轉向第五時代
呂岱如，台北當代藝術中心策展人
展覽有可能也被當成一則預言或閱讀未來的方法嗎？《轉向第五時代》正好在疫情之前討論成形，然而全球疫病所造成的不安與不確定性卻恰好成為計畫發展過程中的背景與挑戰，我們也因此藉機重新思考如何與世界建立各種物質關係。在近來充滿哀悼和恐懼的氛圍下，許多對身體政治的思考、永續型的在地經濟、社群、網絡的實踐方案如雨後春筍般地冒出，而我們主題原訂探究女性主義觀點下的後資本主義社會樣貌，也成為當務之急。
展覽題目試圖回應小說家瑪格麗特．愛特伍的短篇故事《Time capsule found on the dead planet》（死亡星球上的時空膠囊），這篇文章是她登載在衛報上作為在2009年聯合國氣候會議舉辦前，支持減低碳排放的環境運動的書寫。文筆生動簡扼，她描繪了四個人類歷史進程：「在第一個時代，我們創造了神」；「第二個時代我們創造了錢」；「第三個時代，錢變成神」；「第四個時代，我們創造了荒漠」(1)。原本我們所處的荒漠時代原本已經脆弱，然而此刻的全球處境更讓我們深切體會其中險惡迫近。當前我們猶如在狂野的沙漠風暴希木中求生 (2)，而生存法則幾乎完全由看不見的病毒或是蓋亞大地女神所掌握操弄 (3)。用一種譬喻性的說法，這是我們需要記住所有沙漠風暴名字的時候；這也是我們再度審視人類與其他生命形式與物質的交互關係與糾纏。我們希望透過提出各種想像思辨性未來的方法學，來潤澤一種寓言性的休養空間，或另一種時空間膠囊來讓我們對當下處境按下重新設定的按鈕。
在此前提下，我們關注由科技與資本主義驅動的物質張力。多位參展藝術家對於生態環境議題展開研究與創作，跨越人類與其他物種的主題內容讓我們有機會稍稍跨過人文科學中的強烈二元論觀點，他們提出與其他不同意識形態的另類連結——從苔蘚、企鵝、生化人到人工智能等。有些作品則以思辨性的敘事手段回顧人類演化進程，以批判觀點來倒置或再想像我們對進步的觀念和定義，以此審視發展、生產與衰敗。也有其他的藝術計畫企圖辨識，作用於未來身體的政治規範將如何在更為複雜的食物鏈結與經濟活動裡流動。從實用主義或是唯物觀點來看，這個展覽似乎不斷揭示憂患現實、強調眼前迫切的掙扎與議題。然而，其實展覽也同時透過作品內容，以及三個展間的展示調配，呈現「時間」的不同表現、節奏、運動和模式。這個隱性的安排回應、並延伸出閱讀 Elisabeth Grosz 對時間的精彩討論——她將時間視為神秘又虛幻的物質存在形式，讓生命不擱淺於社會、政治、文化上的刻印裡，而是得以持續地在時間性的重組轉換、或是變化形塑中，獲得新的具體性及能量(4)。時間之於有機與無機物上作用的模式、形式、效用，在她的探究中，提供了我們理解世界如何隨著我們沈浸在時間裡不停歇的運動裡獲得生命力。當我們如此將時間的本體論帶入展覽內涵作為新物質主義轉向的討論座標時，這個擴延線索也提供展覽意圖和標題更加倍寬廣的閱讀可能。我們或得以理解不只在此刻當下的生活與共生，更能夠理解過去和未來如何也一併在當下的時間裡被運作和描繪。展覽標題中這個「轉」的動態，不僅被這個非線性時間觀擴充，其他物種及物質意識的補述，也同時多添該轉向的多重向度。
展覽所呈現的不同取徑將不同現實作為各種相對而非對立性的理解。《轉向第五時代》企圖創造對當前「荒漠」上多重地平線的新登入點，而非產出某種危機告示，進而讓我們有能力去重塑我們的現實（感知），回應物質世界中的「活性」樣態。若把這些取徑當作思辨性未來的敘事出發點，我們是否會因此在彼此之間找到新的信仰及神呢？在現下全球的無能狀態裡，我們又真正學習到了什麼？為了激盪更大膽的想像與行動，展覽毫不避諱地提出這些艱難回覆的問題作為思考的基礎：我們要給出什麼樣的未來？如何改變荒漠？又如何尋求新的和諧與下一個人文精神價值？
- 瑪格麗特．愛特伍，《Time capsule found on the dead planet》（死亡星球上的時空膠囊）衛報，2009 年 9 月 26 日。 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/26/margaret-atwood-mini-science-fiction
- 希木，作者音譯阿拉伯文 simoom。作為眾多沙塵暴的種類和名字之一，希木的意思是有毒的風，形容強烈、乾旱、充滿沙塵的風。這種風暴發生地點從沙哈拉沙漠一直延伸到阿拉伯半島上都有其蹤跡。其溫度可能高達攝氏 54 度，濕度在 10% 以下。
- James Lovelock所提出的蓋亞假說提出一種解釋地球生態體的概念，「地球整個表面，包括所有生命（生物圈），構成一個自我調節的整體，這就是我所說的蓋亞。」簡單地說，蓋亞假說是指在生命與環境的相互作用之下，能使得地球適合生命持續的生存與發展。https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/蓋亞假說
- Grosz, Elisabeth. The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely. Duke University Press Books, 2004.
