溫哥華的汽車圖騰

car-totem有一天,貴人遞給我保時捷跑車鑰匙,借我過把癮。在提不起速度的溫哥華市中心街道車流中行駛,它像一頭有脾氣卻不能發作的野牛。在我左右都是油光錚亮的新車,但偏偏我正前方是一輛非常舊款的豐田花冠(Corolla),暗淡蒼白的車身、生硬的造型、了無生趣地橫在我眼前,擋去我飛馳的宏心壯志。我不耐煩地朝它翻白眼,卻在不經意間見到了高聳入天的汽車圖騰。

1980年,溫哥華長大的Marcus Bowcott在卑詩省一家拖船公司工作。在工作中,他經常見到大批被淘汰的汽車被運往廢品工廠。他就在想:這些車是如何從慾望對象變成廢物的?在2015年,他的思考成為了一件公共藝術品。

這件作品將5輛小汽車疊加焊接在一起,汽車自上而下從大到小,款式從新到舊,最上面是90年代的通用汽車Tran Am跑車。Marcus把它們安放到一棵8米高的杉樹粗大樹杆頂端。這作品現被安裝在溫哥華市中心福溪(False Creek)附近繁忙馬路中間的綠色小三角地。這件藝術品名字是Tran Am Totem,我把它稱為汽車圖騰。

這些凌空的汽車高高在上,俯視著周圍穿梭的同類。保時捷也不及其壯觀,看來還是藝術更高。地面上車輛從它旁邊經過,就是對汽車圖騰的膜拜,印證社會的物質追求,堅定飛龍騰達的志氣。可是從另一個角度來看,Marcus用的車全是報廢車廠的免費捐贈。如果單為了頌揚物質價值觀,他為何不選2015年新豪華車?

有一個概念叫做「計劃報廢」(planned obsolescence),說的是生產廠家在生產過程中故意限制產品的壽命,或者故意讓其過時,促使消費者不得不購買更新換代的產品。這種做法在各個生產行業都極為普遍,精致的手機今年買兩年後就過時了,從高新科技產業最易看出這種規律。但如果沒有計劃報廢,一款產品怎麼用都不會壞,那就沒人買新東西了,那就沒有市場和經濟發展了。汽車本來的自然壽命要比市場給予的更長,但計劃報廢提早把汽車送進了垃圾場。由於生產者與消費者的信息不對稱,許多消費者只是責備自己:為什麼我總趕不上形勢?

Marcus很直觀地把「計劃報廢」的副作用表現出來。他的圖騰看上去高大上,但用的是廢棄汽車,強調了消費品成為大量垃圾的現實,這就是資源不必要的浪費。一輛汽車疊在另一輛上面,一輛比一輛大,這是消費慾望隨著產品更新不斷膨脹;而且這種疊加似乎永無止境之勢。把汽車放在加西最普遍見到的杉樹樹杆頂端,那是真觀地表現這種浪費對於自然環境的壓力 。杉樹同時還提醒開車人,100多年前這裏沒有馬路;這裏是一片與史丹利公園一樣鬱鬱蔥蔥的杉樹林,希望開車人對環境要有敬意。

趁著紅燈的停頓,我仰望端詳汽車圖騰。其實,這5輛車作為代步工具的基本功能並無差別,或許只是消費文化把四輪工具浪漫化了,引導我們用過快的心陳代謝去感受世界。如果去除「計劃報廢」,我眼前的這輛舊式豐田車就是社會自然發展的常態,我借來兜風的保時捷,卻是環境資源透支的非正常產物。

社會經濟邏輯就是這麽奇怪,正常與非正常在大眾的社會認知中剛好是倒過來的。但不管道理在何方,此時此刻保時捷踩油門加速的快感才是真實。我嗖的一聲超過那輛花冠車,側眼見到花冠車司機平靜地看了我一眼,仍舊不緊不慢地和汽車圖騰一起消失在我的觀後鏡中。

爵士的自由精神

在這個不冷不熱的夏天傍晚,溫哥華的「時尚劇院」(Vogue Theatre)不大不小的空間裏座無虛席。大家的眼光集中在舞台上鋼琴前,一位扎著蓬鬆頭發的女士,十指快如閃電地在鍵盤上疾走。旁邊的鼓手,叮叮噹噹也如狂風驟雨。她的手指太快,以至於無法坐著彈,身體自然地半站著。密集音符排山倒海,將觀眾呼吸之間的空隙霎時填滿,心室也像被一團迅速化學反應的空氣塞滿,像漲滿的氣球。在滿溢的緊繃的身體極限感受中,神經和思想完全作廢,能做的只是目瞪口呆;能感知的只有太陽穴的脈搏,以及比脈搏快很多倍的節奏和旋律。這不是搖滾,而是爵士。這是上原廣美(Hiromi Uehara)。

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-3-06-35-am溫哥華國際爵士音樂節每年的夏天定期在溫市中心及多個表演場所舉行,為期都是10天左右。今年,包括上原廣美在內的多達1,800名音樂家參與300多場演出。露天免費演出,黑壓壓人羣,收費劇院外排長龍買票,票價不菲。以溫哥華區區60萬的人口基數,這些數字說明爵士音樂在這裏大紅大紫。爵士何以如此受推崇?在亞洲,爵士似乎沒有熱度,但為何又偏偏是個亞洲人,成為溫哥華爵士的焦點之一?坐在我旁邊的女士住卑詩內陸,專程開車4個小時來聽上原廣美,晚上11點結束後再4小時回家。或許從上原廣美身上,可以看出一些門道。

上原廣美出場前,熱場的是一個較舒慢平滑的本地爵士樂隊,主唱是位舉止優雅的白人女士。令人想起咖啡店,甚至想起了30年代的老上海那種個人擺搖起舞的爵士樂。在那個摩登時代,上海引領亞洲的現代文化,爵士樂是這種現代化的重要標誌。燈紅酒綠中,被譽為「爵士樂之父」的Louis Armstrong也到上海來吹小號,或許還吹過《夜上海》,直至美夢一朝斷,爵士風在那裏不再標韻。

從那裏起,爵士樂幾經轉變,音樂家不斷拓展爵士樂的界限及種類。定義模糊的爵士樂可容納許多不同元素:1930年代舞蹈韻律的爵士,1950年代音樂家的自由爵士,再到1970年代搖滾味道的爵士。不管哪種爵士,其核心都是「即興」演奏。因為爵士樂的這種自由機制,給了這種僅有百年歷史的藝術形式以無窮的生命力。

上原廣美出場了!萬眾期待。她穿著, 與她搭檔的是來自紐約、曾獲得格萊美提名的六弦低音吉它手Anthony Jackson和來自英國倫敦、進入鼓手名人堂的鼓手Simon Phillips。他們一落席演奏就是高潮,不容分說地把觀眾的音樂感知帶到沸點。

有人說上原廣美搞怪。她1979年出生在日本,從6歲開始就學古典鋼琴,按照要求中規中矩、一字一眼地把每個古典音符彈準,以音樂天才被人發現。20歲時她去了波士頓音樂學院學習,就走向一個不羈的方向。她演出時不著黑色長袍,卻穿著街道服裝;有時彈著彈著,她就直立起來;有時還會隨意用手撩撥大鋼琴背後的琴弦;當Simon在台上獨奏表演時,她竟然在台上漫步,全然不把舞台的正規舉止當回事;她在大鋼琴上方放了一個電子琴(keyboard),有時左手彈鋼琴鍵盤,右手同時彈電子琴;她還會帶一條健身房的白毛巾上台,用來擦汗。她完全隨心所欲,完全沈浸在自己的音樂極樂世界。

在我看來,這就是忠於藝術的真實,就是自由。她會作曲,但每次表演,她都讓位於演奏時此時此刻的心情,與Simon進行即興配合,渾然天成。Simon說:「她和我在台上就是在即時玩貓與老鼠的遊戲。」Jackson流暢的低音吉它,在鼓點與鋼琴的配合中當柔順濟。他說,「音樂是無限的。」

爵士樂隊的即興表演,通常是音樂家的自娛自樂,有時不一定好看。但像上原廣美與Simon玩弄到這種排山倒海的程度,則讓人無法不瞠目結舌。當然,上原廣美間或也會演奏一段似水流年的舒緩獨奏,讓觀眾靜聽浪漫,瞭解她豐富的才藝。當一個人對一門藝術嫺熟到如此程度,那種迸發出來的自由非常迷人,鄰座的女士非常同意我的看法。

上原廣美拿過話筒,用日本口音的英語向觀眾說:我愛溫哥華!一位觀眾大聲喊,溫哥華愛你!我想,全球化的文化不再分你我,音樂是最容易國際化的藝術形式之一。上原廣美一反西方人所想像的日本女性傳統形象,或許也是一個原因,使她受到溫哥華這個追求自由年輕城市的歡迎,因為她體現了爵士的自由精神。

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-3-06-50-am

将中国功夫变成当代艺术

Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, Montreal, Canada. 语言,是不认真的(insincere),是说一套做一套的(hypocrite);肢体运动才是纯粹的真实的表达。图片引自gxo.com

Lily Eng是谁?她是多伦多的当代舞蹈艺术家。她的舞蹈不是通俗的优美的舞台造型,而是偏向于观念艺术的舞蹈。她早年是个中国功夫的专家,她后来把中国功夫的招式变成了她自创的舞蹈。说是她的舞蹈,其实更确切的说法应该是“肢体运动”(Body Movement),因为她的动作是随机性的,是完全以自我为中心的,而非以取悦观众,以好看为目的。之所以要写她的舞蹈,就是因为她这个观念有意思。

