『 全方位的指南，請上Newww.Land.com

 

歡迎來到「新世界」導覽中心，我們將會在接下來的展示中，提供你「如何認識在地」的途徑。倘若要在紀念商品區眾多選擇裡，找一個最經濟實惠可以帶回家的物品，明信片肯定是多數人的不二選擇。你可以隨意翻閱牆上的明信片，並仔細端詳背面印有與該風景相對應的索引，幫助你更加了解探索新世界的方法，安心擁抱未知境地。同時，也歡迎你在展場內使用我們所提供的購物袋，背著它逛展場，讓自己更像個在地人。從蕨類森林，到海灣城市，每個展品之間具可塑性的連結，服務於任何人的想像力，等不及邀請你走進來探索這個新世界。 』

​

​

​

這是一檔關於駐村紐西蘭個展「There is no Chinatown」的前導。「前導」意味著為某事某物進行前情提要，或在方法、道路上指引他人，大至博物館展示、遊客服務中心，小至一個網站，甚至是一張傳單、DM摺頁，作為資訊中介，被賦予類似指南的作用。同時這樣的指南也成為人們臨感現實之前的主觀建構過程。因此我們試圖透過依賴這類具指引性的檔案特質，將駐村、旅行期間所拍攝的影像，以及奧克蘭戰爭博物館的數位典藏資料庫，所提供豐富的館藏生物標本、考古骨骼影像為基礎，重新捏塑旅居南半球那座「新世界」上見過的各種人文、自然風景。

 

作品《There is no Chinatown》原是從海外華人移民的視角出發，以虛構的房地產語音導覽，引領觀者在意識裡建構遠離現場卻相對真實的淘金夢。

 

而《Newww.Land.com》一串無意識拼錯的網址，令人不假思索在此所指的「New Land 到底是何處？」。網址本應指向相對應的網站，然而喪失連結功能的字母排列，被疊加了新的意義，成為真正被虛構的導覽平台。「新世界」至此便符合了任何人想像中的未知境地。本次展覽作為提出「如何認識在地」的途徑，來揭示檔案如何影響著現實生活，如同意味深長道理的寓言故事，隱含對事物存在既定的觀察與認識。

​

[1] ​​Newww.Land.com

 

如果將部分字母重新排列組合，你可能會找到一個與地產買賣有關的網站。在導覽中心出現招牌、明信片、購物袋，或是風景展示窗，似乎再合理不過。我們嘗試使這些物件應用於不同的陳設方法，導向觀賞經驗下的後設情境，隨各種訊息符號在空間中交錯，使其發揮暗示、指南的作用。

 

明信片的風景以消費性的導覽解說與紀念儀式出現在展場中；印著展示櫃裡英屬殖民船的影像，與「新金山」標語的購物袋，呈現具移動性的容器，使人聯想到運輸、貿易、拓殖、慾望與戰爭；兩扇展示性的窗景，使風景顯得人為操縱與商品化，沒有一絲歷史真實感。作品透過各種物件所形構的場域氛圍，引領人們想像即將踏上旅程的「新世界」。

​

[2] Daylily, Long black

 

旅行在他方卻試著尋找故土，是浪漫的執著。我們曾向當地的博物館調閱館藏金針花植物標本，並且向研究員展示華人如何食用金針花，以及關於金針花象徵母親花的典故。他們開始感到詫異，因為科學作為探索宇宙自然的路徑終有其侷限，畢竟那些關於「自然」之外的文化涵義，並非科學研究的視域。

 

英文稱為「Daylily」的金針花，僅開一天花便凋謝，是我們在新世界尋找故土的起源；「Long Black」原指在澳洲、紐西蘭特有的黑咖啡，在此被我們挪用作為形容如影子般「長黑」的歷史，相對於Daylily（一日的花）的短暫宿命，1952年之前的紐西蘭境內，隨著各種排華政策與浪潮，歷史中的海外華人移民故事經過一段漫長的黑夜。我們將金針花圖像刻畫在材質各異的實板上，呈現生命在不同時態的變化，也表徵對於物種遷徙、身分認同的寓意。