轉向何處？
徐詩雨，台北當代藝術中心策展人
《第五時代轉向》 是在一個我沒從想過的狀態中策展與製作，是僅在災難電影中出現的星球級危機。當呂岱如在 2019 年十一月收到印尼 Selarsar Sunaryo Art Space 的媒體展覽合作邀請信時，全球疫情尚未發生。我們並不知道這個基於瑪格麗特．愛特伍的短文《死亡星球上的時空膠囊》發展的展覽將會於我們的現實息息相關。在這篇短文中，愛特伍描述了四個不同的時代，象徵文明的逐步發展，第五時代實際上是後世界末日，這就是我們的展覽命名為《第五時代轉向》的原因。
我們與來自台灣和印尼的藝術家一起，想像一個愛特伍文字中無可逃脫絕路的轉向。創造性的想像力和藝術性的思辨是否有可能影響世界的發展方向？最初的計劃是提出一項不以展示為中心的提案來應對當代藝術不可避免的加速生產，透過一系列的工作坊，讓我們和藝術家彼此沉浸在彼此的實踐中。但是，COVID-19 的爆發使國際旅行幾乎變得不可能。無論是在台北還是在萬隆，這個展覽對當下的情勢的回應都比以往任何時候都更為迫切。不僅僅是因為藝術和藝術家可能會刺激和反思新的觀看與思考方式，我們也將有機會從展覽的最一開始就挑戰製作模式。
對我而言，這次展覽的挑戰來自隔著距離，物理上的與認識論上的，去理解參與印尼藝術家的作品。在整個計畫期間，當我試圖理解這些作品時，幾個關鍵詞不斷出現：
深層生態學
這個由學者 Arne Naess 在1973 年所提出的概念中，提出我們不該將自然與其他非人生命視作為人類所用的對象，自然萬物相生相息，這個觀念與老子、環境女性主義的理念相通。深層生態學強調維持生物的多樣性與自我實現。在此，自我實現並非新自由主義所強調的最大化個人能動性，而是在生物多樣性越多的生態圈中，獲得一種超越自我、身份、國族特質的共感。 深層生態學也強調對於責任的思考，需要放在更長的時間軸上考量，超越一個人類個體存活在地球上的時間，思考持續至第三代甚至第四代的永續可能。在這種時間軸上，也許非人的視角能提供一種更為有力的思辨。展覽中 Natasha Tontey 的 Pest to Power （2019）呼籲人類向蟑螂這個在數次大滅絕事件都存活下來的物種學習； Tromarama 的 Domain （2019）則從企鵝的視角看向海洋。自我實現是否能在這些物種的視界完成？
物質性
社群網路、動態影像、資訊碎片，這些我們生活中無所不在的媒體技術主導當今訊息的生產與傳遞，待在媒體文化的討論中我們很易忽略構成這些技術的物質基礎。既然《第五時代轉向》是一個新媒體的展覽，那就不可避免地得談談這些作品的媒介特性。這些物質基礎深深地與各個地理區域獨有的歷史、文化與天然資源相互交纏，形成特殊的媒介文化。Jussi Parikka 在 Geology of Media 曾經適用 medianature 來形容這個狀態，如同 Haraway 所使用的 natureculture，原本被切分的二元對立（像是文化與自然、生物與資訊）中有無法被忽略的關係存在，必須將相互之間的作用納入考量。而媒體技術一樣也絕非單獨於文化之外，當我們將焦點轉向技術背後的物質基礎，就有可能打開更多想像與思辨的空間。展覽中有些作品直接觸及到了地球的物質現實，像是 Riar Rizaldi 的 Kasiterit（2019）用一個未來的 AI 講述印尼 Banka 島被過度開採的錫礦。 Andrita Yuniza 的 Mooi Indie 21st Century（2019）則把重新詮釋印尼著名的類型繪畫，將紡織業污染物做成光鮮亮麗的球體 。
資本世
儘管人類世已成為顯學，特別是在當代藝術中，不過我更認同 Jason Moore 提出的「資本世」概念 — 造成各種危機的並非是人類，而是人類對資本主義的信仰。這種信仰造成的危機在 Atwood 的 essay 中很明顯地被敘述 — 當我們相信金錢就是神，荒蕪就隨之而來。資本主義的誕生與擴張建立在對非歐洲白人中心的疆域的佔有與剝削，影響遍及在其之上的女人、被殖民者與非人。全球化的科技金融網路更讓各項危機迅速地成為星球級的事件，像是 2008 金融海嘯、COVID-19 疫情。Abshar Platisza 的自我驅動裝置呈現能源耗盡的當代焦慮。而如果我們要修正目前世界前進的方向，除了質疑資本主義中的各種「真理」，我們需要重視各個地區中生產與再生產網路中在長時間內累積與成型的動態關係。這種動態關係牽涉了權力的分配，也是歷史。不能以一個放諸四海皆準的標準，忽略這個關係網路中的商業、帝國、權力的交纏。這些遺產 – 無論有毒與否 – 至今仍深深影響著每一個個人與國家，以及其所處的環境。 藝術家組合 Bakudapan 援引了印尼類型繪畫的圖像，揭開食物供應鏈的脆弱。
展覽中試圖討論的面向並不僅止於以上幾項，然這這三點卻是描繪我所處現實的重要線索。就像是閱讀一本多重宇宙的科幻小說，我總是會猜想，這個現實的結局究竟會是什麼？
這個稱為家的藝術世界
Heru Hikayat，Selasar Sunaryo Art Space 策展人
