TED Talks Daily - A firework ladder to the sky — and the magic of explosive art | Cai Guo-Qiang (re-release)

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

From a boy setting off small explosions in his living room to the creator of world-famous pyrotechnic events, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guo-Qiang has always been drawn to gunpowder. He gives a stunning tour of his work — including his fireworks spectacle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his "sky ladder" of fire reaching to the clouds and new work created with AI — and shows how his art probes the line between destruction and construction, control and freedom, violence and beauty. (This talk was delivered in Mandarin and translated live into English. The translation was put through a custom AI model of Cai Guo-Qiang's voice, powered by technology from Metaphysic. You'll hear how Cai would sound if he were speaking English.)This episode originally aired July 30, 2024.Want to help shape TED’s shows going forward? Fill out our survey!Learn more about TED Next at ted.com/futureyouFor the Idea Search application, go to ted.com/ideasearch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. From a boy setting off small explosions in his living room to the creator of world-famous pyrotechnic events, multidisciplinary artist Cai Guochang has always been drawn to gunpowder. In this archive talk, he gives a stunning tour of his work, including his firework spectacle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his sky ladder of fire reaching to the clouds, and new work

created with AI. He shares why he believes art is one of the best mediums to explore the great tensions of our world. Violence and beauty, control and freedom, destruction and construction. Please note this talk was delivered in Mandarin Chinese and translated live into English. The translation was put through a custom AI model of Cai Guochang's voice powered by technology from metaphysics. In this episode, you'll hear how Tsai would sound if he were speaking English. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled Krakens and navigated through storms. Your spades struck the lid

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wherever books are sold. This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. So you can stay ahead.

So you can protect what you build. So you can create new value. Visit pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com. PwC refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. More than 1,000 years ago, when Chinese alchemists were developing elixir of immortality, wine recipe caused an explosion.

They named their discovery Fire Medicine, the Chinese word for gunpowder. From the very beginning, gunpowder has been about accidents, loss of control, and destruction. But it's also been about the healing power and unseeing energies. I dreamed of becoming an artist when I was little. But, like my father, who was an avid painter himself, I was cautious and timid. Caution is a fine quality in life, but not so in art. And Chinese society was also very controlling when I was young,

so I longed for an artistic medium that could help me free myself and lose control. I came from an Asian city in southeast China called Qianzhou. The city had many firecracker factories when I was young, so it was easy to get gunpowder. When I first began using gunpowder to create art, I would lay out a canvas in the living room and set up small explosions on it.

Seeing the canvas on fire one day, my grandmother threw a linear rack over the flame and put it out with a small puff. It was my grandma who taught me that while it's important to light fires, it's more important to know how to put them out. Over the decades, I've grown closer to gunpowder and mastered more techniques. My creations forever oscillate between destruction and construction,

control and freedom, dictatorship and democracy. For example, I first painted my imagination of paradise, a mirage of temptations. I exploded colored gump powder to create a sensual and dazzling garden, so beautiful that I didn't want to lay a finger on it. However, I picked up my courage and scattered black on powder all over this beauty. Covered it with a blank canvas and ignited again. Done. When I removed the canvas on top, the once enchanting

garden was now forever sealed beneath the black. What shocked me the most was the canvas on top, which now looked like an apparition of that heavenly garden. At the end of 1986, I moved to Japan. My cosmology, which till then was a simple one, developed by stargazing and studying feng shui in Qianzhou, suddenly expanded to include the latest developments in modern astrophysics.

As a young artist from China, my growing experiences with getting visas around the world inspired me to explode a chain of big footprints that traverse the earth. The footprints would evoke extraterrestrials racing across several kilometers, bam bam bam in only a few strides, ignoring artificial borders and disappearing into the distance. After decades of attempts around the world, this concept was finally realized

as 29 footprints fireworks at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Bigfoot Prince walked across the 15-kilometer central axis of Beijing like an invisible giant in the sky. Witnessed by 1.5 billion people in person and through live broadcasts, this work symbolized the era's idealistic delusion of globalization. In the early 90s, I conceived a work titled Sky Letter, a letter made of fireworks that would connect heaven and earth. I made many failed attempts to realize the idea over 21 years. The difficulty of the project, laying its technical requirements, we needed a helium

balloon of over 6,000 cubic meters in order to raise a ladder as high as a World Trade Center. Once up, the balloon could easily be blown away. And because it would carry lots of dangerous materials, we had to acquire numerous permits for land, sea, and air. In my hometown, it's said that 500 meters is the height of the clouds, so the letter symbolized a useful dream of reaching for the stars and touching the clouds. I've created so much art around the world, but my grandma has never seen any of them in person. So I was determined to do something awesome for her to see.

