美国国家公共电台 NPR Audio Installation Haunts Underground Arts Space In Washington, D.C.

 

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

About eight feet beneath Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle, there is a network of dark winding¹ concrete passageways. It's the remains² of what used to be a trolley³ system - train tracks, platforms, tunnels - mostly abandoned 50 years ago. But as NPR's Samantha Balaban reports, if you go today, you'll hear voices.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I looked again into the crowd of people...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: A trolley driver worked this line...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Some of my best moments where in this station...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: That a trolley might ever come seemed like something from a myth...

SAMANTHA BALABAN, BYLINE⁴: The voices flowed around like ghost passengers haunting the old station.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Trolley isn't an animal...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Who dares enough to speak the truth in love...

BALABAN: They're part of a new interactive⁵ audio installation at Dupont Underground, the arts nonprofit that took over the subterranean⁶ trolley station.

ERIC DICKSON: My sound installation is a series of monologues⁷ that are written in a way that it seems like it's a story of a person who was once on this platform.

BALABAN: Eric Dickson who teaches politics at New York University is the artist behind the audio exhibit. It's called "The Wind That Blows Is All That Anybody Knows."

DICKSON: The idea is that a trolley station is a place where people come, people go, people have chance encounters. And so this is a sort of series of somewhat interlocking stories about, you know, people who fictionally⁸ passed through here once upon a time.

BALABAN: Dickson takes us on a tour of the tunnel.

DICKSON: So right now we're walking along the trolley tracks that haven't carried trains in a long time.

BALABAN: It's about 150 yards long, mostly gray concrete and some graffiti. Not a lot to see, so you have to listen.

DICKSON: There are a couple of speakers off to our left.

BALABAN: Dickson won't say exactly how many disembodied people are with us on the trolley platform right now. It's at least 10, all voiced by different actors.

DICKSON: As you walk around the space, you'll encounter a trolley driver talking about his experiences driving the trolley. You'll hear from a young woman who met a man that she really liked on the steps.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: He'd asked me what time it was, but both of us knew he didn't care...

DICKSON: And then later, a hundred meters down the space, you'll hear from him.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Maybe she'll come back someday. I want to tell her thank you if I can.

BALABAN: Dickson also won't say exactly where all of the audio exhibits are. Some of the monologues come out of speakers mounted to the walls echoing in the space around you.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: It wasn't a place that had any meaning for me.

BALABAN: But some of the stories are hidden. The audio tucked into nooks and crannies. The idea, Dickson says, is that visitors explore the space on their own. You might hear something coming from underneath⁹ a door.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: You see this door? Now I've been in and out of this station for years before I ever really noticed it. I mean, why would you notice it? It looks like...

BALABAN: Or a crack in the wall.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: I'm not from around here. You can hear that in my accent. That never used to be a problem but now...

BALABAN: You have to actually press your ear to the concrete to hear the story of a woman who lives in D.C. but came from somewhere else.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: You never know what to expect, curious or friendly or angry.

DICKSON: We sometimes talk about people from different groups as being marginalized or falling between the cracks or something like that. So having a voice with an accent emerging from a crack in the wall, maybe there's some symbolic¹⁰ meaning there, too.

BALABAN: Taken together, Dickson says the audio pieces are meant to hint at a society on the verge¹¹ of collapse¹² because of polarization and fear. He hopes that by placing the exhibit in a trolley station, it will make visitors think.

DICKSON: A trolley is something that is available to everyone. It's something that binds¹³ parts of a city together, so trollies provide a lot of different kinds of metaphors¹⁴ for thinking about the importance of common spaces, thinking about connections among people from different walks of life and so forth¹⁵.

BALABAN: Eric Dickson's "The Wind That Blows Is All That Anybody Knows" is open to the public now at Dupont Underground in Washington D.C.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #7: On one platform...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: And then I turned from the tracks and...

BALABAN: Samantha Balaban, NPR News.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: ...And then a solitary¹⁶ trudge¹⁷ towards home.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And this is NPR News.

1 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

6 subterranean   

adj.地下的，地表下的

参考例句：

• London has 9 miles of such subterranean passages.伦敦像这样的地下通道有9英里长。
• We wandered through subterranean passages.我们漫游地下通道。

7 monologues   

n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏

参考例句：

• That film combines real testimonials with monologues read by actors. 电影中既有真人讲的真事，也有演员的独白。 来自互联网
• Her monologues may help her make sense of her day. 她的独白可以帮助她让她一天的感觉。 来自互联网

8 fictionally   

杜撰地，编造地

参考例句：

9 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

10 symbolic   

adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的

参考例句：

• It is symbolic of the fighting spirit of modern womanhood.它象征着现代妇女的战斗精神。
• The Christian ceremony of baptism is a symbolic act.基督教的洗礼仪式是一种象征性的做法。

11 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

12 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

13 binds   

v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕

参考例句：

• Frost binds the soil. 霜使土壤凝结。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Stones and cement binds strongly. 石头和水泥凝固得很牢。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

15 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

16 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

17 trudge   

v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行

参考例句：

• It was a hard trudge up the hill.这趟上山是一次艰难的跋涉。
• The trudge through the forest will be tiresome.长途跋涉穿越森林会令人疲惫不堪。