在 2019 年 Selasar Sunaryo Art Space（SSAS）內部策展人 Chabib Duta Hapsoro 與專案經理 Dea Aprilia 啟動名為《轉向第五時代》的計畫時，我仍在替印尼教育與文化部長管理幾個專案。儘管我大部分的職責仍是關於策展。不同之處在於，策劃藝術文化節的挑戰來自於處理高額預算與該地區重要活動。長話短說，更多是關於公共政策和日常政治的考量，這與我所熟悉的藝術世界完全不同。
這份工作也把我與我的家人帶到印尼最大的都會區雅加達，當疫情開始籠罩首都時，這座大城市變得一團糟。雅加達擠進了接近1000萬人，當疫情開始蔓延，彷彿被感染就是遲早的事。當 2020 年 3 月實施部分封城時，作為預防措施，我帶著家人回到了萬隆。也是在那時， SSAS 公開徵求內部首席策展人，我認為那是一個最好的時間點。對我來說，這是一次回家的機會，回到我一直所熟知的藝術世界。
接下這個職位使我有機會認識台北當代藝術中心（TCAC），特別是呂岱如，徐詩雨和蕭伯均。在 SSAS，新的專案經理 Christine Toelle 和我接手 Chabib 和 Dea 的工作，並將其推進至下一步。最初，它不是展覽，而是作為藝術家交流，駐村和工作坊規劃所設計，並且預計在 2020 年推出。然而印尼的部分封城措施迫使我們重新安排手上的可能選項。為了在 2021 年 2 月重新啟動，我們透過一系列的線上會議開始轉換計畫形式，強調展覽的角色。
不幸的，延遲並未讓情況轉好，今年年初我們仍然擺脫不了這個震撼我們，奪去我們自由的疫情。預防措施必須事先被準備，在新的常規政策下，我們對人群有了新的定義。我在對 SSAS 策展顧問團的簡報中設想這個最壞的情況：如果「公眾」一詞變成虛擬，SSAS 這樣的面向大眾的藝術空間是否真的可以生存。這是一直縈繞在我心中的想法，也是我希望在 SSAS 的每個人都可以記住：無論新策展人是誰，她或他都必須應對這種「新常態」。
不過至少可以說，延遲給了我們一個信息：我們必須對這種規模的疫情習以為常。我們無法真的宣稱現在的焦慮感比剛開始的時候減少了一些。但設法從持續的困境中提出一些合理的策略讓我仍有一線希望。一切都是嶄新的局面：我不能像往常準備展覽一樣，直接與TCAC 共事，和一些參展藝術家打招呼和見面。我們從遠距準備了一切。
這當然給我們帶來了新的挑戰。 SSAS 的負責人兼創始人 Sunaryo 先生強調，本項計畫必須與 SSAS 的宗旨相符：成為一個替年輕藝術家提供國際交流機會和創作突破的穩固藝術空間。在這個動蕩的時代，藝術家可以仍不斷滋養自己的創作精神並保持活力。創始人的訊息也說明為什麼 SSAS在持續性的全球危機中，仍按照預定規劃執行各項計畫。
關於保持創作的精神，標題《轉向第五時代》源自瑪格麗特·愛特伍的末世預言。我從標題和內容得出的結論是，儘管人們的生活充滿動盪和不確定性，但藝術是一種永不褪色的建設力量，甚至是樂觀到可以驅動承受大規模滅絕這種最終挑戰。透過藝術，「滅絕」一詞失去了爪子與其陰暗的光環。
從技術上講，該展覽是印尼和台灣藝術家共同聯手，包括一位目前居住在新西蘭的泰裔藝術家。在這個展覽合作中，我們可以理解到一個重點：人與非人之間的命運的交會。
以蘇郁心為例，她與聲音藝術家 Aloïs Yang 合作，創作《休眠模式》六聲道聲音裝置。視覺語言上，有南極洲地圖的圖像和極地大陸上氣象站的一些影像片段。這是一個遙遠的空間，遠離我們人類棲居的日常之地。藝術家帶我們凝視著自然界中一個「非自然的」人類生存空間。然後，問題回到了時間問題：人類如何「抓緊與量測時間」，其時間尺度遠遠超過人類歷史的延伸。這是展覽中提供一種非人視角的作品之一，其巨大的測量尺度大大地削弱人類相對微不足道的自豪感。
王雅慧以一個詩意的錄像裝置繼續談論時間。在這件作品中，投射在牆上的可見物體會因太陽方向的變化而被遮蔽。反過來說，時間的「物理」運動透過對實體空間和虛擬空間進行複雜的圖像計算，使之成為可能。通過空間和視覺的經驗，我們持續思考：人類是否有可能完全辨別時間的奧秘？
此外，Sorawit Songsataya 被風箏吸引，風箏也可說是「隨風起舞的人造物」。這裡提出的問題是關於文化與自然之間的關係。在影像中，我們可以看到各個人造物隨風而舞，甚至包括「滑行」與飛行的圖像。相反地，手工製作的風箏裝置並未真正飛翔。數位圖像和手工製作的物體之間存在明顯的矛盾。這首作品的標題是《木星，經歷最劇烈的風暴的星球之一》。因此，風可能很美，但也可能令人生畏。這件作品提醒我們，人類不過是宇宙中存在的滄海一粟。
藝術家吳其育從蘇拉威西島史前洞穴壁畫得到靈感。洞穴壁畫的創作過程必定與大自然中的沉浸式體驗以及洞穴居民對其強烈敬意有關。史前的痕跡與當今的虛擬現實有很多共通之處。我們與大宇宙共存難道不就是一件最不可思議的事情？這帶出另一個問題：我們是否就是宇宙中心，還是只是浩瀚宇宙的無意義部分？
林子桓的散文電影，借鑒了個人歷史，神話，歷史事件，科學理論和偽紀錄片。這些元素在視覺影像上的交錯促使我們思考如何想像烏托邦。毫無疑問，烏托邦只是一種幻想，這是想像而不是親眼所見。然後，藝術家有意阻礙了作品的直接可見性。這種阻礙確實是一個挑戰：我們無法以有限的感官完全孤立一切，但我們仍然有動力去理解現實嗎？
