Void on Fire: On Nadim Abbas' works

photo courtesy of the artist


Void on Fire

Venus Lau

“The fire runs, and hollers on the blank page”

Liu Wai Tong, “Mysticism, a Song of Failure”


Telling stories with the body itself, narrative cannot avoid the trajectory of moving from one door (material or imaginary) to another, walking or rushing between being and becoming, presence and absence. The window, which constitutes one of the primary moments of imagery in the visual language of Nadim Abbas, acts to interpret the door, demonstrating its dialectics of inside/outside without bringing it into ontological existence. For Abbas, the window is sometimes a gasp voiced in the midst of a confrontation between mirror images and sometimes a fountain of bliss for the voyeur. One portion of the installation “I Would Prefer Not To”(2009) is a line of windows formed by dark glass mounted with window grates. In “Untitled” (2000), the viewer is seduced to look through a window into a boxlike white room without doors. “Perspective Studies” (2001) places wheelchairs, light, and windows in a set intended to test the viability of optical illusions, the black-and-white checkered floor twisted nauseatingly out of space.


This interest in windows also extends to the grates and frames so ubiquitous throughout the city-scapes of of Hong Kong and South China. “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Again” (2007) represents yet another attempt to interact with the possibilities of the window, here in the form of a sound installation making explicit reference to Marcel Duchamp. The work develops strata of signification, juxtaposing a porn magazine clipping resembling Duchamp's “Étant donnés,” window grates framing images of waterfalls, and a chair covered with cacti.


Within the household, the installation of window grates is typically intended to either prevent robbery or avoid small children falling out--these different aims that are actually one: the prohibition of traversal (through the window). Abbas further consolidates this interdiction by hanging his window frames on solid walls, a limit in contact with the rejection of continuity. Abbas is not, of course, the first person to transform observations of these grates into art. Mainland Chinese artist Liu Chuang's “Split Landscape” (2005) marks a similar such interrogation of the spatial functions of such extensions to the window, extracting the visual elements of a three-dimensional cage-like grate form once popular in Shenzhen and turning it into a stainless steel sculpture with a highly formalized and flattened visual presentation. This same object clearly serves different purposes in the practices of these two artists: Liu is concerned with researching a geometric aesthetic of the grate as an image by peeling it off from the functionality of the defensive structure, while Abbas displaces the windows in order to dissolve the dialectics of inside/outside through a discontinuity in visual perception raised by a physical aluminum veil. The window, here, is like a ship--Foucault's heterotopia par excellence--a “placeless place ... closed in on itself and at the same time ... given over to the infinity of the sea” (Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces”). It goes nowhere and everywhere.


Besides the window, the figure of the Rorschach test image makes a significant appearance in the practice of Nadim Abbas. The window grate patterns from “I Would Prefer Not To” actually correspond to ten strictly symmetrical inkblots from the Rorschach, while “Untitled (14-03)” (2010) consists of a set of drawings mingling the outlines of such inkblots with the floor plans of apartments in Hong Kong in which there occurred a homicide or suicide on 14 March within the past 15 years. This project creates an imaginary non-space defined only by absence. Less obviously, example “Ornament and Crime” (2008) involves an installation constructed out of white pipes through which observers roll ceramic fengshui balls before smashing on the floor. The symmetrical design of the pipes here certainly resonates with the Rorschach test images, if remotely. Abbas makes reference to clinical psychology again in “I Would Prefer Not To,” another component of which is a specimen box of different manga action figures intended to correspond with MCMI-III (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III) disorders. In comparison with the hype of psychoanalysis adopted as cultural theory in the art world, Abbas is far more concerned with psychopathology. The body, which Schilling calls an “unfinished biological and social project,” is manipulated and fragmented by the clinical gaze, while psychology expands and limits the possible dimensions of the subject through language. Here, art cuts into the human body without the presence of the latter.


Nadim Abbas’s latest project, “Cataract” (2010), is consistent with a certain obsession with windows and grates, including a light box highlighting an image of a waterfall (similar to that used in “The Bride Stripped Bare”). But this is only half of the project: the other half is a continuously running shower system within an environment making reference to a certain filmic anxiety, mirroring the imagery of the waterfall in a different register. The continuous artificial waterfalls may resemble the cylindrical lamp depicting the Iguazu Falls that features prominently in Wong Kar-wai's movie Happy Together, or perhaps the digital fengshui calenders mass-produced in mainland China, typically consisting of a large light box occupied by a lush landscape or Buddhist images on one side and digital clock on the other. It would be overly hasty, however, to cloak this work in the narrative fabric of social criticism related to the extremes of Fordist production modes or clichéd cinematic reference.


The title of this project relates the imagery of the waterfall with a pun, a linguistic forking path. Semiotically and physically, as translucent water is beat into a milky color by virtue of its own velocity, the project speaks in opacity. But opacity, from the window grates that divide the fabricated continuity of an imagined landscape to pieces of dark glass, deformed floor plans, and inkblot images, far from acting to block vision, can actually open up space for new interpretations of the phenomenology of space. This space, however, is never as simple as a large void or volume to be filled with whatever appears. Opacity in some ways wipes out the visual markers of certain objects while producing new schematics of signification and metaphors, but, on the other hand, it also provides a “universalized process of recognition” (Slavoj Zizek, “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion”) for the viewer--quite similar, in fact, to the function of the Rorschach test. For Nadim Abbas, the production of the space of possible symbolic engineering is a fire that simultaneously burns down and lights up its object; the singularity of space is always followed by vanishing, remaining in an unavoidable moments of becoming or morphing into a new and ephemeral appearance.

周俊辉: 衍生的衍生

原文载于artfroum.com.cn

汉雅轩(HANART SQUARE) | HANART TZ GALLERY(HANART SQUARE)

香港新界葵涌（近大连排道）工业街17-21号美安工业大厦二楼

2010.09.30–2010.10.23

Venus Lau

白立方式的展场内尽是画布上的金甲干戈、锦绣绫罗，带来的重量感犹如将倾玉山。周俊辉的第四次个展展出其新作品，再一次展示艺术家的签名式：截取电影场景（连同字幕和荧幕的黑边）的绘画。周的前作聚焦于以现代为背景的电影，如《无间道》、《纵横四海》和《英雄本色》。《衍生的衍生》作品的蓝本则来自古装电影，包括《唐伯虎点秋香》、《投名状》、《济公》、《霸王别姬》、《倚天屠龙记之魔教教主》等。新作品仍呼应艺术家一直关注的主题：《唐伯虎点秋香：没天分就不要画》表达的对艺术本身的诘问、《孔子：天下莫柔弱于水》（该句实来自《道德经》）陈述的哲学主题、《新半斤八两：繁荣盛世度度有金执》（2008）揭示的政治和香港人的身份认同问题。新作还增加了一个维度 - “衍生的衍生”，如《帝女花：将柳荫当做芙蓉帐》以电影《帝女花》为蓝本，该电影改编自同名粤剧，以明末长平公主的故事为创作灵感。《三国：不如弃子而取胜》（2009）的场景来自改编《三国演义》的《三国之见龙卸甲》。电影历史或文学人物带来的想象造就陈述，进而引发各种文本如粤剧和电影的生产。这些具有互文性的衍生物，像水晶棱面不断在自身和其身处的符号系统之间折射光线，一如早期摄影上过度曝光的虹影，以纯视觉体验消除某些历史的框线。


在 “超级真实”的世界，处处充斥没有指向的指向，若以复制/元件的二元对立来看待周俊辉对电影场景的“重置”，实在过分轻率，展览的题目（虽然英文用的字眼是“reproduction”）也在“衍生”一词上做文章，而非以忠实为本的“复制”。其实周俊辉的绘画并不以忠实重现细节和延展视觉为目的。作品不是复制，反而更像翻译，把作为热媒介的电影，转化为随时可以重阅的冷媒介，打破被叙述时间的牵引。翻译总是让人沉迷于“中心信息“是否准确传达。但周俊辉的作品一如永未完成的巴别塔，告知观者翻译不存在什么准确，只从新印证语言的异质性和随机性。

除了借用古装片创作，周俊辉新作的特点来自画面的光泽感，这在展场射灯光下尤为明显。另一方面，新作画面明显较早期作品精细。这种美学转变并不单源于艺术家的笔触实验，画面从粗糙到精细的过度，道出香港视听媒介从VCD到DVD的转变，也阐述了当今图像经济学的等级系统：高解像度是进入图像经济体系的本钱，解像度低的“烂图” (Hito Steyerl口中的poor image)只能在体系外围打转，成为该制度的无产阶级。科技实现观众对高解像度和清晰的不断追求，以致各种媒介成为以视觉快感争夺注意力的战场。

作品的试图通过转换媒介脱离原叙述，从原有历史语境解放视觉符号，可是作品旁边图文并茂的解说却成为返回旧历史语境的康庄大道。艺术家的作品虽然与前作在细节上有异，但并未在概念上带来突破。

展评：幽灵证据

幽灵证据 (Spectral Evidence) 1a Space

香港九龙土瓜湾码头角道63号牛棚艺术村14号

2010.07.15 - 2010.09.05



展覽标题在香烛铺成行成市的香港，确实引人注目。展覽的目的并非要印证鬼神的存在，也无意把鬼的極端他性，作为藝術家的狄奥尼索斯面具。“幽灵证据”源于17世纪美国的巫女审判案, 赋予异象和梦境在法律上的合法性。策展人林司律道出，展覽旨在“探讨历史如何像幽灵一样影响現况”。



二人組Lin+Lam 的作品Even The Trees Would Leave (2005) 通過攝影和文字聚焦香港越南難民营（原址已改建为高尔夫球场），对旁观和消费他人痛苦的行为极尽讽刺。 装置/录像作品Tomorrow I leave (2010) 内容环绕马来西亚業已關閉的越南难民营，展示众多白色木台上的明信片、来自難民營的物品、并置馬來西亞風光和前难民信件的录像。作品恰似祭坛，显影人在飄泊流程中的呢喃。



梁硕恩的录像作品Poe (2007)從爱倫坡(Edger Allan Poe)身后的线索 - 包括其故居、遠房親戚、文字等 - 展开史密生(Robert Smithson)式的地點/非地點辯證。錄像作品Time Museum Time (2010)以藝術家的招牌动作 - 蹲，透过身体的空间概念回應庫哈斯(Rem Koolhaas) 在广州的美术馆项目，作品和内格里(Antonio Negri)批评“junkspace（“垃圾空间”）是生物政治”异曲同工。



Horizon出自Sreshta Rit Premnath之手， 藝術家从网络收集哥伦布纪念碑的照片，消去人物雕像，留下纪念碑底座的图像 - 历史叙事基础的虚拟的自明性隨之崩塌。