Eng最出名的表演可能是她在德国卡赛尔文献展6(Documenta 6,1977年9月)的表演了。她和当时大名鼎鼎的Joseph Beuys(即发明“社会雕塑”(social sculpture)的那个法国人)合作。肢体动作是表演的中心。此外,有一段视频,是Eng在一个无人的商场通道上的表演。Eng有一次在多伦多表演的时候,她设计的动作是从艺术馆的台阶上滚下来。正在表演中,保安人员误会了,以为出了意外,上前帮忙,结果被Eng给骂了一顿。Eng的视频是按照时间的先后顺序来播放的。她有时候是一个人表演,有时候是和合作者一起表演。譬如有一段视频,她和另外两名男生三个人一起对打,不是一对二,而是一对一对一,即是三个人都互为敌手。另一段视频即是她自创的“功夫舞蹈”(我暂用这个词来概括她的既功夫又舞蹈、或者既不功夫又不像舞蹈的身体动作)。是她挨在一个砖墙的墙角,就在那点方寸掣肘之地,她开始比划她的功夫舞蹈。明明在砖墙的前方有一片空地,她就是不过去,就是将自己蜗居在角落里。

Museum of Modern Art, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy. 墙角的舞蹈。图片引用自www.gxo.com

2) 身体动作是大学问。Eng的兴趣就是去探究这些学问。有人写过一篇文章叫做The Spirit of Failure《失败的精神》,其中一句话被引用到Eng身上:语言,是不认真的(insincere),是说一套做一套的(hypocrite);肢体运动是纯粹的真正的表达。我不知道别人怎么想,但对我来说,这句话启发了我,我要找一天,不说话也不听别人说话,我就观察人们在日常中的肢体运动。我会隔着封闭的玻璃窗看街上的行人,我会站在面包店的橱窗外,看面包师傅的烤面包的动作,收钱的动作,和他身边的女同事调情的动作。把语言剔除掉,把重点放在动作本身,用新的视觉去了解平常的世界,应该很有意思。我要回到婴儿时代。那时候,我匍匐前进,我不懂得说话也听不懂大人们嘴唇一张一合发出来的古怪的声响;我能做的,就是看我身边的人的肢体,然后就明白他们是什么意思。那样的世界很纯粹,很简单,又很真实。肢体运动,包含着很多可读的丰富内容,难怪Eng说她在研究肢体动作。1) Eng说,我的动作与别人相反,我将自己极限起来,然后在极限中进行运动,从中我体会到自由的痛快。她用了一句概括这种观念:“给我一英寸,我给你一个世界。”我不知道别人对些怎么看,我对这种说法很感兴趣。这种说法稀释并改变了我对她第一印象的不安感。我觉得在她“作茧自缚”是有道理的,我能体会到她在有限制的空间里的运动,确实有一种浓缩的自由,一种带着镣铐跳舞的深层次的自在和从容。这可以延伸到一种态度的哲学,我感觉我学到了一些东西。我觉得她的动作,进入了我的血液,让我有一种拥抱不完美的世界的冲动。

对于Eng来说,她跳功夫舞蹈的心理状态,应该属于我上面想像中的最后的最自由的那一种,但又不像我那样的全无章法。我真羡慕她,可以那么自由。不过,这自由涉及到美感的问题。Eng并没有谈这个话题,因为在当代艺术界,有没有美感是比较次要的。但从她的话语中可以看出她对这个问题的态度。她说,“传统的舞蹈,你要跳得完美,而我不在乎。我是不断地跳,把自己跳得精疲力竭,我不断地流汗。”(她在座谈会上指着自己的额角说)

关注流浪汉的艺术家

麦克(Michael Frannas),六十出头的艺术家,南加勒比海岛国出生,少年时期移民加拿大至今,自六十年代以来一直从事艺术创作,现工作生活于加拿大东部海岸城市Halifax,创作的同时兼任当地一家艺术院校教职。因为麦克在我工作的艺术画廊做驻地创作,我采访了麦克。

麦克认为艺术与生活不应该有界限,这点不奇怪,我接触过的大部分的艺术家都这么说。但麦克的独特之处在于他很固执地实践这一理论。比如说,他光天白日下搬一张椅子到行人拥挤的街区上坐着,什么事也不做,就这么一直坐着,从天亮到天黑,直到警察过去找他问话。

有路人问他,“你是从事什么工作的?” 他就给他们说他所做过的各种具体事情,“但是,”他说:“我从不提起我是艺术家。因为,一旦我说出艺术家的身份,普通人就本能地和我保持了距离。他们就会认为,我跟他们不一样,我做的事情都是出于艺术的目的。” 马克又说:“其实人与人都是一样的,不应该有这样的隔阂。艺术不应该拒人于门外,人们也不应该拒绝艺术。”

麦克还给我讲另外一个例子。Halifax市中心有一个地方叫“比萨角落”(PISSA CORNER)。这个地方通常被认为是全市治安最乱的地方,但又是晚上人气最旺的地方,因为晚上大部分商业街区都已关门,只有这里开着。经常有学生及晚上出来找乐的人经常聚集在这里。有一天晚上,麦克一个人来到这里,坐下来,面对着一个墙角,低着头,慢慢地吃着比萨饼。“我专心致志地吃(mind my pissa).” 马克说,他完全不在乎周围的哄闹以及随时会发生的治安事件。

他的意思是要观察这个环境,对他来说,个人的体验,才是最重要的。不是别人的成见。不在意别人的体验,不在意别人怎么说。在这个吵吵闹闹的地方,他独特地存在着。

马克又谈了他的另一种做法。加拿大西部城市卡尔加里是比较有钱的城市,集中着许多石油公司。有这么一家石油公司,其总部大楼前面是一个小公园,属于公司所有。公园里鸟语花香,但没有人光顾。毕竟是私家地方,闲人无权享用。有一天,麦克来了。他每天都到小公园里闲坐,坐到了第三天,大楼里面出来一个保安,问他在干什么。

卡尔加里的一家私人公园

麦克给我解释说:我要看看权力的界限在哪里;探究公共的空间和私人的空间的关系。于是警察来了,说:“先生,这是私人的地方,你要么离开,要么去警察所。” 麦克于是走出来了。马克问警察:“这门外面的人行道是不是私人地方?”警察说不是。
“那好。我不进去,我站在这门口。”
保安不愿意,说“你不能站在这里。”
“为什么?”
“因为我们不想你站在这里。”
于是麦克说:“好。那我走就是。”
马克说走,但却没有离开。他反复地在大楼口的人行道上来回地踱步。
这回保守和警察都拿他没办法了。
“这人行道不是私人的,我有权在这上面走吧。”
警察说,“你当然可以这么做。”
保安面色不悦,却也无计可施。

我:你是按照不同的情景来重新定义空间。在他们的情景里,你是个怪异的人。你做正常人的做法。
麦克:什么是正常?他们建了这么漂亮的公园,却不让平常人进去行走,这正常吗?这么漂亮的地方,空荡荡的没有一个人。
我走我的路,不妨碍他人,为什么就不正常呢?
我:你走路不妨碍他人,但却是异乎寻常的,自然会引起别人的怀疑,以为你要图谋不轨,或者当你是精神有问题的人。那你就这样走着,不觉得无聊吗?你都做了些什么事?
麦克:在公园里,我帮一个拾破烂的人整理他的物品,把塑料瓶的归一类,把有用的又归一类。我觉得这很有意思。

麦克似乎对什么人都感兴趣。他给我说另一件事。

纽约地铁里的无家可归者。

可是,麦克也不是随便地同情穷人的。麦克就是这样喜欢体味不同人的生活状态。麦克对这人的态度很赞赏。他觉这个人拥有自由,因为他无所牵挂。他很想改变我对无家可归者的偏见。

有一回,麦克正在街上走着,突然有人对他说,“先生,我真的好饿,给我点钱买吃的吧”。麦克:“你骗我”。“我没有”,对方说。“你在骗我”。麦克又很肯定地说。对方还是说没有。“那好,你跟我来”。麦克把这人带到一个餐馆。餐馆不让他们进去,因为这个人衣着太破太不雅观,餐饮怕影响了生意。去了第二家餐馆,这一家给进了。坐下来,麦克帮他点了菜。菜上来了,放在这个人的面前。这人拿起刀叉,但下不了手。过了几分钟,他终于他放弃了,垂了头。眼泪流了下来。然后,突然起身就走了。

我说,他恨你?

麦克:他更恨他自己。

(*注:因为那个人欺骗麦克说饿了要钱,但被揭穿了。)

我:从你的这些做法来看,似乎挺左的。我有种感觉,好像加拿大的艺术家在政治上多数偏左派,不知对不对?

麦克想了想,说:艺术家是这样的。我们现时的潮流是右派的,所以,艺术家偏左。但是,以后哪一天风向变了,潮流偏左了,那么,艺术家就会偏右了。

我:哈哈,就是要对着干?

麦克挺认真地说:艺术家总是站在反对派的角色来审视社会。纽约地铁里的无家可归者。

分析我们日常生活中“看”的动作

我们都知道古罗马帝国鼎盛时期有一个凯撒大帝(Julius Caesar),他独揽大权,南征北战。公元前47年,在Zela这个地方(现土耳其境内),他轻快地打败了劲敌旁托斯(Pontus),然后非常气势磅礴地说了一句话“我来了——我看见——我征服——”(拉丁语”Veni, vidi, vici”)。这句话被后人反复地应用,可见这句话的感染力。在这句话里,为什么他要说“我看见”?说“我来了,我征服”,意思不就已经完整了吗?为什么要多了个“我看见”?用眼睛看,是人的五个感官功能之一。如果非要用身体的感官来强调凯旋的感受,那为什么不说“我闻到”(胜利的味道)或者“我听到”(胜利的欢呼)? 变成“我来了,我闻到,我征服”?这么说显然不行,只有“我看到”份量最重,缺少了它或换成别的说法,凯撒的话就少了威猛。那么,是什么原因让“我看到”变得如此之有力量?

