肉身交託 無路可退——評失聲祭44

究竟我們該從廢退的身體力往狂瀾,還是將肉身全副地交託於電訊時代的電光石火?

文/郭昭蘭

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爆裂的激光與閃現的電流,在藝術家的手上像魔法師一樣忽隱忽現。失聲祭44姚仲涵的【LLSP】】 (Laser - Lamps - Sound Performance)演出,藝術家時而像彈琴一樣撥弄雷射光束,時而以肉身抵光,藉此同步啓動巨響與日光燈。空間中流串著的,是由他肉身編輯下的雜訊,短促地在空間中射出、連發、撞擊。

作為觀眾的我,交出了耳膜與視網膜,視覺極限的瞬間光效與來不及伸縮的瞳孔,便將視覺暫留提供的幻影與電流雜訊,自動接收,規訓地成就一齣迷幻的聲光奇景。

身體的編碼(Codified Body)

【LLSP】是一部由藝術家拼裝 (assemble)出的身體樂器,一個由日光燈管、雷射光束、距離感測器、手提電腦拼裝出的一部可供肉身「彈」、「奏」、「舞」的「樂器」裝置。這裡的肉身既不是丹田到喉頭的歌詠,也不是張惠笙那種從肉身自體運作的身體樂器。【LLSP 】,用來彈奏的是他自己被自己所組裝的雜訊樂器所編碼的身體。

沒錯,藝術家發明一個雜訊樂器聲光裝置,再把自己身體置入電傳系統,身體的行動就轉譯成啓動聲光的訊號。

【LLSP 】交出的漂亮成績單是,簡要地將日光燈管的電流雜訊轉換成可供即興演出的身體樂器。在如何將身體置入這個電訊樂器的過程,他的解決之道,是一個聰明簡潔的方法:雷射光。雷射光不僅提供身體與這部樂器的感應介面,在光效的震撼與奇幻感,使用雷射光的基本分已經是A加(A+)了。

雷射光作為聲音感測界面的應用,【LLSP 】並非發明;但是再不像過去某些聲音藝術家安坐在手提電腦的後面,冷靜尷尬的調控他的數位面板,觀眾的目光只能一致地朝向背後的螢幕景觀。姚仲涵直接跳上了舞台,身控全場。就視覺、聽覺、身體感知的分立與整體性,他似乎較為流暢地統合了彼此。

也因為藝術家的身影成為演出的焦點,當藝術家精準熟練的操控全場時,忽明忽滅的身影,就像個帥氣的魔術師;難怪觀眾要問他:「請問你在表演的時候,會像個搖滾歌手一樣考慮你的帥氣感嗎?

為什麼是身體

不過,藝術家專注於如何將身體安插進入他的聲音演出裝置之中,這意味著什麼呢?這似乎是屬於西方科技藝術自1970年代以來所張開的問題意識,如今成了科技藝術建構的一部份。這個問題一半來自於發展之初正值裝置藝術關切著如何引入身體—身體現象學意味之下的身體—的時後,也是1960年代繪畫從封閉的平面畫面朝向多元感知的「劇場性」(theatricality)的呼聲; 如今互動的議題,隨著時日也逐漸朝向關切不同媒介之間的轉譯等各種面向。【LLSP 】在美學基礎上回應了這個美學路線所拋出的問題,以現象學的身體作為啓動樂器裝置的開關,彷彿是在數位時代面對身體廢退危機的想像救贖之道。只是藝術家的身體究竟在裝置之內還是裝置之外呢?

身體究竟在作品之內還是在作品之外?

作品之內的身體
藝術家的身體在表演之前想必經過一段學習的過程,好比鋼琴手在琴譜與雙手間基於精準的操控所進行的必要練習與制約。這也是【LLSP 】所犧牲的,表演者特定的移動總是必然啓動某種固定的效果,藝術家的身體也因此被這部樂器裝置給編碼;而那條橫越舞台的水平雷射光束,用來感應身體的訊號裝置,事實上則變成了舞台上牽制表演者身體的一賭牢不可破的牆,出了這道光束,身體便不存在。而投身裝置之中的藝術家的身體終究不免要回到他所屬的美學系統:屬於科技藝術的美學系統。

作品之外的身體
如此專著於電訊技術世界,處理著由科技藝術脈絡所延續下來的美學課題,難免讓人聯想到「這是誰的藝術史」的問題;媒體藝術論述,特別是由西方世界發展著的媒體藝術的書寫,如何左右著我們對媒體藝術的認識?我們會有一部屬於「我們」的媒體藝術史嗎?技術文化史之於我們與西方世界之間難道不存在著技術生產的前端與後端、研發與代工、所交叉出來的技術政治經濟學嗎?為什麼我們需要科技藝術?所幸,近日,如何書寫一部屬於「我們」的「聲音藝術」,正熱烈地被討論著。這個書寫行動將帶給創作者怎樣的影響,將是下一波值得關切與期待的現象。

That’s No Way to Go: Giving Your Body Over to the Telecom
Lacking Sound Festival
Listen 44

By Jau-Lan Guo

Shall we return the disused body or give our body over to the telecom?

