文/鄭文琦 (原刊載於 典藏今藝術雜誌(2009年九月號))
「解剖課–身體再衍藝」由周家輝、葉家銘共同策展。談到展覽源起時,周家輝以論述20世紀西方哲學思潮中「身體–美學」這個語言的轉向揭開序幕(註1),另一方面係由葉家銘以隨侍罹癌母親病榻、接觸垂死身軀的經驗,轉化為透過各種媒材再現身體意(異)象的原始概念。將親身體驗的生理現實與哲學語言轉向並置,而挑起一開始可能走向分裂的兩種現實:即身體在感知與思維上的不同處境。展出名單包括:趙璐嘉、簡郁茜(只在場景一)、張敏智、施懿珊、藍元宏、陳長志、蔡昌霖、鄭宇翔,以及旅台法國聲音藝術家澎葉生(Yannick Dauby)等九位藝術家的影像、裝置與聲音作品,實際展出分成場景一(06.22-07.11,「覓空間」)與場景二(07.25-08.16,「南海藝廊」)兩檔期。
因為兩場景實際展出作品陣容不同,名單中重複的藝術家只有三位(張敏智、施懿珊、藍元宏),加上受限於非展覽用途的覓空間,聲音作品和《頭像III》、《無題(30天)》等獨立使用一室的錄像裝置等只在場景二展出,實際幾乎可分為兩個獨立小展來看待。
題解:達文西的藝術解剖學
先交代展覽操作的原因,在於共同構成「解剖課」命題的場景一、二得同時加以討論,但實際完整看過兩場景的觀眾有多少?這恐怕是展覽策略上必須思考的問題。假如評論者只看過其一場景,甚至連藝術家都不重複展出同樣作品,能否看清策展人欲呈現的整體圖像就值得商榷。持平而論,展出名單較為完整的南海藝廊,整體狀態也比場景一理想許多,於是場景二也形同某種「決勝負」場。這樣的說法,或許對只在場景一展出的藝術家不盡公平,但看過不同展場的觀眾可能免不了有此感覺。
可議的是雖以「解剖課」(Gross Anatomy,即大體解剖)為命題,論述內容卻未多著墨於解剖學(Anatomy)與生理學(Physiology)、型態學與藝術史的淵源,更多時候逕自用哲學辯證文字討論身體意義——副標「身體再衍藝」,在命題的修辭層次上似乎略嫌失當。假如說解剖一詞只是單純借取自醫學科學的術語,那麼解剖學所指涉種種固然不該扮演關鍵角色。(註2)然而稍微涉獵即可得知,達文西(Leonardo da Vinci)早在1488年就開始解剖人體,於1515年的筆記裡留下至少30具詳細的人體組織紀錄,而且其目的是為了研究人體組織,由內在生理揣摹外在精準的人體型態變化。(註3)可知在近代醫學興起前,藝術創作已透過解剖方法以求正確再現形態,此即藝術解剖學(Artistic anatomy)之由來,解剖不只是滿足科學家的求知慾,更是認識客觀現象的藝術手段。
身體意義與異化的身體
張敏智與施懿珊在場景一分別展出《詭體II》和《死亡化學》,張敏智在作品《詭體II》中延續早先大量修圖改造的身體意象,到了場景二則改用佛像為主體進行後製處理,以流體凝聚、滴流或擴散的物理屬性,呈現文化脈絡下的媒體現實。這兩件錄像都有具象人形的歷時變化而吸引觀者駐足,在某種程度上似乎很貼近策展論述中所說的:「試圖從當代社會文化中所建構的視覺符碼、意識型態與內在的異化(alienation),從現實世界的象徵符號層,透過身體感官的經驗,撥開這一層迷霧,來認知自己的存在與價值。」(註4)但果真是如此嗎?
細讀「從當代社會文化中所建構的視覺符碼、意識型態與內在的異化,從現實世界的象徵符號層,透過身體感官的經驗……」,應先釐清「異化」一詞如何連接身體經驗與「內在的異化」;或者,展覽想類比解剖的生理切割過程,解析社會文化中建構的視覺符碼與意識型態、再加以衍異。「撥開這一層迷霧來認知自己的存在……」,假設前提是認定某種意識型態讓身體蒙上迷霧,所以要(藉解剖)進行除魅,如啟蒙時代以降回歸非宗教性身體的觀看過程,那麼重點就在於展覽與作品能否將這裡的迷霧與異化關係再予以點題;還有作品又如何呼應這撥開迷霧的認知過程。
同樣分兩場展出的藍元宏在場景二展出作品「沉默」,畫面中肢體借助電腦達到不自然扭曲狀態的日常風格攝影,呈現不僅是異化,更是奇觀化。這些軀體不像陳界仁作品的創傷肉身那樣有主體性,而更趨向任人擺布的被動狀態。加上邋遢的背景和作品相紙,以雙面膠帶潦草張貼在南海藝廊牆上的作法,立刻和對牆上精美裱框與被攝主體飄忽、詩意的陳長志作品「素度」產生極大反差。潦草與精緻、粗野與高雅,究竟凸顯出不同藝術家認知身分與對待作品的態度,處理「身體」議題的不同風格,或只是暗示分裂的展覽狀態?這種布展引發的巧妙聯想,也許是策展人始料未及的。另外藍元宏於場景一的「存取」系列影像,展現跨文化、種族的拼貼男體奇觀,也相當值得延伸探討。
做為認識的主體/或被切割的客體
作品《耳朵與身體其他部位》必須索取耳機才能聆聽,在以「視覺」為主的場景中極容易被忽略。但某方面來說,「聽覺」與其他感官是補足「身體」這個認知主體的缺口;作品有類似感知或延伸知覺想像的,還有標本櫃上陳列如可口點心的異型生物(施懿珊《聽說,我們曾經是人類》)所擬態激發的嗅覺(狀似垂涎欲滴的草莓)和昆蟲般怪異抖動的觸感;蔡昌霖的《無題(30天)》錄像裡那顆擺了30天且屢遭蹂躪的腐爛蘋果,也可能引發其他層次的感官想像──蘋果之於性器官的影射有其淵源──又由於純粹聲音作品與其他不在場證明,再次提醒場景一無從迴避的匱乏。
長期關注身體型態與變型、西方啟蒙時代後的技術操作等奇特嗜好(?)的施懿珊,可能是展覽中最清楚意識到「解剖」一詞的生理學源頭者。其作品也有別於單純奇觀或異質化的身體狀態,而是借解剖學做為林奈生物分類法的型態學基礎脈絡,如圖鑑般描繪與博物學風格的標本陳列方式,用小型馬達和機械裝置組合各種異蟲,偷渡並混淆吾人以為客觀的生物學現實。如何感知或看待此種回歸科學脈絡的跨種生物/藝術狀態(後者隱約指向移植或合成身體的未來),反成為撥開迷霧後有趣的思考。
文藝復興時期知識分子擺脫教會勢力加諸人體的禁忌,以科學家之姿態執解剖刀親自肢解或觀看大體解剖。演變至今,象徵學術知識霸權的解剖刀已徹底淪為醫學殿堂專利,讓客觀身體現實再度蒙上科學(做為唯一真實的意識型態)魅影,卻在窮究物質結構的過程中更形困惑。達文西曾言:我都解剖完了,靈魂究竟在哪裡呢?當醫療不斷加速身體異化與變形(整形)速度,此種二元對立更反覆成為藝術家探討分科影響時的客體化(objectification,著重於生理而非歷史現實)議題,當代醫療顯學正是此種客體化的始作俑者。
再回到「解剖課」的主題:人體除了「可操作客體」,或許還應理解成「做為可以透過科學解剖、來認知客觀現象」的認識論主體。而此刻於國美館展出的「急凍醫世代–2009醫療與科技藝術國際」展,或許不失為與「解剖學」此一分離源頭合併觀之的新方向。
小結
本文從場景一與二的分離談起,歷經不同作品與展覽脈絡的探討,最後可引用參展藝術家鄭宇翔的《頭像III》作結:這個造型如斷頭台的大型木造影像裝置,觀眾必須親自置身其中體驗才得以「感受」——當我俯趴在斷頭台上觀看下方圓洞裡銀幕的錄像,並且讓狀似斷頭刀具的木板完全密合時,在燈光熄滅的全然黑暗裡,出現許多頭部挖空的聖母或耶穌等無頭聖像。此時因為注意力完全集中在眼前的無頭景象,反而幾乎沒有感受到身體的存在(等我看完影像時,才發現自己熱出一身汗來)。觀看無頭影像和感知不到身體的分裂狀態,或許說明了此次論述想要傳達一個極其明顯,卻流於複雜術語、並往往遭當代藝術生態忽略的事實就是:想讓「身體」自己來說話,光靠「腦袋」思考恐怕是行不通的。
如此一來,身體與腦袋分離的「解剖課」所提供的反省,已不再是觀看身體異質性思考,而是如何介入身體、重拾另一種感知藝術現實的手段,這是筆者對回歸美學脈絡的未來解剖課之期待。
註1:周家輝,〈寫在一堂解剖課開始之前〉。
註2:維基百科:「解剖學是涉及生命體的結構和組織的生物學分支學科;可以分為動物解剖學和植物解剖學。解剖學的主要分支是比較解剖學、組織學和人體解剖學……從實用性看,對於人類的研究是專論解剖學當中最重要的分組,故此人類解剖學可從不同的觀點處理。」
註3:Leonardo Da Vinci : The Anatomy of Man: Drawings from the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II;Bulfinch出版,1992.06。選自Royal Library of Windsor Castle的達文西收藏。
註4:這段話和場景二導覽使用文字略有不同,後者是「透過身體感官的經驗掀起一層迷霧來認知自我當下(而非「撥開這一層迷霧,來認知自己的存在與價值」)」。為免爭議,此處所指為周家輝文本的「撥開迷霧」說。
鄭文琦
現為自由作者,曾任國立台灣美術館委託微型樂園經營之台灣數位藝術知識與創作流通平台中文主編與總編等職,自2007年後,開始於其他平面媒體發表藝評文章,並譯有《未來史》等多本譯作。
發表日期:2009/9/4
今藝術 / 204期
20091205
20090902
我們在人體解剖課中上了些什麼?