展覽明显并非探寻所谓“历史真相” ，历史在此是载体。作品展示的历史残骸作为缝合点(point de caption)，建构永不闭合的的文学机器，通过建构叙述展开历史机理的新创口和文化病理学，成为无止的叙述空间。这个空间恰如德里达(Jacques Derrida)的幽灵，不属于现在或将来，它暗示放射式时间性的延展，消解线性历史，抱着自己没有躯体的躯体，又作为主人能指，从我们感官擦过。此外，作品对不同地点的意象，是以语句结构和之间的隐喻关系“定位“的非地点，这和作品之中的文字譜出双重文学性。香港鲜有展出以研究和檔案为基礎的藝術，是次展覽填补了这方面的空白。可惜，部分作品的符号过于强势：汇丰商标、殖民地难民营，维多利亚皇后像，对某些惯于把香港展覽化约为“后殖民叙述”的观众来说，诱惑实在太大，有形成意指短路的隐患。

张洹：我山之石

(Published by Leap magazine)

张洹：创世纪
Zhang Huan：Dawn of Time
上海美术馆
Shanghai Art Museum
2010.02.03 — 2010.02.28
Venus Lau

張洹個展“創世紀”二月初在上海美術館開幕，展出五件作品，包括三件裝置作品和兩幅香灰畫。無論是因為“張洹首個中國個展”，還是因為2008年展覽被取消的風波，開幕式上蒸騰著由好奇醞釀出的某種期待，漫溢在悉心打扮的人群和名牌手袋之間。

作品“創世紀”散落的老青磚在發鏽的車斗後面拖了大半個展廳，車斗上面站著小馬標本。作品的青磚是從上海的拆遷地區收集所得。同樣的素材也運用在“寶塔” 上：青磚堆砌的鐘形塔上一窗洞開，內置小豬標本。兩件作品不約而同借用動物意象。其實，張洹並不是使用動物意象的新手，2002年的裝置“大佛” ，2004年雕塑“馬”，2005年的雕塑“驢”，2008年的裝置“竹林百賢”都用上動物形象甚至是活動物（如“竹林百賢”的猴子）。現代動物和人之間不是明了的隔扇，而是懸而未決的地域（有可能是阿甘本（Agamben）所指的 Homo Sacer），這片地域是人性和動物性的豁口。但張洹的作品似乎不屬於這種開放地域，而是擬人法，把我們和動物之間的距離拉的更遠。

作品“英雄一號”背對展廳入口——不知道是否對凝視的抗拒——臉熟非常，這件大型雕塑，跟藝術家2008年作品巨人1，2，3 號非常類近，同樣是以上百張經過處理的牛皮拼湊而成，形式上也同樣是殘缺獸肢看似隨意而痛苦的糾結。“英雄一號”披著一身腫瘤狀的凹凸不平，裂邊和累贅，但觀者還是可以辨認出肉食動物粗拙的前肢，人的耳廓和模糊的臉。作品的粗糲形態與其說是來自藝術家對不同材質的隨意實驗，倒不如說是來自計算，作品的粗悍掩蓋了其機關算盡（張洹有專用的車間加工毛皮）。“英雄一號”是否是藝術家對自己和同代中國藝術家的一種反諷：英雄是由預設的時間性事件築就的。经典的悲情英雄俄狄浦斯通過預言得知自己將來杀父娶母，雖然他千方百計逃避歹運，他一路從命運安排的荊途走來，從命運那里收集成就其英雄身分的事件，最後悲劇還是如期降臨。張洹出國成名再歸國再在國家級美術館辦個展，聽起來耳熟能詳，藝術家的命運，是否就是英雄的劇目一樣是先驗的圖冊？

香灰製作的繪畫作品“水庫”和“大運河”，畫面圖像參照六七十年代的新聞照片，表現了至少一部分人的集體回憶，另一部份沒有相關經驗的人回憶缺席的懷念。張洹在訪問時提到收集香灰是“凝固靈魂”，此概念與老新聞照片表現的集體性一拍即合：一方面是無數善信對形而上存在和遙遙彼岸的遠觀，另一方面是圖像通過大眾媒體無限複製和傳播。可惜作品僅僅憑借兩者脆弱聯繫成型，作品難免有些先天不足。比起這兩張畫（和張洹其他的香灰畫），協助藝術家生產作品的“張洹工作室”分工的細緻似乎更具美學性：工作人員從上海和其周邊廟宇收集香灰，把香灰按顏色分類，再以膠質把香灰按選定圖像固定在畫布上。這種精微彷如脆薄的白紙上無數深灰直線，也如卡爾維諾在未來千年文學備忘錄：輕逸篇引艾米莉·狄根森 (Emily Dickinson)詩句：
“一个花托，一片花瓣和一根刺针，
在一个普通的夏日的清晨
长颈瓶上挂满露珠”。在香灰畫的薄弱概念的反襯下，其藝術形式只能變得更矫饰冗长，反不如香灰和車間本身。

同樣是運用甚至濫用中國符號，張洹相對比其他藝術家是要显得圓熟些。或許因為張洹甚少運用飽和的顏色和質地，故此其作品裡的佛像，書法，漢字，舊照片和香灰，雖然是耳熟能詳的“中國牌”，可是打出來的確是比較順眼，作品有時候也甚至靜謐過機警過。比如製作“上海家譜”（2001），張洹用墨汁把祖先的名字塗在臉上，直到滿臉烏黑，剩下一雙眼睛。作品的概念非常直白：中國人宗法制度／文化遺產，成為消失的“自我”的包袱。墨汁和筆畫下的皮膚吸收了自己的光澤，緊繃在自己的物性里，象抽象畫里被筆觸和色塊洗練的臉，變成了純粹的肉－骨骼和肌理的困獸斗。

創世紀作為標題，刻意指涉舊約聖經首章創世記。創世記和其他宗教經典一樣，包含天地起始和早期文明誕生的敘述。展覽的英文題目沒有用上創世紀／記英文 Genesis，卻翻譯成Dawn of the Time。 Dawn，即破曉。創世記描述上帝說“光，就有了光”。又因為光是好的，所以需把日夜分隔。破曉就是晝夜切割線。這次展覽標題直指藝術的真實困境，就像齊澤克(Slavoj Zizek) 所講共產國家建築上揭露了政治真相（不管當權者口里是怎樣的“人民至上”，大樓頂上政治領導的巨型雕塑形象地道出人民的卑微）：成為藝術家是不是等於成為破曉，擔當藝術史各個“時期”的分界線？

這次展覽作品的大尺寸（當然在國家級美術館展示巨型藝術品一般都被認為合理）和寓言式視覺語言，令人聯想起拉伯雷（François Rabelais）的著作《巨人傳》（The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel）。小說中荒誕又枝節蔓生的劇情加上主角巨人父子的驚人體量，本來氛圍應該像巴洛克皺摺一樣繁繁複複，時而舒展時而緊縮。可是拉伯雷放肆的幽默和想像力像氫氣一樣注滿作品，其輕靈在諷刺中世紀文化時足以做到四兩撥千斤（笑就是可以控制的瘋狂）。反之，創世紀的作品概念薄弱，拖曳著自己的重量，艱難的演著獨角戲，猶如展場鋪天蓋地的青磚。

希臘女妖美杜莎(Medusa)滿頭蛇髮，凝視她眼睛的人會變成頑石。其實變成石頭的人，都從美杜莎的凝視看到自己作為主體的沈重和無力——主體對他者的結構性依賴，作為向死而生的存在，主體面對作為永久入侵者／陌生人的死亡，無論顛覆還是接受，帶來的都是疏離。如果這次展覽的是石頭，它們，其實就是美杜莎面前的藝術家。Venus Lau

幾年前寫的六四文章

六四过了十六年，我才第一次走到街上。我一直觉得不上街不要紧，重要的是莫失，莫忘，记得，记着。每个人都有不同的悼念方法，有的人喊口号，有的人舞动旗帜，有的人痛哭，有的人沉默，也有人为了那些逝去的人在“默默中揪心，一根头发渐渐变白“。只要不忘记 。

游行队伍的口号浪涛一般云涌而起，我混在好多人当中，从铜锣湾到中环，维园到政府总部，我连一句平反六四都没有说，我真的，没有说。四周卷起的潮骚样的律动，在两边刮出跌宕的版画的黑线条，浪潮转折的地方勾着像压抑的荇藻般咸腥的喘息，然后一路颠颠顿踬至我身边-------那些结束一党专政释放民运人士民主万岁宛如渗进黑鹤带体温的铁色羽毛-------声浪嘎然而止，如触礁一样。我知道一定会有人要说我这种表现跟横额底下，干裂的嘴唇边的愤慨格格不入，我的木无表情是对那些神情哀伤的人们的背叛。那又怎样呢，对我没有买支联会的T恤我没有高举那些黑底白字的纸牌我没有抬着发泡胶制的民主女神边流汗边唱血染的风采，我好多好多都没有做，但我在队伍中间，我在里面走一步就说了一句话，是的，我患了中国人那种所谓内敛的遗传病，在公众场合尤其发作的厉害。如果有人要把我的沉默从我的肉骨剔出，我会说我对我的诉求很清楚，不需要口号的连连提醒。诉求很明确，因为我就在路上，队伍中间。被群体纳入吸收是危险的，但我今天不介意我作为个人的身份被模糊，成为“要求平反六四“的游行者之一员。

今天其实不是很热，但香港湿毒的天气，总是令人成身汗。纵我心静如柳下惠枯山水，明绿t 恤却紧贴着我皮肤为我湿涟涟，我的身体执意奉迎毒日尘封的阴霾，坚决不肯自然凉。柏油路上的热气，点点聚，变成触角，躯干，带毛的四肢，小小的黑蚂蚁，潜进我的布鞋底。鞋面套桃红的手绣鸳鸯，在绿彩线培植的莲叶底下吐气。好湿。伏在莲叶鸳鸯下，平素最冷静的彩蓝，感染潮气后竟渐渐变成暖色，慢慢炖着菊花细火。

今天才知道，为了别人行，为了很多人行，跟很多人行，好累。

香港人很善忘，不知是否与天气有关。十六年前那天，我的父母坐在电视前，透过夜视镜的绿瞳看长安大街，我们听见炮火，爆出的火星，看不见流血，大人杜绝幻想和视线游溢至坦克轮带底下，爸爸妈妈把我和妹妹的疑问埋在默默无言里。荧幕切换着绿色与橙色，长安大街的灯亮了就是橙色，有人用手掌扑灭了灯，街就变了绿色。爸爸说橙色的街灯是用来防雾的，其实北京少有雾，听着哪，一支支高大的街灯，谁用来燃亮硝烟。那些目击的街灯，那时候有没有闭上无睫毛的秃眼睛，默许鲜血蜿蜒而过，填满天安门前的灰砖？？第二天学校罢课，我们对着粗糙的油印纸唱爱自由为自由，真奇怪我那时怎么会唱普通话，学校都没有教。

