Spellbound Aura : The new Vision of Chinese Photography

DURATION: 2004-02-14 ~ 2004-05-02
OPENING: 2004-02-14
VENUE: Museum of Contemporary, Taipei

It has been over 180 years since daguerreotype was invented by Mande Daguerre. Since then, photography has faced debates on whether photography is a genre of art in early days and the challenge of digital images nowadays. With the changing of social values and technology revolutions, photography has gradually become an essential part in the field of art and one of the key media which present human will and life. It also witnesses the vicissitudes of modern society and records them. At this transitional moment of the 20th and the 21st centuries, if we look back through the history of photography, we may perceive its emerging trend, which alters our under­standing of images with its new appearance. That is, with the coming of the digitized era, photography plays a new role, not only recording images but also leading us exploring the unknown areas of retina and cranial nerves. It brings a whole new world to human mind and thoughts. This exhibition aims to give photography an new definition with the concept of tradi­tional Eastern aesthetics in painting. The Chinese phrase "chu shen ru hua" (which means superb, incredible mastery of something) is often used to praise artists with out­standing skills. "Chu shen" can also refer to a status of entrancement where viewers are so involved in the piece of work that they forget what the reality is. Put in modern times, the status of entrancement is usually caused by the overwhelming influences of the mass media and the entranced ones fail to see the reality. On the other hand, with "ru hua" we will discuss the aesthetics and elements of Eastern paintings which have been applied in photography. In this sense, photography means more than recording and representing. It becomes the process of visualization under certain sub­jective consciousness. Subjective metal and social aspects involved here are the main points that we aim to talk about in the exhibition. We will then analyze how the rational and operative implements influence artists in the way they present their pho­tographs. By saying so, we are not leading the new trend to implement-determinism. What we stress here are the new possibilities in photography through new techniques. We will work through some different methods of creating and representing which artists use to express their concepts, and try to uncover those concepts. A Trend of Restoration or a Sudden Spurt of Activity Before Collapsing? With the development and osmosis of business industry and the fact that photogra­phy and society become highly associated and interactive, Chinese in Asia and the rest part of the world all have view points differing from those from Western world make their appearance. Whether from the changes of society and history, or the ideas about body and disguise, we could perceive that traditional values have changed. The changing of tradition values has indirectly influenced the qualitative changes of ethics and aesthetics. Among these changes, manipulated style is an aspect worth noticing. Manipulated gesture is originally a compromised style based on its failure to break the model. Its meaning, however, has changed after cultural hybridity. The changes can be perceived in two aspects: one is to emphasize the fea­tures of regional culture, nourishing them by transforming and absorbing adventive information and high cultures with knowledge and implements at hand. The other is to give up the features of regional culture and embrace adventive cultures entirely. However, as we are in the phase of glocalization ("think globally, act locally"), to enhance the changing of local cultures by both emphasizing the specialties of local culture and increasing the exotic flavor has become one of the important strategies for creation. Such a strategy includes subjective expectations and imagination, as well as com­mon objective stereotypes. Will it become a strategy which pleases and serves others too much? Or, is cultural hybridity an unavoidable phase for globalization? Has the hybridity of Eastern and Western cultures become a special local aesthetics in the late 90s in which localization is ever so important ? Certain art works with cultural refer­ence shown in this exhibition, Show The Mutual Concern of The People in The Some Boot by Tien-chang Wu for instance, present cultural comparison and contract through the juxtaposition of different time and spaces. The contradictory intent expressed in these art works is based on the idea that values could be determined by a culture alone; that is, through certain purposely placed addition and meta-text, the artists try to discuss whether a patched culture (especially Taiwan) has become a form of exotic or a pro forma transculturation. In Shun-chu Chen`s photography installations or Tzu-chin Hunag`s, we can see the dialectic process of the co-reference of displaced reality and memory. Through those objects with both traditional cultural meaning and self-memory, the process men­tioned above also shows the conflict in which all photos inevitably become certain witnesses. Though it contains certain nostalgia and restoration at the first sight, restora­tion does not necessarily means nostalgia. Instead, restoration can be a sweet but gloomy conjuration, showing the unavoidable process of disappearing of those images with such conflicts. Facing this hedonic era of consumerism, nostalgia and restoration could probable be a sudden spurt of activity before collapsing, but it could also possibly be the real form of existence when facing the final destiny. Treasure or a Illustrated Guide Book? As we may perceive in our daily life in Taiwan, the society is filled with varies sorts of images presented in eye-catching forms, serving for commercials and promotions. All these are evidences of the prevailing and omnipresence of "pop culture industry" in youths` life. The popularity of "the cult of Japan Betel-nut beauties and "the cult of tatoo" for example, reveals younger generation`s highly influenced values, and their influenced values result in the prevalence of