編碼心景：風景即事件
陳蕉／國立台南藝術大學造形藝術研究所副教授兼所長

「風景」，從來不是純粹的自然。作為人對於自然的審美經驗，風景在性質上，總是文化的與人文的。用來呈現風景的「風景畫」，則是一種與文化記憶、符碼建構有關的再創造活動。風景畫因此並非地誌學(topography)，並不是如實紀錄一地的地貌。如果我們借用W. J. T. Mitchell的說法的話，我們可以說，風景畫是「一種媒介(medium)，一種承載著文化符碼的巨大網絡。」[1]

即便同樣承載著文化符碼，相較於Mitchell在那些題材取自歐洲殖民地的風景畫中，所照見的「帝國凝視」(imperial gaze)[2]，鄧卜君與張嘉穎的文化符碼編結方式，卻在取用既有文化符碼的同時，成功地打開了既有符碼與既定秩序的頑固閉鎖性。因而創造出一道Jean-Luc　Nancy在〈怪異的風景〉（Paysage avec dépaysement）一文中，所定義的風景（paysage）。[3]　以「怪異」翻譯法文dépaysement”，是面對著難以對譯的困境時，我們盡可能選擇的最近譯詞。可惜的是，它難以達意。因為對於Nancy來說，風景首先從「遙遠」、「一望無邊際」這樣的概念開始。這裡的遙遠，不只是實體上的，同時也是心理上的。因為遙遠，所以無法掌握、難以確定、缺乏明晰的界定、喪失座標、不再有慣例或熟悉的習慣。所有的力量在此不預期地交會、諸力較勁，或是，一個力量進到另一種力量之中。Nancy的風景，因此不是一種靜態物或景觀。我們可以換個方式說：風景就是事件，對著陌生的未知，開啟自身，未曾停止，不斷湧現、推移脫逃、更新、懸置。[4]

而藝術家就是為這樣的事件，安排理想發生條件的人。《編碼心景》雙個展中，藝術家作為編碼者，所創造的內在風景，不是指向一種個人自我的內在地貌學。而更多是，藝術家如何透過某種內捲內趨式的裂解增生形式語法，將人置入一種對於既有答案，不斷產生疑問的未決狀態裡。鄧卜君的山水雲石，照例以這位藝術家極具個人性的皴法統合。但這次，嶙峋山岫，除了愈見其細密如密碼般的編寫力道之外，奇岩間，甚至穿鑲著無法判讀的神秘符號屏幕。此外，精神與物質的不期而遇，所造成的陌異化，讓人們所熟悉的同質世界，產生裂痕：幽深迷濛的雲山神境，瞬間與一片清玻璃所隔絕出的頑強冷冽物質感，意外強烈撞擊。水域表面，猶如映像管電視螢幕雜訊的橫紋構成。沉靜的大片靛青色底面上，俏皮地飄浮著電腦平面繪圖般的工整均勻浮雲。張嘉穎的編碼，創造出的是一個既有符碼解構後，異文化、異空間編織交錯的想像世界。中國上古神話《山海經》的角色與西方古典繪畫角色，從原有脈絡解離後，連同藝術家個人的自建密碼－自建角色，重新編寫組構出一個無階級差，神、人、物多元共存的萬物有靈宇宙。人類中心主義在此被完全罷黜。西方思想中，例如海德格的思想體系，被認定為「無世界」(without world)的物，或「世界貧乏」(poverty in world)的動物，[5] 在這個眾聲喧嘩的內在風景中，重新被給與了形塑世界的能力。

[1] W. J. T. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape”, in W. J. T. Mitchell ed. Landscape and Power, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press,  2002, p. 13.

[2] 同上註, p. 24.

[3] Jean-Luc Nancy, “Paysage avec dépaysement”, in Au fond des images, Paris, Galilée, 2003, pp.101-119.

[4] 同上註, p.  103, 105, 108, 114, 117。

[5] Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 51.

