弥金 GENE | 《乳香》展览现场

一棵树在其幼苗时，是否有机会决定自己最终长成的形态，并向着目标进发？是否有机会决定自己落叶的时间，以及结果的数量？人类看⻅了这颗树，规范了它的形状，决定了它的用途。若干个千年以前，我们从乳香树皮上割开伤口，观察牛乳一样的汁液从树干缓慢渗出。我们最终选择了成色完整、淡黄微红的半透明凝块，凝练为乳香香料。这种由植物产出的香味树脂，经历过地域、文明的漫⻓旅途，从东西方宗教场合蔓延至后工业化时代的各个行业，被提炼为精油、饮品供以人类使用。

公元11世纪，随着“海上丝绸之路”（又称之为“海上乳香之路”）的建立，阿曼每年向中国出口数十吨以至上百吨乳香。北宋初年，泉州陈洪进遣使于乾德元年（963年）十二月，“贡白金千两，乳香、茶药皆万计。”当天主教的圣相与大雄宝殿的金鸾，共同呼吸这种特殊的香气时，跪拜行礼的信徒们是否心念毁去对方的教义？这些无可追溯的心理活动，让我好奇这种香料源流传移的细微变化；它被人类的提炼过程，是否就像我一样正在被当下的文化信息筛选、修整？我是否有机会塑造我内心渴求的形态，抛弃历史、教义与地域的桎梏，与这种和金银并置用以朝拜的“无用之物”，共同卷入权利、情欲、宗教的幻想与神思？

In the 11th century AD, with the establishment of the "Maritime Silk Road" (also known as the "Maritime Frankincense Road"), Oman exported dozens to hundreds of tons of frankincense to China every year. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, Chen Hongjin sent an envoy from Quanzhou in December of the first year of Qiande (963), "giving thousands of platinum, frankincense, tea, and medicine for tribute." When the Catholic holy minister and the golden Phoenix of the Daxiong Hall, breathe this together, do believers who bow down and salute want to destroy each other's doctrine? These untraceable psychological activities make me wonder about the subtle changes in the spread of the spice source; is it being refined by human beings, just like me, being screened and trimmed by current cultural information? Will I have the opportunity to shape the form of my inner desire, abandon the shackles of history, doctrine, and place, and join this "useless thing" that is juxtaposed with gold and silver for worship, and get involved in power, lust, religious fantasy, and spiritual thinking?

然而，乳香的制作方式自公元三、四世纪绵延至今的制采方式，从未产生过任何变化。二零壹九年末，我关在武汉家中查阅关于乳香采摘的资料，试图以此为参考方式，找到摒除外物让形体从心中诞生的方法。我居住的城市是否曾经留存这个香料的痕迹？似乎没有，往前回溯第二次鸦片战争后，汉口以“不平等条约下开档的通商口岸”为世界所识，喧嚣起来。此后，张之洞起了汉阳铁厂，阅马场病变，苏联援建长江大桥，埋在土里的战国青铜器被挖出陈尸博物馆，锋利的古剑脱鞘而出。直到此刻，窗外疫情肆虐，万籁俱寂。

However, the production method of frankincense has never changed since the third and fourth centuries AD. At the end of 2019, I checked the information on the picking method of frankincense at my home in Wuhan, trying to use this as a reference method to find a way to get rid of the foreign objects and let the body emerge from the heart. Is there any trace of this spice in the city where I live? It seems not. Looking back after the Second Opium War, Hankou became known to the world as a "traffic port opened under an unequal treaty" and became clamorous. After that, Zhang Zhidong set up the Hanyang Iron Factory, the disease of horse-reading field (Yue Ma Chang) broke out, the Soviet Union aided the construction of the Yangtze River Bridge, the Warring States bronzes buried in the soil was dug out and exhibited in the Museum, and the sharp ancient sword was unsheathed. Up to this moment, the epidemic was raging outside the window and everything was silent.

疫情前，我去了那不勒斯的庞贝遗址。十九世纪的后人们发明了一种技术，使当时经历死亡瞬间的面孔生动的复现：石膏被填充进肉体和衣物分解后留下的空间，受难者的面容以石膏呈现尸体残腔。（庞贝人因为火山喷发散出的有毒气体丧生，火山灰沉淀下来成为尸体外壳，随着时间的推移，尸体已经消解，火山灰固化使得尸体轮廓得以保存。）这些烧焦的残骸证实了文明的毁灭与消亡。

我是否和乳香一样漂洋过海又形态依然？

程婷婷

2020年9月13日于武汉

Before the epidemic, I went to the Pompeii ruins in Naples. In the 19th century, people invented a technique to vividly reproduce the faces that experienced the moment of death: plaster was filled into the space left by the decomposition of the flesh and clothing, and the faces and the corpse cavity of the victims were showed by plaster. (The Pompeians were killed by the toxic gas emitted by the volcanic eruption. The volcanic ash precipitated and became the outer shell of the corpse. Over time, the corpse had dissipated and the volcanic ash solidified so that the outline of the corpse was preserved.) These charred remains confirm the destruction of civilization and demise.

Am I going across the ocean like frankincense and still in shape?

Cheng Tingting

13 September 2020, Wuhan

放松-海陆消亡/ RELAX - THE DEMISE OF LAND AND SEA

97X78CM，布面丙烯/ ACRYLIC ON CANVAS，2020

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