5/7(六)開幕&座談 Opening&Artist Talk
開幕茶會暨座談會：2016/05/07(六) 14:00
地點：台北數位藝術中心 噪音咖啡廳
策展人：李彥儀
與談人：藝術家/COTTON
策展人/李彥儀
Time: Saturday, 7 May, 2016, 14:00
Venue: Changee Cafe, Digital Art Center, Taipei
Curator: Yen-Yi Lee
Attendee: (artist) COTTON
(curator) Yen-Yi Lee
展覽論述 Curatorial Statement
「我曾愛過一個像沙漠一般的男人，而在那之前，我曾愛過沙漠。這不是什麼特別的事物，但談到這其中的空間，那豐富的縹緲，即是沙漠的邀請。」 ——Robecca Solnit，《迷路實地指南》。
展覽《迷路實地指南》討論將網路影像、後製、混搭、隨機的相遇是如何成為「物」。影像在網路上透過不斷的轉載與後製，離開脈絡的影像，被分割成為一個獨立的「物」，影像為「物」，將以不同的性質，在某一個面向的瞬間與未來的使用者反應，而發生的結果則無法預測。（如同當火燃燒棉花，其實並非火與棉花反應，而是棉花的易燃性與火反應）。從人類的角度來看，我們可以藉由關鍵字搜尋、念舊的感覺，或者是喜劇的效果、反映出的事實、主題標籤（hashtag），或是趨勢（trending）來與這些影像物生成關係。然而，我們卻永遠無法對這些不斷循環自動播放、永久檔案化的數據，或者是由許多匿名使用者在網路上所製造出的循環播放GIF檔，這些我們所製造出來的「物」，不論我們是否存在，它們都將依然如故地自我演進。
對於這些物質，是否還有其他我們無法探知的層面呢？對我們而言這是重要的嗎？這些影像是作為我們創造力的工具之一，或者是成為我們身份認同的一種形式呢？當「物」被化約成對於人類的功能性時，我們是否能夠有能力去想像這些物的其他面向呢？或者是我們與物的經驗只能歸為功能上的使用了呢？
在藝術家、服裝設計師，以及音樂人的作品中，一會兒抽絲剝繭，一會兒穿鑿附會，他們如何將這些媒材化為感覺與接收完成的感知。一旦這個過程完成之後，我們的文化是否就能夠了解這些物了呢？而，我們必須要了解嗎？這是否又回到功能式的使用與有用呢？難道我們能夠與物的反應與交換，將永遠只停留在表面上的相遇嗎？既然如此，在理解極有限的情況下，我們又如何能夠自顧自地高唱著我們能夠理解，或曾與物交流呢？
或者我們應該如一位蒸氣音樂工作者Dream Catalog所形容的：「現在文化發展之快，讓所有的音樂都近乎成為一種一瞬即過的噪音，甚至可以說是隨用即丟的，而我很喜歡這個想法。我最愛的就是在Soundcloud上，僅是聽著這些串流的音樂，同時深深地知道我將再也不會聽到這些歌，而這些歌都將在風裡消失。」
“Once I loved a man who was a lot like the desert, and before that I loved the desert. It wasn’t particular things but the space between them, that abundance of absence, that is the desert’s invitation.”– Robecca Solnit, A field guide to getting lost.
This exhibition explores how internet images, post-production, remix, randomness encounter on the internet as a thing (Ding). How imageries that generate on internet after being taking out of its context become a thing itself, and part of it encountered with future users with its different qualities (as when fire burns cotton, it’s not the fire and cotton interact, but the caricature of the cotton and fire interact). From human perspective, the reasons for us to form relationship with such objects could be keyword search, or feelings of nostalgia, comedic factors, truth, hashtag, or trending. However, we can never have a full picture of how these auto-played, permanent archived data, or continuously in loop gifs generated infinitely by anonymous users on the internet will evolve with or without us.
Is there anything deeper than what we can perceive from these materials? Is it important to us? Does it serve as tools for our creativity or a formation of our identity? When things being reduced to what is useful to us, do we still have the power to imagine? Or we only experience these objects in its function to us?
This exhibition wishes to invite artists, designers and musician’s works to discuss how they have or attempt to aestheticise these mediums that generate in our time. Does these images-object still making any sense in our culture? Does it have to be making sense to us? Is the point of encounter does the only access we will ever get? How can we say we have experienced, or interacted, or had relationship with, when there is still so much that we don’t comprehend? or shall we experiences them just as Vaporwave artist Dream Catalog once said: “Culture is so fast paced now that all this music is just passing noise, disposable almost, and I like that aspect of it a lot. I love going on Soundcloud and just listening to the stream, knowing I may never hear these songs again, and they will just disappear into the wind.”