地点：北京白盒子艺术馆
时间：2011年7月12日
戴卓群：《萨迦》项目的起因是什么，从什么时候开始？
Dai Zhuoqun: How and when did the Sakya project begin?
张小涛：起因是我2007年刚进藏考察了很多寺庙，当时我正好在做和藏传佛教相关的一个动画《夜》，回来以后，发现有很多东西可以继续挖掘，2007年底我在北大做《重生》那个项目与北大文博学院的考古学家合作，2008年的作品《迷雾》讨论的是现代性、物质主义浪潮，个人经验、公共经验、心灵史和思想史的矛盾相遇。当时巫鸿先生问我接下来还要做什么？我说可能是《萨迦》，我想去讨论宗教的世俗化问题，信仰与物质社会的悖论。
Zhang Xiaotao: It all started in 2007, when I visited many temples in Tibet. I was working on an animated film, Night, about Tibetan Buddhism. When I came back, I realized that a lot of stuff warranted further exploration. In late 2007 I did the Rebirth project at Peking University, where I worked together with archaeologists from the PKU School of Archaeology and Museology. My 2008 work Mist discussed the contradictory encounters of the waves of modernism and materialism, personal experience, public experience, the history of the soul and the history of ideas. At the time, Mr. Wu Hung asked me what I was going to do next. I said I might do something on Sakya, that I wanted to explore the issue of the secularization of religion, and the paradox between faith and material society.
戴卓群：《迷雾》把你当时思考的东西表达得很是淋漓尽致。
Dai: Mist expressed your thinking at the time quite clearly and vividly.
张小涛：我就想下一步该怎么办？2009年我想开始做《萨迦》，后来我先做了一个关于地震的《痕》，这个片子做完以后又有一个周期，因为我一直在做前期的收集素材、编剧本、整理文献和做技术上的更新与突破，我老是觉得火候没到，怀疑很多。
Zhang: I was wondering what to do next. I began the Sakya project in 2009, but I first did Scar, about earthquakes, and that took a lot of time, because I had to collect material, write the script, organize the documents and make some technical breakthroughs. I always felt it wasn’t quite right, and was full of doubts.
戴卓群：实际上是你2007年去萨迦寺的时候，留下了一个伏笔。
Dai: Your 2007 trip to the Sakya Monastery foreshadowed these later events.
张小涛：我当时考察了20几个寺庙，带摄影师和录像走了一个月，当时还是消化不了，回来就特别的有兴趣去读藏学和佛教一些书，那时候拍回来的素材今天一直还在用。我从小就有一种宗教情怀，这种虔诚一直影响到我对艺术的态度，尽管神圣世界已经破碎不堪。去年11月份我们剧组一行10人正式进藏（动画、录音师、摄影师、录像，考古学家和我、两个司机），我们再次从拉萨出发到桑耶寺和萨迦寺拍摄了十来天，收获很大。这次是冬季进藏，高原反应很强烈，工作的难度也很大，遇到很多的困难，但是我们都挺过来了。为什么从2010年才开始《萨迦》的项目，因为金融危机，这段时间让我有了更充分的思考、酝酿、发酵。去年从西藏回来，本来还想把动画电影和纪录片混在一起，后来发现不好融合，动画是动画，电影是电影，到现在，已经清楚起来了，就像片子前几分钟，它让你看得云山雾海，但是片子看完，清晰了。现在我还是处于一种未知和不确定的状态中，片子做到最后一分钟，都会还有错误，哪怕展出了都还在修改和调整，这是我以往的经验，现在正在做后期的剪辑、合成，正是最痛苦的时候……
Zhang: I investigated over twenty temples at that time. I took a cameraman and a videographer out there for a month. It was too much to digest all at once, and when I got home, I grew very interested in reading up on Tibetology. I’m still using footage from that trip today. I’ve always had religious sentiments since I was young, and my devotion has influenced by attitude towards art, even though the sacred world has been smashed to pieces. Last November our film crew of ten people entered into Tibet (including an animator, a recordist, a photographer, a videographer, an archaeologist, myself and two drivers), and once again travelled from Lhasa to the Samye and Sakya Monasteries, filming for about ten days. We gained a lot from that trip. This time we went to Tibet in the winter. We suffered from the altitude, and the work was very difficult. We ran into a lot of problems, but we carried through. When I came back from Tibet last year, I had originally wanted to combine an animated film with a documentary, but I discovered that the two mediums are difficult to fuse. Animation is animation, film is film. Now, it is very clear. Perhaps when you watch the first few minutes it seems confusing, but by the end, everything is clear. I am still in a state of the unknown and the uncertain. Right up to the last minute of the film there will be mistakes, and I may even still be fixing them by the time it is first exhibited. That has been my experience. I’m working on the postproduction right now, the hardest part…
戴卓群：就像孕妇临产的状态。
Dai: It’s like being in labor just before giving birth.
