People and Places - Iceland Calling | Текст песни

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• People and Places
• Iceland Calling

Группа Learning English. Продолжение текста:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/people_and_places/pdfs/people_glacier_070809.pdf

Amber: Hello, I’m Amber and you’re listening to bbclearningenglish.com
In People and Places today, we meet an artist, Katie Paterson, who’s in a very
unusual place – a lagoon – that’s a small lake or a partly enclosed area of sea
water – in Iceland. And how do we hear from her? Well, via her mobile phone!
Katie’s mobile number is ‘in lights’ as part of her current artwork, or exhibit, in
the Slade School of Fine Art in London.
If you dial Katie’s mobile, you’ll hear amazing sounds – the sound of icebergs
passing by and the sound of a glacier cracking and melting. This is because
you’ll be connected directly to the Icelandic lagoon where Katie sits with an
underwater microphone!
The BBC presenter Kirsty Lang rang Katie’s mobile to find out more.
Katie explains her mobile number is displayed in ‘quite a stark, empty white
room’ at the Slade art school. ‘Stark’ is a wonderful adjective to describe a
place which is so empty and without ornament that you don’t really want to go
there. And she uses the word ‘besides’ to mean ‘as well as’ when she explains
that in addition to her mobile number, there are some postcards at her Slade
exhibit giving out information about her special Icelandic place. Notice too,
that expression, to give out information (‘information that’s given out’), which
is very common in English.
As you listen, try to catch one of the ways Katie describes her artwork in
Iceland. She says it’s a description of…?
Katie Paterson
Yeah, at the Slade itself, I’ve got quite a stark, empty, white room with a white neon
telephone number on the wall. Besides the neon telephone number, I’ve got some small
postcards which explain a bit about the work, but that’s the only information that’s given out -
people themselves can phone up.
(So when people ring up, they are going to be able to hear the sound of a glacier literally
dying?)
Yeah, yeah, effectively, I mean, it is a description of death really, it’s a kind of live meltdown
of the glacier.
Amber: Sounds remarkable, doesn’t it? Did you catch Katie’s descriptions of the
Icelandic part of her artwork? She says it’s ‘a description of death really’, ‘a
kind of live meltdown of the glacier’. You can use the adjective ‘live’ to
describe anything that is broadcast as it happens – for example, ‘Tonight’s
concert is live from Paris’. And the presenter asks if people can hear ‘the sound
of a glacier literally dying’ – ‘literally’ is a useful adverb to emphasise another
word or phrase, in this case ‘dying’ – ‘the sound of a glacier literally dying’.
Listen again.
Katie Paterson
Yeah, at the Slade itself, I’ve got quite a stark, empty, white room with a white neon
telephone number on the wall. Besides the neon telephone number, I’ve got some small
postcards which explain a bit about the work, but that’s the only information that’s given out -
people themselves can phone up.
(So when people ring up, they are going to be able to hear the sound of a glacier literally
dying?)
Yeah, yeah, effectively, I mean, it is a description of death really, it’s a kind of live meltdown
of the glacier.
Amber: Next, Katie was asked what she is trying to say with this work of art. As you
listen, try to decide if she is making a political point about global warming, for
example, or if she is more concerned with making people think about other
ideas.
Katie Paterson
I wouldn’t say I’m trying to be too didactic and not overtly political, either. I think it’s more
to do with the vanishing away of the world, and there’s a Japanese concept I’m quite
interested in which is the transience of the world and a gentle sadness at its passing, but I
wouldn’t really say that I’m an environmentalist myself, particularly, or an activist.
...