回到我们的日常生活。看, 是我们每天都要做的最基本的动作。我们早上起床, 拉开窗帘看外面的天空; 我们看报纸, 看电视;  我们走到街上, 我们看行人, 看小狗, 看亭台楼宇。看, 是停不了的动作, 只要眼睛一睁开, 我们就不停地看。“看”,是普普通通的动作,但是,在这篇文章里,我要审视“看”的过程, 要说明“看”并不普通。

看, 其实是很具有穿透力的。 为什么这么说呢? 看, 表面上就是为了获得视觉上的信息, 比如说, 这个苹果是绿带斑点的, 那个是白里透红的。但是, 看, 似乎并不仅仅满足于能摄取到的视觉内容。看, 更多时候是为了穿透被看的事物的表象去了解本质。比如说, 有一天我们在街上闲逛,街上迎面走来一个行人,我们简简单单地对她一瞥, 我们看到了她是穿着红裙子绿毛衣,然后我们继续走我们的路。在这里我要问,我们看到了什么?看到了她的衣着,还有别的吗?答案是有。在这短短的半秒钟内的视觉扫射, 我们就本能地去揣测她衣着底下是个什么性格或者什么类型的人。红裙子绿毛衣, 是我们视觉上看到的内容, 但却不是我们”看”的终极目的。看的终极目的, 是为了看穿, 为了寻找表面上看不到的东西。表面上在看她穿红戴绿, 实际上,我们的视线在她身上窜来窜去,是试图要看到她的性格、她的气质、她的品味、她的职业、她的经济状况等等一些没有视觉轮廓的内容。这,才是整个看的过程。

补充强调一下: 上面说的看, 并不一定是指注视, 可以是随随便便的瞅, 不经意的, 下意识的。如果再简单地分析, 看的过程, 是由两部分组成的, 第一是瞳孔的动作, 当瞳孔的中心对准被看的事物时, 这事物就在视网膜上留下影印。第二部分是网膜上的信息传递到大脑神经进行处理,我们才看到要看的事物。可以简单地说, 第一部分是看的动作, 第二部分是看的心理。但是, 这么说往往造成一种错觉, 好像这两部分是有时间先后的, 先是动作后是心理。 实际上, 这两部分是同时发生的, 不能分开的,没有大脑神经的信息处理,我们是感受不到视网膜上的影像的。这也即是说, 看她的衣装和看她的性格是不能分开的, 都是看的过程的一部分。我们通常的理解, 就是第一部分, 看她的衣装, 但在这里, 我要强调的是, 我们除了看她的衣装, 还在看她的性格。

在这里还要再补充一下,此“看”非那“看”。在中文里,我们时常会讲“对于这个事情,你是怎么看的?“这里的看,是”理解“的意思,是指理性的思维。我们也会时常讲”要透过现象看本质。“请注意,在这里,这个”看“字其实也是”理解“的意思。即是说,我们要观察事物的外表,但不能停留在外表,要分析理解其内里隐含的意思。这与”看她的性格“的”看“是不同的。后者是指进行时态的”看“,是指在”看“的过程中瞬间发生的包括动作与心理在内的行为,而前者是在完成了看的过程之后的思维活动。

Barbara Kruger的作品。英文字的意思是:你的视线击中我的脸颊。

这种穿透力,来自于“看“的目的性。看的动作里,包含着我们总想要看到更多表面上看不到的东西。在这里,要强调的是”想要看到更多“,而不是我们已经看到了”更多“什么。想要看到,并不等于我们就一定看到了。我不在乎我们究竟是看到那位穿红裙子的女士的大方性格,还是她的高贵品味;我在乎的是,我们想看透她的努力。”想要看到“是我们“看”的努力,在我们的眼睛注视的瞬间,这种努力就在那里了。彩票中心的工作人员把你中头奖的钞票一哗啦放在你面前,那白花花的绿色纸币,像施了魔咒一样紧紧地勾住你的眼神,你盯着它们,从这堆钱的最左边一张看到最右边的一张,又从最上面一张看到最下面一张。你当然知道钱长什么样子,但为什么你还在不停地看呢?因为你在努力,你想要看到的,可能是个豪宅,是一大堆名牌,是个金钱爱人,是些幻影般的物欲横流纸醉金迷的景象。如果这个例子太俗气,那再举一个:我们站在海边,迎着海风,向着宽广的地平线望去,我们想要看到的,是更远更远的地方的那个海浪、那个石礁、那只飞鸟和那朵云。我们的视线有种意愿,就是要无限的穿透,我们总是试图要看到更多,更多。

说到这里,我要笼统地用一句话来小结:看,就是努力地穿透。明白这一点有什么意义呢?用“看的穿透性“来解释文学和艺术的现象就更加有意思了。凯撒大帝的那句“我看见“,其力量就在于“看“的穿透性。中国古诗也有类似的说法:”欲穷千里目,更上一层楼。“就是一个例子,“千里目”和“欲穷”都表示了“看”的努力。这些将在下一篇文章里再详细讲述了。明白看的穿透性还拥有社会学的意义。小明在街上发现一个性感的女孩从身旁掠过,他就缓下脚步,几经回头盯着她忽悠忽悠的屁股。旁边的大娘大婶不屑地指指点点。小明心理说:“不就是看一眼嘛,有什么了不起?又没有碰到她,要什么打紧?“我们通常认为,看,是没有身体接触的,所以,不会伤到被看者的一根毫毛。但其实并不如此。小明的那一看是不干净的,为什么呢?他那一看,是想穿透她的衣服抵达她的肌肤的。这种看,不仅是接触,而且是侵犯性的接触,那视线在她身上爬来爬去,然后钻进了她的衣服,不是玷污是什么?在这个例子里,看的穿透还不会导致严重的后果,在种族主义敏感的地方,不同族类的人之间的看和被看,那其后果是可以引起大的种族冲突的。所以,不要以为“看”只是简单的视觉现象,而是可能成为复杂的社会学问题。在一些地方,不要乱看。

 

text waiting to be used

蘇東悅, 署名東,或者東東,英文名是Dong Su。出生广东,定居加拿大多年。从事艺术工作和写作。想了解更多,請點按我的故事。

对 我来说,阅读外国文化的最大兴趣点在于:他们在谈什么,他们是怎么想的。我发现有不少的话题在英文世界上广为流传,在中文世界里却没有。(当然反之亦 然。)我觉得这部分新话题对于理解西方文化,理解中国人的自身环境,都有些启发。于是,我的写作关注的就是这些新话题和新观点,或者旧话题的新角度。我尽 量不做表面文章,倾向于知识性和信息量,尤其是在艺术、理论、书籍、影评、政经版块,我尝试解释一点艺术观念、介绍一点人文背景知识及分析一些当代观点。 这些观点不是我自己的,而是大多数来自于我的阅读的材料,出于学者或专家之口。我所做的,只是把这些观点理解消化之后,用中文对其进行再创作,间或有我个 人的观点和感受,但是只占一小部分。城市/旅游,散文/随笔则是我自已对国外文化生活的一些感性体会。

 

MA thesis: Chinese bamboo and the construction of moral high ground by Song literati

This thesis investigates the bamboo aesthetic in Chinese literature and its relations to the self-fashioning of moral high ground, with particular focus on literary works produced by Song literati. The study deconstructs the bamboo aesthetic into two parts, the literary bamboo and the literati self, and explores the internal dynamic relations between them. The entire thesis has 76 pages and I post page 1-34 in here.
Read it.

 

A Smile That Made Me a Better Person

“Just smile, Dong,”

Said an old gentleman looking into my serious face. He was my English instructor of the ESL class soon after I landed in Canada. He said: “Why so serious? Life is brighter when you smile.” I nodded. He went on: “The easiest way to tell a Chinese from other people is to observe his face. If there is not a slightest hint of smiling, the person is a Chinese. ” He was jokingly serious and I got it: no smiling could be rude. His candor had rung the alarm.

So I went home that night and looked myself in the mirror. I forced a smile and it looked very fake. I laughed at myself and immediately; I saw my genuine smile in the mirror. So I realize that smiling is like everything else we do, you got to have a good reason for it. The question is how to always find a trigger for a genuine smile?

Let me rewind the time a bit. When I was in China, I would not smile to a stranger, and I suppose this is true in many countries. The only time you smile to a stranger on the street is when you want to ask for a favor, or when you are prostituting. Street prostitution is strictly illegal in China so I did not want my smile to be mistaken and got me wrongly arrested. Smiling was no good on the street. In fact, there were benefits not to smile, and I assume this is also true in many other countries. If you keep a serious look, bad people on the street would not pick you on. Yes, there are many bad people on the street who are always on a lookout for their prey. Your smiling face is inviting to them because it suggests gullibility. Keeping a firm looking is a protective shield against street solicitation, scams, or even robbery. Trust me, when I was not smiling, I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, even though I was only 5’7″ shy. No one was going to mess with me. It was the attitude that mattered, not the size. This was the case on the street. In some other social settings, smiling was a moral concern for me. For example, a salesperson working in a promotion event, his smile could get him what he wanted. However, as I grew up being told never trust a stranger, I cynically considered he was manipulating his clients by faking his smile. I valued people who were genuine. I was one of them. My facial expression was always consistent with my true feeling inside. I would not and could not fake it against my moral standard. When I was instructed to say cheese before the camera, I ended up looking very cheesy in the picture.

