關於當代社會，其實總離不開這幾個乏味的形容詞：「時尚的」、「壯觀的」和「致癌的」。有點像小學生的重組句子習作，偶爾出錯的時候，就會出現如「致癌的髮型」、「壯觀的乞丐」和「時尚的廢氣」等所謂錯置、錯配的例子。
語言文法的規格要求比較嚴謹，錯配容易造成邏輯上的謬誤，讓人哭笑不得。視覺語言的包容能力則非常強大，如愛森斯坦透過蒙太奇去建構影像與影像之間的關係一樣，錯配，也許可以是絕配。
如果我們真的要 amuse ourselves to death，大概不需要再看電視肥皂劇；到街上走走吧，「致癌的髮型」、「壯觀的乞丐」和「時尚的廢氣」比比皆是，除了感覺愈來愈 indifferent 之外，在難以置信的荒謬與難以啟齒的現實之間，倒還有無窮無盡的 amusement。
有幸有不幸，這種張力十足的 amusement 只會更加刺激腦袋，愈是努力思索，愈是無言以對。
Mice Parade – “Milton Road”
如果，有時候，你沒有什麼冠冕堂皇的理由，就是不喜歡動身上廁所，我想我們可以成為很要好的朋友。
炒樓吧，賣地吧，呎價六千四，地皮三十億，地產股價帶領恒生指數再創高峰，珠什麼三角，曼什麼哈頓，知什麼識，經什麼濟，轉什麼型。總之人人笑逐顏開，日日魚翅撈飯，哪管你血本無歸，只顧我滿肚肥腸。炒樓吧，賣地吧，四十年按揭，大廈內十室九空，負資產永遠不死。是之為，永劫，回歸。
展覽詳情：《圓．遊．會》
最近作了一個小型調查，每逢遇上朋友，擘頭第一句就叫人家數出五種感官。十之八九都說：眼、耳、口、鼻、身體。或是不自覺地重覆亞里士多德對人類五種主要感官所下的定義：視覺、聽覺、嗅覺、味覺、觸覺。無巧不成話，佛家的《般若波羅蜜多心經》中也有這樣幾句：「無眼耳鼻舌身意，無色聲香味觸法。無眼界，乃至無意識界。」在五種感官之中，我們總習慣以眼為先，也好像以視覺最為重要。藝術評論家 John Berger 也有類似的觀察：嬰孩在牙牙學語之前，已經喜歡東張西看，有時候為奇趣的形狀而咧嘴大笑，有時候為不熟悉的景物而驚慌失措。看東西，是一種近乎與生俱來的認知能力，也是一種很「原始」的溝通經驗，其起源比語言還要久遠。
但是，看東西的方法同時也局限於我們所認識和相信的範疇。我們看見一個影像，但不能理解，很容易就此失去耐性。隨年齡增長，知識逐漸凌駕於視覺，我們對看不看、看什麼、怎樣看等視覺上的抉擇已經培養出某些固定的習癖，一整套龐大複雜的視覺語言。
但別忘記，新影像也會帶來新知識，或是對熟悉事物的新穎視點。接收新影像的經驗往往是：我們一方面悵然迷失，另一方面又樂此不疲。
創造新影像的方法實在數之不盡，由千奇百怪的線條形狀到光怪陸離的顏色紋理，在各種高科技愈來愈普及的時候，創造新影像可以是耗盡九牛二虎之力的繁鉅工作，更可以是不費吹灰之力的簡單任務。我們都在電視螢幕上看過壯麗無比的山河風光，也經常到電影院觀賞違反物理法規的動畫特技，問題大概已經變成：我們還有什麼沒有看過？
看看蕭子文給我們的啟示。他應用了幾組其實不甚複雜嚇人的民用媒體工具，拆散了我們架置在鼻樑兩旁的眼睛，換成纏結在手腕上的微型數位鏡頭，再傳送到兩塊蓋住眼睛的液晶螢幕上。影像的生產方法，不再倚靠慣常的頭部轉動，取而代之的是肢體的靈活運動。在這件現代主義味道甚濃的作品之中，蕭子文輕輕改造了眼睛的位置，視覺接收卻變得分裂繁亂，視點中心時刻四處流竄，面對難以理解的影像，我們不得不再想想、再看看，也沒法不掀動出一連串對位置、距離、空間的質疑和探索。
但蕭氏作品的重點也許不是他最終製造了一些怎樣與眾不同的影像，而是影像的製造方式和過程，也是製造影像的過程中如何減弱視覺影像的本位性，要求影像結合其他感官（聽覺、嗅覺和觸覺），叫我們重新去了解自己身體的經驗；除了視覺上的昏眩刺激之外，我們也好像逐漸步出熟悉的視覺語言世界，重新發現、「看」到了自己的身體，開拓、發掘視覺之外的感官知識。利用其他感官語言去溝通，有點徬徨，也有點痛快。
自己動手創造新的光學工具，確實可以帶來新的視覺經驗，但要挑戰我們的視覺習癖，創造工具並不是唯一的方法。有時候，市面上現存的工具也可以變得玩味十足。就像江康泉和王潔淳改變了 EGG 360變形鏡頭的用途一樣，變形鏡頭本來是用來模擬全景影像的，但江、王二人並沒有按本子辦事，乾脆利用未經電腦處理的圓形影像來重新拍攝白雪公主的童話故事。在未經處理的圓形影像中，景物嚴重扭曲，形體動作的變換自有其獨特邏輯，但更讓人摸不著頭腦的卻是圓形影像中心的「黑洞」；因為廠商預設了變形鏡頭是用來模擬全景影像的，所以圓形影像中心會出現一個黑洞，防止攝影機入鏡。
也許有些 EGG 360 的用家不會在意「黑洞」的存在，繼續在變形鏡頭前亂跳亂動，迷醉於如夢似幻的扭曲影像；對江、王來說，「黑洞」是一個先天的缺陷，同時也是這個光學工具的特別之處，正好用來擾動我們經常往影像中心凝視觀看的習慣。故事中的主角 ── 白雪公主 ── 從來沒法走進或現身於圓形的中心地带，而故事中的主要事件，也撇在相對上次要的黑洞周邊位置。除了皇后和攝影師之外，畫面上的其他元素不斷向外擴散，不輕易讓觀眾代入角色。為了更清楚了解故事的發展，我們需要快速轉動眼球，時刻東張西望；看得倦了，倒可以換上另一副散漫的目光，或許更容易適應圓形影像的節奏。
在推翻了看東西的習慣之後，「看」，我們身邊其實還有很多很多不同的世界。而你，竟然還坐在這裡「閱讀」？
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English Version:
You Have Seen Too Much, You Haven’t Seen Enough
More information on the exhibition: Take a ST/Roll
This may seem like an odd question but I will ask it anyway: what are the five senses? Most often the answers are quite unified: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. Or else, they follow, rather unconsciously though, the definition of “senses” distinguished by Aristotle, namely, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Coincidentally, Buddhists also believe that when we die, we lose these five senses. Philosophical issues aside, the way in which we usually sequence our five senses seems to echo with John Berger’s famous observation of the privilege of Sight: Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. When a funny shape shows up, the child laughs; sometimes it panics when the things it sees are too unfamiliar.1 Seeing is like an instinctive means of cognition, a most “primitive” communication experience. Sight is with us way before language is.
Berger furthers his argument, saying that the way we see is limited by what we know and what we believe. As we grow up, cognition tempers sight and vision. In other words, our visual perception is subject to knowledge. When we cannot make sense of an image at the sight of it, we tend to lose patience. This is sad but quite true that our visual experience is necessarily informed vision. The ways we see speak of the learned habits we have acquired.
Although we learned how to look at certain things, there seems to be an indiscernible desire for new images, for new perspectives as well as for new knowledge. Swelled in the realm of the bizarre, we often turn this straying experience into a pleasure of discovery.