Burst of laser and flashes of electrical current magically disappear and reappear in the hands of the artist. In Yao Chung-Han's work for Lacking Sound Festival Listen 44, entitled “Laser - Lamps - Sound Performance” (LLSP), the artist dances on laser beams as if pounding at piano keys, blocking beams of light with the body, and simultaneously sets off a clash of sound with a blast of fluorescent light. The interim space is strung together with chaotic noise edited by the body. Short bursts shoot forth. Rapid fire. Collision.

As a member of the audience, I relinquish my eardrums and retinas. The pupils have no time to react to these rapid lighting effects that push the limits of visual perception. Visual cues momentarily freeze on the supplied images and currents of noise. They are on auto-receive, and a psychedelic spectacle of sound and light is constructed.

A Codified Body

LLSP is a cybernetic musical instrument. It is an artistic assemblage consisting of fluorescent tubes, laser beams, distance sensors, and laptop computers; a “musical instrument” installation that can be “strummed,” “performed” and “danced” by the human body. The body is not used here to produce a voice that originates in the pudenda and rises to the throat, nor is it Alice Hui-Sheng Chang’s body-as-instrument, created from the body itself. What is performed in the LLSP is the body that is coded by the music/noise instrument that the artist has assembled himself.

To invent a noise instrument, then to subordinate the body to that system -- the dynamic of that body is thus translated into coded signals that initiate and edit electronic noises and lights.
The stellar performance report card that is the LLSP is, in short, a cybernetic musical instrument that can be immediately performed by converting the noise of electrical currents in fluorescent tubes. The solution to locating the body within this telecom-instrumental process was a simple and clever one: laser light. Lasers not only provide an interface between the body and the instrument, using lasers is an automatic “A-Plus” grade for its psychedelic and shock lighting effects.

Applications of laser sensor interfaces to sound are not an innovation of the LLSP, but here, the sound artist does not sit motionless behind his laptop, awkward but calm as he directs the digital control board – where the audience has no choice but to direct their eyes to images in the background. Instead, Yao Chung-Han jumps directly onto the stage and controls the entire scene with his body. Taken separately or as a whole, he appears to have smoothly integrated the visual, auditory and tactile elements.

Here, the artist’s physical silhouette has become the focal point of the performance. He is a debonair magician, disappearing and reappearing on the stage as he exercises precise control of the overall performance. Understandably, audience members are curious as to whether the artist contemplates his own stage persona and projected image the way a rock star might.

Why the body?

What does it mean when the artist focuses on how he inserts his body into the sound performance installation? This is a problematic concept that was first introduced in the 1970s by technological art in the West, and has become part of the construct of technological art. Half of the problem originates in the genesis of installation art, wherein concerns arose about how the body (as defined by phenomenology) should be included. It is a shout-out from the 1960s, when paintings emerged out of two-dimensional flatness to the theatricality of multi-dimensionality. Today, issues of interactivity have gradually shifted to addressing problems of translation between different media and dimensions. LLSP responds to this problem presented by aesthetics. An imagined solution to the prevailing crisis of the disused body in the digital age is created by using the fundamentals of aesthetic theory and by using the phenomenological body as a switching device within an instrumental installation.

Is the body located within the installation or outside of it?

The body within the work
The artist’s body necessarily endures a training process before a performance, much like a pianist requires practice to control and negotiate the necessary precise manipulations between the sheet music and the hands. A similar sacrifice occurs in the LLSP. Specific motion by the performer must always trigger an intended effect. The artist’s body is in fact codified by the instrumental installation. The leveled laser beam that crosses the stage is used as a body-sensing signal device, but acts as an ersatz impenetrable wall for the performer on the stage, too. When the performer moves out of the range of this beam of light, his body no longer exists. The body of the artist within the installation must eventually return to his own system of aesthetics: a system of aesthetics that belongs to technological art.

The body outside the work

The dedicated focus to the world of telecommunication technology, and the attempt to process issues of aesthetics that arise from the context of technological art unwittingly bring up the question: “Whose art history is this?” How do discourses of media arts, specifically writings on media arts developed in the Western world inform our understanding media art? Will we have a media art history that belongs to “us”? In techno-cultural history, does a techno-political economy exist between us and the Western world: between the front-end and back-end of technology production, between R&D and OEM? Why do we need technological art? Fortunately, there have been heated discussions on how to begin to write a text about “sound art” that belongs to “us.” How this act of writing will affect creators of sound art will soon become a phenomenon of concern and expectation.

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