VOA慢速英语2014 新思维看待安迪·沃霍尔的电脑艺术

 

A New Look at Andy Warhol's Lost Computer Art 新思维看待安迪·沃霍尔的电脑艺术

Welcome to American Mosaic¹ from VOA Learning English.  I’m Caty Weaver².

Today on the show we take a look at some recently recovered works by former pop culture artist Andy Warhol.

Artist Andy Warhol was best-known for his paintings of actress Marilyn Monroe and a large can of a Campbell’s soup.  But what few people remember is his experimentation³ with a computer called the Amiga.  Warhol’s art on that computer might have been lost if it was not for the work of an art and technology partnership⁴.  Marsha James reports.

Keith Bare is a computer software engineer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Entering the lower level of his house is like stepping into a computing⁵ time machine.  His big equipment and noisy disc drives have spent years collecting dust in other people’s homes.

Keith Bare belongs to the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club.  Other club members call him the “Amiga Guru” or expert.  The Amiga was a product of Commodore International.  Back in 1985, the Commodore Amiga was the latest and greatest computer in the industry.  The company got Andy Warhol to demonstrate its capabilities⁶ at an Amiga launch party.  The artist used its image-making equipment and a revolutionary device -- a digital camera.

“He took some digital pictures and modified them before most people had been thinking about digital photography at all.”

And that was all the public saw of Andy Warhol’s computer art. 

The artist died in 1987.  His computer and its floppy⁷ discs were put into storage at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.  They remained there for 25 years.  That might have been the end of the story.  But, then, Divya Heffley of Carnegie Museum of Art came across a YouTube video.  It shows Warhol at the Amiga launch.

Ms. Heffley is producing a documentary series called “The Invisible Photograph.”  She knew Warhol’s Amiga work should be included.

“Those drawings would have been lost.”

That idea brought the Carnegie Museum of Art together with the Andy Warhol Museum and The Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club.  All three wanted to recover the information from Warhol’s Amiga computer.

The researchers were filmed as they explored the discs for the first time.  Keith Bare said it took them some time just to learn how to use the software.

“Not only is it relying on the digital media surviving, another thing that we really don’t think about it, is you also need to be able to have software that’s able to understand the digital data.”

But with some recovery software engineering work, they were able to make the discs work.

“There it is…”

“I think that…I think that that is a Warhol that nobody has ever seen before.”

The famed images of a digital Campbell’s soup can and Warhol’s picture of himself are just some of the 23 images recovered from the floppy discs. 

Divya Heffley says the search for the stored art is both a history lesson and a warning.

“If we’re not careful technology will become obsolete⁸, and we will no longer have the ability to see the photographs. To see the images we hold so dear and so precious.”

The Warhol images can be seen on part two of Carnegie Museum of Art’s “The Invisible Photograph.”  It is called, “Trapped: Andy Warhol’s Amiga Experiments.”

I’m Caty Weaver.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

3 experimentation   

n.实验，试验，实验法

参考例句：

• Many people object to experimentation on animals.许多人反对用动物做实验。
• Study and analysis are likely to be far cheaper than experimentation.研究和分析的费用可能要比实验少得多。

4 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

5 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

6 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

7 floppy   

adj.松软的，衰弱的

参考例句：

• She was wearing a big floppy hat.她戴了顶松软的大帽子。
• Can you copy those files onto this floppy disk?你能把那些文件复制到这张软盘上吗？

8 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。