PAM荐文｜王尤：一个没有建构终结的星群 —— 蒋志展览《刻舟的人》策展研究

A Constellation Without Termination

Curatorial Preface of the Exhibition of Jiang Zhi: The Man Who Carves the Boat

By Wang You, the Curator

The Universe of Exhibiting

Since 19th century, the modern museum has built a "norm" for public exhibition and appreciation with its pure, bright and neutral spaces, in which different kinds artistic practices can be presented as "works" in these temples of art. For a long period afterwards, the "white cube" is recognized as separation, the one between the works with the living world where they resign, the one between the situations of creating and appreciating, and also the one between the spaces of aesthetic experience and daily experience. At the same time, this definition is merged but also foreignized by consumer and cyber cultures, making the cube a "flipping" space that enables people to actively enjoy, even through the touchscreen. In the process accompanied by the viewers' experiencing and exhibiting, the "meaningful space of particular gazing and speculating" (the original meaning of "museum" in the name of Muse) is narrowed. The presentation of everything now aims to become the beautiful pictures in other screens, which, in the translation of media, is then being represented, together with the viewers' physical existence. The "appreciating system," while performing its duty to separate, penetrates into the social interface accompanied with the "intimacy" between the viewers and the works, and resolves the meaning of the gazed and the related thinking. Will the abovementioned modality change if applied with another separation between visual pressure, direct touch and dynamic pressure? The premise for this should lie in a new extension which drives the balance in all the senses and functions, creates the so-called "new viewpoints" and "new attitude", and even builds a "new preference" for us.

Calling for Viewing

The Man Who Carves the Boat, Jiang Zhi's solo exhibition, hopes to reform "viewing" into a new exhibiting concept by way of changing the exhibiting space: in the universe of exhibiting, a new channel is dug out for reforming the action of "viewing" by minimizing the physical spaces taken by viewers and dimming the lights. Here, the electronic lights, the extension of human function, exemplify as a simple case for us to understand how our sense is changed: the earth takes actions as an organ in the universe, where human functions are treated as ways to merge into the power of universe. The dark night, while limiting the actions of the horizon, leads our eyes to the starry sky, which, obviously, emphasizes the meaning of the starry sky as the target. Later on, the electronic lights are turned on, highlighting a new world of senses…

Let's say that we are now in a universe of exhibition, with the embodiment of faces, languages, fairytales and desires. Its form may need installing by a universe order before it can reiterate in the cycle of human physical organs and social extension. In this installation calling for viewing, the viewers though stop far off the work, but rather step into the work. There, the lights of gaze, one after another, are shed directly into the ocean of meaning. 

Jiang Zhi keeps recording the things and events around him, which is fully demonstrated in his long-term series Moment. He is so described by his friend: "In his giant form, he keeps changing himself at an unprecedented speed while roaring forward alongside the road. At the same time, he insists on photographing the subtleties found during the process." The artist views the world through photographing, which becomes the theme of this exhibition, namely presenting the "viewing on the viewing" in artistic creation. In this process, multiple eyes of extension are created to embrace the traditional real-life forms; a new space for consciousness is shaped.  

The Time in the Wall

The sights of the viewers' reach the works at the speed of c=299792458m/s, indicating that the views are already those in the past. Then, the wall of viewing in the exhibiting symbolizes the passing of time. As is in our minds, the stars in the eyes all show to us in their past forms; the facets that we see all show to us in their "familiar faces". The status quo that we observe are the facts of the past; the events that are happening exert influences only on future. Upon this wall of symbol, our past is shown - the events that happened before the current viewing; our future is shown - the events that are about to happen after the current viewing. Between the past and future, another interval, neither belonging to the past nor to future, show its existence: it harbors a period of time, but without a period of certainty - this is the extension of the present. 

Yet, the number of lives determines the number of perceptions of time, which is the one defined by modern physicists and the scientists alike. They no longer define events by the concept of time; instead, they believe every single entity has its own time and space. What's more, as we live in a world with information changing constantly that is enabled by electricity, time and space merge into each other in this world. Under such quantum interference, each viewer enjoys his/her own "perception of time" - and his/her own "familiar face". The "peculiarity" of this planet - the name of immorality brought about by printing and the mediocrity in daily life brought about by the counting of clocks - generated by the pressure of mushrooming new media is fully descripted in Shakespeare's Sonnet: "When I do count the clock that tells the time, and see the brave day sunk in hideous night…Then of thy beauty do I question make, that thou among the wastes of time must go (Sonnet 12)." However, another poet describes time in a similar but different way as his lovely lover, as in Andrew Marvell's long poem To His Coy Mistress: "Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime…An hundred years should go to praise thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze…And the last age should show your heart." In this way, a unified time continuity is strengthened in our perception of time with the help of mechanical clocks which divide time into slices. 