很令人驚奇的,由周家輝、葉家銘策畫的「解剖課-身體再衍藝」聯展,在不同展點分頭上演著一、二集 (第二集即將上檔);而不論哪一集,這個展覽顧名思義,解剖與身體的概念都做為了其論述鋪陳的中心。策展論述中提及:「藝術家將肉體層次的感知轉變成主體的表現,不斷的游移並且處於一種不確定性的狀態……」可視為首集「解剖課」中的闡述重點。因而,我們可以見到張敏智的《詭體II》,以及藍元宏作品「存取」系列,同樣顯示出一種靠向身體物理性特質改變的異質狀態。而施懿珊的裝置作品《死亡化學》裡,身體的異質卻因為非真實的人體,而顯得更加曖昧有力:「那些曬太陽悠閒的『人們』,早已死亡。它們是『被迫』捐贈的遺體,以其緘默愉悅的姿態,懶懶的癱軟在陽光下。」然而,除了直觀地將解剖與身體概念做連結外,這堂解剖課還能有什麼可供挖掘?或許,「解剖課」提供的大量異質的關鍵字群會是個解答,又或許,那會讓我們知道的更少。(文•攝影/吳嘉瑄) (出處:今藝術 No.203, 2009八月號)
20090901
The most wonderful music in the world: The Body
Written by Yeh Chia-Ming
Why on earth is the body issue worth discussing under the circumstances of overflowing information in modern society nowadays? French choreographer Jérôme Bel applied lipsticks and human urine on human body in his work Jérôme Bel (which was named after himself) to perform on the stage with nudity so that there was a success on the box office which you would find it hard to get a ticket. Coincidentally, the play Once, Upon Hearing The Skin Tone directed by Taiwanese director Cyrus Wong Ka-Ming, challenged the perspectives of audiences in body issue. The play used “skin colors” to piece the body image together while it connoted the concept of “skin-deep” to deny the body image. Whenever this kind of art work which shoulders the banner of body nudity appears in Taiwan, the controversy of “consumption in body image” and “uninteresting, ignorant, and tasteless” would arise. What this revealed to us is that, people in society would probably panic as they gently stir up the “body” issue and throw it away hastily.
Back to the anatomy course which we dissected body and analyzed data, what we had in sight were diversified segments dipped in the embalming fluid that intensified the pale and yellowish slices on the surfaces of beings which reflected the inorganic textures with softness and elasticity while the suspended particulate would just annotate the last linkage between the existence and disappearance in a living subject. We people feel the world through senses, but there is no literature on how we reflect upon ourselves to read the body or to listen to the breaking process in a living subject. We reconstructed the body just like reconstruction of the anatomy scene in the medical history, carefully re-brushing the art works with Ge-stell techniques. In the mean time, we observed the “bodily perspectives behind bodies” that those young artists in Taiwan created in the art works, listening to the echoes among different works so as to discuss the disposition operation that command behind those bodies.
Body in “The system of objects”
The bizarre body disposition was presented in the Irrational, Emotional series of Chao Lu-Chia’s art works. Through delicate strokes and rearrangement of specimens, she illustrated to us our possible aspiration for body function in different time and space in the future. This topology in body transcends time and space. The contemporary French philosopher Jean Baudrillard described the importance of modern objects in functions with functional system (objective descriptions) in the book The system of objects. While the functional meaning of the hetereo-orgen to the body lie outside the positions and forms that are described in the anatomy topology. It is futile to embody the context because the unknown functions always surpass our knowledge about the body. Therefore, even we try to describe the body functions with functional features, what we can testify is only the absence of the functional features.
“To me, thoughts are sticky and interrelated with one another,
while all sorts of things in the body are independent units.
They interact with one another as they communicate substances controlled by various nerves.
Sometimes, I feel that the body seems to be mine, and not at the same time.
I managed to create the only sign of organ belongs to the imagination so as to satisfy my thought which I am unable to command in this part.
It may be an accident, a satisfying accident, though.”
Chao Lu-Chia. Irrational, Emotional. 2008
Nonfunctional system (subject description) is the opposite structure of “functional system” —the object which is against the functional system to the extreme—the ancient object and the most rebellious behavior against modern times—the collection. However, ancient objects are merely a historical approach to replace time. The time to collect objects is because the collective activities in the organization replace time. And it is also a basic function in the collection in order to help us to ablate time concept in a system of repeated space dimensions.
(Jean Baudrillard. 2001. p.110.)
“To a natural scientific researcher, it is a necessity to collect abundant specimens to present complete research result. In the early years, scholars proceeded to enlarge specimen collections unceasingly in the comparison research. The fanaticism of gaining reliable statistic data to them built some scientific material collections. In relation to the faith in these series of collections, they attempted to fully understand the organization, operation and interior structures and they observed, described, and categorized the collections as a maneuver.”
Shih Yi-Shan. Zoo 2009
The meta-functional and dysfunctional system (novel gadgets and robots) in the “The system of objects” is the technical extension in “functional system.” It is literally a modern myth—automatism—that the functions of objects are developed to the extreme. Its outcomes are disorder in function and pseudo-function. The development trend could be verified with those meaningless gadgets and gizmos. When the myth is developed to the extreme, it would lead to the massive betrayal of modern objects and human’s self-destruction. This symbolizes that the potential paradox and conflict reaction lay between the real demand of “technology development” and that of “society and human.” This also happened in the works of Zoo. The funny movements that future machine insects made in the exhibition scene, part of the walls that was purposely whitewashed and painted with white lines, “irrational complication, compulsory emphasis on the details, bizarre techniques, meaningless formalism, and the artificial object areas that feature activeness in the poly-para-hyper et meta-fonctionnelle zone, they are a large series of pataphysique which is related to objects that the artist conjured up.”
“There are pigpens everywhere in my neighborhood, so it is a common scene to me. I still remember when I was little, my classmates liked to mock me for the smell emitted from my body. They said to me, “You really stink!” Even though my mother did her household well to rub each uniform I had, they still believed that there were enough awful odors or putrid smell to disintegrate epidermis and its inner contents in me. On the other hand, the swollen cystic would appear to be as transparent as a layer of Japanese rice paper under the sunshine which make all the creatures feel sticky.”
Shih Yi-Shan. The Chemistry of death. 2006
The absence of living people is the perfect alibi to collect corpse. Death is an art of the passing of time. Even though time ablates, memory of the childhood trauma has been a part of the collection, an outcome which cannot be buried with the body. Only through repeating piecing animation in The Chemistry of death can one hold the mourning ritual to devour fallacy along with the trace of trauma by moor scenery, this is true for the smell. The body in physical system tried to collect all the functions to demonstrate, but behind the amazing demonstration, do people actually unceasingly pursue the existence of body functions?Or is it that they just could not conceal the fact that they have the fondness for controlling the body in reality?
Diaspora body
At the time when Miss Chien Yu-Chien studied away from home, she felt feeble facing her self-existence. What she could do was to shoot pictures of her own body parts in the close-up works Untitled to catch the fleeting moment of her existence. With the background of a white cloth from the top, there were close-up photos scattered around the white cloth as well as a pair of white operation gloves. It looked like that a lady was covered with a white bed sheet in the bed feeling agitated to her own body and her nostalgia to her hometown. In the work Nostalgia created by Andrei Tarkovsky, the scenery that was shot with scrutinized long lens appeared to be serene between the lines. It was a journey leaving for a strange place. In the end one shall bid farewell to oneself as he plays an elegy to slowly say good-bye to his mother.
“What I feel the nearest to me, most probably is my own body. So I began to shoot pictures of my own body. Under the scrutiny of my body in those accumulated scenes, I should find out that maybe I myself have never understood the body that I used to believe to be the dearest to myself. Through reviewing the shooting works that I created in the series of the body parts, I was at the same time reviewing my own emotion: fear and pleasure.”
Chien Yu-Chien. Untitled. 2007.
In the work Untitled (30 days) created by Tsai Chang-Lin, one would have uneasy and struggling feeling when visioning the act of stab piercing an apple in and out after its 30 days decay. Diaspora complex begins to brew self-awareness towards colony’s reality, and the decay and sour phenomena occur after the ripe. Gradually one has to greet the ending of decays. It is when colony body begins to break that we shall shake hands with one another so as to create a compromising pseudo-self in the illusion.
“The death makes me feel strange and familiar at the same time. I even end this between unreal and non-imaginary dream. Even though I pierced the so-called nostalgia, I am still baffled living in the uncertainty.”
Tsai Chang-Lin. Untitled (30 days). 2007.
In the work Somewhere Over The Cloud created by director Hsiao Mei-Ling, when we have a close look at the secret note of the family members, we may feel there is a reflection of nostalgia that reechoes in hetereo-languages, hetereotopias, and hetereo-things. From the birth of a daughter to the deceased mother, generation to generation, the departure of the identity recognition appear to us subtly. In the murmuring whispers, no matter we force ourselves to check the body loneliness or sharpen the knife to the apple (the big apple is the metonym for New York) to signify the alienated human relationship. “Where is my home?” is a simple yet difficult question to be answered. Home is where we started, so it is where we belong to. It is a place belongs to us and a place that has us inside. However, “home” is also a “pillory.” Our bodies walk away from home but is it destined that we are in actual walking closer and closer, walking closer, walking, closer……to …
Grotesque Body
“Digital technology creates reality so that it can satisfy the demand of human’s imagination. But which is real in the process of creation and substitution?In the example of print ads media, when models’ photos are edited by digital software, their bodies especially reach a beauty standard that surpasses what the public could imagine. It is a utilization of digital technology to make a real body into an unreal body.”
Chang Ming-Chih. Weirdware II. 2008
In the work Weirdware II created by Chang Ming-Chih, he managed to combine a thin body and a fat body into one body and obscured the body structure. Therefore, the only thing left was an unrecognizable “grotesque” that could not be identified for the gender and shape. This differs from Diane Arbus’s topic “twisted ordinary person” so as to snap on human being’s life. On the contrary, this shows us a new style of “ordinary twisted person” that emphasize the bizarre atmosphere to catch our attention. We can conclude Philip Thomson’s grotesque features in esthetics as follows: disharmony, comic & terrifying, extravagance & exaggeration, satiric & playful. He defined it well enough.
“In the arts and nature, there is no bizarreness/deformity. However, when we do not have enough imagination to have the whole picture in mind, that is, our imagination have reached the limit and we feel hard to describe it, we are then in the unsolved bafflement . The object of bizarreness/deformity destructs the attempt to form a concept. But what make us feel bizarre/deform is not the object, but the bafflement and limitation in the imagination that we have presented.”
