Critic
Previously published in Artist Magazine volume 423, August P.250-251
Author: Wen-chi Cheng
In memory, an image poem was written in this way: The time is in an afternoon heated by the sun or the long night diluted by moonlight, the place lies in the private environment of a personal life experience or any unspecific strange open space, the character is the portrait of a young artist who is good at creating lyrical images and whose virtual, feminine face is attached by private emotion before the camera. Through a narrative of voice-over, a visual effect to its minimal fashion and a neutral rhythm for camera movement, it recounts a stream of image fragments time after time. The words employed is calm and free from specific referents despite it seems sentimental.
When I am with you
The work with a sensational title “When I am getting older with you” depicts the immediacy in high-tech media and how a person is situated under such media; it encompasses a holistic perception of time to which can’t be specifically referred. The strategy is to “reach the possibility of the communication between news report and its mimic works” and to “get behind the camera and the sweet smiles of the reporters so as to see how real events are dragged hopelessly and compromised with the edited news fragments outside the sweet smile of the reporters and camera.”
Nat Niu respectively employs the title, the subtitle and the screens above to summon a bizzard experince which can not be fully illustrated in images(Niu had majored in new media art). Firstly, referring to the title, we can not tell the existence of someone who (it could be you and me) is aging with the time; neither could we recognize the reality of time-space coordinate from the uncanny-smiling female news anchor before the camera by any hints of camera movements, focus and zoom-out. Except for the news titles, how can we tell the distance between the indescribable complexion and the audience? This sort of intangibility is what Niu has always been good at by summoning visual experiences from female bodies or any other feminine mediums which a rhetoric of entitlement would be added to intensify.
Intermission: Ten Minutes Left
The absence of the object orthe “time” is what appeals to me over time and time again in Niu’s works. This secluded trace was revealed from“Ten minutes Left”where the character (a family member of artist) in the video was staring at the camera and missing the disturbance of the overlapping noise behind the disappearing speeches and gazes in “When I am getting older with you”.The former is an ambiguous reference to the camera and the family member for they can never stay closer: As any individual who are hindered by the intangible obstacle between him and the environment. The latter refers to a state of alienation specifically created by the artist through the screen of electronic medium; it is intended to deliver a commonly seen audience phenomenon in modern time: As a all-knowing dyslexia and out-of-focus disorder in reading media.
The moment when the audiences exist but are not really present makes media a dispensable medium. Yet, who is the audience in there? The answer obviously is not the camera holder in “Ten minutes Left”. Although, a position for the dialogue is implied by the artist, we are urged to pop up the question that when the female reporter is waiting for the end or for the suspension of time it will become, to where will it supposed to be? Or is it as indicated in the voice-over that ““the shrinking of Y chromosome will lead the male become extinct after 5,000,000 years”
Can’t be With You
Time and space are constituents of a mutually complementary system; that is, only through specific space will time proceed to generate meanings (Imagine what is the difference between a eternal time of an everlasting universe and a blink of eyes) Thus, the time-indicated “you” in the title “When I am getting older with you” seems to correspond to the “you” in “Can’t be with you” in meanings. If this is not a dialectics of time and space proposed by the artist, how should we explain the coincidence of this reference in meanings? The time frames in “When I am getting older with you” and “Can’t be with you” are identical and complementary.
“Can’t be with you” is a four channel video installation in three projection screens and one liquid crystal display, “…a circuit video loop in a synchronized live moment which reflects our immersed and inescapable absurdity towards the need for live images” Basically, this work is the re-installment of “When I am getting older with you”, the purpose is to create a set of circulated video loop; that is, to demonstrate a two-stage deduction about time and media. Among them, the work in ‘When I …series Ⅲ’ which contains a single transverse video news narrative and go beyond those images is comprised by the five scenes (living room, room, meeting room, outside and inside the car) and seven shots of previous works; all of them have followed a singular line of narrative time.
Be it the singular story line in ‘When I …series Ⅲ’ or the real-time loop created by a four-channel video installment; both have facilitated a consciousness towards time and created a strange experience of synchronicity between the subject and the object by a seemingly detached voice-over. Just as the reporter has to become a target before camera, the perception of time has not only guided us towards an open infinity but also to a closed loop. Only by inquiring into a historical reading of finis, such an indescribable feeling can be conveyed and experienced.
