The Unbearable Light Rhythm in Life
生命中的不可承受的輕盈節拍
Text／WU Chieh-hsiang 文╱吳介祥
The erroneous rhythm of food demand and supply
Inspired by life experiences and the pigs that she looks after everyday, Chang-jung Wu bases her theme on pigs, and successfully integrates the pigs that are actual food and those that are symbolic signs. The artist finds her inspiration from the heavy pressure of reality, but her work is exempt from the everyday dullness. When the financial crisis happened, her piece, “Documentary III—Slot Machine,” signaled at the successful rate of breeding on the one hand, and hinted at the fact that all industries were affected by the speculative financial games. None of them were free from the influence—not even the most fundamental food supply industry, feeds and breeding industries alike. When even living resources were caught up in the global financial games, any places and raw materials became parts of the capitalist cycles, and everyone had to bear unnecessary risks and consequences.
Wu’s inspiration arises from the absurdity of the global economy. In “Pig Five Flower” series, while demonstrating the accumulation of capital, fast reproduction and exponentially maximizing profits in capitalistic manipulation, she also reveals the opulence, ephemerality, blinded prosperity of capitalism by using kaleidoscopic iridescence, upbeat and cheerful music, and the metal clang of gambling machines.
Through her visual aesthetics, Wu creates a unique way of observing the macroscopic world with a microscopic point of view, and starts her very own “kaleidoscopic economics.”
Nature and its four seasons generously offer food to its inhabitants. However, the food demand and supply chain has lost its balanced rhythm. Wu’s art distances us from reality, and metamorphoses the large-scale problem and its absurdity that is way beyond our comprehension into otherworldly visual and audio artworks. The projection in the exhibition space is like the constant chanting in churches, encompassing the audience with the “submerging” aesthetics of the Romantic period. Her work expels the everyday dullness with the numbing joy of rave parties, allowing artistic creation and escapism to mutually embody and console each other.
The erroneous rhythm of the city
Wu documents the countless encounters between U-Bike riders and pedestrians in Taipei, and the awkward moments of them avoiding bumping into each other. Urban traffic not only represents a kind of mobility, it is also the city’s conveyor belt signaling the social network and the economic bloodline. It is the flow of life, connecting people near by and far away; it implies infinite moments of people passing each other as well as encounters by chance; it is uncanny repetition as well as familiarity without questions and answers. Urban encounters will never become senseless because of the regularity of traffic and massive repetitious experience. There are always surprises in the city, but the surprises always form a sense of rhythm, an urban rhythm that is sometimes off-key but always detectable in the boisterous traffic network day after day.
U-Bike is a facility for tourists and the locals, but it also creates many unexpected urban encounters. The artist removes the social and psychological aspects of these encounters, and focuses on documenting the accidental, unprepared encounters of the U-Bike riders and other common traffic. Removing the urban reality, Wu employs a sense of continuity and the rhythm of music to simulate the physical relations in urban mobility. She also uses the rhythm of the coming and going crowd to simulate the parallel and interweaving structure of music as well as its modulation in tone. However, this music is not constituted of smooth rhythm but a type of improvised rhythm similar to DJ’s scratching sound—an unpredictable rhythm and a regular chance encounter. The erroneous rhythm of the flowing traffic forms the “arrhythmia” of urban life and Wu’s visual music.
The erroneous rhythm of life
While audiences are submerged in Wu’s local escapist aesthetics, they would be disturbed by her erroneous rhythm. She creates rhythmic images that simultaneously resemble blood circulation and music scores, demonstrating a piece of “diagram of life” with the enclosure of musical work and the signification of visual work. From the dazzling, rich visual aesthetics of the kaleidoscope to the musical, mathematical, minimalistic aesthetics, the artist also embeds in her work a secret mark—the red cape of Superman, a symbol that is expected to trigger anonymous secret power that points to the pulsating aesthetics at the crucial turning point of life.
The most unbearable rhythm in life is when the body misses its usual rhythm and becomes ill with the wait for recovery as well as the autonomous, bodily rhythm. While accompanying her father during his illness in the hospital, Wu discovered the regular rhythm of machine administering medicine injections that seemed to prolong the wait into one infinite beat. Therefore, she creates an audio-visual work, called “Mechanical Bodily Process”, scoring music for the chaotic rhythm of life through the sharpness uncommon and undetected by ordinary senses under normal circumstances. As we count the beats and off beats that connect our lives, we are also waiting for the grand finale of the music with the humblest aesthetic wish. Being excellent in transforming the visual into the musical, Wu mirrors the images of life with the music of life, seemingly monotonous but constantly lingering, simultaneously feather-light but also unbearably heavy. Wu’s music alters the neutrality of the flowing of time, and bestows each moment of life with different rhythm and weight.