(Chu Yuan-Horng. 1999:P.9)
In the works Ineffable Moments series created by Lan Yuan-Hung, the dissociation of the young bodies lain on the beds, Simple and plain beds of desire. The compound variant young bodies were formed by the combination of different gestures on the beds to present the real desires which were virtualized. On the other hand, in the series of Copy & Paste, the artist chose to use different community labels that are in different peoples and ages to piece them together in a single naked model image. He meant to challenge the political correctness in body esthetics identity under the globalization cause.
“I took some pictures in the bedroom and featured the elements with “bed” and “nudity” to create the atmosphere of secret and privacy (along with exposure and disclosure) which contains the motive to demonstrate an inner space. I therefore overlapped several photos taken in the same angle and edited the photos with digital software. The attempt I made was to maintain the elegant beauty in the twisted and deformed bodies. So what appears in front of you is a pieced and seamless intact body shape while the non-human-like body gesture was set to resort to the ambiguity and openness.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Ineffable Moments. 2008.
“In the process of shooting, there were hidden emotional currents inside my mind. For example, I tried to be free but to encounter instant uneasiness. I also tried to observe the relationship between the observer and the nude (that is, the shooter and the model). As a younger Asian and shooter at the same time (non-native English person), what interested me was that at some moments I accidentally equalized the tension structure simply because I was inferior to the models. That is a major issue that I was not conscious of at that moment (even now I still could not handle), an issue in relation to people/languages/identities/authorities.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Copy & Paste. 2008.
French contemporary philosopher George Canguilhem understood science development process through “errors” in his work The Normal and Pathological. He was convinced that science creates a new way of “telling us the truth,” and it does not walk us out of shadows or erase our errors to gain the truth. In human’s life and time concept, “errors” do have a dimension and a disruption. They are occasional incidents of eternity in human’s developing history. As a result, it is not like evolution which has time sequence to evolve from the former to the latter. And this dessein error reverses the conventional sense of humor in the value system. It provokes certain nationalists to anger by accident and in fact, it is a reversal and misplacement in essence.
Non-linear Body
The works Simply the Speed, created by Chen Chang-Chih, features the “dance documents” recorded stage photos. In the series of photo works, the dancers moved promptly so the artist can only decide to catch a series of segments in the body movements that those dancers made. As a result, what the spectators have in vision are those white fragments of movements that the dancers made with the parts of their bodies in the action.
I expanded the human’s physical defect of “duration of vision,” through shooting to open another vision, and thanks to the media’s artificial limbs, we can reach the unknown experience which the human physical structures could not do. The object bodies were deformed and became blurred in the profile, but we can still identify those fragments in the pictures simply because we have the concept of the complete forms in mind.
“The awareness experience has been integrated through the artificial limbs of the media. Maybe the anatomy course to dissect the limbs needs no anesthesia to aid. But this would make us realize that we all have artificial limbs without notice at all.”
Chen Chang-Chih. Simply the Speed. 2008.
French philosopher Gilles Louis Réné Deleuze discussed the nonlinear narrative approach about Italy neo-realism in the work Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1989). He edited image products made in different times and after reconstruction he led us to the reality of the images. The eyes pick temporary visions through shutter and that is the practice a cinema in the brain put into. Only when we sense the image in time sequence can we regain the control of the meanings in senses. The feet are no longer feet, and the swinging hands are no longer hands because in the chaos of time, this is a speedy way to write with our bodies if we consent that the futurism in the potential scenery has become a past tense.
The work Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming(Ears Roaming) created by Yannick Dauby is an extraordinary piece. The work did not occupy the real exhibition spaces, there was a pair of earphones and walkman player instead to accompany the audience in the certain time and the audience can listen to the body parts (blood circulation, inhalation and exhalation by lungs )sounds recorded as they roam around. The audience can also choose to view other visionary works or look at the street scenery outside the exhibition hall at the same time so as to enjoy alternative pleasure with body’s senses in a crossing interaction between inner and outer manners.
“I put my fingers into my ears, while the air resonant was locked without communication to the outside world. I thought I would find serenity for a while, but I was totally wrong. There was a roaring sound caused by my nonstop hands which moved constantly and there was a whistling sound caused, I was sure, by my own blood pressure. At times there was also a crack sound, created by the collision of my hands and arms. As I lay down my elbow on the table, I found a dull sound of bang. I rubbed the wood with my elbow, and I heard the sound made by the table through my bones. Therefore, my arms really became a stethoscope which listened to the sounds of the table.”
Yannick Dauby. Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming. 2009.
Sounds are a series of existing signals of time. How shall we sense the existence of the body subject by surmounting the barrier to listen to the inner sounds of the body? Until isolated from the outside objects, the silent sounds in the last part of the “Ears Roaming” is merely the last proclamation to against the body phenomena to expel the original liner structure, and to seek the subject meanings again in the non-linear body.
Religious body
All the religions have the unique combination such as selfless dedication versus obsessive pursuit, obedience versus rebellion, and directness of senses versus spiritual abstraction. --Georg Simmel
In the work Decapitation III, 2009 created by Cheng Yu-Hsiang, the ritual held in the guillotine stage was established to control the authoritative-oriented dazzling scene as the audience come inside. Under the dazzling lights when the audience step in and see the Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, deceased Marat, and those pictures without heads, they would feel gloomy with the advent of sadness and would lose the divinity inside themselves. As they watch the incompleteness of the bodies, they, the onlookers, absorb the memory of those suffering bodies by introjection. This is a cunning scheme of re-execution, only this time the executed are collective unconsciousness, moral machine, and historical crimes.
“The apparatus of the art work is to reflect upon the unique imagination in crimes. Therefore, the unique body gestures in the works became an odd key of mimic and representation of the history. The works, being the existing history itself, originally came from the concept of sparkling flash of instant suffering. In the history, the certain executed body with unique pain has been extended to the history process so the suffering of chopped head of the single body has become the execution of collective unconsciousness. The moment of execution refers not only to the violent formation in all the political social relationship, but it also builds a conventional historical perspective viewed by the contemporary society in the future.”
Cheng Yu-Hsiang. Decapitation III, 2009. 2009.
The formation of Dharma was immersed in the world phenomena of liquid and air. In an impermanent instant moment for the beings, we sigh that the truth is hard to come by. All of a sudden, all are not but illusion in epiphany. All sorts of dharma are no more than emptiness of self. In the void world we all search for a piece of quiet land in mind. There comes a chant of Sanskrit floating in the air afar to lead all the souls to ascend, as Sakyamuni Buddha taught us, “All phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow, like dew and lightning, thus should you meditate upon them.”
“Before the golden pigment filled up the Buddha statue, we could see the Buddha-like and non-Buddha-like image at the same time. After complete presentation of the Buddha statue, the work Void connotes the Zen atmosphere in this kind of process. The projection of these two films which denote inner and outside worlds face to face symbolizes a state of reflection. Inner worlds echo the outside phenomena so the outside reflects what is inside. Two projections weave to form the Buddha image……”
Chang Ming-Chih. Void. 2008.
Conclusion
Body, a concrete interface with surface features, collects life philosophy and mind essence. What imagination would we have in mind in relation to body?From a micro perspective to macro perspective to view the contemporary body issue in the medical arts this time, what solution on earth do we attempt to gain to satisfy our demand?Cutting open the wrinkled skin, what we get is a silent bearing, a lie to survive or a wise disguise?
References
Jean Baudrillard, The system of objects, (Shang-hai jen-min), 2001.
George Canguilhem. The Normal and the Pathological. trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett & Robert S. Cohen (New York: Zone Books), 1991.
Georg Simmel, Sociology of Religion , (Shang-hai jen-min), 2003.
Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
朱元鴻 〈她讓自己丟人現眼!__大學性詭態與美學判斷再探〉,「第四屆四性研討會」,中央性/別研究室,1999。
Why on earth is the body issue worth discussing under the circumstances of overflowing information in modern society nowadays? French choreographer Jérôme Bel applied lipsticks and human urine on human body in his work Jérôme Bel (which was named after himself) to perform on the stage with nudity so that there was a success on the box office which you would find it hard to get a ticket. Coincidentally, the play Once, Upon Hearing The Skin Tone directed by Taiwanese director Cyrus Wong Ka-Ming, challenged the perspectives of audiences in body issue. The play used “skin colors” to piece the body image together while it connoted the concept of “skin-deep” to deny the body image. Whenever this kind of art work which shoulders the banner of body nudity appears in Taiwan, the controversy of “consumption in body image” and “uninteresting, ignorant, and tasteless” would arise. What this revealed to us is that, people in society would probably panic as they gently stir up the “body” issue and throw it away hastily.
Back to the anatomy course which we dissected body and analyzed data, what we had in sight were diversified segments dipped in the embalming fluid that intensified the pale and yellowish slices on the surfaces of beings which reflected the inorganic textures with softness and elasticity while the suspended particulate would just annotate the last linkage between the existence and disappearance in a living subject. We people feel the world through senses, but there is no literature on how we reflect upon ourselves to read the body or to listen to the breaking process in a living subject. We reconstructed the body just like reconstruction of the anatomy scene in the medical history, carefully re-brushing the art works with Ge-stell techniques. In the mean time, we observed the “bodily perspectives behind bodies” that those young artists in Taiwan created in the art works, listening to the echoes among different works so as to discuss the disposition operation that command behind those bodies.
Body in “The system of objects”
The bizarre body disposition was presented in the Irrational, Emotional series of Chao Lu-Chia’s art works. Through delicate strokes and rearrangement of specimens, she illustrated to us our possible aspiration for body function in different time and space in the future. This topology in body transcends time and space. The contemporary French philosopher Jean Baudrillard described the importance of modern objects in functions with functional system (objective descriptions) in the book The system of objects. While the functional meaning of the hetereo-orgen to the body lie outside the positions and forms that are described in the anatomy topology. It is futile to embody the context because the unknown functions always surpass our knowledge about the body. Therefore, even we try to describe the body functions with functional features, what we can testify is only the absence of the functional features.
“To me, thoughts are sticky and interrelated with one another,
while all sorts of things in the body are independent units.
They interact with one another as they communicate substances controlled by various nerves.
Sometimes, I feel that the body seems to be mine, and not at the same time.
I managed to create the only sign of organ belongs to the imagination so as to satisfy my thought which I am unable to command in this part.
It may be an accident, a satisfying accident, though.”