And the finis is…
Let’s go back to the aforementioned image poem, a feminine face in the beginning of the loop; it reminds us those famous female close-ups in film history. In comparison the noted faces in painting history—the Olympia gaze of Manet which Niu has summoned in “Ten Minutes Left” and “Lively”—with the gazes in last shots of “Can’t be with you” and “When I am getting older with you”, we are inevitably reminded the last shot of Louis Malle’s Damage in which, after witnessing the death of his son by falling off a building, the father alone in a shabby room is staring at the enlarged photo with the blurred face of the female lead(Juliette Binoche), a feminine face so mysterious, omnipresent that symbolizes the fate itself.
Only through this association, we are slightly given the opportunity of taking a glance at Niu’s secret proposition by feminine faces: On unknowing but eternal fate which is considered a secret and omnipresent consciousness of time, and, through the gaze of that mysterious face to the end of thefinis….”Is fate predictable?” the artist negated the question during the interview. Perhaps, the longing will remain even after the coming of the finis. The seemingly clear but increasingly vague face of a woman exists in the approaching but incomprehensible shot.
[1] Radio Taiwan International, “Cultural Taiwan”
[2] In the last shot, the female reporter walks out of the frame…accompanied by a voice-over that “due to the decrease of Y chromosome, it could lead to the extinction of men in five million years”, a sense of absurdity about fate is thus revealed.(Niu) The word finis refers to the famous speech “Is the world coming to the finis or the future has just begun?”by Jürgen Moltmann who thinks that we do not know if the world is meeting its end, even it should be and we still never know what it is.
[3] The Caption of “Can’t be with you”by Niu
[4] cf. [2] Jürgen Moltmann offered an opinion that the concept about the end of the world can be devided by the telos view or finis view of the history. If the history of the world has a purpose, a telos, then it will fulfillingly, gradually walk towards the direction of its destination. The work of Niu is also inspired by such a notion.
原文刊載於藝術家雜誌 423期 8月號 Ph.250-251
撰文/ 鄭文琦
記憶中，有一篇影像詩是這樣譜寫的：時間是在艷陽加溫的午後或被月色稀釋的漫長夜晚，地點則是在個人生活經驗的隱密環境或不特定的陌生開放空間，主角真實身份為擅長創造抒情影像的青年藝術家，也是在鏡頭前化身為私密情感得以依附的某個虛儗陰性臉孔。透過一種以旁白進行的敘說策略，透過低限風格的視覺元素及中性的運鏡節奏，娓娓鋪陳一個一個隨著時序（timing）更替、或流動的影像片斷――儘管這樣的畫面看似煽情，作者所運用的文字卻是冷靜而無關特定對象的。
