非關影像非關台北：台北浮白
撰稿/張芳薇 _策展人‧台北市立美術館雙年展暨國際計劃辦公室主任
楔子：「雖然你是攝影師，但我希望你展出的不是你拍的。」
「台北浮白」是攝影家周慶輝參加2006台北市立美術館展覽「台北二三」(_Taipei/Taipei)_時所作。記得該項展覽進行籌備時，筆者─當時也是「台北二三」的策展人── _與攝影師就展出作品進行討論，撂下挑釁的一句話：「雖然你是攝影師，但我希望你展出的不是你自己拍的。」請攝影師展出不是他拍攝的「東西」算是策展人對身為攝影師的藝術家的公然挑戰。而這互相激盪的策展人與藝術家對話的結果就是「台北浮白」─距離筆者辦理周慶輝第一次在北美館的攝影個展「停格的歲月：痲瘋村紀事」正好十年。
「台北浮白」是作者（但不是攝影者）在1990-2009期間開車違規被開罰單的「罰單照片」。在台北開車被開罰單會有照片作為證據，並據之以催繳罰款，這批照片（筆者希望稱這批影像為照片）即是居住在台北的作者開車因故被開罰單的影像證據，也是文件紀錄。以長時所收集的罰單照片作為出發進行創作，作者已突破攝影師的個人單線創作方式：拍攝、沖洗、印製。
這批照片大多數是超速攝錄器所拍攝，有些是作者超速、闖紅燈時被拍到，有些則是因為違規停車─「吃個水煎包，就被開罰單」，有些是作者在回家的路上被拍，或是在住家附近被逮到，或在赴工作途中等等。初次看到這批罰單照片，一邊聽周慶輝講述每張照片的故事，因為數量龐大且牽涉的時間很長，感覺十分奇異，引人入勝。這些照片或許再現台北開車族的切膚之痛，但經過作者長期保留刻意收集，同時攤開來檢視時，意義早已超越「罰單照片」的單純角色。
照片中的每部車子裡都有作者（作者開車中），但卻無法顯現於超速攝錄器所拍的畫面，所以，「看不見的作者」使作者既存在又不存在。超速攝錄器成為攝影師也顛覆影像創作的邏輯。被拍攝的車與超速攝錄器之間也形成監控者（機器）與受控者（車子與車主）的關係；機器自動拍攝的攝製邏輯與其結果連結成一則有趣的隱喻。因違規被超速攝錄器拍攝的照片呈現出某種與車子速度無關也與觀者所熟悉的傳統攝影美學無關的雙重去主體性與去美學化的解構過程。但透過作者以自身經驗出發，經過多年的收集，並將之視為媒材加以編選、剪輯、建構，使這件作品呈現不同經緯的脈絡與意義。回到創作初衷，這件作品仍是周慶輝從他的日常生活經驗出發加以轉化，挪用(_appropriate)_客觀現實的素材加上作者主觀的轉化衍生，使作品具有微妙的詩意，極易引起觀者共鳴。
這批「單純記錄客觀事件的照片」雖然事實上是「影像」，卻與傳統攝影（美學）無關，幾乎可說品質拙劣，傷痕累累。（壞照片是也！）而作者在展出時卻煞有其事放大裝裱，當作攝影作品處理。呈現時放大的照片底下都附有或長或短的文字敘述，這些或短或長的文字都經過作者上網google揀選編輯，形成另一種文本與想像。短文時而與影像對話，時而自言自語自給自足，與影像形成對照，既虛擬又真實。這些曖昧又不明確的影像與文字的集合組構成無以取代、個人與集體生活的印記，作品的解讀重點顯然在影像之外。無論如何，其可能的意義也已開放給觀者自行重組編撰。（再一次「作者已死」！）
嘗試從影像語言閱讀，這批照片具有高度不明確性與開放性（筆者試著稱為「懸宕」的特質）。因為是超速攝錄器在違規時所拍，所謂的傳統攝影美學（構圖、明暗、色調等）便自然而然不在影像攝製的考量範圍，而以機器被設定的另一套邏輯進行─在拍攝對象超速、闖紅燈與違規停車等情況下進行拍攝。而據此規則所進行的拍攝因為一而再再而三被重複，形成了可觀的數量，也「被迫」形成特殊的集體風格，無心插柳間形成非（傳統）攝影美學的美學。當罰單照片被作者刻意放大裝裱展出之際，這種因「機率」(chance)所產生的非攝影美學的美學正在受觀者嘖嘖稱奇它拙劣的壞照片之美，相同的藝術觀賞過程在二十世紀初開始至今，便一直重複著。所謂的美，以它千變萬化之姿，狡訐藏匿於萬事萬物裡，期待藝術家的重新發現。
從另一個角度來看此作，「台北浮白」也充滿小人物對無奈的（台北）生活發出阿Q式的自我揶揄、嘲諷與逃逸，具有典型的周氏幽默感。「浮白」是罰酒之意──浮一大白即罰一大杯酒（是否也暗示著：在台北，開車簡直是處罰。這些年下來，也實在被罰「拍」太多啦！這些讓人無所遁形的機器……等等。此作不但是作者個人二十年具體生活的切片，也反映他所居住的台北現實。
Never Mind Aesthetics: Fined Taipei
Chang Fang-wei
Curator, Director of the Biennial and International Projects Office, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Prelude:“I know you’re a photographer, but I ’d like you to exhibit something that you didn’t photograph your self.”