Chao Lu-Chia. Irrational, Emotional. 2008
Nonfunctional system (subject description) is the opposite structure of “functional system” —the object which is against the functional system to the extreme—the ancient object and the most rebellious behavior against modern times—the collection. However, ancient objects are merely a historical approach to replace time. The time to collect objects is because the collective activities in the organization replace time. And it is also a basic function in the collection in order to help us to ablate time concept in a system of repeated space dimensions.
(Jean Baudrillard. 2001. p.110.)
“To a natural scientific researcher, it is a necessity to collect abundant specimens to present complete research result. In the early years, scholars proceeded to enlarge specimen collections unceasingly in the comparison research. The fanaticism of gaining reliable statistic data to them built some scientific material collections. In relation to the faith in these series of collections, they attempted to fully understand the organization, operation and interior structures and they observed, described, and categorized the collections as a maneuver.”
Shih Yi-Shan. Zoo 2009
The meta-functional and dysfunctional system (novel gadgets and robots) in the “The system of objects” is the technical extension in “functional system.” It is literally a modern myth—automatism—that the functions of objects are developed to the extreme. Its outcomes are disorder in function and pseudo-function. The development trend could be verified with those meaningless gadgets and gizmos. When the myth is developed to the extreme, it would lead to the massive betrayal of modern objects and human’s self-destruction. This symbolizes that the potential paradox and conflict reaction lay between the real demand of “technology development” and that of “society and human.” This also happened in the works of Zoo. The funny movements that future machine insects made in the exhibition scene, part of the walls that was purposely whitewashed and painted with white lines, “irrational complication, compulsory emphasis on the details, bizarre techniques, meaningless formalism, and the artificial object areas that feature activeness in the poly-para-hyper et meta-fonctionnelle zone, they are a large series of pataphysique which is related to objects that the artist conjured up.”
“There are pigpens everywhere in my neighborhood, so it is a common scene to me. I still remember when I was little, my classmates liked to mock me for the smell emitted from my body. They said to me, “You really stink!” Even though my mother did her household well to rub each uniform I had, they still believed that there were enough awful odors or putrid smell to disintegrate epidermis and its inner contents in me. On the other hand, the swollen cystic would appear to be as transparent as a layer of Japanese rice paper under the sunshine which make all the creatures feel sticky.”
Shih Yi-Shan. The Chemistry of death. 2006
The absence of living people is the perfect alibi to collect corpse. Death is an art of the passing of time. Even though time ablates, memory of the childhood trauma has been a part of the collection, an outcome which cannot be buried with the body. Only through repeating piecing animation in The Chemistry of death can one hold the mourning ritual to devour fallacy along with the trace of trauma by moor scenery, this is true for the smell. The body in physical system tried to collect all the functions to demonstrate, but behind the amazing demonstration, do people actually unceasingly pursue the existence of body functions?Or is it that they just could not conceal the fact that they have the fondness for controlling the body in reality?
Diaspora body
At the time when Miss Chien Yu-Chien studied away from home, she felt feeble facing her self-existence. What she could do was to shoot pictures of her own body parts in the close-up works Untitled to catch the fleeting moment of her existence. With the background of a white cloth from the top, there were close-up photos scattered around the white cloth as well as a pair of white operation gloves. It looked like that a lady was covered with a white bed sheet in the bed feeling agitated to her own body and her nostalgia to her hometown. In the work Nostalgia created by Andrei Tarkovsky, the scenery that was shot with scrutinized long lens appeared to be serene between the lines. It was a journey leaving for a strange place. In the end one shall bid farewell to oneself as he plays an elegy to slowly say good-bye to his mother.
“What I feel the nearest to me, most probably is my own body. So I began to shoot pictures of my own body. Under the scrutiny of my body in those accumulated scenes, I should find out that maybe I myself have never understood the body that I used to believe to be the dearest to myself. Through reviewing the shooting works that I created in the series of the body parts, I was at the same time reviewing my own emotion: fear and pleasure.”
Chien Yu-Chien. Untitled. 2007.
In the work Untitled (30 days) created by Tsai Chang-Lin, one would have uneasy and struggling feeling when visioning the act of stab piercing an apple in and out after its 30 days decay. Diaspora complex begins to brew self-awareness towards colony’s reality, and the decay and sour phenomena occur after the ripe. Gradually one has to greet the ending of decays. It is when colony body begins to break that we shall shake hands with one another so as to create a compromising pseudo-self in the illusion.
“The death makes me feel strange and familiar at the same time. I even end this between unreal and non-imaginary dream. Even though I pierced the so-called nostalgia, I am still baffled living in the uncertainty.”
Tsai Chang-Lin. Untitled (30 days). 2007.
In the work Somewhere Over The Cloud created by director Hsiao Mei-Ling, when we have a close look at the secret note of the family members, we may feel there is a reflection of nostalgia that reechoes in hetereo-languages, hetereotopias, and hetereo-things. From the birth of a daughter to the deceased mother, generation to generation, the departure of the identity recognition appear to us subtly. In the murmuring whispers, no matter we force ourselves to check the body loneliness or sharpen the knife to the apple (the big apple is the metonym for New York) to signify the alienated human relationship. “Where is my home?” is a simple yet difficult question to be answered. Home is where we started, so it is where we belong to. It is a place belongs to us and a place that has us inside. However, “home” is also a “pillory.” Our bodies walk away from home but is it destined that we are in actual walking closer and closer, walking closer, walking, closer……to …
Grotesque Body
“Digital technology creates reality so that it can satisfy the demand of human’s imagination. But which is real in the process of creation and substitution?In the example of print ads media, when models’ photos are edited by digital software, their bodies especially reach a beauty standard that surpasses what the public could imagine. It is a utilization of digital technology to make a real body into an unreal body.”
Chang Ming-Chih. Weirdware II. 2008
In the work Weirdware II created by Chang Ming-Chih, he managed to combine a thin body and a fat body into one body and obscured the body structure. Therefore, the only thing left was an unrecognizable “grotesque” that could not be identified for the gender and shape. This differs from Diane Arbus’s topic “twisted ordinary person” so as to snap on human being’s life. On the contrary, this shows us a new style of “ordinary twisted person” that emphasize the bizarre atmosphere to catch our attention. We can conclude Philip Thomson’s grotesque features in esthetics as follows: disharmony, comic & terrifying, extravagance & exaggeration, satiric & playful. He defined it well enough.
“In the arts and nature, there is no bizarreness/deformity. However, when we do not have enough imagination to have the whole picture in mind, that is, our imagination have reached the limit and we feel hard to describe it, we are then in the unsolved bafflement . The object of bizarreness/deformity destructs the attempt to form a concept. But what make us feel bizarre/deform is not the object, but the bafflement and limitation in the imagination that we have presented.”
(Chu Yuan-Horng. 1999:P.9)
In the works Ineffable Moments series created by Lan Yuan-Hung, the dissociation of the young bodies lain on the beds, Simple and plain beds of desire. The compound variant young bodies were formed by the combination of different gestures on the beds to present the real desires which were virtualized. On the other hand, in the series of Copy & Paste, the artist chose to use different community labels that are in different peoples and ages to piece them together in a single naked model image. He meant to challenge the political correctness in body esthetics identity under the globalization cause.
“I took some pictures in the bedroom and featured the elements with “bed” and “nudity” to create the atmosphere of secret and privacy (along with exposure and disclosure) which contains the motive to demonstrate an inner space. I therefore overlapped several photos taken in the same angle and edited the photos with digital software. The attempt I made was to maintain the elegant beauty in the twisted and deformed bodies. So what appears in front of you is a pieced and seamless intact body shape while the non-human-like body gesture was set to resort to the ambiguity and openness.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Ineffable Moments. 2008.
“In the process of shooting, there were hidden emotional currents inside my mind. For example, I tried to be free but to encounter instant uneasiness. I also tried to observe the relationship between the observer and the nude (that is, the shooter and the model). As a younger Asian and shooter at the same time (non-native English person), what interested me was that at some moments I accidentally equalized the tension structure simply because I was inferior to the models. That is a major issue that I was not conscious of at that moment (even now I still could not handle), an issue in relation to people/languages/identities/authorities.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Copy & Paste. 2008.
French contemporary philosopher George Canguilhem understood science development process through “errors” in his work The Normal and Pathological. He was convinced that science creates a new way of “telling us the truth,” and it does not walk us out of shadows or erase our errors to gain the truth. In human’s life and time concept, “errors” do have a dimension and a disruption. They are occasional incidents of eternity in human’s developing history. As a result, it is not like evolution which has time sequence to evolve from the former to the latter. And this dessein error reverses the conventional sense of humor in the value system. It provokes certain nationalists to anger by accident and in fact, it is a reversal and misplacement in essence.
Non-linear Body
The works Simply the Speed, created by Chen Chang-Chih, features the “dance documents” recorded stage photos. In the series of photo works, the dancers moved promptly so the artist can only decide to catch a series of segments in the body movements that those dancers made. As a result, what the spectators have in vision are those white fragments of movements that the dancers made with the parts of their bodies in the action.
I expanded the human’s physical defect of “duration of vision,” through shooting to open another vision, and thanks to the media’s artificial limbs, we can reach the unknown experience which the human physical structures could not do. The object bodies were deformed and became blurred in the profile, but we can still identify those fragments in the pictures simply because we have the concept of the complete forms in mind.
“The awareness experience has been integrated through the artificial limbs of the media. Maybe the anatomy course to dissect the limbs needs no anesthesia to aid. But this would make us realize that we all have artificial limbs without notice at all.”
Chen Chang-Chih. Simply the Speed. 2008.
French philosopher Gilles Louis Réné Deleuze discussed the nonlinear narrative approach about Italy neo-realism in the work Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1989). He edited image products made in different times and after reconstruction he led us to the reality of the images. The eyes pick temporary visions through shutter and that is the practice a cinema in the brain put into. Only when we sense the image in time sequence can we regain the control of the meanings in senses. The feet are no longer feet, and the swinging hands are no longer hands because in the chaos of time, this is a speedy way to write with our bodies if we consent that the futurism in the potential scenery has become a past tense.
The work Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming(Ears Roaming) created by Yannick Dauby is an extraordinary piece. The work did not occupy the real exhibition spaces, there was a pair of earphones and walkman player instead to accompany the audience in the certain time and the audience can listen to the body parts (blood circulation, inhalation and exhalation by lungs )sounds recorded as they roam around. The audience can also choose to view other visionary works or look at the street scenery outside the exhibition hall at the same time so as to enjoy alternative pleasure with body’s senses in a crossing interaction between inner and outer manners.