我們還有藝術家組合 lololol，他們使用來自各種來源的數據進行運算，然後將它們呈現在螢幕上。人類的日常不可避免地是「螢幕」日子，因為我們透過數位化的螢幕來體驗我們的生活。當我們把目光集中在那個平坦的空間上時，我們實際上得到了什麼？此外，我們對身體，思想和空間的基本理解是否會因我們看到的內容而增強或惡化？
當然，還有很多問題在被疫情的籠罩的焦慮感中持續困擾著我們。如果我們頑固地將思想固守在理性基礎上，也許我們得不到任何結果。科學思辨令我們窒息，使我們的心智沒有空間。想像力和藝術觀點永遠是新鮮的，提供我們呼吸的空氣與時間反思。我要感謝 TCAC 和所有參展的藝術家。我對我歸鄉首展從未如此激動。這種新的合作方式向我與向 SSAS 展示了另一種方式，未知未來的不確定性既是機遇也是新的可能，驅使我們永遠領先於擔憂和恐懼。
The Turn of the Fifth Age
Esther Lu
Curator of Taipei Contemporary Art Center
Can an exhibition be an oracle or a method for reading the future? The Turn of the Fifth Age was conceived before and during an extremely unsettling year, as the global unforeseeable conditions of the pandemic challenged us to reconsider the way we construct our material relationships with the world. Many reflections on different body politics and new practices for a sustainable local economics, community and network mushroomed amidst moments of mourning. Our initial premise of imagining a feminist post-capitalism society retains its urgency under these circumstances.
The title of the exhibition follows from Margaret Atwood’s Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet, written for The Guardian in support of the 10:10 climate change campaign started ahead of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In this short story, Atwood outlines four ages for our world: “In the first age, we created gods”; “In the second age we created money”; “In the third age, money became a god”; “in the fourth age we created deserts” (1). We find these peculiar times not only fragile, but a vividly tangible moment in such deserts. It’s as if we are striving to survive in a whirling simoom (2) while submitting our ways of being to new rules and logics propelled by invisible viruses or Gaia (3). It is time we learn all the names for dust cyclones; it is also time we unlearn our entanglements with living forms and matter. Hence, we hope our proposal of varying methodologies and ways of imagining speculative futures can nurture an allegorical space to rest or an alternative time capsule that enables a reset of the current climate.