那时我呢，二年级，七岁。回家看鬼马哺哺车的时候，哺哺车香蕉黄的车身传来枪声。达达达。

扣在浅蓝色的确凉校服的黑纱，乌蝶鳞一样轻，后来纱跌了，我在小吃部顾住买薯片没有去捡。初夏时香港有一百万人大游行，社会课本写着香港人口有六百多万，一百万人，即是，全香港，六个人，就有一个人在那队伍里。好多人。中环排到西环，几个地铁站。公益金百万行都没有那么多人。一路行一路行，涉着自己的汗水而过。哈。六月四日。我爸妈，现在一句都没有提。只是忙着搞离婚，在大陆开制衣厂，裁纸样，剪布。我都记得，你们怎么说忘了呢。

现在你怎么跟我说你们忘了呢。啊。咸丰年的事你提来把鬼。喂。世道艰难我地要揾食呀姐姐仔。游甚么行，赶住返屋企煮饭。目睹那么多年轻的生命流逝，你怎能跟我说，啊，那是。几时的事。

那些学生，如果他们没有举起横额，如果他们没有绝食，如果他们没有面对全副武装，如果他们不是生在中国，如果，如果，他们有多十六年，看着自己仔大女大，油烟把老婆的脸颊晕黄，腰间的皮肉在微小的平淡里滋长。如果，如果什么都没有用，如果任何行动只会换来绝望，如果，如什么果，其人已殁。

旺角街头展出六四的图片。脸的肌肉明明摆好了哭的姿势，可我一滴眼泪也没有，好像出嫁闭上眼等开脸，等哀伤以棉细的白线，把纤稀的淡黑的汗毛般的克制，沿雪白香粉摊开的路，片掉。哭十六年，水塘都流干，流入记忆的死海。

不少人都集中观看受害者血肉模糊的死状。其实不需要血腥的影象配合，整件事情都足以刺痛任何人，当然，前提是每一个人都有良知。我看见有几个十几岁的年轻人，挂一身鲜烈的颜色，对六四死难者的照片指手画脚，说咁核突咪睇啦我唔駛食飯。我真想。车她一巴掌。连基本的人道关怀都没有，这些人脱了一身潋滟的时尚，底下就是废物。

我对着那些坦克入城，空寂大街的照片，感到特别心痛，通明的首都盛满了虚空，华灯底下空无一人，像丢空的电影布景，演员全死掉，感觉又荒诞又荒凉。装甲车开走了，仗打完了，人人都输，有人输手手脚脚有人输民心有人输家人有人输命，赢的只有僵绿的铁皮。抹杀了人文的无机金属，宛如里面从来没有过人，有意识自生自灭随机地杀戮。面向镜子，在自己的毛孔稍大的脸上窥见清冷的玻璃下固态的水银。面对坦克，就看见在背面聚满柔润的宝石光泽，軟嫩的粉红石榴红内脏。

未必人人都要做烈士，甚至不一定要上街，喊口号，买支联会的胶手带。只要记得，起码在六月四日的时候，在物质与娱乐的甜头之间，记得，有很多人，普通人，用血来提醒我们自由是要争取，革命尚未成功。

走着的时候我跟伟棠说，在中国，烈士没有价值，用刀剑枪矛血汗消费希望，到最后志气消磨，花从梅萼落，然明春依旧韶光艳，漾如线。伟棠说有的。有他们的价值的。现在看不到。过了好多年后，会看到六四的价值的。中环竖满玻璃幕墙建就的图腾，对面行车线上车辆熟练地滑过，车上的乘客拿相机拍游行的队伍。汇丰和中银大厦外墙好象一面面大镜，却什么都照不到。我忽然有误入仙境的虚虚的感觉，足底的路面恍恍惚惚生出了有机的弹性。要不然就是世界误入了以脚步叠成的仙境，眼睛半开看着成群的人的出行，像凝视小小玻璃瓶里桅杆轻脆，白帆摆出受风的圆浑的鼓胀姿势的模型船。

然后我说。真o加。

后记：去年十月路过长安街，时逢国庆，街上灯白如昼，硬生生挤出一个个皮笑肉不笑的假太阳，伪婵娟。无端的热情与喧闹压在黑夜上，黑夜就一点一点的断了呼吸，声声明如剪。谁还记得，十六年前。人人齐奔小康的步伐那么一致，怎复记那大街上，有几多双眼睛就此闭上。铛铛亮的皮鞋底下，经济收益的香甜里，谁还会理九里香之地，平凡的曾经的生生灭灭。
或者有人不再提起是因为恐惧，到一天恐惧的对象消失，他们便会开口，不过老实说我不知道他们是否能等到那一天。可是更可怕的是麻木。不是不能提，不该提，不堪提，是“为什么要提？”

The outline for my book (that will not be published) , Eng

Jianghu and Empire: Cultural Geographies in Chinese Contemporary Art

Background:

In Postmodern Geographies, Edward W Soja commented on an obsession with time in 19th century: time is considered to be rich and dialectic; space, to the contrary, is regarded as "the dead, the fixed, the undialectical,the immobile". In the fields of critical theory and epistemological production, the temporally-focused point of view
was expressed in the form of obsession with history and idling of geography. Although academic stars like Foucault had already expressed doubt towards this hegemony, it is obvious that enthusiasm about history in critical and
cultural theory has not yet faded away. In the contemporary art scene, the obsession is manifested as a drive towards art history. Although there are scholars who investigate the cultural geography of (Chinese) contemporary
art, the results are generally either regional stereotypes or absorption of cultural geography into art history. This essay aims at investigating Chinese contemporary art with reference to two spatially-oriented concepts:jianghu
and Empire.

Empire, a significant text by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, virtually maps the narrative and diagnosis on the sovereignty "Empire" in the context of globalization. (Although Negri's Marxist reference may raise suspicion about the possibility of historicism, the spatiality of Empire acts as a plane of immanence to thought.) The concept of "Empire" already existed during the Roman Empire, but Negri and Hardt's Empire in the context of globalization is not simply a heritage of antiquity, but also a fracture motivated by capital. The ceaseless self-production of capital
as a cancerous body-without-organs drives towards over-top national-states and super-national organisms while capital endlessly reproduces its own pattern. This ceaseless reproduction results in a weakening of the
independence of nation-states, which, along with other super-national organisms, are accommodated by the capitalist apparatus and "united under the logic of the single rule." The result is a new form of sovereignty: Empire.

The development of info-technology shortens or even erases the physical distances and hence strengthens the influence of Empire. Subjects are passively subsumed by the new sovereignty, like bodies inscribed with medical signs. The concept of Empire takes a crucial role in the production and identification of Chinese contemporary art.
Apart from Empire,jianghu is another cultural concept that is inseparable from the cultural geography of Chinese contemporary art.

jianghu, literally "rivers and lakes," initially referred to a name collectively for rivers and lakes. The term then transformed over time and becomes a word standing for either: the habitat of the hermit; or the environment where you min(the people who are outside of the ancient Chinese hierarchy comprised of government officials, peasants, workers and merchants) make a living. This essay adopts the latter.

Jianghu embodies an alternate space with loose organization and its own hierarchy and rules. As an industry for which it would be difficult to obtain a firm definition, contemporary art in China had a sphere of influence which is a
jianghu.

The geography of Chinese contemporary art depicts in a spatial form the simultaneity of the society and the map of power among producers and participants in the industry.
It is too imprudent to equate jianghu of Chinese contemporary art with resistance against the capitalist apparatus and Empire, as the relationship between jianghu and Empire should not be reduced to a simple dualism. Yet it is
even worse to think that they are equivalent. The two sometimes overlap: sometimesjianghuis the Lacanian symptom of Empire; sometimes jianghuis the metaphorical surplus of Empire.Despite the uncertainty, what can
be sure is that the two concepts are among the factors that determine the legitimacy of Chinese contemporary art.

Outline:

• “Empire" and "China": Concept of Empire and Chinese Contemporary Art in an International
Horizon
◦ This part investigates how the Empire concept is applied to the art mechanism and how the
concept molds the signifier “China art.” Under the mechanism of Empire, the independence of
China as a nation-state is weakened, and Chinese contemporary art is transformed to a noun
floating in the chain of signifiers, always drifting on its relative positions.

• Chinese Contemporary Art and the Concept ofjianghu
◦ This part investigates the history of jianghuas a concept in Chinese contemporary art and how
the participants in the scene interact with this cultural topography when transcending physical
geography.

• Interaction Between Empire and Jianghu in Chinese Contemporary Art
◦ Comparing the structure and symbolic networks in Chinese contemporary art under the
concepts of Empire and jianghu
◦ The influence on art production by the epistemology engendered by the suspension of physical
geography by Empire and jianghu
◦ Point de Capiton: This is the part probing into the overlapping and dislocation of Empire and
jianghuin the context contemporary art in globalization, with a focus on the expansion of
jianghuof Chinese contemporary art beyond the previous nation-state-geography boundaries
through globalization.
◦ The Name of the Other: Investigating the positions of Chinese galleries and artists in
international art events: Venice Biennial, Documenta and Art Basel, with a reference to concept
of "outsider" which Derrida mentioned inOf Hospitality.
◦ Who is whose symptom: The subjectivity between Empire andJiang Hu, and how it works on
art
◦ Biopolitics:jianghunever exists without people; Empire obtains its legitimacy from its
"multitudes"; this section analyzes how the politics between the people differ in the context of
jianghuand Empire
• Treading onJianghuand Striding through the Empire:Case Studies on Artists' Productionofa
Nation in a Nation/ Carrying the Tao to the West:Chinese
◦ Writing about the pioneers who made Chinese artist in an international horizon
◦ Artists: Cai Guoqiang, Huang Yongping, Xu Bing
• South to the Border:the "Southern" Artists in Cultural Geography
◦ Investigating how the “southerness” of the artists are produced injianghuand Empire.
◦ Artists: Chu Yun, Jiang Zhi, Liu Chuang, Zheng Guogu
• The World is the Corner: "International" / Non-Place Artist
◦ Focusing on how the Chinese artists who are considered to be international due to their
distance from conventional Chinese icons
◦ Artists: Cao Fei (early work), Adrian Wong, Xu Zhen

The outline for my book (that will not be published) , Chinese Version

(請勿轉載)