“I put my fingers into my ears, while the air resonant was locked without communication to the outside world. I thought I would find serenity for a while, but I was totally wrong. There was a roaring sound caused by my nonstop hands which moved constantly and there was a whistling sound caused, I was sure, by my own blood pressure. At times there was also a crack sound, created by the collision of my hands and arms. As I lay down my elbow on the table, I found a dull sound of bang. I rubbed the wood with my elbow, and I heard the sound made by the table through my bones. Therefore, my arms really became a stethoscope which listened to the sounds of the table.”
Yannick Dauby. Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming. 2009.
Sounds are a series of existing signals of time. How shall we sense the existence of the body subject by surmounting the barrier to listen to the inner sounds of the body? Until isolated from the outside objects, the silent sounds in the last part of the “Ears Roaming” is merely the last proclamation to against the body phenomena to expel the original liner structure, and to seek the subject meanings again in the non-linear body.
Religious body
All the religions have the unique combination such as selfless dedication versus obsessive pursuit, obedience versus rebellion, and directness of senses versus spiritual abstraction. --Georg Simmel
In the work Decapitation III, 2009 created by Cheng Yu-Hsiang, the ritual held in the guillotine stage was established to control the authoritative-oriented dazzling scene as the audience come inside. Under the dazzling lights when the audience step in and see the Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, deceased Marat, and those pictures without heads, they would feel gloomy with the advent of sadness and would lose the divinity inside themselves. As they watch the incompleteness of the bodies, they, the onlookers, absorb the memory of those suffering bodies by introjection. This is a cunning scheme of re-execution, only this time the executed are collective unconsciousness, moral machine, and historical crimes.
“The apparatus of the art work is to reflect upon the unique imagination in crimes. Therefore, the unique body gestures in the works became an odd key of mimic and representation of the history. The works, being the existing history itself, originally came from the concept of sparkling flash of instant suffering. In the history, the certain executed body with unique pain has been extended to the history process so the suffering of chopped head of the single body has become the execution of collective unconsciousness. The moment of execution refers not only to the violent formation in all the political social relationship, but it also builds a conventional historical perspective viewed by the contemporary society in the future.”
Cheng Yu-Hsiang. Decapitation III, 2009. 2009.
The formation of Dharma was immersed in the world phenomena of liquid and air. In an impermanent instant moment for the beings, we sigh that the truth is hard to come by. All of a sudden, all are not but illusion in epiphany. All sorts of dharma are no more than emptiness of self. In the void world we all search for a piece of quiet land in mind. There comes a chant of Sanskrit floating in the air afar to lead all the souls to ascend, as Sakyamuni Buddha taught us, “All phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow, like dew and lightning, thus should you meditate upon them.”
“Before the golden pigment filled up the Buddha statue, we could see the Buddha-like and non-Buddha-like image at the same time. After complete presentation of the Buddha statue, the work Void connotes the Zen atmosphere in this kind of process. The projection of these two films which denote inner and outside worlds face to face symbolizes a state of reflection. Inner worlds echo the outside phenomena so the outside reflects what is inside. Two projections weave to form the Buddha image……”
Chang Ming-Chih. Void. 2008.
Conclusion
Body, a concrete interface with surface features, collects life philosophy and mind essence. What imagination would we have in mind in relation to body?From a micro perspective to macro perspective to view the contemporary body issue in the medical arts this time, what solution on earth do we attempt to gain to satisfy our demand?Cutting open the wrinkled skin, what we get is a silent bearing, a lie to survive or a wise disguise?
References
Jean Baudrillard, The system of objects, (Shang-hai jen-min), 2001.
George Canguilhem. The Normal and the Pathological. trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett & Robert S. Cohen (New York: Zone Books), 1991.
Georg Simmel, Sociology of Religion , (Shang-hai jen-min), 2003.
Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
朱元鴻 〈她讓自己丟人現眼!__大學性詭態與美學判斷再探〉,「第四屆四性研討會」,中央性/別研究室,1999。
20090814
世界上最美好的音樂:肉體
文/葉家銘
身體議題在當今社會資訊如此氾濫的情況下,究竟還有何討論價值?法國編舞家傑宏‧貝爾在他的同名作品《傑宏‧貝爾》中用口紅、尿液來書寫身體,全裸演出造成當時一票難求。無獨有偶地,台灣劇場導演王嘉明在《膚色的時光》中,大膽挑釁觀眾的身體品味,以「膚色」為名拼貼身體圖象,也以「膚淺」為義終結其身體性。此種扛舉身體裸露大旗的藝術作品,卻每每在台灣引發「消費身體意象」、「無趣無知也無味」的爭議,其中所反映的是:社會大眾可能對於「身體」議題輕輕提起卻重重摔落的恐慌反應。
回返剖析身體知識的解剖課堂上,大小標本浸泡於防腐液的生命切片蒼白泛黃,映射出柔軟彈性的無機質感,游離懸絲物質只是作為生命主體消逝與存有的最後連結。人們透過感官感知這個世界,但我們如何反身性閱讀身體,聆聽主體消亡的斷裂過程卻付之闕如。我們重新解構身體,如同重建醫學史發展進程中的大體解剖課現場一般,仔細耙梳藝術作品的集置技術,觀察台灣青年藝術家作品中所呈現的「身體背後的身體觀」,聆聽作品與作品彼此之間的發聲樣貌,進而探討宰制肉身背後的部署行動。
物體系身體
奇異的身體佈局出現在趙璐嘉作品《緒型物》系列,她透過細膩筆觸及標本儀式的排列方法,刻劃身體的功能性於未來異次元時空展現的渴望,超脫時間性,拓樸身體的空間性。法國當代思想家布希亞 (Jean Baudrillard)在《物體系》一書中,以「功能性體系(客觀論述)」勾勒出「功能性」代表現代物的重要性。而異質器官之於身體的功能性意義在解剖圖譜中所描繪的位置、形狀以外之境,欲使其具體化卻總是徒勞無功的,主要在於未知的功能性總是凌駕於既有的身體知識上,因此我們即便試圖使用功能性表述身體機能,只能證明功能性的缺席。
對我而言 思想 是黏膩且相互沾附的
而軀體內的種種 是各司其職的獨立個體
依循著各類神經傳導物質 交互運作
有時覺得:身體,像是我的;卻又不像我的
試圖創造出 屬於想像中唯一的器官符號
滿足思想在這部份所無法掌控的軀體
這也許是一種意外 卻是令人心滿意足的意外
(趙璐嘉,2008《緒型物》系列)
「非功能性體系(主觀論述)」則是「功能性體系」的反向結構-看似最反功能性之物-古物與最反現代的行為-收藏。『然而古物只是一種取代時間的「歷史性」,收藏的時間是因為收藏的組織活動本身取代時間,亦是收藏最基本的功能:將真實的時間消融於一個系統反覆的維度之中。』(布希亞,2001,頁110)
對於自然科學研究者而言,要做出完善的研究成果,豐富的標本收藏是必要條件。
當年學者對不斷擴大標本收藏、進行比較研究、獲得可靠統計數據的狂熱,造就一種科學材料的部份收藏。這種關於「系列收藏」的信仰,企圖進一步對組織、運作、內部構造進行積極了解,並以觀察、描述、歸類、命名作為手法。 (施懿珊,2009《聽說,我們曾經是人類》)
《物體系》中「後設及功能失調體系(新奇的小發明和機器人)」是「功能性體系」在技術上的延伸。將物的功能性推導至極致,實際上是一種現代神話-自動化主義,其結果是功能錯亂與偽功能性,無意義的小發明 (gadgets)與小玩意兒 (gizmos) 可以印證這種發展趨勢,這種神話推衍至極,結果是現代物的集體反叛與自我毀滅,象徵技術發展於社會與人性之間的真實需求所潛藏的矛盾與衝突反應,也全然出現在《聽說,我們曾經是人類》這一組作品中。會自我振動的小機器未來系昆蟲在場中展現逗趣的動作,展場中局部刻意粉刷的牆面以及白色線框,「無理性的複雜化、對細節強迫性的注重、怪異的技術性、無意義的形式主義,這些特徵所活躍的人造物場域,在這個「多重-泛-超級-後設」功能 (poly-para-hyper et méta-fonctionnelle)地帶中,作者書寫出一大套關於物品的想像科學 (pataphysique)。」(布希亞,2001,頁133)
我家附近都是豬圈,關於這種『 風景 』稀鬆平常。記得小時候,班上同學喜歡嘲笑我身上的味道,他們總說︰『 妳好臭。 』即使我媽很盡責認真的搓揉過每一件制服,他們仍舊判定我,就是有洗不掉的臭味。腐氣,足夠分離它的表皮和內 裡....鼓脹的囊狀,卻在黏膩的陽光下,讓它透的像一層日本薄米紙。 (施懿珊,2006《死亡化學》)
活人的缺席成為收藏屍體的完美不在場證明。死亡是一種時間消逝的藝術,時間即便消融,童年創傷記憶卻已經成為收藏品中的一部份,無法一同埋葬的結果,透過《死亡化學》不斷反覆播放的拼貼動畫舉行哀悼 (mourning)儀式,讓荒涼的風景吞噬荒謬感,也一併吞併創傷的痕跡。即便是氣味亦然。
物體系身體即便試圖將功能收集齊全,攤開展示,然而在展示奇觀背後,人們所不斷追求的是身體功能性的存有?抑或無法隱藏控制身體現實的癖好?