Our attentions go toward exploring the tensions present within the material realities driven by technology and capitalism. Many artists in the exhibition share their research and concerns over ecological issues, for humans and nonhumans alike, as an effort to dilute humanist binaries. They offer alternative connections to other forms of consciousness—from mosses, penguins, and cyborgs to AI. Some revisit human evolution through speculative narratives that reverse and re-imagine our notions of progress through a critical reflection on ideas of development, production, and ruins. There are also attempts to understand the different political imperatives that inform our future body, which will circulate in a more complex food chain and economy. From a pragmatic or materialist view, the proposition the exhibition makes may reveal much anxiety and shed light on pressing struggles. However, it equally presents diverse abstractions, rhythms, movements and patterns of “time” through the displayed artworks and their articulation within the three galleries. Furthermore, they resonate with and open up readings of Elisabeth Grosz’s fascinating discussion on time—that enigmatic and unreal form of material existence that creates a relevance for living matter to be situated not in social, political or cultural inscriptions, but by resuming corporeality and energy in continuous temporal reconfiguration, or becoming (4). Her exploration of the modalities, forms and effects of time on both inorganic and organic materiality offers intricate thoughts and references when we try to grasp how the world is animated by our immersion in the relentless movement of time. The underlined meaning of the exhibition and its title can perhaps be expanded by bringing this ontological question of time into the exhibition as a turn to new materialism. Maybe we would then consider living and co-living not only within the temporality of now, since both the past and the future can be animated in the present tense. The “Turn” is further enlivened by extending this expanded temporality not only to linear time but also to the consciousness of species and matter.