江湖與帝國：中國當代藝術的文化地理
by Venus Lau

Edward W. Soja 在Postmodern Geographies 提到19世紀人們對時間的迷戀：時間被認為是豐饒而辯證的，與之相反，空間卻是“死實，固定，非辯證和不變”的客體。時間主導的觀點在知識生產和批判理論上表現為對歷史的迷戀和對地理的投閒置散。縱使如褔柯之流的學術明星對這種一廂情願作出質疑，批判理論和文化研究界對歷史的迷戀仍未全面減退。此點在當代藝術表現為對美術史的狂熱。縱使有部份學者試圖探索（中國）當代藝術文化地理，結果卻是藝術典型化，或者文化地理被吸收為藝術史的一部分。本文將以“帝國”和“江湖”這兩個建基於空間性的概念，探索中國當代藝術。

內格里(Antonio Negri)和哈特(Michael Hardt)的著作帝國描述全球化語境下“帝國”主權的虛擬版圖。（帝國作者對馬克思主義的引用，難免會有歷史主義的意味，但是其帝國概念的空間性可作為思考的內在性平面Plane of immanence）資本作為“癌變無器官身體(cancerous body-without-organs)”，不斷複製自身的樣式，產生超越民族國家的要求。資本加速流通生產更多資本，民族國家的獨立性則日趨薄弱，它們連同其他超國家組織被資本制度編收；在單一，共享的邏輯下，築造了全新的主權形式 — 帝國。另一方面，信息科技的發達縮短甚至取消了物理距離，使帝國主權的影響力日益擴大，個體包括藝術只能被動地受其包攬，如醫學符號被刻寫在身體上，故帝國對目前中國當代藝術的生產和身份認同有密切的關系。

另一個與中國當代藝術無法分開的文化地理概念是“江湖”。江湖原本為江水湖泊總稱，后演變成隐士避世之處，亦指“游民”謀生的環境（本文取后者）。江湖是一“另類宇宙”，也是官方/傳統宗法制度的例外。江湖結構鬆散卻又具有自己的等級結構和规则，是“游民”浪蕩的世界。藝術作為難以定義的生產業，其有效範圍一如古時中國“四民”語境之外的江湖。中國當代藝術的江湖地理，以空間化形式，揭示現今社會的共時性(simultaneity)，也展示藝術生產者之間的的權力地圖。

草草把江湖當成藝術對資本机器和“帝國”的反抗未免天真 — 二者的關係不可化約為簡單的二元對立 — 把二者等同卻更大錯特錯。帝國和江湖范圍偶有重疊，江湖時而是帝國的徵兆，又可以是帝國的隱喻剩餘(metaphorical surplus)。。。但可以肯定二者是中國當代藝術合法性的組成部分。

結構：

“帝國”和“中國”：國際視野里的中國當代藝術
－中國當代藝術里的“中國”是一個能指鏈裡的名詞，經常游移在相對的位置，此部分采用帝國概念探討“中國當代藝術”此能指的歷史

江湖概念和中國當代藝術
－探討江湖作為當代藝術文化地形學的歷史，江湖如何與藝術生產者越過傳統地緣政治互動

帝國和江湖在中國當代藝術的共同作用
－探討在帝國和江湖的概念下中國當代藝術的符號網絡和結構
－帝國和江湖懸置物質地理對藝術帶來的影響
－Point de Capiton：研究中國當代藝術江湖和帝國的重疊和錯位
，并集中討論當代藝術江湖如何通過全球化超越昔日的民族國家 -地理局限
－"他者之名"：以德里达論好客的“外人”概念，看中國藝術在國際藝術事件 — 威尼斯雙年展/文獻展/巴塞爾 — 的位置
－誰是誰的征兆：探討中國當代藝術“帝國”和“江湖”的的主體間性(intersubjectivity)
－生命政治：江湖無人不立，帝國需要不斷尋求人的認受。此部分探討江湖和帝國語境下中國當代藝術的生命政治(biopolitics)

涉足江湖，通行帝國：藝術家個案研究

生產國中之國：“中國藝術家們”（蔡国强，黃永砯，徐冰）

討論把“中國當代藝術家”概念帶到國際視野的中國藝術先行者

“國境之南”： 文化地理中的“南方”藝術家 （儲云，蔣志，劉窗，鄭國谷）
探索文化地理產生的“南方性”

“世界就是角落”：“國際”／“非空間”藝術家 （曹斐，Adrian Wong，徐震）
討論與“中國符號”有所距離的國際藝術家

On Rirkrit

(published by art-ba-ba.com)



Rirkrit Tiravanija 的首個中國展覽“別干了”在唐人畫廊舉行。主要作品“无题2010（14086）”: 一個迷你磚窯，工人在微溼的磚胎上印上“別干了”和編號，燒製的14086塊磚以单价三十元人民幣供觀眾認購。新聞稿說14086等同築造一所簡易房子的磚塊數量。“无题2010（北京市朝阳区建国门外大街一号，上海市普陀区中山北路二十五号）”展示扎作成中國地標大樓形状的鸟笼，裏面进驻小鹦鹉等鸟类。藝術家参照画廊老板座驾制作的实物大石膏雕塑“无题2010（奶粉奔驰）”，上面铺了一层奶粉。“无题2010 （豆腐脑）”的豆腐腦攤及时消解北京冬天干硬的寒冷，工人忙着盛豆腐脑炸油条，虽然没有Rirkrit亲自下厨的泰式青咖哩和炒河粉，观/嚐者還是非常关照这“小吃摊”。


Rirkrit Tiravanija,泰國人生于布尔诺思艾利斯，居于纽约，柏林，曼谷，在不同国家举办展覽，在各地藝術節獲奬。這樣的藝術家不需要刻意经營，就已经够“国际”（他的 passport作品很好的体现了这一点）。除了少數家乡美食，Rirkrit鲜有宣传其家鄉文化符号。所以這次展覽符号之充溢叫人驚訝。這些符號並非產自泰国，而是现代中国：奔驰，奶粉，中国地标建筑，豆腐脑等，都是談論（尤其在討論發展的代價時）中國飛速發展經濟時避免不了的能指。Rirkrit在座谈会，新闻稿和杂志访谈中，早已表示展覽是对中国國家發展的回应。展覽把中国符号反饋中国，例如以奶粉把中國食品業醜聞和作為金錢象徵的奔馳融合在作品裡。或者邀請在中國一直作為底層人（subaltern）的磚窯工人參與藝術生產。這種反饋仿佛藝術家2008年作品 “无题2008：鉻就是未来” - 一張镜面乒乓球桌。

在Art Info 的访问里，Rirkrit好几次提到“超生产”（hyper production），这个辭彙暗示了速度和超越。人類的歷史就是速度的歷史，不管是資訊，武器，醫藥，商品，当掌握了速度，基本上就抓住世界，不妨在此引用Virilio 的一句名言，“光速不单改變世界，它變成了世界”。艺术家面对高速生产的中國社会，使用了反面的敘事－减速甚至靜止－娓娓道來无止境增长的资本：口号式的“不干了”，工人以竹篾慢慢扎作的高大鸟笼，代表富裕和速度的奔驰轿车－文化意蕴被抽出，功能性被剥夺，在展厅里拖着自己沉重的肉身，跟以艺术家对自己砖头作品的解说“把概念视觉化”互相观照。

评论Rirkrit的看客不少着眼于其跟食物有关的作品，例如著名的“无题 1992 （免费）”（1992） 和“社会布丁角” （2004），老實說公眾的参与和作為事件的作品本身，才是這些“藝術盛宴”的精要。Bourriaud 早在展覽Traffic（1996）的畫冊首次提到关系美學，闡述一種以社會語境的人際關係為出發點的新藝術。作為Traffic的参展艺术家藝術家之一，Rirkrit 的即場生產－消耗－再生產的藝術生产模式，为关系美學提供一個重要案例。關係美學概念的产生和当时互联网的兴起有关，新的溝通和建立社會關係的方式，促使人们重新梳理社会关系的可能性。关系藝術後來發展成涉及公眾參與的藝術的代名詞，不少人依照这个思路草草概括有关作品。十多年後的今天，當Apple IIc已經演變成iPhone和Macbook Pro，當你已經可以在家裡對著电脑购物，建立人際網絡的重大轉變，使我們需要重新审视关系藝術的概念。我認為Rirkrit的豆腐腦攤依然屬於關係美學的範疇，但這種想法沒有給我答案，反而給出更多問題：關係美學的關係是甚麼与什么的關係？是怎樣產生的關係？是為了誰產生的關係？藝術家是不是一句 “”社會責任”就可以和公眾接軌？到底誰是公眾？以hyperlink放射形式攝受資訊的人們，如何看待自己在這個公共活動的位置？關係美學能否向公眾示範更好的社會協作方式？現今觀眾對公眾參與的藝術作品駕輕就熟，藝術展覽的強勢的語境令關係美學有機會墮進“畫廊派對”的危險，我們怎樣重新在這樣的語境中重新成為公眾？Rirkrit的這個展覽不能回答以上問題，唯有希望藝術家和公眾的關係，不會像這次鳥籠作品的婉轉的鳥音那樣，只在畫廊裡生效。

说到吃这个題目，讓人想起Rirkrit的另外一件作品“Fear eats the soul”（“恐惧吞噬灵魂”），作品名稱來自德國導演法斯賓德 （Rainer Werner Fassbinder）1974年执导作品，該電影内容围绕一对忘年恋男女的爱情。電影說甚麼其實不重要，但是Rirkrit這個作品標題的eat－這個簡單辭彙無比赤裸，發音時的咬牙切齒，提醒人們遠古人類社會關係的起源其實為了填飽肚子。此論調和已經發展為文化學科的飲食，還有Rirkrit這種通過食物來進行社交的儀式性质，誠然相映成趣。

畫廊展廳與豆腐腦攤的陌生組合帶來的錯置感，加上展覽名稱的點題，不難使觀者把這次展覽與Guy Debord的奇觀社會（The Society of the Spectacle）聯繫起來。Debord的奇观理論是評論資本主義時被頻繁引用的思想，說明集中和彌散兩種奇觀(這次展覽是兩者的混合)。奇觀以林林總總的形態出現，不同的奇觀，不管背後運作的是甚麼（政治，文化，商業。。。）架構，都有一個共同點，需要注視。奇觀對注視的渴求，使其喜新厭舊，不斷被自己新的面目取代。展場裡繃蹦跳的小鳥和參與豆腐腦攤，拉長了觀眾注視的時間，在觀眾的心理地理上落了戶，帶來的是分神和反記憶。

Rirkrit以往作品大部份命名為“無題”(Untitled)，後面往往附上一個副標題，以括號圈住。此舉貌似以通過放棄命名，暗示藝術家要退下造物主的位置，另一方面卻又有點像香港人說的“唔（注：廣東話，“不”的意思）嫁又嫁” 。這樣的括號是迴避的姿勢 （但是迴避並不是否定），比如說1999年的作品“無題（明天閉嘴滾開）”。Rirkrit命名的迂迴猶如德里達談到的避免（Vermeiden），也像在"On Spirit"（“論靈魂”） 開首的“I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes" 一樣，在有限的音素裡，除了火和灰，燃燒的背後，煙霧蜿蜒。迴避，其實就是不可迴避本身。奇怪的是，此次中國展覽的題雖然還是沿用無題加括號的標題格式，副標題的內容卻清楚明了，“豆腐腦”，“奶粉奔馳”等跟作品的聯繫非常直白，這種處理，使這次展出的作品與以往相比，少了一些睿智。

本来可以用更多的理论来切割出这次展覽的各個稜面，可惜展覽裡某些露白的“中国印象”，使作品的闡釋可能性在在剥削-资本主义-过度生产-过度消费这样的圈子里打转。不要誤會，我没有要求Rirkrit说一口京片子喝豆汁，也没有想过什么“展示真实的中国”之類的幻覺，如果這是 Rirkrit要說的中國，我尊重他的看法。中國一如其他能指，對應不同人心裡的概念，每個人都有自己的中國，正如我的紅跟你的紅不一樣。縱使Rirkrit這次展覽像本Lonely Planet導遊書，卻正正揭示了我們都是活在自己的寂寞星球，Negri式帝國時代的國家－撫摸著自己的模糊的地理邊界－只是全球化經濟下的又一件產品。

Meeting Gary Snyder

Great to meet one of the members of Beat Generation, although he refused the label of "Beat writers".
I am not a big fan of Snyder, yet I appreciate his insistence on Zen's ineffability - which makes the Koan of a monk got his finger cut make sense -and I am happy to know that there is another Noh fan.

