小說景觀

Fiction Landscape

文/許晟     譯/鄔晨雲

如果要將當代世界凝結成一幅風景畫，它應該是什麼樣子？每個人都會有不同的答案。細細一想，當代世界不僅包括真實的人造景觀，自然風景，還包含了網路世界的形態；不僅包含人們能夠看到的，眼前的景觀，還包含了能夠瞭解到的，宇宙裏的資訊，這些資訊進入腦海，也構成了當代世界的一部分；另外，當代世界作為歷史的時間線上最靠前的部分，也自然包含了歷史中更早的部分——人類所知的，這個世界的過去，以及過去所留下的物證，也構成了當代世界的另一個維度。更重要的是，這幅畫卷只能屬於每一個描繪它的人，是每個人內心世界與生活經驗的映照：每個人都有一個不同的世界。

畢蓉蓉就在嘗試描繪一幅當代世界的風景畫，這是一個複雜的過程，這幅畫是在她延續不斷的創作中緩慢生長著。她的水墨畫功底讓她對風景有著深刻的理解，她的創作專案也像是一幅不斷延展的當代畫卷。這幅畫卷不是一次完成的，而是像一個有生命的個體，在不斷地生長著。具體來說，她收集生活與旅途中的視覺碎片，從街頭塗鴉，到巴比倫建築紋樣，從火車窗外掠過的樹影，到歐洲城市中的海報。在畢蓉蓉的作品中，這些素材都以紋樣化，抽象化的形式呈現，所以是個人化的，對觀眾而言是陌生的。但同時，它們又來自許多人共同的視覺經驗，所以會勾起觀者經驗深處的感知。作品由繪畫，視頻，裝置，織物等不同的媒介構成，不同的質感似乎再現了不同的視覺經驗。“小說景觀”是一個具有生命力的專案，它又是具體而微的，它來自藝術家的個體經驗，但又在喚起觀者對自然與風景本身的感知。

What would it look like if the contemporary world is delineated in the form of landscape painting? Different people have different answers for that. If we put a deeper thought into that, we’d realize the contemporary world includes not only man-made landscape, natural landscape but also the virtual internet world. In other words, it includes not only the seeable (i.e. landscape in front of our eyes) but also the perceivable (i.e. information of the cosmos). When the latter is received by our mind, it also constitutes a prominent part of the contemporary world. Moreover, as the starting point of the timeline of all time, the contemporary world, naturally, contains the earlier history – the past as well as the physical evidence of the past constitute another dimension of the contemporary world. More importantly, the delineation hereby created pertains only to the one who creates it as it is the reflection of one’s inner world and life experience: the image of the world varies person by person.

What Bi Rongrong endeavors to do is to create a landscape painting of the contemporary world. As the process is long and complex, this “painting” keeps evolving, slowly and yet constantly. A good mastery of ink painting skills enables her to gain a profound insight into landscape painting, which in return makes her work an ever-developing landscape of the contemporary time. Rather than completing everything all at once, she treats the “painting” like a living object that grows organically and continuously. To be more specific, she collects many visual fragments she encounters during daily life or journeys. These fragments include street graffiti, Babylonian architectural patterns, tree silhouettes passing by train windows, and posters in different European cities. In Bi Rongrong’s work, these source materials are presented in a somewhat decorative and abstract way. To the viewers, it is unfamiliar as it is highly personal. But in the meantime, as the visual sources are rooted in people’s common visual experience, deep in the viewers’ mind a sense of empathy will be aroused. Her work ranges from painting, video to installation and textile; and different media give out different senses of visual experiences. Fiction Landscape is a project with vitality. It is subtle and yet specific. With a root in the artist’s personal experience, it manages to evoke viewers’ perception of the nature and the landscape.