The universalizing imperative of technology is irresistible. Barring the catastrophe of nuclear war, it will continue to shape both modern culture and the consciousness of those who inhabit that culture.
工艺技术的普遍应用是不可抗拒的。只要没有核战争给世界带来毁灭性灾难，这种应用将继续影响现代文化以及创造这种文化的现代人的思想意识。
This brings us to art and history again. Reminiscing on the early work of Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp, Madame Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia wrote of the discovery of the machine aesthetic in 1949:"I remember a time...when every artist thought he owed it to himself to turn his back on the Eiffel Tower, as a protest against the architectural blasphemy with which it filled the sky....The discovery and rehabilitation of ... machines soon generated propositions which evaded all tradition, above all, a mobile, extra human plasticity which was absolutely new....”
这又把我们的注意力带回到艺术和历史方面来了。迦百列布菲·皮卡比阿夫人追忆弗朗西斯·皮卡比阿和马塞尔·杜尚的早期作品时对1949年机器美学的产生作了这样的描写："我记得有一个时期…每一位艺术家表示对埃菲尔铁塔的蔑视，谴责这座污染天空，亵渎神明的建筑是自己义不容辞的责任…机器…的发明与发展很快就提出了一些传统思维完全无法解决的命题，一种全新的、灵活的、超出人的理解力的可塑性…"
Art is, in one definition, simply an effort to name the real world. Are machines "the real world" or only its surface? Is the real world that easy to find? Science has shown the in substantiality of the world. It has thus undermined an article of faith: the thingliness of things. At the same time, it has produced images of orders of reality underlying the thingliness of things. Are images of cells or of molecules or of galaxiesmore or less real than images of machines? Science has also produced images that are pure artifacts. Are images of self-squared dragons more or less real than images of molecules?
曾有人下定义说，艺术就是一种给现实世界命名的尝试。机器是"现实世界"本身还是仅仅是其表面呢?现实世界容易发现吗?科学已经证明，世界是虚无的。这就动摇了人们认为世界的物质是客观实在的信念。同时，科学又创造出了潜存于客观实在之中的各种不同种类和范畴的现实世界的形象。机器的形象与细胞、分子或是银河系这些物体形象相比较，哪一个更实在呢?科学还创造出了纯属人造物的形象。一个张牙舞爪的龙的形象比分子的形象是更接近现实还是更远离现实呢?