​

[3] 鳥與鼠

 

我們深受一張來自奧克蘭戰爭博物館的照片所吸引，畫面中央站立一隻高於人身的巨大無翼古生物—恐鳥（Moa），一旁的博物館員站在梯子上，為它描繪有著樹蔭、草原的背板。曾經是這個新世界最大型的草食動物，在西方人抵達這個大陸前早已滅絕，沒有任何人親眼看過，僅存在於毛利人祖先的口耳相傳中。即便考古學提供許多出土骨骸等佐證線索，得以進行擬真模型重建，但恐鳥終究只不過是想像中的物種。

 

博物館員的現身凸顯擬真展示品的虛構性，正如人們所相信的歷史，終來自建檔、複製過程裡「人工」添加與形塑的結果。作品透過奧克蘭戰爭博物館線上開放的數位典藏資料，對於該物種的文字、影像、尺寸描述，進行這些生物的擬真模型雕塑。其餘從缺的視角，只能任由想像與揣測在再製的過程不斷填補。恐鳥（Moa）、奇異鳥（Kiwi）、南秧雞（Takahē）、太平洋鼠（Kiore）這些被我們所刻畫的物種，來到這塊新大陸的時序前後不一，卻也在人類多次來來去去的拓殖中，面臨消逝的險境。

 

[4] 新金山

 

一幅具有光澤的PVC背膠印刷攝影，呈現滿山滿谷的金戒指，巨大的影像被無形的外力施壓、蹂躪導致變形。這個影像來自旅途中的二手市集，一位華人小販兜售成堆廉價的合金戒指，路過的遊客，人手一把栽進戒指堆裡，恣意挑選穿戴，宛如歷史中那場沒有中場休息的淘金熱。人們手裡挑著虛假浮誇的美好，甚至偷偷摸進口袋若無其事地走掉，這個場景以一種高度消費性、戲劇性的即興演出，完美詮釋了我們這趟旅途正在尋找的「新金山」。

 

影像是由一張35mm的正片底片，經過100倍的放大輸出，呈現劇場般的視覺效果。我們在展場用雙手摧毀影像的平整與清晰，顯示出即興的暴力與雕塑行動，強調影像作為一種真實的再現，卻也是依附於另一個載體的虛構存有。

​

​

​

​

"A comprehensive guide, please find more on Newww.Land.com

 

Welcome to the guide centre of the "New World". We will provide you with a way of "how to know the local" in the following presentation. If you would like to seek the most economical option among many souvenirs, postcards are definitely the best choice for most people. You can have a look around the postcards on the wall and carefully read the index corresponding to the landscape printed on the back. It assists to understand the ways to explore the new world and embrace the unknown peacefully. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to use the shopping bag which is provided in the exhibition. With it, that makes you feel local. From fern forests to bay cities, each exhibit has a malleable connection that serves any imagination. We are looking forward to having you with us in the new world."

​

​

This is a precursory exhibition of There is no Chinatown, the extended project of the residency in New Zealand in 2018. A precursor is meant to provide a summary or a guide. It generally refers to museum display, guide center, website, advertisement, or flyer. As an information intermediary, it is given a similar role as a guide, meanwhile, it also has become the subjective construction ahead of reality. Based on this concept, we intend to sketch the cultural landscape of the ‘New World’ that was seen in the southern hemisphere during our residency through the instructive archival characteristics we collected. Those are the pictures taken during the trip and the research of the digital archive from the Auckland War Memorial Museum that provides a rich collection of biological specimens and pictures of the archaeological skeletons.