展览现场“木木漫游记”

Carving the Boat

In Jiang Zhi's story, "the man who carves the boat" "borrowed a knife from the old boatman and made a notch where the sword fell from the boat. " He "knew clearly that it was futile to carve a mark on the boat. But the notch itself was a record. He carved it to remind him that this was the place where he lost it. This behavior was about completing a deed of faith. The lost thing needs to be remembered." (Jiang Zhi, The Man Who Carves the Boat)

"The literate" is often described ironically as being prone to "look in amaze" or "point out in pride"; but they tend to overlook what is going on in front of their eyes despite their scrupulousness. McLuhan's "impercipience of the ubiquitous" may apply to this situation. However, Jiang Zhi is prone to "carve": he not only records the episodes surrounding him, the transient facial expressions, and the projection of social behaviors, but also keeps some status down by way of drawing, photographing and filming - he tends to grasp meaning through the pictures, to generate a different kind of truth, or to appease… In other words, this exhibition is aggregated with carved meanings. 

Or, the opening hand in his video work Gift (not exhibited this time) which grasps neither sand nor light is for carving the boat. The man who carves the boat, after losing his sword, "bended over the side of the boat and stretched his arms into the river, trying to get his sword back. But nothing remained in his hands but water. He stared at his wet palms and saw water-drops dripping from his fingers." At that time, he knew that only carving, or recording, can engrave: to engrave the sword, the light, the sand, the gift. They can never belong to anyone; they can never be sent to anyone; they can only be engraved upon the mind.

"Carving" as Medium

Nevertheless, if we view "carving" (or recording) as a kind of medium, we should not understand them in the logic of speaking, nor the logic of syntax. As a kind of message, "carving" serves as the extension of the inner desire. At the same time, with the injection of the new measurement to view the past and the memory, it fills every piece of "the present" into the slot of time, making it unique in action. Taking "carving", the action, as the medium also matters to how we consider the shift from "marking" to "conserving desire", or the shift from "carving the boat for the sword" to "carving the boat, but not for the sword". This signifies the establishment of a new shift mechanism. This action medium functions more on the meaning, rather than the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, or the body… It disturbs the sequential movement of time and alters the direction of sights, which enables the past memories to be dug out of the current semantic potentials. 

For instance, the action of photographing, in its process to shift the sensation, promotes the development of self-consciousness. No matter in public or in private, photographing changes the targets' facial expressions, makeups, and postures - it also casts influences on our inner status and enables inner dialogues. Once we realize that the times of Jung and Freud, the times of self-demanding, share the same features with the time of photographing, we will be able to comprehend why the grand process of untangling inner life is strengthened by the culture of new pictorial gestalt. In other words, medium, as a kind of force, casts influences on the human inner world. In such works as Maidenlike, All Too Maidenlike!  and Salt of 0.7%, photographing, videos, news, networks and other media show themselves as translators and magnifiers in the shadows of the characters; some of them even surpass the target faces and become the masters of meaning, for the essence of medium is "message" which assumes a higher rank than the "content". In addition to its influences on the inner world, we can scarcely find its parallel in human's efforts to arrange the living spaces (such as residence and cities), as evidenced by a case of our intolerance towards the photos of slums. "Message" stipulates strongly the social structures to the extent that it can dismantle and reconstruct reality. This is addressed in the photographic work A Perfect Life and the video work Poetics (not exhibited this time). The mere matching between the contents in photos or videos and the reality will suffice for the motivation of the upcoming changes, as it provides motivations for travelling. Medium, as the extension of the human physical body and neural system, composes an interface where biochemistry and sociality interact: for the new extension is ever stretching and each individual, even the world itself, is constantly seeking for new balance. 

The Electricity and Light Generated upon “Carving”

The powers of electricity and light intermingle into electro-optics. Even though both "electricity" and "light" are media without "contents", they exert self-evident influences on the reform of human society. New demanding and the corresponding technical development accumulate and finally result into an unprecedented inner explosion, instead of a traditional external one. The process of light entering the rooms is described in Jiang Zhi's short poem as "shamelessly". In this era of digital media, everything can be saved and transformed with no worry of speed. In this sense, time no long matters to a global society because nothing will stop, so will no one.  At the same time, we have no chance to embody the description "it is like striking the stone and flashing as the lightening" as in Wu Deng Hui Yuan of Shipuji, Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279).

Yes, it is an inner explosion at the speed of electricity, rather than the speed of light for we are yet to reach for the latter. The inner explosion starts the universe, divides human from ape, and generates life and death…It also resolves the concept of time, the original existence, and the inherent perception of people. The collision of electricity and light also exists in the works Shining, It Becomes Easy once It Happens, Elegy, and even Love Letter, which brings us to experience an "explosion" that transcends the time. The generated "mushroom clouds" are too beautiful to appreciate considering the potential radiation…Because humans loathe, from the deep of the heart, the process in which they are involved.