instant love, squander mania neglecting of history, information-dependency, and materialization. From A moment of Beauty (a series of work on Betel-nut beauties) by Chin-pao Chen, The Youth Party of mine, 2003( a series of work on fashionable girls in Shi-Men-Ting) by Cola king, Ass Ho/e (a series of work on the cult of Japan )by Chin-yao Chen, and Peace (a series of work on self-disguise and tatoo) by Shih-yi Lee, to the series of work on wedding photos-Perfecf Couple- Wedding in the Air by Victoria Lu and Wen-chir Chen (Vickie and Mickey ) , it is not difficult for us to perceive the personalized "mar­velous spectacles" , in the form of established and customary practices, shown in these works. Those "marvelous spectacles" are the products of a consumption-orient­ed society and they also suggest the process of "making oneself vaudeville". In other words, "marvelous spectacles" and strong sensual stimuli become necessary when it comes to distinguish oneself from visual oriented mass media. In the end, however, overflowing marvelous spectacles fail to satisfy greedy consumers. Instead, such undue sensual oriented tendency causes vision numb and frigid. Under such circum­stances, images are forced to sacrifice their development in aesthetics in order to sat­isfy the endless desires and fantasies of the society, tolerating and becoming the accomplices of the "spectacularizatipn" of collective consciousness of the society. Therefore, we had better not to regard those photos (images) as photographic works, but to view them relaxingly, interpreting them as illustrated guide books which offer self-consoling in a materialized paradise and as an excuse for people to avoid facing real selves under grotesque and gaudy disguises. Photography based on typology, such as works of Chin-pao Chen and Cola king, usually builds up the objectively real society by collecting a large amount of photo files from an objective point of view. That is, taking lots of photos in quantification for one theme, asking for objectivity without interfered by subjective emotions, and choosing the subjects or being chosen by them. When viewing only one or two pieces of such "photo files", the viewer could hardly be impressed. But when the "sub­jects" from different placers are collected and represented in the form of photos by the artist, a consumer society in reality is revealed, which is beyond our imaginations. Chin-yao Chen, Shih-yi Lee, and Victoria Lu & Wen-chir Chen (Vickie and Mickey) attempts to mingle with certain fabricated circumstances in disguise. Such set-up photography needs to be planned in advance and tells "a story without storyline" with a screenplay and multi-camera shootings which are the concepts of film making, and with a combination of self-behaviors and make-up, costume, as well as props. By disguising themselves, the artists become their own "subjects" and break their dependence on "subjects". Since the subject and the photo-taker become one and the process is under his/her control, the “I” (photo-taker) is same as the "he/she" (the subject) and forms a "double-narrative" viewpoint. On the one hand, those artists free their self-images with images of others. On the other hand, by freeing their self- images, they intend to tease the possibility of being manipulated by pop culture industry, and then to walk between sub pop culture and mainstream culture with ease. Infinite Recombination, Composition, and Replacement in the World of Matrix Digital camera has become prevalent recently, which makes photo-taking popular and creates a society where image is omnipresent. Thanks to technology, the trivial and tedious process for enlargement has been substituted with image outputs. In this digitized world, photo-taking is no longer a implement of the professionals and tech­niques are no longer unattainable. In addition to their commemorative recording function, images composed and retouched by computer prevail in contemporary art, in numerous art exhibitions. Quite a lot artists in Taiwan create their works with "dig­ital photography". However, since so far pixels could hardly contend traditional (opti­cal) films, most artist who ask for qualities in photography still shoot with (traditional optical) films at first, and then scan them into the computer and undergo some processes such as collage, retouch and dying, and juxtaposition, according to their own possibilities. Apart from these, in which aspects has photography been influ­enced by digital technology? How does it look like in creations of pure images? Which features does it have? All images need a interface. Take (traditional optical) film for example. It is a kind of transparent celluloid film and needs to undergo a developing process through metal­lic silver and then a fixing process before being enlarged and become a plane image. In a digitized era the concept of celluloid and fixing has been overthrown by the infinite modifications and overlays in the electronic digital model. Different from traditional films which combine optical and chemical principles, digitization could re- permutate and recombine any information with its rational operation of "0" and " 1", not being confined by decisive instants (in other word, the content of the photo is decided in the instant of pressing the shutter), and could modify all mistakes made by human with precision. With the powerful operation of the computer, things can not be realized in the real world could be realized in the virtual world. With tools such as "format", "undo", "winzip", and "stamper", one can retouch images infinitely and rearrange them, depending on what the creator wants. As a result, photo-takers no longer intend to represent or copy part of the reality but to change the reality. It reveals certain imagination of the wonderful world or the self-beautification of ours, and declares that the reality is no longer real but a simulation. As shown in the series of work by Hsin-yi, Eva, Lin, people in the digitized era seem to have been encoded unavoidably in order to be recombined into all possible appearances. Being encoded emblematizes the disappearance of original parent items. All the child items produced by the