My seriousness came with me to Canada. On hearing the old man’s advice, I wanted to get rid of the Terminator look. I didn’t want to be considered rude in my adopted country. I wanted to show to the public my smiling affability. This was extremely important for my self-worth. Even I was highly motivated, changing a habit takes time and effort. First up, I learnt from other people. I noticed that many people in my neighborhood seemed genuinely happy with the encounter of a stranger. Sometimes, they nodded, smiled and walked by; other times they stopped to exchange a few words about the blue sky, and when the sky was gloomy, they chatted about their dogs. In any case, they looked positive and upbeat in their smile. I contemplated the gloomy sky and wondered: “what the hell makes them smile so easily? And why the hell I am feeling so depressed?”

There got to be a good reason for this. Maybe they paid more attention to fun and interesting details in life rather than ruminating about the difficulties. I had to look for fun and interesting details. In the wait room at a clinic, I saw a mom holding a baby. The baby was sucking her thumb. She was so cute that I could not help smiling at her, and then I extended the smile at her mom. The mom returned with a very friendly smile. “I did it!” I said to myself. “I smiled at strangers for the first time in my life.” I was celebrating loudly inside my mind like a lunatic. The old man was right. A little smile could play magic. The boring wait room suddenly seemed colorful. I suddenly got the fuzzy feeling. In fact, this little smile was much more than that. For many years I had put up a wall to protect me from strangers. This cold wall had now been cracked open and my warm heart was revealed. The little smile had changed my understanding of human relations in public. It brought a liberating experience, compatible to the knocking down of the Berlin Wall. I had inkling that my whole attitude towards life would be changed forever starting from this smile at the clinic. I was heading towards a life with passion and compassion.

By holding this thought, I smiled to another stranger in public the following day. It was on a bus that was almost empty. A guy sitting nearby was wearing a pair of small red shoes that clearly mismatched his navy blue suit. I used my imagination to make up a story for him. He was having a fight with his girlfriend at her place. His girlfriend picked up his shoes and threw at him. He ducked the attack and the shoes went out of the window, nowhere to be found. His girlfriend continued to kick him out. In a scramble, he grabbed her shoes out into street before she slammed the door. The story amused me and gave me the reason to smile at him. He pleasantly smiled back. So I did it again. I was overjoyed, and I got the bonus of entertainment too.

It wasn’t before long when I realized that good reasons for a smile were not always easy to find on any given stranger. Some people were just so hopelessly uninteresting in their looks that even my best imaginative eyes could not find a slightest trace of funniness. Besides, there was a time component. In some encounters, there was simply not enough time to find the good reason. The toughest one was on a street when the person was walking towards me in the opposite direction. The person was approaching fast, you had to scan the person very fast for a funny detail and make a story out of it very fast. In a rush, the story was either incomplete or not funny at all, so I squeezed out a dry smile. These smiles felt like scratching my skin without feeling itchy. I got frustrated. The constant brainstorming for details and stories was a hell lot of mental labor. It was more difficult than solving a mathematics solution. The receiver of the smile certainly enjoyed it, but I got very anxious doing this. Was it fair? These people did not pay me to do this, I said to myself.

“Hey, how zit going?” A young fellow spoke to me while I was debating whether or not I would smile at him as he was approaching with his dog. “Nothing much.” I shrugged my shoulder. He looked kind of familiar in my neighborhood, so I felt relaxed and I said “how about you,” followed by a smile. He answered: “Uh…can’t complain. My mom is away and I am helping her dogs.” Then we walked on in our own way. The encounter felt like two ants tapping antenna when they meet. “Right!” I was suddenly enlightened. I had been overdoing it. Smiling should not be so painstaking. When you relax, you have a lower threshold of smiling. A casual conversation like this just got me smiling. I do not need a comedian for a smile.

Now I have understood the key to easy smiling, so I put it into practice. Every morning after I got up, I walked in the backyard, smelled the flowers, listened to the bird’s chirping, and thought about the positive little things in life. I thought about the new English words I learnt; I thought about the money I saved from the grocery flyer; I thought about my present moment and appreciated I was breathing alive. All these thoughts set up the happy tone for the day. My heart was lighter, the threshold of smiling was lower. After a month or two, the threshold became very low. When a cool breeze lifted my hair, I smiled because it tickled.

So I declared the training had completed. I had become an easy smiler. Here was my typical day of running an errand in my neighborhood: I smiled at the grocery store cashier, at the security guy at the mall entrance, at the Canada post carrier who was collecting the mail box on the sidewalk, at an old lady walking towards me in the opposite direction, at her dog, and finally, at a squirrel sitting on a nearby tree branch. The smile really empowered me. It gave me more energy; it gave me a positive attitude; and it made every single human contact enjoyable and meaningful. I had waved goodbye to my own past. I appeared to be an affable person. I made people happy. I was an asset to the social circle of my neighborhood.

They are right in saying that a small step could make a huge difference. My little nice smile trigger a virtuous cycle, just like the flapping wings of a butterfly that lead to a tornado. I gave a smile to lighten a stranger. He or she reciprocated and made me lighter. Because I felt lighter, I gave an even better smile in my next encounter, so the next person reciprocated more by being friendlier. The contagious smile soon spreaded throughout the whole neighborhood, and from one neighborhood to another and beyond, until the entire continent became a land of smile, a global smiling village. That was the scale of geography. At the personal level, the virtuous cycle of smiling spiraled up my spirit and my passion towards life until I reached the blue sky. I was sitting on a white cloud…

“Can you spare a change?” A voice brought me back to the street corner as I walked. A guy was reaching out his hand. I habitually smiled at him and walked on. He was persistent. “Sir, I am really hungry,” he spoke to my back. I turned around, gave him a grin, and said: “I am sorry. I don’t carry my wallet.” Suddenly, he was infuriated. He shouted at me with his fists punching in the air. I was stunned. He then dashed towards me with his menacing face. Frightened, I quickly sprinted away, leaving his cursing language behind.

I arrived at a park. The guy was out of sight. I decided to take a walk on the quiet trail and caught my breath from the running. I realized that my smile at that guy was inappropriate. I had to be courteous in offering a smile, but how? How could I know a smile could be offensive? As I was thinking, I saw a well-dressed gentleman walking towards me in my opposition direction. The cursing voice of the homeless man was sounding on my left ear and discouraged me to smile at him; but on my right ear there was the old man’s voice saying: “Smile, or you are a rude Chinese.” The gentleman saw me but I quickly looked away. At the final second, the old man triumphed and I pulled my gaze back on the gentleman and gave him a smile, a smile that contained the conflicted feeling and hesitation. He smiled back enthusiastically. He even made a stop and asked gently: “How are you, sir?” I had to match up his cheerfulness, otherwise I was a rude Chinese. I raised my pitch and answered: “Couldn’t be better!” I believed my eyebrows were lifted too to match my voice. So I walked on and convinced myself that I should still keep my smile.

After a while, I heard footsteps from behind. I turned around and I saw the well-dressed guy. He had been following me. The trail was framed by thick bushes and trees. It was all quiet, even the birds had stopped chirping. This was a perfect spot for crime! I got really nervous. Was he a serial killer? A psychopath? Was I going to die? All the images I got from watching CSI appeared in my mind and really scared me. He broke out the silence and asked gently: “Where are you taking me? Do you want to sit on the bench behind the brush?” His manner surprised me even more than the shouting homeless guy. Then, I realized his motive and breathed a sign of relief. I answered: “I am not leading you anywhere. You must be mistaken.” Now he was surprised, but he was truly gentlemanly and stylish. He apologized, took off his hat, bowed to me, turned around, and disappeared into the bushes. Every move he made was rhythmic.

I blamed myself for both incidents. I had been high up in the clouds thinking that I was a good immigrant to the society. Now I was disillusioned. All my effort of making a friendly smile turned out to be causing harm in people. I was heart-broken. My self-worth was hurt, and I was filled with sorrow.  I looked depressed the next day when I was sitting in the English class. The old man brought a song called “Smile,” originally sung by Nat King Cole. The lyrics says: Smile though your heart is aching; Smile even though it’s breaking; When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by; If you smile through your fear and sorrow… I did not sing along with the class. The old man looked into my serious face and waved his body in front of me and sang again: “smile though your heart is aching.” Everyone in the class laughed. I signed. At the end of it, the sign was turned into a smile, a bitter smile.

My Childhood Superheros

The Americans needs superheroes, so as the Communists.

At the time when I was a kid in China, market economy was in its infancy, and political propaganda of communism still dominated the popular culture. One effective way of propaganda was producing popular icons and heroes, in hope to boost people’s morale for Communism. The stories of these heroes were presented in all sorts of media, including school textbooks, picture books for kids, posters, mural paintings, radios, and movies. They squeezed out traditional Chinese folk tales or kids friendly stories, leaving no alternatives for stories lovers like me. My whole little world was made up of these superheroes. The storylines were utterly simple with no ambiguity or complexity. Even the dumbest kid could tell the stories without missing a single detail because these stories were the dumbest ones I have ever read, speaking in high sight of course.

huangjiguang
This is a painting of Huang Jiguang taken from the Memorial Museum of Korean War.

While the American superheroes became superheroes because they save lives and beat up the devils, the Communist superheroes became such because they were killed when they were trying to kill the devils. One of these Communist heroes was a Communist soldier called Dong Chunrui. He was fighting the civil war against the then government army led by KMD. According to the Chinese official account, he blew himself up to kill the enemies in the blockhouse. His martyrdom was commemorated and he became a legend. Truthfulness of the story was now put into question but I do not want to go to that direction. I just want to point out that in recounting the story, elementary school textbook used an idiom fengshensuigu to describe the heroic scene. This idiom can be translated as blowing up one’s body into a million pieces. That was the visual they gave me, an eight-year-old.

