大海或仰望夜空，

where our minds are using a combination of vision and imagination

我们的思维会结合视觉和想象，

to create an emotional response that can inspire us

创造一种情感反应激励我们，

or sometimes completely overwhelm us.

甚至完全压垮我们。

But the interesting thing is,

但有趣的是，

we so need this response that it still works,

我们非常需要这种反应， 它是有用的，

even if our rational minds know that what we're looking at isn't real.

即使我们的理性思维知道 我们眼前的并不是真的。

Hence the power of great works of art.

这就是艺术杰作的力量。

Now the Renaissance painters hit upon the use of perspective

文艺复兴时期的画家们 开始使用透视

to create apparently three-dimensional worlds

在观众所知的平面上 创造看似三维的世界。

on what the viewer knew had to be a flat plane.

And our brain insists it's real,

我们的大脑坚信它是真的，

even though we know it's just marks on canvas.

尽管我们知道它只是画布上的印记。

But better yet,

但更好的是，

the use of perspective allows the viewer

透视的使用可以让观众

to forget the technique completely

完全忘记技术，

and surrender to the content of the image

以更深刻、情感更丰富的方式 屈服于画中的内容。

in a more profound and emotional way.

But we're still separated from the image here.

但我们仍然与画作分离。

We're still outsiders looking in,

我们仍然是局外人，

whereas at the Sphere we all together,

而在 Sphere，我们所有人，

performers and audience, traveled through the picture frame,

无论是表演者还是观众， 都穿过了画框，

through the proscenium and ended up as part of the environment.

穿过了舞台， 最后成为环境的一部分。

And it really was quite something.

确实很不错。

It was like VR without a headset.

就像没有头显的 VR 一样。

Although with a couple of important differences.

尽管还是有一些明显的区别。

In his novel "Rainbow's End,"

作家弗诺·文奇（Vernor Vinge） 在他的小说《彩虹尽头》中描绘了一个

the writer Vernor Vinge envisaged a world

that doesn't seem too far away now,

现在似乎并不遥远的世界，

where everybody, through the use of wearable AR technology,

在这个世界中，每个人 都可以借助可穿戴 AR 技术

could create their own bespoke artificial environments.

创建个人定制的人造环境。

Now, with this U2 show, the environments were artificial,

在这场 U2 演出中，环境是人造的，

but they were also shared,

但它们也是共享的，

all of us experiencing it together in real life.

所有人在现实生活中共同体验。

And much as I do believe that gaming and certain other online activities

尽管我相信游戏和其他在线活动

can produce a real sense of connection,

可以产生一种真实的联结感，

it was the physical proximity here that produced something so profound

但正是这里现实的亲近感 才产生了如此深刻、

and so affecting.

如此感人的东西。

And U2's music, just the music,

而 U2 的音乐，只有音乐，

the original immersive experience performed in this environment,

在这种环境中表演带来 原始的沉浸式体验，

music can bring us together,

音乐可以将我们凝聚在一起，

and it allows us to forget ourselves as we become part of something larger,

让我们可以在成为更大事物的一部分、

looking up at something so glorious and so magnificent.

仰望如此辉煌和壮观的景象时忘记自己。

But we've seen this before, right?

但是我们以前见过这个场面，对吧？

We recognize this from somewhere.

别的地方也有。

The cathedral builders,

大教堂的建造者， 对演艺表演略知一二。

they knew a thing or two about show business.

They were very good at it,

他们非常擅长，

and they were not afraid of working at scale,

不惧怕大规模的工作，

being the original practitioners of what we call in the business:

他们是我们在业内所谓 “要么出众，要么出局”的原始实践者 。

"Go big or go home."

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And look, the amount of time, the amount of resources

你看，几个世纪以来为了建造这座建筑 投入的时间、资源，

poured into the building of these places over centuries

tells us that we've been feeling for this experience

告诉我们，自从我们成为人类以来， 我们一直感受着这样的体验。

for as long as we've been human.

Awe and wonder placed under the control of the artist.

敬畏和惊奇由艺术家掌控。

And today, we have the most powerful tools we've ever had to do this.

如今我们已经有了有史以来 最强大的工具让我们做到这一点。

So what's our motivation here?

我们的动机是什么？

You know, what's our goal in doing this?

我们这样做的目标是什么？

Well for me, in my work,

对我来说，在我的作品中，

I only have one goal, which is to bring people together,

我只有一个目标， 那就是将人们聚集在一起，

to share some joy and to share some magic

分享一些快乐，分享一些魔法，

and to make genuine emotional connection

为观众与表演者、与彼此、与音乐 建立起真正的情感联结。

for the audience,

with the performers and with each other and with this music,

which means something unique and personal to everyone who attends.

意味着对每一位参与者 都是独一无二、量身定做的。

And in that moment open up the possibility

这一刻，陌生人之间也可能会产生共情，

of creating empathy between strangers

who might not agree on anything else.

他们可能在其他事上各执一词。

It's a small thing, but it's a start.

这是很小的一点，但是一个开始。

And that's what my particular brand of magic exists for.

这就是我的招牌魔法存在的意义。

Well, that and giving people a really, really good time.

这样可以让人们度过 非常非常美好的时光。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

(“Vertigo” by U2 plays)

（U2 乐队的《Vertigo》）

(Music ends)

（音乐结束）

Thank you, have a great week.

谢谢，祝你度过愉快的一周。

(Applause and cheers)

（掌声和欢呼）