张小涛：真的不知道下一步会怎么样，早产？顺产？难产？忐忑不安。好比运动员马上上场比赛了，那种心情又激动、又焦虑、又有点喜悦。
Zhang: I really don’t know what will happen next. Will it be a premature birth? A smooth one? A difficult one? I’m quite nervous. It’s like an athlete just before a game, that feeling of excitement, anxiety and joy.
戴卓群：因为你之前《迷雾》里投入了大量的精力，去做动画，新媒体的东西，那你怎么处理原来绘画与现在动画的关系？
Dai: With Mist you expended a lot of effort to make animation and new media work. How do you handle the relationship between your painting and your animation?
张小涛：我现在60%的时间放在画画上，40%精力在做动画，绘画带给我基本的图像分析方法。2006年我写“绘画的抗体”讨论绘画的死亡，死亡的是陈旧的绘画观念，绘画边界的拓展，让绘画或得了重生。从绘画走向动画、电影，提供了一种全新的美学和视觉经验。怎么去分析问题？怎么去解决问题？围绕一个课题去展开？这些和绘画都是相似的，2005年底我转向动画方面的实验，当时也不知道是为什么，只是凭直觉预感到这个领域里又会有新的视觉经验、技术、美学的产生。
Zhang: I spend about 60% of my time painting, and 40% of my effort on animation. Painting gives me a basic method for analyzing images. In 2006 I wrote The Painting Antibody about the death of painting. What had died was the old conception of painting. The expansion of the boundaries of painting gave new life to painting. The shift from painting to animation and film has provided an entirely new aesthetic and visual experience. How do you analyze problems? How do you solve problems? How do you engage along a certain theme? These are all quite similar to painting. I started experimenting in animation in late 2005. I didn’t know why at the time; my intuition just told me that this field would produce new visual experiences, techniques and aesthetics.
戴卓群：一种内心的需要，开始往新媒体领域里面钻了。
Dai: Out of some kind of inner need, you began to move into the field of new media.
张小涛：当时我研究国际上新绘画的潮流，新的美学观念，动画为我打开了绘画之外一个新的通道。BBS论坛、BLOG、微博等对我们其实有很多隐性的改变，阅读量的改变带来知识结构的变化，信息化带来了未知的变化。微博是一个虚拟的社会，人人都成为了信息源和媒体，这里既是信息的发散地，也是谣言的交叉感染区，微博更是发现被遮蔽现实的通道，这里有关于现场的第一手资料。
Zhang: I was researching the new painting trends and new aesthetic concepts around the world, and animation provided me with a new channel outside of painting. Internet forums, blogs, microblogging and other new mediums have brought a lot of hidden changes. Changes to the amount of reading have altered the knowledge structure, and the rise of information is bringing as yet unknown changes. The microblog is a virtual society, where everyone becomes a source of information and media. This is a distribution point for information as well as an intersection and infection zone for rumors. The microblog is also a channel for discovering hidden realities. It is the first draft of the scene.
戴卓群：所以你觉得转变可能是一个水到渠成的事。
Dai: You see the transformation as an inevitability.
张小涛：我想通过实践再回到理论，比如做片子，过去不清楚，在刚刚操作的时候是一团乱麻，全是经验，现在能够把经验上升为一种知识结构、知识谱系，在实践中艺术家也开始成长，进入一个自我梳理，自我调整的时期。我试图和以前的语言、课题找到一种延续性。
Zhang: I just want to use practice to return to theory. For instance, when I first started making films, I wasn’t clear on a lot of things, and I made quite a mess. It’s all experience. Now I can elevate that experience to the level of a knowledge structure, a knowledge base. In practice, the artist begins to grow, to sift through and rearrange the self. I try to find continuity with my earlier language and themes.