Another superhero known as Huang Jiguang was even more ridiculous. He was a Chinese soldier during the Korean War. At a battle, Huang’s unit was given a mission to destroy an enemy blockhouse. Huang managed to get very close to the enemy and then he hurled himself against a machine gun slit on the blockhouse, using his chest to block enemy fire. Because his self-sacrifice, his comrades were able to march forward over his dead body and annihilate all the enemies. In high sight, I do not buy this crappy story. There are million ways to block the enemy fire if you have already managed to get this close to the enemy. Even if he insisted to use his body to block the fire, just to prove his bravery, he could have been more creative, like using his butt instead of his chest. However, my little friends and me were sold on the stories and never questioned its logic and validity. We were greatly inspired by their heroism. What could be more glorious and heroic than sacrificing one’s life for the common good? The American superheroes were just pale in comparison. When adults asked me “what do you want to be when you grow up,” I always answered: “I want to be a war hero.”

jiangjie
This is a still image from a more recent TV series of Sister Jiang. She is no longer presented as a superhero now but this image is very much like what I got as a kid.

Superman, X-men, Spider-Man and many other comic heroes have some sort of super power, or at least they are very well equipped, such as batman and iron man. In comparison, the Communist heroes did not have such physical power; instead, they had super mental power. One hero of this kind was Sister Jiang. She was a communist fighting the Chinese civil war as an undercover agent. Somehow, she became a captive in the enemy’s hand. She was killed in the end of course, but the highlight of the story was the torture she went through in an interrogation chamber. The enemy inflicted lots of pain on her in order to get information out of her. However, she was no ordinary woman. She was a super tough one. Legend has it that she clenched her teeth and withstood the pain. The enemy could not crack open her mouth to get any names or whereabouts her fellow undercover agents. The torture was vivid. In comic books and movies, I saw whips and shackles, and the most notorious torturing device called “tiger bench.” It was a simple regular bench turned into a deadly device coupled with ropes and bricks. The captive was tied up sitting on the bench with the legs extending forward on the bench. Her thigh was tightened and locked in position by rounds of ropes while her feet were gradually raise up by bricks stacking up underneath. In this way, the leg was flexed to cause tremendous pain. The longer the torture last, the more likely the tendon would fracture or the legs would be dead due to the blocking of blood flow. So when kids of my age in America were listening to colorful fairy tales and seeing lovely Disney’s cartoons, I was hearing all the screams from the dark chamber and picturing all these gruesome images of chains, whips, and torturing devices. While the American kids fantasied their glorious moment being the Captain America or the Spider-Man, bravely saving their endangered loved ones, I fantasied my glorious moment being tortured like hell and bravely shouting out the words “I don’t know—–.”

Not all of my heroes were violent. There were peaceful ones. Lei Feng was one of these types of heroes. He was a soldier after all the wars were over. The way he became a household superhero was his altruism. He was commonly known as helping the old and sickly to cross the street. You may ask: what is the big deal? I do not know either. Maybe it was the frequency of his altruistic behavior. I got the impression from the stories that everything single minutes he was physically helping people, and every single breathing he was thinking about how to help people. So back then I was wowed, thinking that helping people cross the street must be a very difficult task, something only the superheroes could accomplish. If you read closely enough in the picture books, you would see more extraordinary stories about him. He was said to get up early in the morning before his fellow soldier roommates woke up. He then sneaked into the washroom and squeezed toothpaste on their toothbrushes. When it was done, he sneaked back into the dorm and worked quietly here and there. Within a few minutes, all of his roommates’ smelly shoes were cleaned up, but he was not done yet. He went on to lay a pair of clean socks beside each pair of shoes. He did this just to provide convenience for his roommates. This behavior was deemed “good deeds” and highly celebrated in my textbooks and picture books. Let us analyze this story. It would only make sense had his roommates been handicapped by war and needed babysitting, but in fact, there were no mentioning of the well being of his roommates. Given the fact that the war was over, they were presumably all healthy individuals. So the only logical explanation of his behavior was that Mr. Lei was obsessive with helping others, even when the help was not necessary. Maybe he had some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I wonder if he also washed the underwear for his roommates. Maybe this guy had fetishism on his roommates’ personal items.

Similar to the wartime superheroes, the story of Mr. Lei ended with his death. Don’t ask me the dummy question of why they have to die. Had they not died, you could not have made up a story about them, could you? Here is the story of Lei’s death. In a thunderous storm, he was standing in front of a vehicle to guide its reverse. The lousy driver reversed too much and hit a lamp pole behind. The pole tragically fell on Lei’s head. He died instantly right before a lightning struck him. Ok, the lightning part was made up by me and the rest was official, but why pick on me making up stuff? The whole story could be a total fake.

While new series of comic books on American superheroes keep coming up, the communist superhero stories never got updated. Years later, Sister Jiang was still clenching her teeth and Mr. Lei working on the toothbrushes. It did not take long for these same old simple stories to become very uninteresting and wore me down. However, you could not bail on them because the bombardment of these stories never stopped, so paying attention to these stories became an obligation and eventually a ritual. The American superheroes are clearly fictional and you know it for sure you cannot fly like a superman. The communist superheroes were based on real people using their real names, so at first glance, you might think it possible to emulate what they had done. However, after years of listening to the stories, I was disappointed that the inspiration had not lead to anything in me comparable to their moral high ground. So I thought I was inferior in nature. I was so cowardly scared of pain—-a clinic needle on my butt was apocalyptic. Also, I had never feel the urge to squeeze toothpaste for my sister. My soul was so shamefully worthless.

Now, my best guess on the message the state intended to deliver through these make-believe shining figures was that a communist civilian should sacrifice his life for the state when needed, and he must only do things for others and never for himself, be it big or small. This message was obviously unsuccessful on me, but don’t ever underestimate the power of the stories, including the fake ones. I think the Communist superhero stories have crept so deeply into my childhood mind that by now I haven’t completely cleanse them out. I have this doubt because sometimes I unconsciously act on things according to the logic of total unselfishness or even self-destruction. Maybe there is some truth to these stories, or maybe my nerve had been screwed up at the critical age and I will never fully recover from the worthlessness.

 