Badiou; 15 Theses on Contemporary Art

(From Lacan.com)
I think everybody has the 15 theses, it is necessary, I think, for the talk. I'll comment about the theses and you can read them. I think the great question about contemporary art is how not to be Romantic. It's the great question and a very difficult one. More precisely, the question is how not to be a formalist-Romantic. Something like a mixture between Romanticism and formalism. On one side is the absolute desire for new forms, always new forms, something like an infinite desire. Modernity is the infinite desire of new forms. But, on the other side, is obsession with the body, with finitude, sex, cruelty, death. The contradiction of the tension between the obsession of new forms and the obsession of finitude, body, cruelty, suffering and death is something like a synthesis between formalism and Romanticism and it is the dominant current in contemporary art. All the 15 theses have as a sort of goal, the question how not to be formalist-Romantic. That is, in my opinion, the question of contemporary art.

Lombardi is really a good example, and I am very glad to speak here tonight. We can see that there is something like a demonstration, a connection, points of connections. You have something very surprising, because Lombardi knew all that before the facts. We have somewhere, a great drawing about the Bush dynasty which is really prophetic, which is an artistic prophecy, that is a creation of a new knowledge, and so it's really surprising to see that after the facts. And it's really the capacity, the ability of art to present something before the facts, before the evidence. And it's something calm and elevated, like a star. You know, it's like a galaxy, see, it's something like the galaxy of corruption. So, the three determinations are really in the works of Lombardi. And so it's the creation of a new possibility of art and a new vision of the world, our world. But a new vision which is not purely conceptual, ideological or political, a new vision which has it's proper shape, which creates a new artistic possibility, something which is new knowledge of the world has a new shape, like that. It's really an illustration of my talk.



The first thesis: Art is not the sublime descent of the infinite into the finite abjection of the body and sexuality. It is the production of an infinite subjective series through the finite means of a material subtraction.

This is an intimation of how not to be a Romantic. It consists of the production of a new infinite content, of a new light. I think it’s the very aim of art; producing a new light about the world by means of precise and finite summarization. So, you have to change the contradiction. The contradiction today is between the infinity of the desire for new forms and the finitude of the body, of the sexuality, and so on. And new art needs to change the terms of this contradiction and put on the side of infinity new content, new light, a new vision of the world, and on the side of finitude, the precision of means and of summarization. So, the first thesis is something like the reversal of the contradiction.

Subtraction: the word subtraction has two meanings. First, not to be obsessed with formal novelty. I think it’s a great question today because the desire for novelty is the desire of new forms, an infinite desire for new form. The obsession of new forms, the artistic obsession with novelty, of critique, of representation and so on, is really not a critical position about capitalism because capitalism itself is the obsession of novelty and the perpetual renovation of forms. You have a computer, but the following year it’s not the true computer, you need a new one. You have a car, but the coming year it’s an old car, something like an old thing and so on. So, it’s a necessity for us to see that the complete obsession with new forms is not really a critical position about the world as it is. It’s a possibility that the real desire, which is subversive desire, is the desire of eternity. The desire for something which is a stability, something which is art, something which is closed in-itself. I don’t think it’s quite like that, but it’s a possibility because the perpetual modification of forms is not really a critical position, so the desire of new forms is certainly something important in art, but the desire for the stability of forms is also something important. And, I think we have to examine the question today.

The second meaning of subtraction is not to be obsessed with finitude, with cruelty, body, suffering, with sex and death, because it’s only the reversal of the ideology of happiness. In our world there is something like an ideology of happiness. Be happy and enjoy your life and so on. In artistic creation we often have the reversal of that sort of ideology in the obsession with suffering bodies, the difficulty of sexuality, and so on. We need not be in that sort of obsession. Naturally a critical position about the ideology of happiness is an artistic necessity, but it’s also an artistic necessity to see it as a new vision, a new light, something like a positive new world. And so, the question of art is also the question of life and not always the question of death. It is a signification of the first thesis; we have to search for an artistic creation which is not obsessed with formal novelty, with cruelty, death, body, and sexuality.

Second thesis: Art cannot merely be the expression of a particularity (be it ethnic or personal). Art is the impersonal production of a truth that is addressed to everyone.

The great question here is a question of universality: is there, or is there not, a universality of artistic creation? Because the great question today is the question of globalization, the question of the unity of the world. Globalization proposes to us an abstract universality. A universality of money, the universality of communication and the universality of power. That is the universalism today. And so, against the abstract universality of money and of power, what is the question of art, what is the function of artistic creation? Is the function of artistic creation to oppose, to abstract from universality only a singularity of particularities, something like being against the abstraction of money and of power, or as a community against globalization and so on? Or, is the function of art to propose another kind of universality? That’s a big question. The more important issue today is the main contradiction between capitalistic universality on one hand, universality of the market if you want, of money and power and so on, and singularities, particularities, the self of the community. It’s the principal contradiction between two kinds of universalities. On one side the abstract universality of money and power, and on the other the concrete universality of truth and creation. My position is that artistic creation today should suggest a new universality, not to express only the self or the community, but that it’s a necessity for the artistic creation to propose to us, to humanity in general, a new sort of universality, and my name for that is truth. Truth is only the philosophical name for a new universality against the forced universality of globalization, the forced universality of money and power, and in that sort of proposition, the question of art is a very important question because art is always a proposition about a new universality, and art is a signification of the second thesis.

Third thesis. It’s only a definition of the universality of art. What is an artistic truth? Artistic truth is different from scientific truth, from political truth, from other sorts of truths. The definition is that artistic truth is always a truth about the sensible, an outline of the sensual. It’s not a static sensible expression. An artistic truth is not a copy of the sensible world nor a static sensible expression. My definition is that an artistic truth is a happening of l’Idèe in the sensible itself. And, the new universality of art is the creation of a new form of happening of the Idea in the sensible as such. It’s very important to understand that an artistic truth is a proposition about the sensible in the world. It’s a proposition about a new definition of what is our sensible relation to the world, which is a possibility of universality against the abstraction of money and power. So, if art seems very important today, it is because globalization imposes to us the creation of a new kind of universality, which is always a new sensibility and a new sensible relation to the world. And because the oppression today is the oppression of abstract universality, we have to think of art along the direction of the new sensible relation to the world. And so, today, artistic creation is a part of human emancipation, it’s not an ornament, a decoration and so on. No, the question of art is a central question, and it’s central because we have to create a new sensible relation to the world. In fact, without art, without artistic creation, the triumph of the forced universality of money and power is a real possibility. So the question of art today is a question of political emancipation, there is something political in art itself. There is not only a question of art’s political orientation, like it was the case yesterday, today it is a question in itself. Because art is a real possibility to create something new against the abstract universality that is globalization.

Fourth thesis. This thesis is against the dream of totalization. Some artists today are thinking that there is a possibility to fuse all the artistic forms, it’s the dream of a complete multimedia. But it’s not a new idea. As you probably know, it was the idea of Richard Wagner, the total art, with pictures, music, poetry and so on. So the first multimedia artist was Richard Wagner. And, I think multimedia is a false idea because it’s the power of absolute integration and it’s something like the projection in art of the dream of globalization. It’s a question of the unity of art like the unity of the world but it’s an abstraction too. So, we need to create new art, certainly new forms, but not with the dream of a totalization of all the forms of sensibility. It’s a great question to have a relation to multimedia and to new forms of images, of art, which is not the paradigm of totalization. So we have to be free about that sort of dream.

A few words about theses five and eight. The question here is what exactly is the creation of new forms. It’s very important because of what I previously said about the infinite desire for new forms being a problem in contemporary art. We have to be precise about the question of new forms in themselves. What is the creation of new forms? I hint that, in fact, there is never exactly pure creation of new forms. I think it’s a dream, like totalization, pure creation of absolute new forms. In fact, there is always something like a passage of something which is not exactly a form to something that is a form, and I argue that we have something like impurity of forms, or impure forms, and purification. So, in art there is not exactly pure creation of forms, God created the world, if you want, but there is something like progressive purification, and complexification of forms in sequence. Two examples if you wish. When Malevich paints the famous white on white, the white square on white square. Is that the creation of something? In one sense yes, but in fact, it’s the complete purification of the problem of the relation between shape and color. In fact, the problem of the relation between shape and color is an old one with a long story and in Malevich’s white square on white square, we have an ultimate purification of the story of the problem and also it’s a creation, but it’s also the end, because after white square on white square there is, in one sense, nothing, we cannot continue. So we have a complete purification and after Malevich all correlation between shape and color looks old, or impure, but it’s also the end of the question, and we have to begin with something else. We may say that with artistic creation, it’s not exactly the pure creation of new forms, something like the process of purification with beginnings and with ends too. So, we have sequences of purification, much more than pure rupture of pure creation. And it’s the content of theses five and eight.