There are thousands of ways to produce new images. Those who keep up with the latest technology can now effortlessly produce stunning images – swift conjuring of colours, lines, shapes and textures to yield new, unthinkable images. TV screens are crammed with landscapes from the farthest end of the world, and the super effects of computer animations rewrite the most familiar physical law, and the list goes on. What is it that we have not seen?
Let us consider the Optical Handlers produced by Eric Siu. His optical tool displaces our eyes to our two wrists as two fixated miniature video cameras. The images captured by the cameras are then transmitted to two small LCD colour screens that cover our eyes like a pair of spectacles. With the Optical Handlers, we produce images not by moving our head but by stretching our limbs and moving freely in all directions. In this work of a heavy Modernist intent, Siu relocates the position of our eyes to produce a vision that is divided, multiplied and somewhat charmingly chaotic. The resulting mobile and decentred vision also produces an unfamiliar perception that in turn begs us to (re-)examine our very usual sense of position, distance and space.
But the most important implication of Siu’s work lies not in the visual and spatial disorientation the tool produces. His work concerns more about the process and method of image-making activities: the de-emphasis of Sight has paved way for the liberalization of other senses like hearing, smell and touch. What is actually (re-)discovered is a sense of body awareness that allows us to “see” our body, if to see means to understand and become aware of. Besides the remarkable perceptual frustrations, we seem to take off from the safeguarded territory of the visual language we know well of and start to communicate freely — perhaps also insecurely — in some other sensual languages that have been too under-developed.
Creating new optical tools is certainly the most direct way to produce new visual experience but there are other ways to challenge our visual habits as well. Sometimes, the “old” tools that are available in the marketplace are fun to play with, too. Kongkee and Reine Wong have, for example, appropriated the EGG 360 camera lens and altered the set usage which is primarily to capture 360-degree panoramic images for the creation of virtual 3D tours. Instead of following the industrial practice to perfect and convert circular images to 360-degree panoramas, they work with the donut-shape of the raw images like it is a canvas –- to (re-)tell the tale of Snow White. Visual distortion is one of the obvious features of the unprocessed donut image but what troubles us most is the apparent limitation of the EGG lens. Since the lens is made to create virtual 3D tours, the manufacturer leaves a blind spot so that the camera itself will not be captured in the image. As a result, a “black hole” remains at the centre of the unprocessed circular image.
While some might simply ignore the presence of the black hole and go on with exploring the magical distortion effect, Kong and Wong have turned the black hole into the body of the cameraperson and narrator to further problematize our tendency to look at the centre of the frame. Snow White, the heroine of the original story, would never appear at the centre of the image. Actions are literally “sidetracked” because they always take place elsewhere across the donut area. Making use of the radioactive perspective, Kong and Wong deliberately places the Queen and the cameraperson around the centre to register a shift of character identification. Consequently, we need to either move our eyeballs very rapidly or to develop a mode of reception that is less about attention than distraction.
The world is much more than it seems in our habitual reception. So, while pushing your way through this boring essay, have you already started fancying about what’s out there? Step out, worlds of insanity are just around the corner but they probably make much more sense now.
- John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: BBC and Penguin Books, 1972), 7. [back]