離散性身體
簡郁茜於異地求學時,深刻感受到自我存在感的薄弱,只能透過近身拍攝自我的身體局部的作品《無題》系列捕捉稍縱即逝的存在感。在一條從天際蔓延而下的白布,四周佈上不斷她個人的身體局部特寫照,再加上地面上一只白色手術手套,宛如一女子披蓋潔白的被單蜷曲於床上,對於自身以及家鄉懷想的焦躁不安。塔可夫斯基 (Andrei Tarkovsky)的《鄉愁》裡,景物在長鏡頭的凝視之下畫外音呈現靜謐狀態,一段前往異鄉的旅程,最後終將與自我別離,在夢裡奏上一曲哀歌 (elegy),與母體緩緩道別。
「最接近自己的,也許只能是自己的身體了。」於是我開始拍攝自己的身體。在這樣的檢視下,卻發現連自以為最親近的身體,在那之中所累積形成的景觀,或許連自己也沒有真正地了解過。而藉由再次觀看自己所創作的,關於身體局部系列的攝影作品,我正重新觀看著自己的情緒:恐懼與歡愉。 (簡郁茜,2007《無題》)
蔡昌霖則在作品《無題(30)天》中,透過一顆經歷30天自然腐爛衰敗後的蘋果,在刀刃刺進穿出的動作下,忖度與掙扎陣陣襲來,惴惴不安。離散 (diaspora)情結發酵始於一種對於殖民現實的自覺,腐敗酸臭的作用發生在成熟之後,卻也得逐步迎接衰敗的終局,後殖民主體開始分裂之際,我們將一起握手言和,製造一種自我假性和解的幻象。
遊移於令自己感到熟悉,又感到陌生的死亡裡,甚至在非現實和非想像的睡夢裡終結,即使,刺穿了所謂的「鄉愁」,依然不準確地在這樣的生活裡困惑著我。 (蔡昌霖,2007《無題(30天)》)
電影導演蕭美玲的作品《雲的那端》,透過凝視自家成員之間的私語手札,鏡射出一種迴飄於異語、異境與異質之間的鄉愁 (nostalgia)感,從女兒的出生,隨後母親的辭世,世代交替之際,身份認同的悖離也隱然浮現。在低迴的喃喃自語間,無論是最後逼視自己的身體孤寂,或是磨刀霍霍向蘋果 (以蘋果隱喻為紐約)中的人際疏離,「何處是我家?」這簡短的問題卻難以回答。家是我們出發的起點,因此為我們所歸屬,擁有我們也被我們所擁有的地方。但「家」同時也是「枷」,身體朝向遠離家園,卻註定離她越走越近,越走越近,越走,越近……
詭態性身體
數位科技創造真實因而滿足人們的想像,在這被創造、被取代的過程中,哪一個才是真實。在平面廣告媒體的例子中,模特兒在經過數位修片後,其身材更是能達到、甚至超越一般大眾對於身體美感的標準,這等於是利用數位科技將真實的身體變成一個不真實的身體。 (張敏智,2008《詭體II》)
張敏智所創作的作品《詭體II》,組合兩個模特一胖一瘦的身體於一身,將身體構念模糊化後,僅存一個無法辨認性別、形體的「詭體」,不同於黛安納阿博斯 (Diane Arbus)以「差錯的正常人」為題捕捉眾生群相,反向展示一種全新型態「正常的差錯人」,賣弄詭態情調使人目不轉睛。將Philip Thomson歸納之詭態美學特徵:非調和 (disharmony)、喜懼參半 (comic & terrifying)、過度與浮誇 (extravagance & exaggeration)、諷樂相伴 (satiric & playful)表露無疑。
「自然或藝術的事物本身沒有所謂怪異/畸形,然而當我們的想像力不足以掌握其全貌,想像的努力已達極限而仍然頓挫無以名之,我們陷於無法理解的困惑。怪異/畸形的客體摧毀構成概念的企圖,然而怪異/畸形的並非客體,而是呈顯想像力自身的困頓與侷限。」(朱元鴻,1999:P.9)
藍元宏的作品《沉默》系列,青春的肉體分裂 (dissociation)並置於床上,一張張樸實平凡的慾望之床上。連結不同床上姿勢而成的「複合的變形青春肉體」,呈現在真實的慾望之床上反而受到虛擬化。而《存取》系列,則選擇將種族、年齡等不同的社會標籤,交互拼貼於同一裸體模特身上,更進一步挑戰全球化影響下,身體美感認同的政治正確性。
拍攝了一些在臥房裡的影像,以「床」、「裸體」為主題貫穿,舖成隱性私密的感受(伴隨暴露與揭示感),企圖去外顯一個屬於內在的空間。而後將相同角度拍下的數張照片重疊,利用數位軟體修減增補,嘗試在扭曲畸形中維持優雅美感,呈現出拼湊卻無縫線的完整身體,非人的姿態是為了更多的曖昧及開放。 (藍元宏,2008《沉默》系列)
拍照過程中也總是充滿情緒暗流的,比如嘗試自在的瞬間不自在,還有觀看者/赤裸者(拍攝者/被拍攝者)之間的權力關係等等,我覺得有趣的是,在某些片刻我感到我作為一個較年輕的亞洲人(非英語系外來者)的身分,因為相對弱勢所以巧妙的平衡了那個張力結構;那是一個我在當下未能清楚意識(而到現在也無法處理)的關於種族/語言/身分/權力的龐大課題。 (藍元宏,2008《存取》系列)
法國當代哲學家岡居朗 (George Canguilhem)在其著作「正常與病理」中從「差錯」來理解科學發展的進程。他認為科學是透過形成一種新的「道出真相」的方式,並非走出陰影亦或消除差錯來尋得所謂的真理。「差錯」在人的生命以及時間裡有一個面向與斷裂,是人類發展史中永恆的偶然,因此這並不如同演化論觀點有時間序列性地由前者推演至後者。而這種有意的 (à dessein)差錯,反轉既有價值體系的幽默感,偶發地激怒某種民族情操主義者,其實是本質巔覆、錯位使然。
非線性身體
陳長志的《素度》系列是一個以舞蹈劇照出發的「舞蹈文件」作品,在這一系列攝影作品當中,舞者快速移動,他只能在決定性的瞬間捕捉一連串身體舞動片段,因此觀者在作品中看到的是許多舞者身體局部與運動作用的白色殘影。
透過攝影擴延「視覺暫留」的生理時限,彷如開眼般,媒體義肢使我們達到非人類生理結構可及的感知經驗。對象身體雖因此離形而輪廓模糊,「完形」的概念仍促使我們在畫面中辨識殘肢片體。
透過媒體義肢的知覺經驗早已內化,解剖課裡切除該義肢或許不需麻醉劑輔助,但會讓我們意識到,原來我們都穿戴著義肢卻毫無所覺。 (陳長志,2008《素度》系列)
法國當代哲學家德勒茲 (Gilles Louis Réné Deleuze)在《電影II:時間-影像》中曾論及關於義大利新寫實主義電影的非線性 (non-liner)敘事手法,剪輯不同時間的影像產物,重組後返還影像的真實性。由眼睛透過快門所撿選的暫留物,是一部腦內電影的實施方式,只有當我們意識到影像時序之時,才能夠重新掌握知覺意義。移動的腳不是腳,揮舞的手也不是手,因為在混沌時間中,這只是關於一種速度的身體書寫方式。如果我們同意潛在景物的未來主義 (futurism)已成為過去式。
Yannick Dauby (澎葉生)的聲音作品《耳朵與身體其他部位-漫步》(後簡稱耳漫)是一件特別的作品。本件作品並不佔領實際空間,而是置放一耳機與隨身聲音播放器,以一種限定時間、開放觀眾可以隨身攜帶,一邊漫步,一邊聆聽這件作品所錄製源自於「身體內部」 (血液流動、肺部呼吸之間……等)所發出的聲音,觀眾可以選擇同時觀看其他件視覺作品,亦或觀看「展場外部」街道景色,藉由一種內外錯身的方式享受身體感知的另類歡愉。
我把手指插進雙耳。那空氣共鳴筒被囚禁起來,它不再能與外界溝通。我以為會是一陣寂靜,但完全錯了。一種很可能來自於我手部不自覺動作所產生的轟轟聲,和一種持續的鳴笛聲則肯定是來自於血壓。還有不時出現的嗶爆聲:這是我的手部和臂部關節產生的。當我把手肘放在桌上時,則是一聲沉悶的撞擊聲。我在木頭上摩擦肘部,穿過我的骨頭聽見了桌子。我的手臂變成了聆聽桌子的聽診器。 (Yannick Dauby (澎葉生),2009《耳朵與身體其他部位》)
聲音是一連串時間性的存有符號,如何跨越「聆聽身體內部的聲音」至感知其身體主體的存有,直到與外部客體空間隔絕之前,「耳漫」最後一段的沉默之聲,僅僅是最後的反抗宣言,對於一種身體現象學的悖論之鳴,驅逐身體之原有線性結構,再重新尋找非線性身體的主體意義。
宗教性身體
一切宗教性都包含著某種無私的奉獻與執著的追求、屈從與反抗、 感官的直接性與精神的抽象性等等的獨特混合…… ─齊美爾
鄭宇翔作品《頭像III 2009》運用斷頭儀式控制進場觀眾之時,權力嚮往的眩目場景隨之而起,在閃頻光線之間,釘死在十字架的基督、死去的馬哈 (Marat)以及他者之頭遺失於圖像上,信仰中心的匱乏黯然降臨,神性失之怯如,觀看肉身不完滿之際,也將旁觀之苦痛攝入 (introjection)身體記憶之中。這是一次再處刑的詭計,只不過這次開鍘的對象是集體潛意識、道德機器與歷史罪行。
作品裝置作為影射歷史與刑罰的特殊想像,身體參與作品的特殊姿態,成了一種歷史擬仿與再現的奇怪關鍵。該作品裝置作為歷史存在物本身,原是遙想電光火石一閃的瞬間痛苦;在歷史上,某個受刑身體的特殊痛苦延伸出歷史進程,單一身體的斷頭之痛延長成為一種集體性凌遲。處決的瞬間除了指涉暴力形塑的所有政治社會關係之外,同時建立了之後被當代社會習以為常的歷史觀點。 (鄭宇翔,2009《頭像III2009》)
達瑪 (Dharma)塑像沉浸 (immersion)於液態、氣態的世界象而來,轉瞬間嘆息真實難尋,木然。頓悟一切皆是虛無幻象,亦是諸法皆成空,虛無間只為求得心中一方寧靜,遠方傳來一陣梵語,飄蕩在空氣中的呼麥聲響引領眾人昇華,佛說偈語:「ㄧ切有為法,如夢幻泡影,如露亦如電,應做如是觀。」
從金色顏料還未填滿佛像時,那似佛非佛的狀態,到完整地呈現出佛像,作品《空》在這樣的過程中蘊藏著禪味。外在及內在兩部影片以面對面的方式投影呈現,象徵著一種鏡射的狀態,內在呼應外在、外在就是內在,兩者相互交織構成佛形…… (張敏智,2008《空》)
小結
身體,作為一種存有表徵的具象介質,集合生命哲理與心智奧秘於其中。世界上最美好的玄妙之音,皆源自於身體。劃開皺摺的皮層,結果是無聲的姿態,生存的謊言,還是高明的偽裝?