標題修辭極具渲染力的作品《當我和你老去》想要談論的，除了科技媒體的即時性，以及個人在這種媒體即時性之中呈現的狀態，還有一種難以具體指涉的（全知）時間感受。這件作品的書寫策略，是以「擬仿新聞畫面之錄像作品為主軸展開對話的可能性」；同時也將「鏡頭移到新聞畫面背後，看那原本在鏡頭前甜美微笑的新聞主播在鏡頭之外，如何無助地在真實新聞事件以及經過演練的新聞片段之間拉扯、妥協。」[1]
但出身於北藝大藝術與科技研究所的牛俊強，用上述各執一詞的標題、字幕和畫面，為觀眾召喚出的，卻是一種未能完全體現於影像裡的奇異感受。首先是從標題裡，我們既無從判斷隨時間老去的某人（你或我）是否依然安在；再者也不能從鏡頭前不發一語的女記者，似笑非笑的妝容與表情下（乃至於隨著作品不同系列的鏡頭運用，刻意地逼近捕捉或拉長距離），覺察到一絲關於時間座標的真實提示：除了播報字幕所提示之新聞內容的每個（敘事）時間以外。
女記者無言的臉孔到觀眾之間，究竟隔著多遠的距離？而這種難以捉摸的屬性，正是俊強延續過去擅長以女性身體和其他陰性媒介召喚出來的觀看經驗，並透過標題的修辭以強化。
時間裡不在場的客體，或說時間本身正是俊強的影像一再吸引我的地方。這條隱密的線索，從先前《十分鐘》畫面裡被攝主角（俊強的家人）目光直視著鏡頭、而無法查覺其背後的擾動物體疊合雜訊，延伸到《當我和你老去》影像裡無端消失的話語和目光。前者是鏡頭與家人之間無法真正靠近的曖昧指涉：如同個人與其週遭所存在那無形的壁壘。後者則是俊強刻意創造的疏離狀態，透過電子媒體的螢光幕，刻意銜接至普遍存在的當代閱聽現象：如同無所不在的媒體閱聽障礙以及失焦狀態。
觀眾彷彿存在、也並非真正存在著的時刻，媒體更只是可有可無的中介物。不過此間的觀者是誰？答案顯然已非《十分鐘》裡的攝影者；雖然此處（《當》）俊強預設了一個可以與媒體對話的位置。不過我們更想問的是，女記者正在等待結束、或即將成為／揭曉的懸滯狀態，又將指向何方？或者它會像旁白裡所說的：以科學預測Y染色體於百萬年後消失的歷史終點形式來臨嗎？[2]
時間和空間，向來是一組持續建構中又彼此互補的元素，也就是說，唯有特定空間得以讓延續的時間產生意義能指。（試想一個無始終宇宙的永恆時間比之一瞬間又有何差別？）於是《當我和你老去》標題所指涉的時間去向，似乎也和《不能和你一起》的那個「你」形成某種語義上的參照關係。假如說，俊強無意從事時間（與空間）的形而上辯證，那麼又要如何能解釋此種語義上的參照巧合？是「（當我）和你一起老去」的時間框架，還是「（當我）不能和你在一起」的空間符碼，竟可以湊成一組彼此循環而互補的語法。
讓我們來看名為《不能和你一起》的作品，它是以三台投影銀幕與一台車用液晶電視構成一個四頻道影像裝置，「呈現在一個同步的即時現場中的封閉影像循環，映照出我們對即時影像的需索和身在其中無法擺脫的荒謬。」[3]基本上，該作仍是將《當我和你老去》的不同系列予以重組，其目的正是為了完成一套封閉的影像迴圈，亦即，作者心目中關於媒體時間的兩段式演繹。其中又以系列三的單一新聞畫面橫向拓展的影像敘事，而包含並貫穿這些影像的，則是原本系列三裡分散於五個場景（客廳、房間、會議室、車內到車外）與七個畫面中的單一敘事時間路徑。
無論是系列三的單一敘事軸線，或者《不能和你一起》藉由四頻道影像裝置呈現的即時迴圈，它們激發的都是一種關於時間的意識，並藉由看似與一切無涉的播報旁白，形成一種客體與主體同時經歷的怪異感受。正如播報者也成為被拍攝者的感受，對時間的知覺既指向開放的無限，又指向封閉的迴圈。而唯有趨近一種有所終點的歷史解讀方式，最足以描近這種同時經歷而難以言傳的感受。
回到最初的影像詩，也就是迴圈起點的陰性面孔。我不禁聯想到影史上那些知名的女性特寫；相較於繪畫史上知名的臉孔――俊強在《十分鐘》、《栩栩》等作品召喚出馬內的奧林匹亞式凝望――《不能和你一起》和《當我和你老去》那最後凝視鏡頭等待救援的陰性臉孔，則讓人聯想到法國名導路易•馬盧《烈火情人》（Damage）結局的鏡頭：尾隨著在目睹兒子跳樓悲劇後，獨自放逐天涯的男主角踏入房間，正對鏡頭牆上赫然貼著女主角茱麗葉•畢諾許（Juliette Binoche）佔滿整面牆壁的放大模糊臉孔：那張神秘而全知的，象徵命運的女性臉孔。
唯有透過這層聯想，我們才似乎稍微窺見俊強欲以陰性臉孔欲揭櫫的神秘命題；關於不可知而恆久的命運，那是一種神秘而全知的時間意識，以及，透過那張神秘的臉龐，凝視至一切最終點之處的盡頭……「命運可以預知嗎？」藝術家在訪談時的答案是否定。但也許，對結局的終極渴望仍存在於終點後。那看似清晰的女性臉孔不斷迫近的朦朧意欲：正存在於不斷逼近又無法窮究的鏡頭裡頭。
[1] 中央廣播台《文化台灣》。
[2] 最後一個畫面，女記者走出了內框……緊接一句「Y染色體減少，男人可能在五百萬年後絕種」，一種命運的荒謬感在此顯現。（牛俊強）「終點」說參見德國學者余爾根•莫特曼（Jürgen Moltmann）《世界正臨到終結或其未來已然開始》， 莫特曼認為我們不知世界是否面臨終點，如果它應該臨到一個終點，我們也不知道那是什麼。
[3] 《不能和你在一起》個展文字（2010），牛俊強提供。
[4] 見[2]，莫特曼：「根據它們處理的是歷史的目的（telos ）還是歷史的終點（finis），可以區分關於歷史終點的各種觀念。如世界歷史有一個目的，那麼那便是它的完滿，歷史循序漸進地朝着這個目的的方向前行。」這也影響理解俊強作品的方式。