錯拍的糧食供需
出自生活歷練體驗而以每日照顧的豬為主題，吳長蓉以豬為題材，成功地讓豬在「糧食實料」和「象徵符號」之間滑動。藝術家的靈感來自沉重的現實壓力，作品卻處理掉了日常的冗長雜質。在金融風暴之際，「Documentary III-Slot Machine」(吃角子老虎機)這件作品一方面指的是育種的成功率，一方面又暗示所有產業也都被捲入金融投機遊戲中，無一倖免，即使連最基本的生計供養產業，飼料和養殖，也都受到波及。當民生資源都被席捲在全球金融遊戲中，任何地點、任何原料都在資本相生的循環中，任何人也都可能承受了無端的風險和後果。
吳長蓉創作動機來自全球經濟的荒謬性，在「小豬五花」等系列中，藝術家以萬花筒還的斑斕、節奏輕快的清脆配樂、賭博機器的響亮金屬聲，既呈現資本主義在累積資本、迅速複製繁衍和倍數化利潤的真相，也呈現它創造的絢爛、短暫、遮蔽的繁華。吳長蓉用視覺美學的手法創造出一種對世界微觀巨視的方式，而發明了她的「萬花筒經濟學」。
大地四季還慷慨地供養物種，然而糧食供需鏈卻失了節奏。吳長蓉的藝術將現實拉遠，將規模遠超過我們理解範圍的荒謬性，處理成無關世俗的視覺和聽覺美學，在展覽空間中像教堂般地投影放送，以浪漫派時期的「沉浸」美學包圍觀眾，以電音派對麻醉式的歡樂驅逐日常，藝術創造和避世主義彼此成就、相互安慰。
錯拍的城市節奏
藝術家以影像紀錄無數台北市街道上的U-Bike騎士與人迎面相遇、互相閃身的尷尬瞬間。都會的交通不僅代表移動，它是城市的輸送帶，是社會網絡、經濟命脈、是生息流動、能近遠疏親；是無數的錯身、能不期而遇；是重複的陌生、是沒有問答的熟悉。都會的相逢永遠不會因為交通行為的規律和大量的重複經驗而鈍化，城市裡永遠有意外，意外卻總是有規律，而形成偶爾走音的城市旋律，在音籟雜沓的交通網絡中日日傳唱。
U-Bike是觀光或便民設施，卻製造了城市的意外遭遇，藝術家將城市相遇的社會和心理因素抽離，紀錄U-Bike騎士和一般交通常規交錯時，雙方措手不及的際遇。藝術家將城市的現實抽離，以音樂的流動性和節拍感來比擬都會移動的物理關係，也同時用人潮往返的節奏關係，比擬音樂性的平行和交叉、抑揚和頓挫。但這音樂並非圓滑旋律，而是DJ刮唱片的即興音樂，不可預期的規律、規律的偶然。流動交通的錯拍成為城市生活中的「心律不整」，卻是吳長蓉的錯拍視覺樂曲。
錯拍的生命脈動
觀眾還沉浸在吳長蓉的在地遁世美學中，卻又被她的錯拍所驚擾。藝術家製作了一個既像血液循環、又代表樂譜音符的節拍影像，以音樂作品的封閉性和視覺作品的示意性，呈現了一件「生命圖徵表」。而從飽滿絢爛的萬花筒視覺美學，走向樂譜式、數學式的簡約美學的同時，藝術家還留下暗記做為伏筆－象徵超人的紅色披風，符號能引發無名的秘密力量，在最關鍵的生命轉折點牽引出拍擊血脈的美學。
生命中最難以承受的輕重緩急，莫過於身體錯拍時，等待康復、等待身體的自主節奏。藝術家在陪伴就醫的父親時，醫療機器調節藥物注射劑量的規律節奏，讓等待成為無限延長的節拍。吳長蓉創造了「機械命體流程」的視聽作品，延展出一般狀態下，眾人官能不會察覺的敏銳，為生命的慌亂節奏譜寫配樂，我們數算著連結生命的強弱節拍，以最卑微的美學心願等待樂章完成。善於將視覺音樂化的吳長蓉，而同義互喻的生命影像和音樂，即使單調也有不捨不棄的依戀，即使輕盈也有難以承受的沉重。吳長蓉的音符改變了時間流動之中立性，而讓生命中的每吋光陰都有不一樣的節奏和重量。