身體議題在當今社會資訊如此氾濫的情況下,究竟還有何討論價值?法國編舞家傑宏‧貝爾在他的同名作品《傑宏‧貝爾》中用口紅、尿液來書寫身體,全裸演出造成當時一票難求。無獨有偶地,台灣劇場導演王嘉明在《膚色的時光》中,大膽挑釁觀眾的身體品味,以「膚色」為名拼貼身體圖象,也以「膚淺」為義終結其身體性。此種扛舉身體裸露大旗的藝術作品,卻每每在台灣引發「消費身體意象」、「無趣無知也無味」的爭議,其中所反映的是:社會大眾可能對於「身體」議題輕輕提起卻重重摔落的恐慌反應。
回返剖析身體知識的解剖課堂上,大小標本浸泡於防腐液的生命切片蒼白泛黃,映射出柔軟彈性的無機質感,游離懸絲物質只是作為生命主體消逝與存有的最後連結。人們透過感官感知這個世界,但我們如何反身性閱讀身體,聆聽主體消亡的斷裂過程卻付之闕如。我們重新解構身體,如同重建醫學史發展進程中的大體解剖課現場一般,仔細耙梳藝術作品的集置技術,觀察台灣青年藝術家作品中所呈現的「身體背後的身體觀」,聆聽作品與作品彼此之間的發聲樣貌,進而探討宰制肉身背後的部署行動。
物體系身體
奇異的身體佈局出現在趙璐嘉作品《緒型物》系列,她透過細膩筆觸及標本儀式的排列方法,刻劃身體的功能性於未來異次元時空展現的渴望,超脫時間性,拓樸身體的空間性。法國當代思想家布希亞 (Jean Baudrillard)在《物體系》一書中,以「功能性體系(客觀論述)」勾勒出「功能性」代表現代物的重要性。而異質器官之於身體的功能性意義在解剖圖譜中所描繪的位置、形狀以外之境,欲使其具體化卻總是徒勞無功的,主要在於未知的功能性總是凌駕於既有的身體知識上,因此我們即便試圖使用功能性表述身體機能,只能證明功能性的缺席。
對我而言 思想 是黏膩且相互沾附的
而軀體內的種種 是各司其職的獨立個體
依循著各類神經傳導物質 交互運作
有時覺得:身體,像是我的;卻又不像我的
試圖創造出 屬於想像中唯一的器官符號
滿足思想在這部份所無法掌控的軀體
這也許是一種意外 卻是令人心滿意足的意外
(趙璐嘉,2008《緒型物》系列)
「非功能性體系(主觀論述)」則是「功能性體系」的反向結構-看似最反功能性之物-古物與最反現代的行為-收藏。『然而古物只是一種取代時間的「歷史性」,收藏的時間是因為收藏的組織活動本身取代時間,亦是收藏最基本的功能:將真實的時間消融於一個系統反覆的維度之中。』(布希亞,2001,頁110)
對於自然科學研究者而言,要做出完善的研究成果,豐富的標本收藏是必要條件。
當年學者對不斷擴大標本收藏、進行比較研究、獲得可靠統計數據的狂熱,造就一種科學材料的部份收藏。這種關於「系列收藏」的信仰,企圖進一步對組織、運作、內部構造進行積極了解,並以觀察、描述、歸類、命名作為手法。 (施懿珊,2009《聽說,我們曾經是人類》)
《物體系》中「後設及功能失調體系(新奇的小發明和機器人)」是「功能性體系」在技術上的延伸。將物的功能性推導至極致,實際上是一種現代神話-自動化主義,其結果是功能錯亂與偽功能性,無意義的小發明 (gadgets)與小玩意兒 (gizmos) 可以印證這種發展趨勢,這種神話推衍至極,結果是現代物的集體反叛與自我毀滅,象徵技術發展於社會與人性之間的真實需求所潛藏的矛盾與衝突反應,也全然出現在《聽說,我們曾經是人類》這一組作品中。會自我振動的小機器未來系昆蟲在場中展現逗趣的動作,展場中局部刻意粉刷的牆面以及白色線框,「無理性的複雜化、對細節強迫性的注重、怪異的技術性、無意義的形式主義,這些特徵所活躍的人造物場域,在這個「多重-泛-超級-後設」功能 (poly-para-hyper et méta-fonctionnelle)地帶中,作者書寫出一大套關於物品的想像科學 (pataphysique)。」(布希亞,2001,頁133)
我家附近都是豬圈,關於這種『 風景 』稀鬆平常。記得小時候,班上同學喜歡嘲笑我身上的味道,他們總說︰『 妳好臭。 』即使我媽很盡責認真的搓揉過每一件制服,他們仍舊判定我,就是有洗不掉的臭味。腐氣,足夠分離它的表皮和內 裡....鼓脹的囊狀,卻在黏膩的陽光下,讓它透的像一層日本薄米紙。 (施懿珊,2006《死亡化學》)
活人的缺席成為收藏屍體的完美不在場證明。死亡是一種時間消逝的藝術,時間即便消融,童年創傷記憶卻已經成為收藏品中的一部份,無法一同埋葬的結果,透過《死亡化學》不斷反覆播放的拼貼動畫舉行哀悼 (mourning)儀式,讓荒涼的風景吞噬荒謬感,也一併吞併創傷的痕跡。即便是氣味亦然。
物體系身體即便試圖將功能收集齊全,攤開展示,然而在展示奇觀背後,人們所不斷追求的是身體功能性的存有?抑或無法隱藏控制身體現實的癖好?
離散性身體
簡郁茜於異地求學時,深刻感受到自我存在感的薄弱,只能透過近身拍攝自我的身體局部的作品《無題》系列捕捉稍縱即逝的存在感。在一條從天際蔓延而下的白布,四周佈上不斷她個人的身體局部特寫照,再加上地面上一只白色手術手套,宛如一女子披蓋潔白的被單蜷曲於床上,對於自身以及家鄉懷想的焦躁不安。塔可夫斯基 (Andrei Tarkovsky)的《鄉愁》裡,景物在長鏡頭的凝視之下畫外音呈現靜謐狀態,一段前往異鄉的旅程,最後終將與自我別離,在夢裡奏上一曲哀歌 (elegy),與母體緩緩道別。
「最接近自己的,也許只能是自己的身體了。」於是我開始拍攝自己的身體。在這樣的檢視下,卻發現連自以為最親近的身體,在那之中所累積形成的景觀,或許連自己也沒有真正地了解過。而藉由再次觀看自己所創作的,關於身體局部系列的攝影作品,我正重新觀看著自己的情緒:恐懼與歡愉。 (簡郁茜,2007《無題》)
蔡昌霖則在作品《無題(30)天》中,透過一顆經歷30天自然腐爛衰敗後的蘋果,在刀刃刺進穿出的動作下,忖度與掙扎陣陣襲來,惴惴不安。離散 (diaspora)情結發酵始於一種對於殖民現實的自覺,腐敗酸臭的作用發生在成熟之後,卻也得逐步迎接衰敗的終局,後殖民主體開始分裂之際,我們將一起握手言和,製造一種自我假性和解的幻象。
遊移於令自己感到熟悉,又感到陌生的死亡裡,甚至在非現實和非想像的睡夢裡終結,即使,刺穿了所謂的「鄉愁」,依然不準確地在這樣的生活裡困惑著我。 (蔡昌霖,2007《無題(30天)》)
電影導演蕭美玲的作品《雲的那端》,透過凝視自家成員之間的私語手札,鏡射出一種迴飄於異語、異境與異質之間的鄉愁 (nostalgia)感,從女兒的出生,隨後母親的辭世,世代交替之際,身份認同的悖離也隱然浮現。在低迴的喃喃自語間,無論是最後逼視自己的身體孤寂,或是磨刀霍霍向蘋果 (以蘋果隱喻為紐約)中的人際疏離,「何處是我家?」這簡短的問題卻難以回答。家是我們出發的起點,因此為我們所歸屬,擁有我們也被我們所擁有的地方。但「家」同時也是「枷」,身體朝向遠離家園,卻註定離她越走越近,越走越近,越走,越近……
詭態性身體
數位科技創造真實因而滿足人們的想像,在這被創造、被取代的過程中,哪一個才是真實。在平面廣告媒體的例子中,模特兒在經過數位修片後,其身材更是能達到、甚至超越一般大眾對於身體美感的標準,這等於是利用數位科技將真實的身體變成一個不真實的身體。 (張敏智,2008《詭體II》)
張敏智所創作的作品《詭體II》,組合兩個模特一胖一瘦的身體於一身,將身體構念模糊化後,僅存一個無法辨認性別、形體的「詭體」,不同於黛安納阿博斯 (Diane Arbus)以「差錯的正常人」為題捕捉眾生群相,反向展示一種全新型態「正常的差錯人」,賣弄詭態情調使人目不轉睛。將Philip Thomson歸納之詭態美學特徵:非調和 (disharmony)、喜懼參半 (comic & terrifying)、過度與浮誇 (extravagance & exaggeration)、諷樂相伴 (satiric & playful)表露無疑。
「自然或藝術的事物本身沒有所謂怪異/畸形,然而當我們的想像力不足以掌握其全貌,想像的努力已達極限而仍然頓挫無以名之,我們陷於無法理解的困惑。怪異/畸形的客體摧毀構成概念的企圖,然而怪異/畸形的並非客體,而是呈顯想像力自身的困頓與侷限。」(朱元鴻,1999:P.9)
藍元宏的作品《沉默》系列,青春的肉體分裂 (dissociation)並置於床上,一張張樸實平凡的慾望之床上。連結不同床上姿勢而成的「複合的變形青春肉體」,呈現在真實的慾望之床上反而受到虛擬化。而《存取》系列,則選擇將種族、年齡等不同的社會標籤,交互拼貼於同一裸體模特身上,更進一步挑戰全球化影響下,身體美感認同的政治正確性。
拍攝了一些在臥房裡的影像,以「床」、「裸體」為主題貫穿,舖成隱性私密的感受(伴隨暴露與揭示感),企圖去外顯一個屬於內在的空間。而後將相同角度拍下的數張照片重疊,利用數位軟體修減增補,嘗試在扭曲畸形中維持優雅美感,呈現出拼湊卻無縫線的完整身體,非人的姿態是為了更多的曖昧及開放。 (藍元宏,2008《沉默》系列)