What's more, The Man Who Carves the Boat aims to open a value space for memory. Reluctant to see fragmentariness in historical memory, Jiang Zhi collects the fire that may be extinguished by time, and the memory that may be forgotten. In his temporary act of collecting, he tries to resist the loss and destruction of memory. This collection is not for restoring an orderly arranged time, but for collaging time which is shown in the juxtaposition of entities in chaotic and scattered ways. The statically and orderly arranged time does not apply to the past which is agglomerated in a special focus; rather, it is apathetic to the current time, and then indifferent to the signals towards the present sent by the electricity and light through memories, or to the expression of more semantic potentials. 

展览现场“娇羞的，太娇羞的！”

Constellation

"We think that we own it. But actually, you could also understand it in this way, that we did not really own anything."

"The sword of the past, the sword of the future and the sword of the present, are all unavailable."

"Of course, nothing is better than leaving a mark on where the thing was lost, as long as it needs to be remembered."

"The action of 'doing it, but not getting anything' has its own significance."

(Jiang Zhi, The Man Who Carves the Boat)

About the Past, Present and Future

On the wall of universe, there is no clock to regulate a standard time for us. Everyone and every entity records its own time from the pocket watch that only belongs to oneself, which though constantly changes due to the speed and gravity - Here lies the profoundness of Einstein's relativity; and even the Newtonian physics never believes the existence of a single and universal "present". We will never be able to find a star of "present", even whose connotation means nothing. Our "presence at the same present" is merely an illusion based on our close locations with each other. However, the truth is that you can only see the one in front of your eyes in one's past form (though the "past" counts by nanosecond). We know that: the ancients will never see the moon of the present which also never sheds its light upon the ancients. It then is meaningless to ask "What are you doing?", as meaningless as to ask "Where does Shenzhen locates in the galaxy of VGS_31?" Human's commonsense on "future" or "past" may not apply to the universe other than the earth, which though reflects the real life of the latter. 

Except the present, sensation and memory are also transient, unlike the "planet sky" which the ancients believe is permanent and later turns out to be wrong: it is not like a piece of wallpaper on the ceiling.  Sensation, as the form of preliminary cognition, is enabled with the exterior information collected and accepted through the various organum sensuum, indicating the individual attribute and feature of entity generated in the brain. The memories of the past are not stored in a huge video library in which we search for the records of events in life. In fact, we change the memories and thus make them meaningful. Every time we recall a piece of episode in the past, we reconstruct it in the brain for the possibly emerging new information, which, in all, is based on our changeable sensation. Responsibly speaking, we should look up into the stars for the pure past. "We return to the hometown, for what? We can no longer find the section of life that existed in the past, as everyone fully knows. But you keep on searching - this action is carried on, just as the desire in your life. It is in this process which brings about no result that we find something else."

A Constellation without Termination

How do we know we are "gaining other meaning"?

The aim of this exhibition is to establish a kind of relation between sight and the target in the sight, which shall not be compulsory, but be loosely connected, just like stars. Similar to the "montage" in modernism, the exhibition establishes relations between the events in the past, or those with the present. It, while mirroring the historical development, reflects the shift from "fairy tales" to historical concepts. Each star is in itself independent; but they together form constellations- such a relation guarantees the independence and essence of each star, which promotes the inestimable gravity and tension with other stars, and thus elaborates the juxtaposition of their equal existence. They are metaphors and fables to each other; they attract and influence each other; and they collide and struggle with each other, rather than resorting to compromise or merger. 

Yet, the relations among the works react to the generalization of the exhibition, which may be seen in a critical eye. In the exhibition, elements or events in the work are not expected to express their literal meanings (such as a puppet in adventure, a flower on fire, or an actress who is crying); instead, the relations form a network, or space, inside which the ever-changing elements are equally at the same status without the existence of a center. This is similar to the stars in each constellation which together depict the pattern of the whole; no star enjoys a more important status than the others. In this sense, the composition of the exhibition focuses something out of the system which cares for the individuality of the work. Such relations among the works create a kind of force field, upon which are the viewers. The feature and dynamics of such force field are activated through the interaction, communication and complementation between the each section of the exhibition. At the same time, after the composition becomes, in its essence, language-like, a representation of a concept that is not defined, new connotations are endowed through positioning a concept into the relation. 

Among all the exhibitions, The Man Who Carves the Boat is not recognized as an individual object, nor as a representation of constellation; instead, it is positioned as a section in a force field where the correlations and mutual-functions of concepts are stressed, thus assuming the position as an object in a free and open process. The exhibition, as a counter-system, applies its spatial features to explain the nonlinear tension between each component, creating a force field for us to ponder over the nonidentity which represents a relation of unstable yet peaceful coexistence among each individual along the historical past. With this, it is hopeful to release the concept of exhibition from the standard mode for a new series of possibilities: for instance, a movement made up by interrelations, an action of viewing that enables the self-updating of meaning, a safe box with endless keys, or a constellation without termination. 

展览现场 文献区