AAA Symposium Translation

The Expanding Field
Irit Rogoff

We work in an expanding field, in which all definitions of practices, their supports and their institutional frameworks have shifted and blurred. But the fact that we have all left our constraining definitions behind, that we all take part in multiple practices and share multiple knowledge bases, has several implications. On the one hand the dominance of Neo-Liberal models of work that valorize hyper-production have meant that the demand is not simply to produce work, but also to find ways of funding it, to build up the environments that sustain it, to develop the discursive frames that open it up to other discussions, to endlessly network it with other work or other structures so as to expand its reach and seemingly give it additional credit for wider impact. So in this context the expansion is perceived as a form of post-Fordist enterpreneurship.On the other hand the dominant transdisciplinarity of the expanded field of art and cultural production has entailed equal amounts of researching, investigating, inventing archives from which we can read in more contemporary ways, finding new formats, self instituting, educating, organizing and sharing. Most interestingly, it has dictated that each idea or concept we take up must be subjected to pressures from other modes of knowledge and of knowing – it cannot simply stay within its own comfortable paradigm and celebrate itself and its achievements. And so in this other context, the expanding field is one of broader contemporary knowledge bases and practices.
Seemingly in each of these two cases the emphasis is on ‘more’, but in order to come to terms with this duality which is often less than compatible , I need to think through what has happened in the field recently and of ways this might or might not be quite the opening up or loosening up, we had previously thought.So this paper is about several issues – one is to do with a desire that the proliferation of different activities that we see around us in the art world , does not remain as a simple model of multiplicity and diversity. But rather that we begin to think of them as enactments of an epistemological crisis – knowledge in crisis rather than practice or form in crisis.
Secondly I want to go back to the issue of archives, the vexed old question of the desire to know from a stable and accumulative place. In the context of this particular argument I wish to see whether in might be possible to read our selves out of others’ archives – others who might be less privileged in terms of the infrastructures that support them, but nevertheless might allow us a new and rich way of seeing ourselves. When Foucault first opened up a critical discussion of archives he spoke of ‘the insurrection of subjugated knowledges’ – knowledges that had been suppressed and marginalized because they spoke in the name those deemed inappropriate and un-influential in terms of class, sexuality, ideology and unruliness or incivility.
Subsequently Foucault opened up another seemingly unrelated problematic in his thinking about Parhessia, the demand to speak the truth publicly and at risk to oneself. One of the many things I am wondering about ‘archives’ is whether they might becomes sites of ‘parhessia’ – a site of risk taking. So.. archives as instability rather than stability and as a set of chellenges to how we see ourselves rather than as the way in which we ground and solidify our own significance.And that is the third issue that I want to touch on – Infrastructure – the seemingly neutral provision of efficient delivery of whatever we might need – but actually enacting a hugely hierarchical system of that which is valued by neo liberal governance. My interest in ‘infrastructure’ has to do with the recognition that it is one of the main building blocks of world governance systems such as colonialism or capitalism. But also to do with its masquerading as neutral form of efficiency, pure delivery and no interests. Whereas in the context of the art world, we can begin to see that cultural infrastructure is actually deeply value laden and that superior infrastructure has come to mean superior culture.It is of particular importance to me that all these questions be asked from within the art world. That they be seen as part of art’s expansion in the social. That we do not take for granted some earlier definitions of what art and its activities are and continue to reproduce these, for the challenges that we are facing in the contemporary moment, allow us to be a great deal more.‘What on Earth do they mean?’On occasion, within the discussions we are all part of, one will hear someone say the word ‘art’ and wonder what on earth they mean by that?– Do they mean ‘collectibles’ and ‘displayables’ and ‘catalogueables’ – objects and entities that can be known, that can be captured by these logics and fit neatly into the economies of institutional, foundation or private assemblies?– Or do they mean ‘artists’ who are working in the community or the field, trying to make complex the simple minded politics of representation practiced by the media – make complex by layering intricate and contradictory strata’s and performances as the cumulative affect of a place or a group or an event ?– Or do they mean the operations of new modes of research by which creative practitioners enter the arena of archival knowledges and posit other protagonists or other events, not main ones and not even marginal ones, but ones whose very articulation will trouble the subject of the archive, challenge its raison d’etre – an innocent vegetable within the archive of a genocide, the design of a refugee tent rewriting the narrative of custodial roles, the aerial shot as the amalgam of centuries of governance through surveillance – non symbolic and non representational ways of navigating a cultural entry point into the production of knowledge.– Or do they mean the group that has set itself up as an immigrant smuggling entity, or as a time bank or as the repository of mutations in the wake of genetic engineering or genetic modification, or as the fake company representatives of a multi national corporation offering a settlement to the victims of a disaster? The mimicry of structures and protocols that by their daring to enter the field of aid and support, produce a critical gesture.– Or do they mean a small group of, usually young, people huddled in a basement reading some smudged Xeroxes, insistent on their need to know something of urgency and to gain an unspecified set of tools by which to tackle the world and to make their engagement a performative manifest ?All of these make up an ‘art world’ as I have experienced it over the past decade. So clearly what was a trajectory that led to a final product or emanated from this final product in terms of curating or collecting or reviewing or critical assessment, has opened up to inconclusive processes whose outcome might be learning or researching or conversing or gathering or bringing a new perspective into circuits of expertise. The discrete boundaries of the product that enabled its capture by various economies or teleologies, have fragmented into strands of knowledge, of affect, of structure or of action which insist on presence in relation to other presences. – what was ‘art’ as various objects has assumed the status of ‘the manifest’ , the ability to alert us to the emerging of a presence in the world.It is not simply that the world of ‘art’ is one of multiple practices and a proliferations of incommensurate protocols that awkwardly coheres, resulting in the inevitable confusion of one word which has contradictory meanings for so many of the stakeholders within the field. But I would say that this goes far beyond a simple evacuation of stable meanings of this or that form or practice, and is actually a part of living through a major epistemological crisis. So here is the beginning of my argument – I am not interested in understanding the expanded field of art as a multiplicity, as a proliferation of coexistent practices, as a widening of what might have previously been seen as a somewhat narrow arena defined by fine art practice. In addition to art I would designate the terms: ‘practice’, ‘audience’, ‘curator’, ‘space’, ‘exhibition’, ‘performance’, ‘intervention’, ‘education’ and many other terms as subjected to this same disorientation – a historically determined meaning which has been pushed at the edges to expand and contain a greater variety of activity – but never actually allowed to back up on itself and flip over into something entirely different. The hallmarks of an epistemological crisis in the way in which it interests me here, are not the trading of one knowledge or one definition for another more apt or relevant one, but rather what happens when practices such as thought or production are pushed to their very limits? Do they collapse or do they expand? Can they double up on themselves and find within this flipping over another set of potential meanings? When Stefano Harney and Fred Moten wrote a text on debt and study for a special issue of e-flux journal on education, they took the maligned notion of ‘debt’ at the heart of a financial crisis of irresponsible fiscal marketization of debt, and flipped it over into something else: “But debt is social and credit is asocial” they said “Debt is mutual. Credit runs only one way. Debt runs in every direction, scattering, escaping, seeking refuge. The debtor seeks refuge among other debtors, acquires debt from them, offers debt to them. The place of refuge is the place to which you can only owe more, because there is no creditor, no payment possible.
This refuge, this place of bad debt, is what we would call the fugitive public.These are the hallmarks of an epistemological crisis, exiting from previous definitions, refusing former meanings, refusing moral inscription, refusing the easy stability in which one thing is seemingly good and the other potentially threatening. Risking a capacity for misunderstanding – what is it to declare debt social at a moment when millions of people are experiencing eviction or financial ruin due to the capitalization of debt? It means that one can no longer be content with taking positions within a given definition, but one has to make it stretch and twist itself inside out to become significant again.– The limits of multiplicityWould it not be simpler to settle for a celebration of multiplicity? A proliferation has about it a measure of happy mutuality, a multiplicity of things co-existing and not disturbing one another, multiculturalism being a fabled example of such happy harmony! – But the confusion about what the hell do they mean they say ‘art’, the epistemological disorientation, has to imply a contested ground and if this ground is contested then each mode of understanding is grounded not just in vested interests – the neo liberal art market and its evil twin cultural diplomacy, but in differing ways of knowing the world and its practices. However, while the antagonistic mode of differentiation may be crucial for the initial moment of distinguishing between this mode of practice and that one, between the vested interests that sustain them and their operations – for me, ultimately it serves to reinforce the divisions between hegemonic and alternative activities, a distinction that is unhelpful in the task of reconfiguring the field as a set of potentialities.There is a discussion by Derrida in his book ‘The Eyes of the University’, the book in which he reflected on the founding of the ‘College de Philosophie’ in Paris in the 1980s – in which he says “Boundaries, whether narrow or expanded, perform nothing more, than establishing the limits of the possible.”

So not wanting to operate in this impoverished mode of ‘the limits of the possible’, I need to think of how to go beyond the pluralistic model, an additive mode at whose heart is a very old Enlightenment conceit that cultural institutions are universalist and infinitely expandable – that they can stretch and expand to include everyone of the excluded, elided and marginalized histories. This conceit updated to the realm of post slavery, post colonialism, post communism insists that we must deal with issues of cultural difference and cultural exclusion by practicing their opposite, namely inclusion and compensation. Of course the problem with this infinitely expandable model is that it promises no change whatsoever, simply expansion and inflation.

So an epistemological crisis seems a much more fertile a ground from which to think the notion of an emergent field. An epistemological crisis would allow us to think not competing interests but absent knowledges, it would allow us to posit a proposition that would say that if we were able to find a way to know this, it might allow us to not think that. So the loss or the sacrifice of a way of thinking, as opposed to the cumulative proliferation of modes of operating.

For both Curating and The Curatorial, the notion of an epistemological crisis is paramount, since they are largely fields grounded in a series of work protocols with little cumulative history nor a body of stable empirical or theoretical knowledge at their disposal. Thus the temptation to hurriedly build up a body of named and applicable knowledge that would dignify the field is probably great. While such absences allows for a flexibility of operating and for the possibility of considerable invention, be it of archives or subjects or methodologies – there is an ongoing demand for an end product that coheres around an exhibition, around the act of revealing and concretizing, and that belies all the loosenings that had gone into its curatorial operations.

Our move to “Curatorial/Knowledge” addressed precisely such an epistemological crisis, one in which we would not determine which knowledges went into the work of curating but would insist on a new set of relations between those knowledges. A new set of relations that would not drive home the point of an argument, as in much academic work and would not produce a documented and visualized cohesion around a phenomenon, as in much of curatorial practice. So rather than say, ‘this is the history of curating and it will now ground the field professionally’, we have tried to map the movement of knowledges in and out of the field and how they are able to challenge the very protocols and formats that define it: collecting, conserving, displaying, visualizing, discoursing, contextualizing, criticizing, publicizing, spectacularising etc.’. If curating can be the site of knowledge to rehearse its crises then it has the potential to make a contribution rather than enact representation.

Going back to the question I began with, asking “what on earth do the mean when they say art?” this epistemological crisis allows us not to choose between different definitions, but to make the curatorial the staging ground of the development of an idea or an insight. Ideas in the process of development, but subject to a different set of demands than they might bear in an academic context or in an activist context – not to conclude or to act, but rather to speculate and to draw a new set of relations. To some extent that has resulted in an understanding that it is not that the curatorial needs bolstering by theory, philosophy or history – but rather that these arenas could greatly benefit from the modes of assemblage which make up the curatorial at its best, when it is attempting to enact the event of knowledge rather than to illustrate those knowledges.

Contemporaneity as Infrastructure

In our department at the university we often say that our subject is contemporaneity and that this is not a historical period. Rather we think of contemporaneity as a series of affinities with contemporary urgencies and the ability to access them in our work. Such an understanding of contemporaneity is equally significant for the curatorial, demanding that it finds ways of conceptually entering contemporary urgencies rather than commenting upon them, taking them up as ‘subject matter’ – the endless exhibitions about terrorism or a globalized art world we have endured in recent years, being a case in point. And not only is contemporaneity about the engagement with the urgent issues of the moment we are living out, but more importantly it is the moment in which we make those issues our own. That is the process by which we enter the contemporary.

So finally I would like to put forward a very tentative argument, not fully and deeply worked through yet, about the relation of our expanding field to infrastructure and to a redefinition of ‘archives’, and about this conjunction’s central importance to the understanding of contemporaneity. For Foucault the archive is– “A density of discursive practices, a system that establishes statements as events and things.” So rather than a documentary context, it is this understanding of the archive as establishing concreteness in the world by transforming statements into events, that allows us to take it up within the actual practices of contemporary art rather than as a support structure of knowledge.

When Okwui Enwezor was curating Doumenta 11 he said again and again, in an effort to ward off the constant tedious questions about which artists were going to be included in the show – that it is a lesser matter precisely which artists or works he would be including, but rather which archives we would be reading them out of. His efforts to privilege the archives and the reading strategies at our disposal have stayed with me as an important principle of contemporaneity.
As Foucault insisted quite early on “The analysis of the archive then, involves a privileged region: at once close to us and different from our present experience, it is the borer of time that surrounds our presence, which overhangs it ,and which indicates it in its otherness ;it is that which outside ourselves, delimits us.”