拍照過程中也總是充滿情緒暗流的,比如嘗試自在的瞬間不自在,還有觀看者/赤裸者(拍攝者/被拍攝者)之間的權力關係等等,我覺得有趣的是,在某些片刻我感到我作為一個較年輕的亞洲人(非英語系外來者)的身分,因為相對弱勢所以巧妙的平衡了那個張力結構;那是一個我在當下未能清楚意識(而到現在也無法處理)的關於種族/語言/身分/權力的龐大課題。 (藍元宏,2008《存取》系列)
法國當代哲學家岡居朗 (George Canguilhem)在其著作「正常與病理」中從「差錯」來理解科學發展的進程。他認為科學是透過形成一種新的「道出真相」的方式,並非走出陰影亦或消除差錯來尋得所謂的真理。「差錯」在人的生命以及時間裡有一個面向與斷裂,是人類發展史中永恆的偶然,因此這並不如同演化論觀點有時間序列性地由前者推演至後者。而這種有意的 (à dessein)差錯,反轉既有價值體系的幽默感,偶發地激怒某種民族情操主義者,其實是本質巔覆、錯位使然。
非線性身體
陳長志的《素度》系列是一個以舞蹈劇照出發的「舞蹈文件」作品,在這一系列攝影作品當中,舞者快速移動,他只能在決定性的瞬間捕捉一連串身體舞動片段,因此觀者在作品中看到的是許多舞者身體局部與運動作用的白色殘影。
透過攝影擴延「視覺暫留」的生理時限,彷如開眼般,媒體義肢使我們達到非人類生理結構可及的感知經驗。對象身體雖因此離形而輪廓模糊,「完形」的概念仍促使我們在畫面中辨識殘肢片體。
透過媒體義肢的知覺經驗早已內化,解剖課裡切除該義肢或許不需麻醉劑輔助,但會讓我們意識到,原來我們都穿戴著義肢卻毫無所覺。 (陳長志,2008《素度》系列)
法國當代哲學家德勒茲 (Gilles Louis Réné Deleuze)在《電影II:時間-影像》中曾論及關於義大利新寫實主義電影的非線性 (non-liner)敘事手法,剪輯不同時間的影像產物,重組後返還影像的真實性。由眼睛透過快門所撿選的暫留物,是一部腦內電影的實施方式,只有當我們意識到影像時序之時,才能夠重新掌握知覺意義。移動的腳不是腳,揮舞的手也不是手,因為在混沌時間中,這只是關於一種速度的身體書寫方式。如果我們同意潛在景物的未來主義 (futurism)已成為過去式。
Yannick Dauby (澎葉生)的聲音作品《耳朵與身體其他部位-漫步》(後簡稱耳漫)是一件特別的作品。本件作品並不佔領實際空間,而是置放一耳機與隨身聲音播放器,以一種限定時間、開放觀眾可以隨身攜帶,一邊漫步,一邊聆聽這件作品所錄製源自於「身體內部」 (血液流動、肺部呼吸之間……等)所發出的聲音,觀眾可以選擇同時觀看其他件視覺作品,亦或觀看「展場外部」街道景色,藉由一種內外錯身的方式享受身體感知的另類歡愉。
我把手指插進雙耳。那空氣共鳴筒被囚禁起來,它不再能與外界溝通。我以為會是一陣寂靜,但完全錯了。一種很可能來自於我手部不自覺動作所產生的轟轟聲,和一種持續的鳴笛聲則肯定是來自於血壓。還有不時出現的嗶爆聲:這是我的手部和臂部關節產生的。當我把手肘放在桌上時,則是一聲沉悶的撞擊聲。我在木頭上摩擦肘部,穿過我的骨頭聽見了桌子。我的手臂變成了聆聽桌子的聽診器。 (Yannick Dauby (澎葉生),2009《耳朵與身體其他部位》)
聲音是一連串時間性的存有符號,如何跨越「聆聽身體內部的聲音」至感知其身體主體的存有,直到與外部客體空間隔絕之前,「耳漫」最後一段的沉默之聲,僅僅是最後的反抗宣言,對於一種身體現象學的悖論之鳴,驅逐身體之原有線性結構,再重新尋找非線性身體的主體意義。
宗教性身體
一切宗教性都包含著某種無私的奉獻與執著的追求、屈從與反抗、 感官的直接性與精神的抽象性等等的獨特混合…… ─齊美爾
鄭宇翔作品《頭像III 2009》運用斷頭儀式控制進場觀眾之時,權力嚮往的眩目場景隨之而起,在閃頻光線之間,釘死在十字架的基督、死去的馬哈 (Marat)以及他者之頭遺失於圖像上,信仰中心的匱乏黯然降臨,神性失之怯如,觀看肉身不完滿之際,也將旁觀之苦痛攝入 (introjection)身體記憶之中。這是一次再處刑的詭計,只不過這次開鍘的對象是集體潛意識、道德機器與歷史罪行。
作品裝置作為影射歷史與刑罰的特殊想像,身體參與作品的特殊姿態,成了一種歷史擬仿與再現的奇怪關鍵。該作品裝置作為歷史存在物本身,原是遙想電光火石一閃的瞬間痛苦;在歷史上,某個受刑身體的特殊痛苦延伸出歷史進程,單一身體的斷頭之痛延長成為一種集體性凌遲。處決的瞬間除了指涉暴力形塑的所有政治社會關係之外,同時建立了之後被當代社會習以為常的歷史觀點。 (鄭宇翔,2009《頭像III2009》)
達瑪 (Dharma)塑像沉浸 (immersion)於液態、氣態的世界象而來,轉瞬間嘆息真實難尋,木然。頓悟一切皆是虛無幻象,亦是諸法皆成空,虛無間只為求得心中一方寧靜,遠方傳來一陣梵語,飄蕩在空氣中的呼麥聲響引領眾人昇華,佛說偈語:「ㄧ切有為法,如夢幻泡影,如露亦如電,應做如是觀。」
從金色顏料還未填滿佛像時,那似佛非佛的狀態,到完整地呈現出佛像,作品《空》在這樣的過程中蘊藏著禪味。外在及內在兩部影片以面對面的方式投影呈現,象徵著一種鏡射的狀態,內在呼應外在、外在就是內在,兩者相互交織構成佛形…… (張敏智,2008《空》)
小結
身體,作為一種存有表徵的具象介質,集合生命哲理與心智奧秘於其中。世界上最美好的玄妙之音,皆源自於身體。劃開皺摺的皮層,結果是無聲的姿態,生存的謊言,還是高明的偽裝?
tags:
策展論述
情緒
現在說話的是,小護士。
情緒跟表情不是等號,是問號。
我拿了一個紙杯,我在紙杯上畫了一個笑臉,它在對我笑,
我再畫上一張沮喪的臉,它又不開心,只要被冠上了符號,
其實也沒得選擇了。這些乍看很理所當然的體制下,我沒有
辦法選擇笑或不笑,就像那些紙杯一樣,我們可以輕易的做
出種表情,其實也可以很輕易的蒙騙自己。我無法訴說要或
不要,而且還開始恐嚇自己,不准這樣,不准那樣,生活裡
「不行」的比「行」多,「不可以」的比「可以」多,「不
好」的比「好」多。我看著那些小紙杯,他們好麻木,隨意
的被控制,隨意的丟棄情緒。人體是有感覺的生物,我很慶
幸感覺原來是豐富的,亦或說,我喜歡保留這些感覺,縱使
有時會有像胃在翻騰般的不適感,亦或像吃了極為苦澀的食
物噁心感,甚至還有像永遠不會結束般的疼痛感,即使承受
這些,我還是不想忘掉我的情緒我的情感。
其實,我們可以不用這麼正常,我們可以做一個堅持的瘋子。
情緒跟表情不是等號,是問號。
我拿了一個紙杯,我在紙杯上畫了一個笑臉,它在對我笑,
我再畫上一張沮喪的臉,它又不開心,只要被冠上了符號,
其實也沒得選擇了。這些乍看很理所當然的體制下,我沒有
辦法選擇笑或不笑,就像那些紙杯一樣,我們可以輕易的做
出種表情,其實也可以很輕易的蒙騙自己。我無法訴說要或
不要,而且還開始恐嚇自己,不准這樣,不准那樣,生活裡
「不行」的比「行」多,「不可以」的比「可以」多,「不
好」的比「好」多。我看著那些小紙杯,他們好麻木,隨意
的被控制,隨意的丟棄情緒。人體是有感覺的生物,我很慶
幸感覺原來是豐富的,亦或說,我喜歡保留這些感覺,縱使
有時會有像胃在翻騰般的不適感,亦或像吃了極為苦澀的食
物噁心感,甚至還有像永遠不會結束般的疼痛感,即使承受
這些,我還是不想忘掉我的情緒我的情感。
其實,我們可以不用這麼正常,我們可以做一個堅持的瘋子。
tags:
實習現場
20090812
20090811
[公告]場景二進入倒數黃金週!!!
現在說話的是,解剖師2號。
解剖室(場景二)在莫拉克颱風的摧毀之下,所幸沒有大礙,還沒有參觀的觀眾請加快你的腳步,參觀過的觀眾更不要錯過在八月16日(日)下午三點於南海藝廊所舉辦的閉幕對談,你將有機會近距離和神祕的參展藝術家,解剖師1號,解剖師2號,以及多位與談人進行近距離交流喔!!!
解剖室(場景二)在莫拉克颱風的摧毀之下,所幸沒有大礙,還沒有參觀的觀眾請加快你的腳步,參觀過的觀眾更不要錯過在八月16日(日)下午三點於南海藝廊所舉辦的閉幕對談,你將有機會近距離和神祕的參展藝術家,解剖師1號,解剖師2號,以及多位與談人進行近距離交流喔!!!
20090808
20090806
解剖室(場景一)現場大發現
現在說話的是,解剖師2號。
錯過覓空間展出作品的朋友們一定很好奇:「解剖室」(場景一)到底是什麼樣的空間呢?
以下為現場實景:
(入口處)
(趙璐嘉/《緒型物》系列)
(簡郁茜/《無題》系列)
(張敏智/《詭體II》)
(施懿珊/《死亡化學》)
(藍元宏/《存取》系列)
(攝影/杉陽)
錯過覓空間展出作品的朋友們一定很好奇:「解剖室」(場景一)到底是什麼樣的空間呢?
以下為現場實景:
(入口處)
(趙璐嘉/《緒型物》系列)
(簡郁茜/《無題》系列)
(張敏智/《詭體II》)
(施懿珊/《死亡化學》)
(藍元宏/《存取》系列)
(攝影/杉陽)
tags:
場景一
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