We come now to theses six and seven. The question here is what exactly is the subjective existence of art? What is the subject in art, the subject in the subjective sense? It’s a great discussion, a very old one. What is the subject in art? What is the agent of art? The subject in art is not the artist. It’s an old thesis too, but an important one. So, if you think that the real subject in artist creation is the artist, you are positing the artistic creation as the expression of somebody. If the artist is the subject, art is the expression of that subject, thereby art is something like a personal expression. In fact, it is necessary for contemporary art to argue the case that art is a personal expression, because you have no possibility to create a new form of universality and you oppose to the abstract form of universality only the expression of the self or the expression of communities. So, you understand the link between the different problems. It’s imperative for us to say that the subject in artistic creation is not the artist as such. “Artist” is a necessity for art, but not a subjective necessity. So, the conclusion is quite simple. The subjective existence of art are the works of art, and nothing else. The artist is not the subjective agent of art. The artist is the sacrificial part of art. It’s also, finally, what disappears in art. And the ethic of art is to accept the disappearance. Sometimes the artist is someone who wants to appear, but it’s not a good thing for art. For art, if you want art to have today the very important function of the creation of a new universality, if you think that art is something like a subjective expression for the market, it’s necessary that the artist make a great appearance, naturally, but if art is the creation, the secret creation, something like that, if art is not something of the market, but is something against the force of universality of the market, the consequence is that the artist must disappear, and not to be someone who appears in the media and so on. And a critique of art is something like a critique of something like desperation. If the ethic of art is something like desperation, it is because what show are works of art, which are the real subjective existence of art in-itself.

It’s also the same thing in thesis nine. I don’t comment The question of the ethic of art is not to be imperial. Desperation because operation is always something like imperial operation, because the law of operation is today imperial law.

About theses ten and eleven, I think we can demonstrate that imperial art is the name for what is visible today. Imperial art is exactly Romantic-formalism. That is a historical thesis, or a political thesis if you want. The mixture of Romanticism and formalism is exactly the imperial art. Not only today, but, for example, during the Roman Empire too. There is something common between the situation today and the situation at the end of the Roman Empire. It’s a good comparison, you see, and more precisely between the United States and the Roman Empire. There is really something very interesting with that sort of comparison, and in fact the question is also a question of artistic creation, because by the end of the Roman Empire we have exactly two dispositions in artistic creation. On one side, something really Romantic, expressive, violent, and on the other, something extremely formalist, politically straight. Why? When we deal with the situation of something like an empire, something like having the formal unity of the world, if you want, it’s not only the United States, it’s finally the big markets, when we have something like a potential unity of the world, we have in artistic creation something like formalism and Romanticism, a mixture of the two. Why? Because when we have an empire, we have two principles. First, all is possible because we have a big potency, a unity of the world. So we may say, all is possible. We may create new forms, we may speak of everything, there is not really laws about what is possible, what is not possible, so everything is possible. Yet, we also have another maxim, everything is impossible, because there is nothing else to have, the empire is the only possible existence, the only political possibility. So, you can say that everything is possible and you can say that everything is impossible, and when the two are said you have an artistic creation, formalism, that is to say all is possible, new forms are always possible, and Romanticism and nihilism because all is impossible, and finally, we have the mixture of the two, and contemporary art is saying that all is possible and that all is impossible. The impossibility of possibility and the possibility of impossibility. That is the real content of contemporary art. To escape that sort of situation is to state that something is possible, not all is possible, not all is impossible, but something else is possible. There is a possibility of something else. So, we have to create a new possibility. But to create a new possibility is not the same thing as to realize a new possibility. It’s a very fundamental distinction, to realize a possibility is to think that the possibility is here and I need to conceive the possibility. For example, if all is possible, I have to realize something, because all things are possible, but, naturally, it’s quite a different thing to create something possible. The possibility is not here. So, it is not true, that all is possible, some things are not possible, and you have to create the possibility of that thing which is not possible. And it is the great question of artistic creation. Is artistic creation the realization of a possibility or is artistic creation the creation of a new possibility? The possibility of something, the possibility of saying something is possible. If you think all is possible (that is the same as to think all is impossible), your conviction in the world is finished, the world is something closed. It is closed with all the possibilities, which is the same thing that everything are impossibilities and artistic creation is closed too, it’s closed in formalist-Romanticism which is the affirmation that all is possible and all is impossible. But the true function of artistic creation today is the possibility of saying that something is possible, so to create a new possibility. But where can we create a new possibility when something is impossible? Because we can create a new possibility when something is not a possibility. If all is possible, you cannot create a new possibility. So, the question of a new possibility is also the question of something impossible, so we have to assume that it’s not true that all is possible, that also it’s not true that all is impossible, we have to say something is impossible where something is impossible. I have to create a new possibility. And, I think the creation of new possibility is today the great function of art. In other activities of circulation, communication, the market and so on, we have always the realization of possibilities, infinite realization of possibilities. But not creation of possibility. And so it’s also a political question, because politics truly means the creation of a new possibility. A new possibility of life, a new possibility of the world. And so the political determination of artistic creation is today whether it is possible, or impossible to create a new possibility. Actually, globalization carries the conviction that it is utterly impossible to create a new possibility. And the end of Communism, and the end of revolutionary politics is, in fact, the dominant interpretation of that all: it is impossible to create a new possibility. Not to realize a possibility, but to create a new possibility. You understand the difference. And I think the question of artistic creation lies here. It proves for everybody, for humanity in general, that it is a possibility to create a new possibility.

About thesis twelve. It’s a poetic thesis. The three determinations of artistic creation, to compare artistic creation with a demonstration, with an ambush in the night and with a star. You can understand the three determinations. Why a demonstration? Because finally the question of artistic creation is also the question of something odd, something possessing a sort of eternity, something which is not in pure communication, pure circulation, something which is not in the constant modification of forms. Something which resists and resistance is a question of art also today. Something which resists is something endowed with some stability, solid. Something which is a logical equation, which has a logical coherence, consistence, is the first determination. The second determination is something surprising, something which is right away the creation of a new possibility, but a new possibility is always surprising. We cannot have a new possibility without some sort of surprise. A new possibility is something that we cannot calculate. It’s something like a rupture, a new beginning, which is always something surprising. Thus, the second determination. And it’s marvelous, like something in the night, the night of our knowledge. A new possibility is something absolutely new for our knowledge, so it’s the night of our knowledge. Something like a new light. Elevated as a star because a new possibility is something like a new star. Something like a new planet, a new world, because it is a new possibility. Something like a new sensible relation to the world. But the great problem lies elsewhere. The formal problem for contemporary art is not the determination, one by one. The problem is how to relate the three. To be the star, the ambush, and the demonstration. Something like that. And Lombardi is really a good example, and I am very glad to speak here tonight. We can see that there is something like a demonstration, a connection, points of connections. You have something very surprising, because Lombardi knew all that before the facts. We have somewhere, a great drawing about the Bush dynasty which is really prophetic, which is an artistic prophecy, that is a creation of a new knowledge, and so it’s really surprising to see that after the facts. And it’s really the capacity, the ability of art to present something before the facts, before the evidence. And it’s something calm and elevated, like a star. You know, it’s like a galaxy, see, it’s something like the galaxy of corruption. So, the three determinations are really in the works of Lombardi. And so it’s the creation of a new possibility of art and a new vision of the world, our world. But a new vision which is not purely conceptual, ideological or political, a new vision which has it’s proper shape, which creates a new artistic possibility, something which is new knowledge of the world has a new shape, like that. It’s really an illustration of my talk.

The last thesis. I think the great question is the correlation between art and humanity. More precisely the correlation between artistic creation and liberty. Is artistic creation something independent in the democratic sense of freedom? I think if you consider Lombardi for a second time, we may consider the issue of creating a new possibility as not exactly a question of freedom, in the common sense, because there is an imperial definition of freedom today, which is the common democratic definition. Is artistic creation something like that sort of freedom? I think not. I think the real determination of artistic creation is not the common sense of freedom, the imperial sense of freedom. It’s a creation of a new form of liberty, a new form of freedom. And we may see here that sort of thing because the connection between the logical framework, the surprise of new knowledge, and the beauty of the star is a definition of freedom which is much more complex than the democratic determination of freedom.

I think of artistic creation as the creation of a new kind of liberty which is beyond the democratic definition of liberty. And we may speak of something like an artistic definition of liberty which is intellectual and material, something like Communism within a logical framework, because there is no liberty without logical framework, something like a new beginning, a new possibility, rupture, and finally something like a new world, a new light, a new galaxy. This is the artistic definition of liberty and the issue today consists not in an art discussion between liberty and dictatorship, between liberty and oppression, but in my opinion, between two definitions of liberty itself.

The artistic question of the body in some art forms, like cinema or dance, is precisely the question of the body within the body and not the body without body. It is an idealistic conception of the body without the body or the body as something else, crucial in the story of Christianity and in Paul. For example in the Greek classical painting the body is always something else than the body, and if you consider something like the body in Tintoretto, for example, the body is something like movement which is body like something else than the body. But in fact today the body has a body, the body in the body is the body as such. And the body as such is something very hard, because the body has no representation which is really a representation as a star, something like that. In that sort of painting (Lombardi), we have names, and no bodies. It is a substitution of names to bodies. We have no picture of Bin Laden, but the name of Bin Laden. We have no picture of Bush, but the name of Bush. Father and sons.

Zizek: 20 Years of Collapse

20 Years of Collapse

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

TODAY is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this time of reflection, it is common to emphasize the miraculous nature of the events that began that day: a dream seemed to come true, the Communist regimes collapsed like a house of cards, and the world suddenly changed in ways that had been inconceivable only a few months earlier. Who in Poland could ever have imagined free elections with Lech Walesa as president?

However, when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was dispelled by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted with an unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn, as nostalgia for the “good old” Communist times; as rightist, nationalist populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia.

The first two reactions are easy to comprehend. The same rightists who decades ago were shouting, “Better dead than red!” are now often heard mumbling, “Better red than eating hamburgers.” But the Communist nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from expressing an actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it is more a form of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for the rise of the rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European specialty, but a common feature of all countries caught in the vortex of globalization.

Much more interesting is the recent resurgence of anti-Communism from Hungary to Slovenia. During the autumn of 2006, large protests against the ruling Socialist Party paralyzed Hungary for weeks. Protesters linked the country’s economic crisis to its rule by successors of the Communist party. They denied the very legitimacy of the government, although it came to power through democratic elections. When the police went in to restore civil order, comparisons were drawn with the Soviet Army crushing the 1956 anti-Communist rebellion.

This new anti-Communist scare even goes after symbols. In June 2008, Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of Communist images like the hammer and sickle, as well as the playing of the Soviet anthem. In April 2009, the Polish government proposed expanding a ban on totalitarian propaganda to include Communist books, clothing and other items: one could even be arrested for wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

No wonder that, in Slovenia, the main reproach of the populist right to the left is that it is the “force of continuity” with the old Communist regime. In such a suffocating atmosphere, new problems and challenges are reduced to the repetition of old struggles, up to the absurd claim (which sometimes arises in Poland and in Slovenia) that the advocacy of gay rights and legal abortion is part of a dark Communist plot to demoralize the nation.

Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many young people don’t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-Communism provides a simple answer to the question: “If capitalism is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still miserable?”

It is because, many believe, we are not really in capitalism: we do not yet have true democracy but only its deceiving mask, the same dark forces still pull the threads of power, a narrow sect of former Communists disguised as new owners and managers — nothing’s really changed, so we need another purge, the revolution has to be repeated …

What these belated anti-Communists fail to realize is that the image they provide of their society comes uncannily close to the most abused traditional leftist image of capitalism: a society in which formal democracy merely conceals the reign of a wealthy minority. In other words, the newly born anti-Communists don’t get that what they are denouncing as perverted pseudo-capitalism simply is capitalism.

One can also argue that, when the Communist regimes collapsed, the disillusioned former Communists were effectively better suited to run the new capitalist economy than the populist dissidents. While the heroes of the anti-Communist protests continued to dwell in their dreams of a new society of justice, honesty and solidarity, the former Communists were able to ruthlessly accommodate themselves to the new capitalist rules and the new cruel world of market efficiency, inclusive of all the new and old dirty tricks and corruption.

A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power: they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.

But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?

If this is the case, then perhaps the disappointment at capitalism in the post-Communist countries should not be dismissed as a simple sign of the “immature” expectations of the people who didn’t possess a realistic image of capitalism.

When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity, liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy.

As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology itself — people aspired to something that can most appropriately be designated as “Socialism with a human face.” Perhaps this attitude deserves a second chance.

This brings to mind the life and death of Victor Kravchenko, the Soviet engineer who, in 1944, defected during a trade mission to Washington and then wrote a best-selling memoir, “I Chose Freedom.” His first-person report on the horrors of Stalinism included a detailed account of the mass hunger in early-1930s Ukraine, where Kravchenko — then still a true believer in the system — helped enforce collectivization.

What most people know about Kravchenko ends in 1949. That year, he sued Les Lettres Françaises for libel after the French Communist weekly claimed that he was a drunk and a wife-beater and his memoir was the propaganda work of American spies. In the Paris courtroom, Soviet generals and Russian peasants took the witness stand to debate the truth of Kravchenko’s writings, and the trial grew from a personal suit to a spectacular indictment of the whole Stalinist system.

But immediately after his victory in the case, when Kravchenko was still being hailed all around the world as a cold war hero, he had the courage to speak out passionately against Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. “I believe profoundly,” he wrote, “that in the struggle against Communists and their organizations … we cannot and should not resort to the methods and forms employed by the Communists.” His warning to Americans: to fight Stalinism in such a way was to court the danger of starting to resemble their opponent.

Kravchenko also became more and more obsessed with the inequalities of the Western world, and wrote a sequel to “I Chose Freedom” that was titled, significantly, “I Chose Justice.” He devoted himself to finding less exploitative forms of collectivization and wound up in Bolivia, where he squandered all his money trying to organize poor farmers. Crushed by this failure, he withdrew into private life and shot himself in 1966 at his home in New York.

How did we come to this? Deceived by 20th-century Communism and disillusioned with 21st-century capitalism, we can only hope for new Kravchenkos — and that they come to happier ends. On the search for justice, they will have to start from scratch. They will have to invent their own ideologies. They will be denounced as dangerous utopians, but they alone will have awakened from the utopian dream that holds the rest of us under its sway.

Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities in London, is the author, most recently, of “First as Tragedy, Then as Frace.

Terayama Shuji: Pastoral Hide-and-Seek

寺山修司的田园之死 (Pastoral Hide-and Seek, 1974, dir. Terayama Shuji)

By Venus Lau
《田园之死》 是寺山修司五部长片之一，是新手观其电影的入门课。片中华丽的视觉隐喻流溢，碎片般的情节，穿插期间的古怪人物（马戏团里的空气女，侏儒，全身披黑袈裟， 带海盗眼罩的白面老妇，硫磺味弥漫的恐山，化浓妆的小孩等），种种意象搭构出寺山修司的世界，跟寺山修司的整个电影系列组成庞大的风格化异色空间。

不少人看过《田园之死》后均认为其为寺山的自传体作品，除了以第一人称作为陈述角度外，戏中主角（以成人和少年两种姿态出现）与寺山修司同月同日生（同为12月10日，但寺山修司生于公元1935年，主角“我”出生年份则为昭和49年，即公元1974年，亦即该片拍摄年份）； 寺山修司在日本青森县出生，戏中主角的出生地是位于青森县，有日本三大灵场之称的恐山（电影里主角称自己的出生地－－恐山地处东京市）。种种非巧合的安排，证明寺山修司欲一借电影改写自己的历史而重生的意图。故此，解读此片的时候，不少人会堕入以作者生平为阐释作品的单一切入点的圈套，出色的电影随即代替作者经验（empirical）生活成为主线，不论是意难平或者有病呻吟，戏里的肆意的意象和诗意都沦为对作者来得太迟的抱怨的附庸。

艺术作品一如艺术家之儿。父母和子女的关系强调的是被伦理强化的，以脐带为象征的血缘关系。但是作品不是艺术家的附属，作品俨如离开子宫的幼儿，已然是独立个体，而不是父母共同投下的影子。电影是开放的，流动的文本，解读（虽然所有阐释都是误读）若然只取作者主导的方式，难免减损作品的价值－－作品的价值就是的每次阐释的内容，每一次解读赋予作品新的生命。我不否定寺山修司欲以〈田园之死〉来表现昔日屈服于母亲权威下迟熟的反抗，继而获得重生，但寺山修司的想法并不是诠释的唯一路标，而且这观点在云云有关寺山修司的评论已被多番提及，更有有心人以寺山修司生平对号入座，把电影各元素与寺山生平的经验事件等同，把寺山多彩诡奇的想像力拉低到生活牢骚的水平， 艺术里的直观成分亦被完全消去。


反抗权威的败北
寺山修司电 影里对权威的反抗极为明显，如在实验短片《番茄酱皇帝》里小童追杀成人，《再见方舟》近亲表兄妹不顾坚固的贞操带的阻隔，坚持尝试做爱，片中人物对权力象征权力实体的颠覆意图都非常明显。这些露白的反抗行动是寺山修司电影的重要课题。对权威的挑战在《死在田园》展示为弑母意识。主角想借对记忆的操控，让少 年时代的自己杀掉母亲，事与愿违，弑母计划最后失败。

弑母计划是对母亲此权力／权威象征和实体的挑战。权力是弥散的，是一种力量关系，权力并不是由在上者的创造，权力得以成就，有赖所有参与者（包括在下者）的共谋，而作为共谋者，在下者的权力就是作为社会共谋的权力；权力，需要两端的支撑。所以死在田园的主角弑母失败，不单因为受制与社会伦理的羁绊，而是自己还没有脱离作为权力共谋的脚色，主角一厢情愿地企图抹走权力实体或者象征带来的阴影，根本不能切断权力力量关系的纽带，反而越踩越深。这样的反抗一如萨德对神的亵渎，一切最后只是徒劳。

不少人认为弑母是一种“反俄狄浦斯”, 把寺山得作品一把跟法国哲学家德勒兹(Gilles Deleuze)联系起来。但是单单把主角身兼父职的母亲等同德勒兹以差异和生成(becoming)挑战being的游牧，似乎有有点太草率。俄狄浦斯情结作为主体进入象征界(the symbolic)的关键,也是主体建立和认同(identification)的关键，当中的关键词是弑父意图，继而带出父明(the name of father)。田园之死里的弑母意图，与其说是对传统主体概念的颠覆，倒不如说是对家庭结构的崩坏和重组。
寺山修司的时间
无论在寺山的电影，还是在他主持的《天栈屋敷》话剧团的作品里，时间的象征和隐喻无处不在：《再见方舟》内失去时间的村庄；舞台剧由真人扮演的巨钟，或者，，〈田园之死〉主角母亲收集的破钟堆。形形色色，表报不同时间的时钟，没有提醒人时间，相反，它们让人忘掉时间。时钟不但是象征，更是实际工具，令量化客观时间的统一结构可以复印在世界之上。 至少是人所认知的世界，之上。

客观时间是我们所熟悉的时间，三点半，美国比中慢，十三小时，一分钟等 同六十秒。。。。。这都是被普遍默认的，跟本真时间对立的派生概念。客观时间也是“时间对我们显现为各个当下，各个现在的次序” （1）这些现在可以在某写发 生事情的时段上被计数”，这种概念为时间的量化和一体化提供了可能性。相反，本真时间没有经过任何概念的干扰，是本原地向人展示的时间。本真时间就是我们 的此在，就是我们的主体性，那是真正的自我 （无意识？他者的语言？），而非透过线性时间里，拉康的镜象自我。

〈死在田园〉主角母亲尝试把自己的 儿子（少年时代的“我”）困在她的时间里，此举跟客观线性时间的霸权如出一辙。唯压力越大反抗越大，主角为古灵精怪的马戏团所吸引，决心逃离母亲，离开村 子过新生活，最后他阴差阳错失去了童贞。客观时间象征－－母亲的时钟堆－－渐渐远离的同时，少年手上多了一只象征本真时间的手表。比起弑母此类 对某一权力对象的颠覆，重新阐释时间， 并展示时间的伯格森式(Bergson)不可分割性并以此建立主体性是更为彻底的革命。

除了控制戏中人的时间，〈田园之死〉也操控观者的时间。电影开端小朋友玩躲猫猫，原本的小玩伴忽然变成大正年代打扮的诡异人物，电影结尾主角跟母亲在故乡家中，刹那间四面墙倒下，主角暴露与东京繁华的街头，还有电影中 空气女的呻吟，系在殉情男女身上的红线，鬼火般飘浮的日本老童谣。。。。。。这些感官异觉化（视觉和听觉上）不啻是寺山修司强烈风格特征，也是延长艾柯 （Umberto Eco)在〈优游小说林〉里述及的阅读（观看）时间的技巧。对于电影和书本里寻常的物事和情节，我们会用在现实中早已熟知的经验／取自经验的逻辑推断，加 快阅读时间。面对寺山修司精心布局的奇形怪状，既有逻辑无用武之地，观众只好费尽心神寻找当中的意蕴，或者象我那样，尽情享受日本cult 片鬼才预备的感官盛宴。如是者，观众所经验的时间不是放片的102 分钟，而是他们迷路的时间。


记忆的不可信性

在 阳光灿烂的日子（或原著《动物凶猛》）里，主角马小军越深入自己的记忆，就越发现处处出错，到后来甚至黑白不分，我们就知道记忆的不可信。记忆隐恶扬善，只保留对意识有利的叙述，甚至对你作出彻底背叛。《死在田园》的“我”以为可以驾驭记忆，并以这种自信武装自己回到故乡恐山。可惜，当他跟昔日年轻的自己开始对话，少年主角马上揭 露成年主角美化了过去，记忆本是一连串谎言。记忆就是这么不可靠。无奈的是，我们需要从记忆抽取经验来建立自我的主体性和应付生活上的决定，无法进入记忆和意识的，就是我们生活里的惊颤。

