有一次我在中國看到了電視上在播放軍事演習的畫面，我感受到前所未有的恐懼，而且難以言喻。奇怪的是在台灣的時候，我對此並沒有特別的感覺，甚至已經習以為常。我想起布希亞說「波灣戰爭沒有發生」。他描述在大眾媒體的播送之下，戰爭已經變成了一種近乎電玩遊戲的畫面，失去了傳統戰爭的感受。我的感覺卻與此相反——我從這些電視畫面之中感覺戰爭的威脅真的存在。但是這或許正好證明了戰爭成為布希亞所說的一種符號，它的效用與一整套系統相聯繫。譬如當我在台灣的時候，軍事演習的畫面已經與八卦新聞、政治爭論混雜在一起，成為了一種茶餘飯後的談資。但是在中國，戰爭的畫面與我熟悉的事物失去了聯繫，它忽然變得無比的清晰。為了見證這一個時刻，我拍下了電視上的畫面，說明了我曾經在電視前面。
在這次的展覽當中，我與烏克蘭的藝術家Mariia Kazanets合作，我邀請她根據她的戰爭經驗，重新繪製這些照片。並不是因為她人在烏克蘭，而是因為她不在，就像我當時不在台灣一樣。但是我們確實感覺到了一種無遠弗屆的暴力，而這種暴力顯然不能透過「再現」、「現場」與「意識形態」的概念來理解。我們甚至不能說它們關於那一場戰爭，我們僅僅是面對某一個方框當中的影像，那裡有足以致人於死的高溫，但是從螢幕到照片，以至於畫布的過程之中，它逐步遞減，成為溫和的藝術。透過這樣的方式，我們取消了身份、國籍與地點，我們只是身在一個沒有戰爭的地方，試圖說出我們說不出的話。
此次展覽也邀請藝術家蔡霈文、何佩欣、賴沛雋、李承翰、李萌、楊宇光、林君達擔任合作藝術家，利用未命名的廢棄物進行創作。我們把所有廢棄物都搬出來，堆在展場當中，感覺就像是一個戰爭的廢墟的再現，就像很多關於戰爭的展覽。但是實際上，這其實只是為了方便打掃。在這個展覽之後，這些現成物的創作與純粹的廢物就會一起被運走，戰爭現場的模擬就會消失無蹤。沒有什麼比起這件事更能夠說明一個事實：這裡沒有戰爭，還沒有。
時間｜5/3 ~ 5/31 每週五、六、日 1400 ~ 1800
開幕｜5/3 1500
地點｜未命名（台北市鄭州路25號）
One time, while I was in China, I saw a military exercise being broadcast on television. I felt an unprecedented and indescribable fear. Strangely, when I was in Taiwan, I had never had such a feeling—I'd even grown used to these images. I was reminded of Baudrillard’s claim that “The Gulf War did not take place.” He described how, under the mass media’s broadcast, war had become something like a video game, losing the emotional intensity of traditional warfare. Yet my reaction was the exact opposite—I felt the real threat of war precisely through these televised images.
But perhaps this only proves Baudrillard’s point: that war has become a kind of symbol, functioning within an entire system of meaning. For instance, when I was in Taiwan, images of military drills had already been absorbed into a stream of gossip, political debate, and media noise—reduced to a casual topic of daily conversation. But in China, those same images were suddenly stripped of familiarity. The connection to the known was broken, and war appeared with shocking clarity.
To witness this moment, I took photographs of the television screen—images that documented my presence in front of the screen.
In this exhibition, I collaborated with Ukrainian artist Mariia Kazanets. I invited her to reinterpret these photographs through painting, based on her own experience of war. Not because she is physically in Ukraine, but precisely because she is not—just as I was not in Taiwan at that moment. And yet, we both felt a kind of violence that knows no distance. This violence clearly cannot be understood through the concepts of "representation" or "presence." We can’t even say the images are about that war in particular. We are simply facing images within a frame—images that may contain deadly heat, but which, through their transformation from screen to photo to canvas, gradually lose intensity and become softened into art.
Through this process, we erased identity, nationality, and geography. We are merely people in a place without war, trying to speak about something that cannot be spoken.
This exhibition also invites artists 蔡霈文, 何佩欣, 賴沛雋, 李承翰, 李萌, 楊宇光, and 林君達 as collaborating artists, using unnamed discarded materials for their creations. It all began simply because the space needed a major cleaning. When we piled up all the waste, it felt like a reenactment of a war-torn ruin—just like many war-themed exhibitions. But in reality, it was merely for the convenience of tidying up. After the exhibition, both the artworks made from found objects and the pure trash will be taken away together. The simulation of a war zone will vanish without a trace. Nothing illustrates this fact more clearly: there is no war here, not yet.
Time｜May 3 – May 31, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 14:00–18:00
Opening｜May 3, 15:00
Venue｜Untitled Space (No. 25, Zhengzhou Road, Taipei)
Also check out other Arts events in Taipei, Exhibitions in Taipei, Fine Arts events in Taipei.