 

Landscape” has never been nature purely. As a way to represent human being’s aesthetic experience of nature, landscape is essentially cultural and humanistic. “Landscape painting” which is used to represent sceneries, in this case, is an activity of re-creating cultural memory and constructing codes. Consequently, landscape painting does not fall into the category of topography, as it does not realistically document landforms. To borrow W.J.T. Mitchell’s words, we can say that landscape is “a medium, a vast network of cultural codes.”[1]

Comparing to the “imperial gaze”[2] embodied by the landscapes of European colonies discussed by W.J.T. Mitchell, although the works of Teng Pu-Chun and Chang Chia-Ying are also informed by cultural codes, the artists adopt different approaches of weaving cultural codes respectively, which allow them to both utilize cultural codes while successfully unlocking the enclosed nature of existing codes and order, bringing about the “paysage”[3] (landscape) defined by Jean-Luc Nancy in his essay “Paysage avec dépaysement.” The French term “dépaysement” can be roughly translated as “the feeling of disorientation,” which might be the closest way of saying that can be used in this rather untranslatable case. However, “the feeling of disorientation” still falls quite far from what Nancy aims to describe. To the French philosopher, the notion of landscape stems from the ideas of “remoteness” and “a vastness without end.” In this instance, “remoteness” refers not only to a physical distance but also a psychological one. Because of the remoteness, landscape is difficult to grasp, ascertain, without clear boundary and coordinates, and no longer follows existing conventions or familiar habits. All forces from different directions encounter and engage with one another; or, it can be said that one force enters another. Consequently, the landscape described by Nancy is a not an object or a scenery. We can even say that landscape is an event, which unfurls itself towards the strange unknown in a ceaseless state of constant emergence, elusiveness, renewal, and uncertainty.[4]

Artist is someone who arranges the ideal conditions for such an event to take place. In Coding an Inner Landscape, the two artists create their inner landscapes by weaving codes. In this case, the “inner landscape” does not refer to an individual’s inner topography. Instead, it points to how artists employ involutionary, introversive forms and vocabularies of deconstruction and proliferation to embed human existence in in an uncertain state of continuously questioning existing answers.

The mountains, waters, clouds and rocks in Teng Pu-Chun’s work, as usual, are delineated with the artist’s highly individualistic method of wrinkling strokes. However, in this exhibition, in addition to the glassy layers of mountains, which are portrayed in an increasingly dense manner, forming a tapestry of woven codes, the peculiar rocks are inlaid with an undecipherable sign – the mysterious panels of glass. Moreover, the unexpected mixture of the spiritual and the material engenders an effect of defamiliarization, and breaks the homogenous world that the spectator is familiar with: In the mistily deep and serene otherworld filled with clouds and mountains, a clear glass panel suddenly appears, materializing a rigidly cold materiality and creating a strong sense of impact. Surfaces of the waters are composed with a horizontal pattern that is reminiscent of the static noise of CRT televisions. Floating clouds neatly painted resembling computer graphic drawings drift playfully on a vast and quiet indigo background. Through her way of coding, Chang Chia-Ying deconstructs existing signs, and creates an imaginative world interwoven with heterogeneous cultures and spaces. Ancient Chinese mythological characters taken out of the Classic of Mountains and Seas and figures extracted from Western classical paintings are freed from their original contexts to be mixed with the artist’s codes – her characters – to re-construct a hierarchy-free, diversely animistic world co-inhabited by gods, humans, and objects. Anthropocentrism is entirely banished from this world. In this inner landscape, objects, which are considered “without world,” and animal, which are considered “poverty in world,”[5] in Western philosophy, such as that of Heidegger, are given the ability to shape the world, which they inhabit and occupy.

[1] W. J. T. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape”, in W. J. T. Mitchell ed. Landscape and Power, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press,  2002, p. 13.

[2] Ibid., p. 24.

[3] Jean-Luc Nancy, “Paysage avec dépaysement”, in Au fond des images, Paris, Galilée, 2003, pp.101-119.

[4] Ibid., p. 103, 105, 108, 114, 117.

[5] Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 51.