The different approaches presented in the exhibition process our realities as relativities rather than oppositions. Instead of a didactic warning of crisis, The Turn of the Fifth Age creates new accesses to the multiple horizons of today’s ‘deserts’ so we can reshape (the sense of) our realities and respond to the “living” status of matter. If these were the new departure points for our speculative futures, might we find new faith and gods? What are we learning in light of this current experience of global incapacitation? By posing such harsh questions, the exhibition raises its voice to provoke daring imaginations and actions: into what are we delivering and transforming our futures? How do we find new harmony and the next humanities?
- Atwood, Margaret. “Time capsule found on the dead planet.” The Guardian, 26 September 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/26/margaret-atwood-mini-science-fiction
- In Arabic, the name means poisoned wind, referring to a strong, dry, dust-laden wind. It occurs in the Sahara and the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Its temperature may exceed 54°C and humidity may fall below 10%.
- The Gaia hypothesis coined by James Lovelock “proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
- Grosz, Elisabeth. The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely. Duke University Press Books, 2004.
The Turn
Shih-yu Hsu
Curator of Taipei Contemporary Art Center
The Turn of the Fifth Age is curated and produced in a world that I would have never imagined, a world of planetary emergencies only seen in disaster films. Esther Lu, in Taipei, was first invited, by email, by Selarsar Sunaryo from Bandung to co-produce a new media exhibition in November 2019. That was before the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not realize then that developing an exhibition premised on Margret Atwood’s Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet could be so relevant to the situation we are currently facing. In her essay, Atwood describes four different ages that symbolize the gradual progress of civilization. The fifth age is in fact the post-apocalyptic world. This is the reason we named the exhibitionThe Turn of the Fifth Age.
Along with participating artists from Taiwan and Indonesia, we would like to imagine a world that escapes the inevitable destination of Atwood’s text. Is it possible for creative imagination and artistic speculation to impact the direction our world is taking? The original plan was to counter the inevitable acceleration of contemporary exhibition-making with a proposal that was not exhibition focused. Esther and I planned to create a series of discursive workshops, deeply immersing ourselves and the artists in each other’s practices. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel nearly impossible. The exhibition’s response to the current situation, whether in Taipei or Bandung, isre more pressing than ever, not only because art and artists may stimulate and reflect on new ways of seeing and thinking, but also because we would have the chance to challenge prevalent modes of the exhibition-making process from the very beginning.
For me, part of the challenge comes from trying to learn about and understand the artworks of the participating Indonesian artists from a distance that is both physical and epistemological. Throughout the project period, several keywords kept reappearing as I studied the artworks:
Deep Ecology
Deep ecology is an ecological philosophy proposed by Arne Naess in 1973. The idea is to not view nature and non-human species as instrumental tools for human use. This resonates with the worldviews of Tao and ecofeminism – a holistic view of the world. Deep ecology addresses the importance of maintaining biodiversity and self-realization. Self-realization is not understood in the neoliberal spirit of mobilizing one’s own agency the most. Instead, its aim is to achieve commonality among all living species on the planet, transcending the Self, identity, and nation. Deep ecology also puts the ethical responsibility of humans and the sustainability of life on a larger time scale, extending it to the third and fourth generations. On this time scale, the non-human perspective can hold insights on the possibilities of living holistically. In the exhibition, Natasha Tontey’s Pest to Power (2019) urges us to learn from cockroaches, the only species to have survived multiple mass extinction events; while Tromarama’s Domain (2019) sees the ocean through penguin’s eyes. Might self-realization be achieved through the eyes of these species?