​

Departing from the perspective of overseas Chinese immigrants, There is no Chinatown employs the fictitious audio guide of real estate to touch the dreams of the gold rush that away from reality. The exhibition title Newww.Land.com, nonsense misspelled URL, provokes to question of “Where is New World?” The alphabetical sequence without a functional link has been superimposed with a new meaning to transform into an actual fictitious platform of navigation. The "New World" thus fits in with the imaginary unknown land. Throughout this context, the exhibition serves as a path to explore "how to know the local" and to reveal how archives affect reality. Like a profound fable, it implicitly observes and understands the existence of beings.

​

[1] Newww.Land.com

 

You may find a website related to real estate trading if you try to key in the URL by rearranging letters. It seems reasonable to have signs, postcards, shopping bags, or display windows of landscape scenes in the guide center. By applying these objects to different display formats, we attempt to narrate a meta-scenario. With various information symbols interlaced in the space, it indicates Newww.Land.com as the strategy of a guide. 

 

The exhibits of landscape postcards are as a consumer-oriented tour or a commemorative ceremony; the shopping bags printed with images of British colonial ships and the slogan "New Golden Mountain" represent the mobile containers that were reminiscent of transportation, trade, colonization, desire, and war; the two display windows present manipulative and commoditized scenery without a trace of historical reality. Through the atmosphere formed by chosen objects, it aims to draw the imagination of the “ New World" on which people are about to embark on a journey.

​

[2] Daylily, Long black

 

How romantic of seeking homeland from traveling elsewhere. We once inspected the collection of daylily specimens from the local museum and showed the researchers how the Chinese prepare it for food and told them the allusion of daylily as a symbol of mother flower. They assume that a scientific method has its boundary of investigating the universe, thus were astonish at those cultural meanings other than "nature" that were outside the scope of scientific research.

 

The English term of daylily originally refers to the flowers that fade after only one day. It is the initial of our search for a homeland in the new world. "Long Black" originally refers to the black coffee that was unique to Australia and New Zealand but here is appropriated as the dark age of the migrant history of Chinese in New Zealand that has gone through various anti-Chinese policies before 1952. Thus we made use of the daylily images on different materials to portray the changes of life in different tenses and the implications of species migration and their identities.

​

[3] Bird and Rat

 

During the research trip, we were attracted by a photo from the Auckland War Memorial Museum. In the center of the image stood a Moa, a huge wingless ancient creature, and a museum staff stood on a ladder depicting its backboard with a shade of trees and grassland. Moa was once the largest herbivore in this new world but was extinct long before the Westerners arrived. No one has seen it but only exists in the word of mouth from the Maori ancestors. Even if archaeology provides many supporting clues such as unearthed skeletons, which can be used to reconstruct a realistic model, the Moa is still an imaginary species after all. 

 

The appearance of the museum staff demonstrated the nature of the fiction from the simulated exhibits. As is believed through history, it is ultimately the result of "manual" addition in the process of archiving. By exercising the digital collection from the Auckland War Memorial Museum, we sculpted the simulation of these creatures based on the institutional resources: text, images, and size descriptions of the species. The rest of the lacking facts can only be filled with imagination and speculation in the process of reproduction. Those depicted species, Moa, Kiwi, Takahē, and Kiore, were brought to this new continent in different timings but were then endangered in extinct during the colonial age.

​

[4] New Golden Mountain

 

A photograph by glossy PVC adhesive-backed print that shows golden rings full of mountains is deformed by invisible external pressure and ravages. This image is collected from a second-hand market during the trip. A Chinese vendor was selling a pile of cheap alloy rings that were constantly picked up by the enthusiastic passengers as if the historical gold rush without intermission. The tourists were pleased by the exaggerated beauty at their hands and even sneaked them away in their pockets. This scene, a high-consuming and dramatic impromptu performance, perfectly interprets the "New Golden Mountain" that we were looking for on that journey.

 

The image is a 35mm positive film, which is magnified by 100 times, presenting a theater-like visual effect. We deliberately destroyed the quality of the image to illustrate the improvisational violence and the sculptural action. It emphasizes that an image is an authentic representation as well as a fictional being attached to another carrier.