The germ for Fined Taipei goes back to 2006 and photographer Chou Ching-Hui’s participation in the Taipei/Taipei exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. I recall how, during a discussion with Chou over his contributions to the exhibition in my capacity as exhibition curator, I somewhat cheekily threw down the gauntlet, saying: “I know you’re a photographer, but I’d like you to exhibit something that you didn’t photograph yourself.” For the curator to ask a photographer to show “something” that he did not photograph himself was basically an open challenge to him. Yet both sides embraced it, and Fined Taipei is the result of this provocative dialogue, coming fortuitously exactly a decade since I administered the presentation of Chou Ching-Hui’s first solo photography exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Still Days – Documentary of a Leprosy Village.
Fined Taipei is composed of traffic violation photographs collected by the artist (not the photographer in this case) between 1980 and 2009. In Taipei, photographs are issued together with traffic violations as supporting evidence of a transgression and as reminders to the recipient to pay the accompanying fine. These photographs (I would prefer to refer to the images as “photographs”) are visual evidence and written records of fines issued to the artist, a resident of the Taipei area, for various traffic violations. By making the collection of traffic violation photographs into an exhibition the artist has departed from the photographer’s typical linear creative process: photographing, processing, and printing.
The bulk of the photographs were taken by remote speed cameras, some for speeding or running red lights, and others for illegal parking – a quick stop for a bite ends up costing a disproportionate fine. Some were taken as the artist was on his way home, or caught him near his house, or on the way to work. The first time I saw this collection of traffic photographs I listened to Chou Ching-Hui describe the story behind each one, which took quite some time due to the sheer volume of tickets, yet I found it fascinating and totally absorbing. While these photographs may strike a nerve for Taipei’s drivers, their deliberate preservation by the artist over a prolonged period and their open presentation here take on far greater significance than the basic role of the original photographs, giving new meaning to the term “fine art.”
The artist is present in the automobile in each photograph (as the driver), but is not clearly revealed by the traffic cameras, making the “unseen artist” both present and absent. That the “photographer” in this case is the speed camera overturns the existing logic of image creation. The vehicles and traffic cameras meanwhile form a relationship as the watcher (the machine) and the one under surveillance (vehicle and owner); the logic at play between the automatic operation of the machinery and the outcome together make a fascinating metaphor.
The photographs captured by the traffic cameras for speeding exhibit a certain disconnect with the car’s actual speed, as well as a dual process of deconstruction or elimination of subjectivity and aestheticism familiar to viewers in conventional photography aesthetics. However, by setting out from the artist’s personal experience, the collection of the photographs over the years and their selection, editing and establishment as media give the work a different orientation and significance. Going back to the genesis of the project, the work represents Chou Ching-Hui’s transformation and appropriation of objective elements from his daily life experience, with further subjective tweaking and unfolding by the artist. This gives the work a subtle lyricism that easily resonates with the viewer
Although this collection of photographs simply recording objective events qualifies as “images,” it has no relation to conventional photography (aesthetics), being essentially crude in quality and full of blemishes and other issues (such as just plain awful photographs!) Yet the artist has enlarged, mounted and framed these images for exhibition and treated them like works of photographic art. Each enlarged photograph is followed by a caption, some cryptic or brief, and some elaborate or lengthy, that (in Chinese – the English is further based on the Chinese to varying degrees) was based on a Google search, constituting an additional text and imagination. The captions sometimes engage in dialogue with the images, like someone talking to himself, both authentic and virtual at the same time. These suggestive and uncertain combinations of images and words combine to form unique personal and collective registrations of life, clearly placing the interpretation of the works outside the images themselves. Whatever the case, their possible meaning and significance has been left for viewers to reorder and edit themselves. (“The artist is dead” once again!)
Attempting to interpret the photographs through the language of images, they exhibit a high degree of uncertainty and openness (qualities I prefer to call “suspension”). Since they were taken by traffic surveillance equipment at the moment traffic infractions transpired, naturally all the aesthetic criteria of conventional photography (i.e. composition, tonality, colors) go out the window as considerations, instead following the logic of the machines’ design – a photograph is taken when the subject exceeds the speed limit, runs a red light, or parks illegally. The constant repetition of the picture taking in accordance with these parameters results in an impressive volume, which in turn is “compelled” to form a distinctive collective style, inadvertently constituting an unconventional aesthetic alien to conventional photography aesthetics. The moment the artist deliberately enlarges and mounts the violation photographs, this aesthetic alien to photography aesthetics produced by chance is being marveled at by the viewer for its beauty as a crude, poor photograph. This process of art appreciation has been repeated over and over since the early twentieth century. In its chameleon-like fashion this “beauty” craftily lurks in all things, awaiting rediscovery by the artist.
In another respect, Fined Taipei is full of self-deprecation, mockery, and escapism towards the frustrations of an average Taipei citizen, bearing Chou’s signature sense of humor. The exhibition title in Chinese, fu yi da bai, refers to being forced to imbibe in a drinking game (perhaps implying that driving in Taipei is a punishment in itself. Over the years, Chou has been fined too many pictures for his transgressions by the seemingly inescapable, ubiquitous contraptions). More than just an authentic slice of the artist’s life over the past two decades, they reflect the reality of the Taipei he calls home.