When we in the West, or in the industrialized, technologized countries congratulate ourselves on having an infrastructure: properly working institutions, systems of classification and categorization, archives and traditions and professional training for these, funding pathways and educational pathways, excellence criteria, impartial juries and properly air conditioned auditoria with good acoustics, — we forget the degree to which these have become protocols that bind and confine us in their demand to be conserved or in their demand to be resisted.
Following Michel Feher, thinking about the impact of NGOs as modes of counter governmental organization, the shift from consumers to stakeholders has significantly shifted our understanding of infrastructures. From properly functioning structures that serve to support something already agreed upon, to the recognition of ever-greater numbers of those who have a stake in what they contribute to or benefit from. Much of the more activist oriented wok within the art field has taken the form of re-occupying infrastructure: using the spaces and technologies and budgets and support staffs and recognized audiences, in order to do something quite different – not to reproduce but to reframe questions.

We think of infrastructure as enabling, we think it is an advantageous set of circumstances through which we might redress the wrongs of the world, to redress the balance of power within a post-slavery, post colonial, post communist world of endless war. When MOMA NY gets around to putting on an exhibition of contemporary Arab art, it is either celebrated as a great step against Islamophobia or decried as the cooptation of such work into hegemonic systems of market patronage. But whatever the position, there is a sense tat the incorporation of this work within an august context, into the ultimate infrastructure, that ignored its very existence for so long, is a bench mark – a contested benchmark, but definitely one.

So if we keep in mind Achille M’Bembe’s question “Is the edge of the world a place from which to speak the world?” we might reflect about what the absence of infrastructure does make possible, which is to rethink the very notion of platform and protocol, to put in proportion the elevation of individual creativity, to further the shift from representation to investigation.
Thinking about the links between collectivity and infrastructure, the obvious necessities of mobilizing as many resources and expertises as possible at a given moment in order to not only respond to the urgencies of the moment but also in the need to invent the means , protocols and platforms which will make that engagement manifest among strata of stakeholders – then the de-centering of the west is not only the redress of power within a post slavery, post colonial , post communist world but also the opportunity in the absence of infrastructure to rethink the relations between resources and manifestations.
In order to understand the potential of a particular condition we do not mythologize or romantically glorify it, but rather extract from it a revised set of relations – from Tucuman Arde to Collectivo Situationes, from Chto Delat to Raqs media Collective to Kharita, from Public Movement to Public school, from Oda Projessi to X-Urban – these shifts have and are occurring all around us, and while I would not claim that they are a model to be reproduced within far more privileged conditions, I would suggest that they are the archive from which we need to read our own activities.

Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that being lectured about the limits of the possible seems to me to be as impoverished a condition as working without the means of a dignifying infrastructure – nothing more, as Derrida says, than the means of containment. So perhaps the necessary links between collectivity, infrastructure and contemporaneity within our expanding field of art are not performances of resistant engagement, but the ability to locate alternate points of departure, alternate archives, alternate circulations and alternate imaginaries. And it is the curatorial that has the capacity to bring these together, working simultaneously in several modalities, kidnapping knowledges and sensibilities and insights and melding them into an instantiation of our contemporary conditions.

延伸的区域
文|Irit Rogoff       
译|苏东悦我们在一个不断扩大的领域里工作。在这个领域里,所有实践的定义、对这些实践的支持,以及机制的框架都已经转化和变得模糊了。我们把这些定义的束缚抛诸脑后,参与不同形式的实践,分享多元的知识基础,这种做法产生了一些影响。一方面,隐定大量生产物价的新自由主义工作模式成为了主流,意思是指此模式的要求不再仅是把作品完成,而且要寻找各种资助的管道来支持作品的创作,并为作品提供一个可持续发展的环境,发展论述的框架以开放讨论,并不断将之与其他的作品或结构交织,以此来扩大作品的联系,让它产生更多、更广泛的影响。在此脉络下,这种延伸可以看成是后福特主义企业精神的一种形式。另一方面,跨学科拓展了艺术文化生产的领域,成为主导的模式,而它所需要的相应研究、调查和文献库的建立,使我们可以以更为当代的方式观看它,寻找新形式,建立自己的机制、教学、组织和分享。最有趣的是,它要求我们所掌握的每个观点或概念,都必须承受来自其他知识系统和认知方式的压力,而不能安于所属领域的范式而固步自封。在此脉络下,正在拓展的领域便是更广泛的当代知识基础和实践之一。上述二者似乎都强调“更多”,但为了理解这并不完全兼容的两个方面,我有必要就这个领域里的近况进行疏理,从之前的想法中思考可能或不可能开拓或扩充的方向。因此我这篇文章要谈几个问题。其中一个是有关拓展的欲望:艺术世界中涌现大量不同的活动,而且已不是一般的多样模式。我们开始意识到这是一场知识论危机的预演,关乎知识层面而非实践或形式。第二,我想谈谈文献库,人们倾向从稳定且不断积累的地方中去获取知识,这一个老生常谈的问题。在这个论述中,我想尝试通过他人的档案来阅读自己,他人可指一些在基础结构条件上不如我们的人,但我们仍然可以通过他们得到全新丰富的方法来反观自己。当福柯首次就文献库作批判性的讨论时,他谈及“被压制知识的起义”,指那些被认为代表不恰当、无影响力的阶级、性别、意识形态以及蛮横或不文明的知识。接着福柯提出了另一个看似无关,但他一直在思考的疑难─“Parhessia”,即指甘愿冒着风险将事实公诸于世。我对文献库的诸多思索之一,便是文献库能否成为“Parhessia”的场域,即承担风险的场域。那么,文献库便是不隐定而非隐定,它挑战自我认知而非加强自我肯定。而第三个我要谈的是基础结构。基础结构听起来似乎是中性的平台,有效地为我们提供所需,但实际上它颁布新自由主义政府所侧重的巨大等级制度。我对基础结构的关注是因为它是如殖民主义和资本主义的世界政治系统中的主要一环,而且以高效和中立为名作掩饰。在艺术世界里,我们可以看到文化基础结构由各种价值观所左右,越好的基础结构已演变成代表越高的文化。对我来说,于艺术界世界内部提出这些问题尤其重要。这些基础结构被视为是艺术在社会的延伸部分,为我们带来了更多的可能性。我们不再能把艺术或艺术活动较早期的定义视为理所当然,并继续复制它们来回应我们在当代面临的挑战

那到底指的是什么?

有时候,在我们共同参与的众多讨论中,会听到某人说起“艺术”一词,心中不禁泛起疑问“那到底指的是什么?”

是否指“藏品”、“展品”或“可分类之物品”,所有被认知的实物,且符合收藏展示分类的逻辑,并与机构、基金会和私人组织的经济学一致?

或是圈子或领域内工作的“艺术家”,他们尝试以媒介的简单政治来表现错综复杂的关系,层层迭迭精致细密及自相矛盾的内容及行为,以此作为地方、组织或事件日积月累的沈淀?

或是新的研究模式,创意文化工作者进入档案知识的领域,纳入那些既非主流亦非边缘、将会对文献库主题造成困扰的其他主体及事件,来挑战文献库存在的理由。比如说,种族大屠杀文献中的一株无辜蔬菜;重写监护职责叙事的难民营账蓬设计;或者通过监视,以鸟瞰图作为千百年来政权的混合体;以非象征性和非代表性的方式探索知识生产过程中的文化切入点。

或是这样的一群人,他们成立偷渡移民组织,或者是时间银行,又或者是基因工程或基因改造的变异个案的贮藏库,再或者是伪装成跨国公司的代表,为灾民提供收容所?他们模仿社会各种结构及规则,大胆进入援助救难的领域,表现批判的姿态。

或者另外的一群人,他们通常都相当年轻,挤拥在地下室读着一些模糊的复印材料,坚持要了理解世界某些逼切的议题,掌握一些不明确的工具来应对这个世界,并使他们的参与变成一种宣言表演?

以上种种构成了我过去十年所经历体验的“艺术世界”。这轨迹中清晰指向的,或是对策展、收藏、评论或判批评估的影响的目的,是它开启了一个无确定目标的过程,结果可以是学习、研究、对话、聚会、或是把全新视角带入专业的圈子。这些目的分离的边界,使他们被记录于不同的经济及目的论,分散成知识、影响、结构及行动的多条线索,并强调自身与其他事物的关联;而过往何为艺术,艺术藉不同的对象表现出某种“显明”(原文:the manifest),提醒我们从这个世界中浮现的存在。

“艺术”世界充满多种实践,充斥大量不协调但共存的规则,引致在相同的领域中,各参与者对同一个词汇有多个矛盾的理解。不单如此,我要说的是这远远不止于解除各种形式或实践的固有意义,而是正经历一场大型的知识论危机。我的观点从这里开展:我对把拓展的领域理解为多元化,或共存实践的增长,或是之前被精致艺术所划定的狭隘领域的扩大并不感兴趣。

除“艺术”外,我想加上“实践”、“观众”、‘策展人’、“空间“、“展览”、“行为”、“介入”、“教育”以及许多其他一同与之失去定位的词汇。历史赋予“艺术”众多含义,它的边界一直在向外伸展,包含更广范的活动。但与此同时,它并没有支持自己转化成为完全不同的东西。知识论危机令我感兴趣之处,并不是以更完善或更相关的知识或定义去取代旧有的概念,而是当实践或生产被推到自身边缘的极致时会出现什么情况。它们会崩溃还是扩大?会否物极必反,并从中发展出另一套可能的意义?