Materiality
The omnipresence of media technologies – social media, vlogs, fragmented messages, and so on – dominates the way people consume and produce information. Yet the material infrastructures of these technologies are often neglected in the discussion of media culture. Since The Turn of the Fifth Age is a media art exhibition, it is necessary to discuss the materiality of media. The material infrastructure is entangled with the distinct histories, cultures and natural resources of specific geographical areas, manifesting a certain media culture. Medianature, Jussi Parikka’s term for this, is a variation of Donna Haraway’s natureculture. Previously existing dichotomies, such as nature and culture, biologics and informatics, are in reality interconnected. They cannot be understood separately. As a result, media technologies have to be scrutinized and analyzed by taking their material constitution into consideration. When the focus is shifted to materiality, the grand narrative of contemporary society becomes open to imagination and speculation. Some of the artworks in the exhibition directly address the material reality of Earth. Kasiterit (2019) by Riar Rizaldi uses future AI to look into the extensively exploited tin mine on Bangka island in the Indonesian archipelago. Mooi Indie 21st Century (2019) by Andrita Yuniza reinterprets well-known genres of painting by presenting gleaming spheres made out of chemicals from the textile industry.
Capitalocene
Although the idea of the anthropocene draws much attention in the contemporary art world, Jason Moore’s capitalocene was of more interest to me. Humans are not the only ones creating planetary crisis. The belief in capitalism, clearly expressed in Atwood’s essay as the third age when money became a god, brings the ‘deserts’ that follow. The birth and expansion of capitalism is built on exploiting and consuming the resources of non-white territories, affecting millions of women, colonized people and the non-human. The supremacy of the global techno-economic network escalated the impact of any potential emergency, such as the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Abshar Platisza’s self-powered installation demonstrates the modern anxiety of energy depletion. In order to seek new directions for this planet, we have to question the fundamental beliefs of capitalism; we have to reinvestigate the model of production and reproduction. In terms of production, there is a need to ask how the dynamics and entanglement were formed within and alongside its geo-political history? That legacy, whether toxic or not, still affects every living species and the environment on this planet. The artist collective Bakudapan, for example, appropriated the imagery of Indonesian propaganda to expose the fragility of the food supply chain.
These terms are not the only facet I would like to unfold in the exhibition. However, they are the leads to outline my experience of the reality I am living. Like when I read a piece of fiction with a storyline involving multiple universes, I cannot help wondering: how might this turn out in the end?
This Home Called The Art World
Heru Hikayat
In-house Curator Selasar Sunaryo Art Space
In 2019 when Selasar Sunaryo Art Space (SSAS) in-house curator and program manager at that time Chabib Duta Hapsoro and Dea Aprilia started the project titled The Turn of the Fifth Age, I was still managing some projects for the Director General of Culture in the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. Most of the responsibilities I had were still about curatorial responsibilities; the difference is, curating cultural festivals were an extended challenge dealing with massive budgets and regional events. Long story short, it was all about public policies and day-to-day political considerations. It was completely different from the art world I usually cope with.
The duty also brought me and my family to Jakarta, the biggest metropole in Indonesia, and when the pandemic began its grip at the capital, it turned the big city into a giant mess. With 10 million people crowding the spaces, being caught by the plague was a matter of inching down closer to infection. As a precaution I took my family back to Bandung when the partial lockdown was implemented in March 2020. When SSAS gave an open calling to fill the chair of in-house curator, I thought no timing was better ever. It was a chance for me to go home, to go back to the art world I always knew.
This position gave me the opportunity to meet Taipei Contemporary Art Centre (TCAC), especially with Esther Lu, Shih-yu Hsu, and Bochun Hsiao. At SSAS, the new program manager Christine Toelle and I resumed Chabib and Dea’s project and took it to the next step. Initially, it was designed not as an exhibition, but as artist exchange, residence, and workshops programs. It was to be launched in 2020, lest the partial lockdowns in Indonesia forced us to reschedule all we had in our list. To be relaunched in February 2021, the program’s design was then switched into a series of online meetings and an emphasis was added to the exhibition part.
The unfortunate delay is not necessarily for the better, however. The beginning of this year still does not leave us with the liberty we had before the pandemic shook us all last year. Precautions are never to be underestimated, and we still have a new definition of crowd under the new normal policy. My presentation for the curatorial board of SSAS was derived from this worst-case scenario: whether public art spaces like SSAS could really survive if the word ‘public’ had become virtual. This was the thing in mind I had to everyone right in SSAS from the beginning: whoever the new curator would be, she or he had to deal with this “new normal”.