parent items take the place of the parent items, and then produce another group of child items of the child items. They consid­er themselves as the original elements, but in fact they are merely distorted substitutes in the processes of duplication. The original items have gone. All the duplications are away from the "reality" which could never be real. Moreover, the spatial and tempo­ral concept in the world of digital photography is no longer a past tense. Instead it is a conceptive space-time without facticity and the sense of time. Such a spatial and temporal concept is non-linear. In a digital world, past and future, as well as eternity and death, do not exist. Everything there could be replaced and the reality can be overthrown. The digital world also foresees certain reality which is realer than the reali­ty. It even replaces certain fact which is less factual than the fact. From insulator to superconductorization Insulator plays an important role in modern life. In our daily life, most of the things could not insulate themselves from the outside. However, in a industrialized society of mass production and low prices, people living there have gradually sensed the indif­ference and isolation brought to them by insulator, which has made the relationships among people safer. Insulator suggests the status modern people live in, where peo­ple are wrapped by biochemical saran wraps; that it, isolated and could hardly really touch objects. This kind of biochemical insulator does not only exist in the real word; it has interfered the simulated world of digital and encoded images. It exists and endis- tances between reality and actuality and becomes an ultra-thin transparent film. As we can see in the photos of cloned encapsulated men by Hui-chan Kuo, such insulat­ed transparent films with are everywhere in our daily life, such as glass windows, con­tact lenses, condoms, screens, and saran wraps. When people look at the world through them, dialogues and touches are blocked. When it comes to images, we no longer see the world through the chemically fixed transparent films (films). We now create reality above consciousness and pulsing wave fields under sub-consciousness with vacuum digital images. In this way, illusions become certain for images, and qualitatively change into the essentiality of all the existing objects paradoxically. Superconductorization is another common phenomenon in information society. It could be observed in all kinds of electronic mass media (TV, radio, and internet) and communicating tools(phone, mobile, and fax). With the premises of efficiency and convenience, modern people exchange money for space and time, and communi­cate with electric waves. From another viewpoint, things at reach become farther and farther to us while things far away from us become at reach. Technology has changed our life and people gradually begin to wear a fake face and feel empty. As the dream-like colorful visions shown in Dar-kuen Wu`s works, what we see is not a heavenly dream-world heave, but a farther and visionary aerial paradise existing in informative reality. There, emotions, past, and future do not exist. Dazzling sensual float and consciousness are the only things exist there. 5. The ambiguous reality and entrancement in informative images Art is a kind of illusion in some aspects. It leads us into unreal fields through paths in the real world. It can also build up a Utopia in surreal ways. Is reality a phantom? Or, has phantom replaced reality? The image of digital photography shows the intend to duplicate reality, but it is not real enough in certain aspects. Therefore, digital image becomes sort of "ambiguous reality" in between, but such "ambiguous reality" is the reality mainly recognized by contemporary society. As Jun-jieh Wang has suggested in his works, in a digitized and consumption-oriented society, the consumptive system no longer creates images or symbols by culture but instead simulates images with images, creates images with images, produces symbols with symbols, destructs symbols with symbols, and even paralyzes images with images, constructing a whole new world outlook in the process of hybridity, misappro­priating, and qualitative changes of images. Nowadays, production is no longer the only principle to organize a society. Digital computers, information media and social organization based on codes and models have taken production`s place and gradu­ally take everything in daily life under their control. Symbols mean more than symbols; they have their own lives and construct a set of new social orders. Nowadays in a status of splendid entrancement caused by a society overflowed with media and visual images, the main issue of photography is not how to treat things outside or how to represent certain objective reality faithfully anymore. The problem no longer lies in the legality of consolidation or distortion of certain reality by expelling the reality outside of the viewfinder. Apart from reflecting the social reality, it intends to substitute the real world, producing images with self-image and creating wills within wills with its own will. In this era of superconductor, photography gradually offers its place to the images it creates and murders itself at the same time. It has become a codec among many interfaces for images, or an information message processor for downloads as well as unlimited modifications and repositions. It looks for vague images caused by distortion in layers of distortions. In a digitized society, the existence of image has moved from "representing reality", "distorting reality", and reflecting "the lost reality" into "hyperreality". Wonderful world retreats from the real world and exists only somewhere nice in pictures (or terminals). Though all these suggest the wanting of a wonderful world, a wonderful world means the end and destruction of the world while Utopia declares the termination and dis­appearance of meaning. As the idea of incarnation existing in Chieh-jen Chen`s sav­age works, the existence of photography is an illusion based on the lost. Put in anoth­er way, reality exists just to re-enter and re-exit the simulate world where the aura has faded away.