One morning in 2015, at the crack of dawn, a golden ladder rose into the sky. It was a birthday present from my grandmother, who turned 100 that year. She passed away one month later. In 1995, I moved from Japan to New York with my wife and daughter. After I came to New York, my work became more site-specific, addressing more social-political themes and reflecting the changes I've developed from living in the West.

This transition also allowed me to better thrive in different cultures around the world. Some have asked why I never deal with the subject of sex. I would often say, isn't explosion sexy in itself? Ten years ago I was invited to create an artwork in Paris. I decided to invite 50 couples from around the world to a sightseeing boat on the Seine, where they would first enjoy a 12-minute firework display that simulates the process of lovemaking. Why 12 minutes? Because that seems to be the average duration of French lovemaking, according to the internet. Excited by the passionate climax of the fireworks, the couples then entered individual tents

to do whatever they wanted. When satisfied, they could press a button and trigger fireworks from a small boat nearby. I had prepared 300 shots of fireworks. However, the couples didn't use them all. In the end, the fireworks fell down towards, sorry, gotta go. Nighttime fireworks are visible because of light, and are more focused on the explosions themselves. Daytime fireworks rely on smoke. They are like a painter's brush moving across the sunlit sky in real time.

In Shanghai, I realized I did have fireworks allergy, lamenting the severe environmental problems China faces. On the day, clouds loomed low over the Huangfu River, and the fireworks smoke lingered in the air long afterwards, like an ink painting with its gentle sour. For my solo exhibition at Uffizi galleries, I created fireworks in the shapes of flowers and plants from Renaissance paintings.

People from across the city could see the fireworks as they lunged from the Mekwange Square, reigniting the spirit of the Renaissance. Last year, I realized the project when the sky blimps with sakura in Fukushima, which suffered the earthquake and tsunami 12 years ago. On the June day, we had a rare collaboration of the wind and the waves to realize these daytime fireworks,

like a symphony of reverence for nature. I've realized over 600 solo exhibitions and projects worldwide, often facing numerous challenges such as weather conditions, legal regulations, and social-political hurdles. But such is the nature of my art. Behind the momentary magic lies countless unknown factors. Gunpowder and I have been travel companions on a 40-year-long fantastical journey. Yet I've never grown tired of it, thanks to its uncertainty and uncontrollability.

And it's the same fascination with the Out for See-A-Book that led to my research in artificial intelligence that began in 2017. This led to the launch of my AI-Cai, my custom AI model. AI-Cai deep learns from my artworks, archives, and areas of interest. It also mimics contemporary and historical figures I admire, developing distinct personas. They can debate with each other,

forming an independent and free community. AI-Cai is my artwork, but it's also a partner for dialogue and collaboration. In the future, it may even create art by itself. Recently, we also enabled AI-Cai to sprinkle and ignite gunpowder on canvases. Nowadays, if I burr through a canvas, it's usually an intentional loss of control for effect.

But when AI-Cai burrs something, it's a genuine accident. Perhaps AI-Cai is that rash, clumsy boy-type. People often assume that I like fireworks, but what I really like are explosions. I like their energy and magic. Over the years, the goal of my Gunpowder creations has never been political, but their results do carry political significance.

At a recent Nobel Prize event, I said, using explosions to create beauty rather than warfare and violence provides a sliver of hope for our shared human future. Gamhunter helped me set my timid personality and liberate myself in a repressive society. Its uncertainty makes me both uneasy and exhilarated. That's similar to my interactions with AI. The unknown and uncontrollable aspects of AI are indeed unsettling. But today, as contemporary art seems weak and

conservative, I hope that AI can help me unleash creativity, transcending the current dimensions of human cognition. Can AI reveal heavenly secrets and open a door to inter-species civilizations for us? If the disruptive nature of Gung Hada can bring hope to people through the beauty of explosions. Then, can the unsettling power of AI do the same, bringing hope to mankind's future by expanding the unknown world? I'm always at the beginning of the next great journey. Thank you, everyone, and thank you, AI. APPLAUSE

And thank you, AI. Applause That was Tsai Kuo-chang at TED 2024. This talk was originally published in April 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green,

Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tansika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazy-Bogan, additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniella Balorizo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Sell Off Vacations. You know how sometimes a single experience, one moment, one place, can shift your perspective entirely. Travel does that. It moves us not just

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happy travels start with the experts at Sell Off Vacations. Visit SellOffVacations.com today. This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech, so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. So you can stay ahead.

So you can protect what you build. So you can create new value. Visit pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com. Pwc refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Lessons in Chemistry, the international bestselling novel from Bonnie Garmis is now out in paperback. Meet Elizabeth Zott, who The Washington Post calls a gifted research chemist, absurdly

self-assured, and immune to social convention. She's a woman ahead of her time, but exactly right for ours. Don't miss the global phenomenon with more than 8 million copies sold worldwide. Lessons in chemistry is available wherever books are sold.