当斯托法努·哈里(Stefano Harney)和费德·莫顿(Fred Moten)为e-flux杂志的教育特刊撰写了一篇关于债务的研究文章。他们以由不负责任的市场借贷引发的金融危机中,核心的 “邪恶”的“债务”概念,引申出另外的意思。“但是,债务是社会的,债权是反社会的。”他们写道:“债务是双向的,而债权则是单向的。债务向各个方向延伸、扩散、逃避、寻找避难所。负债的人向其他负债人寻求庇护,互相借贷。于债务避难所,你只能欠账越来越多,因为这里没有债权人,也没有真正的偿付。这避难所或坏债之地,我们可称之为逃亡者。”

这些就是知识论危机的特质,从之前的定义脱身,拒绝原来的意义,拒绝道德碑铭,拒绝以好或有被误解风险的潜在威胁来区分所带来的安稳。资本化的债务使数百万人面临失去家园经济破产,在这个时候声称债务是社会的有什么意义?这表示我们已不满足于从一个既定的定义去选择我们的立场,要把定义从内到外重新审视,使之再具意义。

多元化的局限

同意多元化这一讲法不是更简单容易吗?多元化常常被指是和而不同,相异的事物并行不悖,皆大欢喜,但多元文化主义正正就是这样一种和谐的幻觉!关于他们所说的“艺术”到底指的是什么的困惑,以及这种知识论上的迷失,就意味着争议的出现。每种理解不仅建基于新自由主义艺术市场以及它的邪恶孪生儿文化外交所赋予的立场,而是出自于了解世界及它的实践的不同方式。然而,对立的区分方法于最初分辨二者时或有必要。但于我而言,它最终强化霸权和另类活动之间的分野,这种区分对于重新梳理这个领域的可能性毫无益处。

德里达(Derrida)在他的藉作《大学之眼》(The Eyes of the University)中分析了八十年代巴黎“哲学学院”的成立。他说:“边界,不管是窄是宽,其作用只有一个,就是限制可能性。”

因为不愿意停留在“可能性的局限”这种匮乏的理解,我需要思考如何超脱这种多元主义的模型,思考一种附加模式,它源自古老启蒙主义的自高自大,认为文化机构高举普世价值以及可以无限扩展,延伸至包容所有被排除在外、省略以及被边缘化的历史。这种自负,在后奴隶主义、后殖民主义和后共产主义的领域内更新,它坚持我们必须以反面,即包容和补偿来处理文化差异和文化排拒。当然,这种无限扩展的模型并没有许诺任何改变,而只是扩展和膨胀。

因此,知识论危机于思考一个新兴领域上,是更为肥沃的土壤。从知识论危机的角度,我们不是去思考利益的冲突,而是其中缺乏的知识。我们假设一个命题,既然我们能够找到方法来认识“这一点”,很可能我们就没有思考“那一点”,即放弃某种思维方法而不是持续增加操作模式。

就策展和与策展相关的实践而言,知识论危机的概念极其重要,因为策展是以一系列惯例为基础,但却没有多少过往的历史例子可供参照,也没有稳固的经验或理论知识作为依据。因此仓促命名及建立一套可供应用的知识,并藉此来提高对这个领域的认知,这一股冲劲或是好的。虽然这种不管于文献档案、艺术主体还是方法论的欠缺,都有利于灵活操作和创新,但人们持续要求一套完整理论来贯穿各个展览、揭示以及具体化的行为,用以掩饰策展实践中的所有松散部份。

我们探讨策展与知识的关系,正是探讨知识论危机。在这里,我们不去框定“那些”知识可以进入策展的体系,但坚持这些知识彼此之间全新的联系。这些新的联系不会如许多学术研究般归结到一个论点,也不会像策展活动般把某一现象归纳成视觉纪录。所以与其说“这是策展的历史,它将从此建立一个专业范畴”,我们倒不如去勘察不同界别的知识是如何应用在策展领域,以及这些应用如何质疑界定策展领域本身的惯例和形式,如收藏、保存、展示、可视化、建立论述、给予脉胳、评论、传宣以及奇观化。如果把策展看作是一个知识场域,在这里正在上演自身的危机,那么策展或能对各知识领域发展作出贡献,而不只是具演绎的功能。

回到上面提到“当某人说起“艺术”一词时,那到底指的是什么?”,我在上文中勾勒的知识论危机,使我们不必从既有的定义中作选择,而是把策展看成是形成和发展观点或识见的舞台。观点和识见在这里是处于一个形成的过程,这个过程响应不同脉络的需求,或是学术的或是行动主义的语境,不下结论也不急于行动,而是去猜想和思考新的关系。某程度上,这种旁观姿态可以形成这样的理解:不是策展需要理论、哲学、历史等知识学科的支持,而是反过来这些学科会大大地得益于策展擅长的组合形式,策展为知识生产的盛会揭幕,而不是在举例说明那些知识。

当代性作为基础结构

在我们伦敦大学金匠学院的学系里,我们经常说我们研究的是当代性,而它不是一个历史时期。我们理解当代性为一系列关系密切的迫切议题,以及藉我们的工作去参与的能力。这种当代性的理解对于策展来说也是同等重要,因为它要求寻找方法,从概念上进入这些迫切议题,而不是隔岸观火地把它们当成是“主题”,比如说,近几年来有无数令人难以忍受的关于恐怖主义和全球化的展览。当代性不仅仅是关于参与当下的迫切议题,而更重要的是视这些问题为我们的问题。这就是我们进入当代的过程。

最后我要提出一个初步、仍有待更仔细深入思考的论点,就是之前所说拓展领域与基础结构,以及与被重新定义的“文献库”的关系,以及此关系对理解当代性的重要核心位置。对于福柯来说,文献库是“众多实践的浓缩,是以事件和事物作陈述的系统”。所以,根据这个理解,文献库不是一个记录档案的脉络,而是具体的东西;它将陈述转化为事件,从而使我们可以把它结合到当代艺术的具体实践中,而不只是背后的知识结构。

策划第十一届文献展的当奥奎·恩维佐 (Okwui Enwezor)尝试迥避计划邀请那些艺术家的烦厌问题时就反复重申,选择那个艺术家或那件作品是一个相对次要的问题,更重要的是我们将会从那些文献库来认识他们。他把文献库以及阅读文献库的策略放在重要位置,并将之与我们分享使用,对我来说,这亦成为当代性的一个重要原则。

福柯很早就提出“对文献库的分析涉及一个特许领域:它和我们很近,但又与我们当下的体验不同,它是环绕着我们、悬垂着的时间锥子,以自身的特异之处标示自己;正是在我们自身之外,所以划定我们的界限。”

在西方社会,或者说在工业化、科技化的国家,我们庆幸有基础结构:运作正常的机构、分类的系统、文献库以及与此相关的传统和专业训练、经费来源、教育通道、高标准、公正的评审以及配备空调及良好音效的大会厅。但是,我们忘记了在很大程度上它们变成了一种束缚和限制我们的惯例,我们需要考虑保留它们或是抵抗它们。

让我们根据米歇尔·法赫(Michel Feher)的说法,去思考非政府组织(NGO)的影响。非政府组织把消费者变成了持份者,这种转变改变了我们对于基础结构的理解,从前它们是正常运作的结构,支持某些我们认可的东西,而现在它们得到更多作出贡献或受益的持份者的认同。在艺术领域,大部分以社会行动为本的作品就是对基础结构的再占领:利用场地、科技、财政预算、工作人员以及观众群体来作相当不同的事情,不再重现,而是以不同框架重新设定问题。

我们认为基础结构可以起推动作用。我们认为这是有利条件,可以用来纠正世界上的一些错误,调整后奴隶主义、后殖民主义、后共产主义世界的权力平衡。纽约现代艺术博物馆(MoMA)克服困难展出阿拉伯的当代艺术,一方面它可以被当作是克服对伊斯兰恐惧迈进一大步的庆祝,也可以被当作是把这些作品带进市场赞助这种霸权系统的同谋。从任何角度而言,现代艺术博物馆作为一个备受推崇的基础结构,把长期以来被忽略的阿拉伯当代艺术纳入到它的体系之内,当中或有争议,但肯定是一个重要的里程碑。

如果我们记住阿启里·恩本比(Achille MBembe)的问题“是不是站在世界边缘才能谈世界?”。我们可以思考在没有基础结构的地方造就了什么可能性,这也是对于平台和惯例的重新思考,提升发挥个体的创意,进一步把再现转化成调查研究。

谈到集体和基础结构的关联,我们显然有必要把最多的资源和专业能力动员起来,不但对当下的迫切议题作出反应,而且要找出新的方法、章法和平台,使不同阶层的持份者的参与能够呈现出来。西方的去中心化不但纠正后奴隶主义、后殖民主义和后共产主义的权力关系,也是一个契机,在基础结构未出现之前,重新思考资源与实现的关系。

为了理解特殊条件下的可能性,我们不会把它神秘化或浪漫化地颂扬一番,而是从中提炼出全新的关系,从展览“Tucuman Arde”到艺术组织“Collectivo Situationes”,从“Chto Delat”到“Raqs Media Collective”,再到“Kharita”, 从公共运动到公共学校,从“Oda Projesi”到“X-Urban”,这些转化就在我们身边发生。我并不是提供一些用来复制的范例,而是建议这些是我们需要阅读的文献库,并通过它们来了解我们的活动。

对我而言,我可以诚实地说,被告诫可能性的局限就如在贫乏的基础结构中工作一般──别无其他所指;正如德里达所说,这只是约束的手段。或许集体主义、基础结构或当代性之间的必要关系,在我们这个正在拓展的领域中,并不是对抗的行为,而是一种能力,能够找出不同的出发点、另类文献库、不同的流通方式以及其他的想象。正是通过策展,我们有能力把这些东西都集合起来,同时在多个不同的模式中工作,“骑劫”各种知识、感情和识见,并将它们铸造成当代状况的实证。