俳句
寺山是俳人，在〈田园之死〉里，俳句俯拾皆是，有人理解其所为是对美国强势文化的抗议。俳句的节奏是跟日本人的呼吸非常吻合的，再好的文笔，也只可以翻译俳句书面的意思，但不可能翻译俳句的呼吸。田园之死的俳句表示了艺术的直观成分，那些部分，一如禅言，同为不可说，不可说。我没有大道理，只是任何的解释读不及无法解释的呼吸，那么有趣。


田园之死的流程里，主角不断与权力短兵相接，不断重建主体性。那些我们永无完结的游戏。

寺山修司的重口味freak show 意向让不少人把他跟费里尼（Federico Fellini)连在一起,也有人说寺山修司象拍过Salo的柏索里尼（Pier Paolo Pasolini )，因为大家都有或隐晦或露白的性描写。 但，

寺山修司就是寺山修司，只能是寺山修司。
（1）胡塞尔与海德格尔的“本真”时间现象学，克劳斯·黑尔德

Eyes Wide Shut: The Feng Jiangzhou solo

Eyes Wide Shut: Feng Jiangzhou opens the realm of senses

Venus Lau


Among the world’s living creatures, human beings are a species that relies heavily on vision, a perception that fosters itself in art with intoxicatingly bright colors and eye-catching images on canvas and sculpture and allows an equation between art and visual art. This assessment is further reinforced by the conditioned practice that humans have of watching TV, by which they let canned laughs and big grins determine the point at which they should be amused. Perhaps this is what is most exciting about Feng Jiangzhou’s first solo exhibition, “Dharmaguptaka-vinaya,” a multimedia art show that promises enough sensual texture to steer a little bit away from the ocularcentricism of the contemporary art world, and ultimately the world at large.

After producing copious amounts of music under the names of The Fly and Far East Digital Hardcore, and others, and following his 2006 solo release Si Fen Lü (Dharmaguptaka-vinaya), Feng began a move into the realm of multimedia art, including designing stage works for famed director Meng Jinghui. The artist-cum-musician finally had his first solo debut in October 2008.

The show put on display a video and a multi-track sound art installation, the former titled Ni Kan Jian Xu Kong Dui Ni Zha Yan Le Ma?, or, to be more concise, Do You See the Void Blinking Back at You?, and the latter titled Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (also the name of the show as a whole). The video consists of an appropriation of the Yongle Gong (literally “Forever-Bliss Palace”) painting in Shanxi province, a mural dating back to the Yuan dynasty, in which the 200-plus supernatural Taoist immortals of the original wall painting are made by Feng to blink imperceptibly at the audience. Calling reference to a Zen Koan about “the emptiness blinks,” the piece meshes elements of Taoism and Zen, and offers a Chinese cultural label wittier than the Orientalist fantasy of mass-producing Mao’s face in 70 different colors. The appropriation of the symbols in both religions also engenders a look into nihilism characterized by negation.

If this piece grants any pleasure (or more precisely, jouissance), the pleasure comes from — instead of the surprising witness of a Taoist immortal blinking at you after a long wait — how the video exposes viewers to the uncanny gaze of the actually larger-than-human Taoist immortals in a reification of the “Big Other.” It is a bit unsettling to look into the eyes of deities on video, looking into the absolute alterity manifested in the face and the heavy ruffles on the ancient Chinese costumes: this is the otherness whereby death is forever postponed, while I am still stuck in the "being towards death," in a plural form with other beings. It would be wrong to spend too much time on this piece, waiting for a wink from a nameless deity. The piece requires intrinsic power beyond mere size in order to allow the gaze to be activated between the piece and the viewers; otherwise, it could easily be criticized for transplanting Chinese visual icons of any type onto a digital screen and calling it Chinese new media art.

Feng’s Buddhist proclivities led him to titled the show Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (also the name of his 2006 album), which means “the discipline in four parts” and is a title taken from a Theravada Buddhist book of rules. Feng’s audio installation is a 3.5 meter cage-like metal structure covered with black fabric, with amplifiers fixed on the inner frame. This constructed dark space creates total blindness while the amplifiers radiate random sounds from different directions, tickling and distracting the listener from localization within the body of blackness. The disorientation of senses constructs a space that is occasionally disrupted by sound morsels and recalls what anthropologist Edmund Carpenter referred to as “Eskimo Space,” described in his seminal 1973 work, Eskimo Realities, as a place where there is no distance and there are no angles or contours but only a barely-visible cold mist rising from the ice. Similarly, Feng’s piece creates a nomadic space, a stroll in darkness navigated by sensory geography in which the database of perception is rendered useless. As the sounds are produced out of context, the listener perceives the immediate power of the piece without an ability to decode it. It would be cliche to conclude this synopsis piece with a simple diagnosis of regression to the mother's womb. Man, as an animal of meaning, is thrown into this blanket of insecurity (the dark cage), the signification process for the noise — glitches that are the symptom of its signifying system — sounds like a futile attempt. Just as Zizek notes in Lacanian Real Television, the symbolic representation of the subject always ends up as a signifying surplus trying to hide fundamental lack. In this piece, Feng Jiangzhou takes a poetic artistic practice, providing poetry as a known symbolic dispositif pointing to an unknown. This is a subversion of language inside itself, transforming the it-is-very-dark-in-here installation into a smooth plane with only it inside itself.

If I may add another personal point, I would like to express my respect for Feng Jiangzhou's use of numerals in his concepts, explicitly highlighted in the pieces' titles. From Si Fen Lu in this show to Ba Yin,the Mariko-Mori-esque sound installation, the artist successfully brings an aesthetics of musical precision to his work.

This exhibition may claim nothing worth “seeing,” but it makes an effort to trick the senses into the process contradicting our obsession with residues of light reflections.

洗頭要用哥麗美之清新香氣讓人更文明

from Jandan.net

来自美国Brigham Young University 的一项研究：清新的气味，清爽的环境能使人变得更加宽宏大量，行为举止更加文明。简单的说，只要使用几支香味剂，人类就能进入‘文明社会’。

一个有趣的实验：
研究人员分发给志愿者每人12美元，让他把这钱和同一房间的另一人未领钱的人平均分配(同时此人也不明真相不知道一共有多少钱)。
干净房间里的‘文明人’分给了同伴5.33元(平均值)。
而普通房间里的人只分给了同伴2.81元(平均值)。也就是说他们并没有做到真正的平均分配。

同时还发现干净房子里的人更愿意捐助、充当志愿者等等。研究人员认为，当我们需要教育小朋友需要更加懂礼貌时，不妨先把他们的屋子打扫干净弄点香香，这可能自然就会改变他们的行为。

齊澤克新書

齊老又有新書：First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.
剛開始看，菜譜看來少不了共產主義/拉康/后911政治/流行文化/法國解構主義，看看有沒時間試試譯下。

藥

小時候有十多年基本每星期要看一次醫生，一般是咳嗽，氣管炎，腸胃炎等等，不是大病，但這種持久戰折磨了我很長時間。咳嗽時一般是咳水比藥丸管用，顏色越深的越難喝。（雖然人稱“馬尿”的黑色藥水我倒覺得沒什麼）小時候我一般每天要喝六種藥水，深顏色占多數，紫紅色那種甜中包裹陰毒的微苦，像陌生人的汗濕的肌膚，讓我寒顫連連。淺顏色的一般甜酸口，黃色菠蘿味，透明的也好喝，綠色的還好，就是不喜歡它那種假蜜瓜味。

弟弟妹妹小時候在父母的祖村生病，都去村里的衛生站，因為當時村里并沒有醫院診所。簡陋的衛生站窩縮在土色斑駁的平房里，到處放著殘舊的藥瓶，安置在更殘舊的木架子上。藥瓶大多深棕色，上面貼著標簽，寫上了艱深的元素表式藥名。也有中藥片。妹妹一咳嗽就喝川貝液，下屬淡黃色裝載小小玻璃瓶里，用小吸管吸飲。弟弟妹妹也服些些中藥片研碎而成的藥散，因為藥丸吞不下，淡淡的藥香蜿蜒一夏。現在想起，警覺他們以前原來那么小。

家里也 給我燉制大量補品，固本之余清清身體，因為西藥毒。補藥除了比較大路的北芪黨參雞湯，花旗參瘦肉，蟲草鵪鶉，紅參，燕窩，紅棗肉餅水，水魚，鱷魚肉，南豆衣等。

當然也有另類的，銀灰帶紅點的蛤蚧，從蛇腹直接擠出的生蛇膽，拌以不知名汁液的濃稠川貝糊，蟬蛻，不知名蟲類等。

大人感冒時，祖母會給他們弄一碗“盒仔茶”，盒仔茶和我體質不夾，所以我從來沒喝過。只記得一煮就一屋子那種味道，聞起來像咸味的木片和生姜。

Aspirin我自懂事開始就沒接觸，因為爸爸說我對其過敏。我在嬰兒時期曾經因服用該藥以致胃出血，一個月的小小身體，小小的胃，鮮血漫漫浸潤。朋友曾經告訴我aspirin的水楊酸可以融化胃內壁，不知是真是假。在藥店看到一膠瓶雪白的藥片，想像粉紅光滑的肉質上面，一層辛勞悄悄剝落。

來不及問的問題

從以前到現在，一直有很多想問但是無法問，忘了問的問題

（給他們）1998年6月4號的那個清晨是甚麼顏色的？

（給Abbas Kiawostami，那天我就在你身後）你電影裡的長鏡頭，和你的短促的俳句式詩歌相映成趣，你的詩歌像呼氣那麼短，連吸氣的時間段都取消，比Rubaiyat 更短？

（給祖母）你去世那天給我留著的鳳梨哪裡去了呢？
在那個灰色的夢裡你為甚麼一直跑呢？你的鞋跟在地上烙下了一個個黑色的圓，裡面爬滿了螞蟻，你燙好了頭髮呢？在醫院裡洗得掉色的，像別人的體溫那樣陌生的被子呢？

（給你）你想看一下我們的孩子嗎？他現在在黑暗裡。

月木

他们说起那个在房间殉死的双胞妓女。

他们死的时候面对面，看着自己的死相。他们的客人发现了他们，因为很多天都没有联系了。

最早知道他们的死信的是对面楼的那个长期生病的男人。他在自己房间的窗户一直看着。他们服药，躺下，面对面， 然后换了几个姿势，抽搐，面对面。

那种口红的红色他们叫豆沙色。

奇怪

为什么现在的影评人基本上花上超过三分之二篇幅来作剧情简介？

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