Least to say, the delay has only given us a single message: that we have been used to this pandemic. We cannot really say that we are now less anxious than we were then; but the silver lining is that we have managed to pull off some sound strategies out of the ongoing hardships. Everything was new: I even did not have the usual chance to directly greet and meet our TCAC colleagues, and some of the artists involved in this exhibition. We had all this prepared from a virtual distance.
That gave us a new challenge to the event. The director and also the founder of SSAS, Mr. Sunaryo, emphasized that this event would have to go in line with the mission of SSAS, that is to provide a solid art space for young artists in terms of international exchange opportunity and artistic breakthroughs. In this turbulent time, it is the way artists can keep nurturing their creative spirit and maintain their artistic stamina. The director’s message is the reason why we at SSAS cannot put a definitive hold to everything we have in our agenda despite the ongoing global crisis.
About the spirit to stay creative, the title The Turn of the Fifth Age itself originated from a post-apocalyptic prediction by Margaret Atwood. The titling and writing took me to arrive at a conclusion that art, in spite of all the human life turbulence and uncertainties, is a never-fading constructive – or even optimistic – drive that can endure the ultimate challenge of mass extinction. Through art, the words “to become extinct” have lost their claws and shady aura.
Technically speaking, this exhibition unites Indonesian and Taiwanese artists, including another Thai artist that currently resides in New Zealand. There is one thing we can easily grasp from this collaboration: the fateful rendezvous between humans and non-humans.
Take Yu-Hsin Su for example, who collaborated with sound artist Aloïs Yang to create a six-channel sound installation for Hibernatemode. Visually, there are images of the maps of the Antarctic and several video footages from the weather stations located in the frozen continent. This is certainly a remote space escaping our daily understanding of human dwelling. The artists take us to gaze at an “unnatural” human living space in nature. The question then goes back to the problem of time: how human beings can “grasp and time” time, whose dimension far exceeds the stretch of human history. This is one of the works that gives us a non-human perspective, whose massive scale far belittles our puny pride of humanity.
Still saying something about time, Yahui Wang presents a poetic video installation. In this the visible objects projected on a wall are shadowed by the change of direction of the sun. This in turn invokes the “physical” movement of time. It is made possible by taking complex image calculations concerning both concrete and virtual spaces. Through the experience of space and vision, a question lingers still: is it possible for us humans to completely discern the mystery of time?
Further, Sorawit Songsataya was completely taken for kites, or perhaps “manmade artefacts that dance with the wind”. The question posed here is about the relation between culture and nature. In the video, we can see how various artefacts were merrily dancing with the wind. We even got the image of “gliding” and even flying; on the contrary, the hand-made kite installation was not designed to really fly. There is a stark contradiction between digital images and the hand-crafted objects. The title of this piece is “Jupiter, a planet with one of the most severe storms”. The wind, therefore, may be beautiful, but it can also be menacing. This work reminds us that we are nothing but a mere speck of existence in the universe.
Artist Chi-Yu Wu got the inspiration from the pre-historic cave painting in Sulawesi Island. The creative process leading to the cave paintings must have something to do with immersive experience from nature and how the cave dwellers were strongly awed by it. The prehistoric traces are so much in common with our today’s reality of virtual experience. Isn’t our coexistence with the grand universe is something marvelous? This rises another question: are we really the center of the universe or are we just a meaningless part of the infinite universe?
There are also essay films from Tzu-Huan Lin that draw on personal histories, mythology, historical events, science theory and pseudo-documentary. The visual mixtures further lead us to a question on how we imagine utopia. Definitely utopia is just an illusion; it is something that is imagined rather than seen. The artist then intentionally obstructed direct visibility on the work. This obstruction is indeed a challenge: despite our inability to completely isolate everything with our limited senses, do we still have the drive to comprehend the reality?
We also have the lololol collective that computed data from various sources, and then put them on the screen. Our human days are inevitably “screen” days, in that we experience our life through digital screens. What can we actually get when we fixed our eyes on that flat space? Further, can our basic understanding concerning the body, mind, and space be enhanced or worse distorted by what we see on it?
There certainly many questions clouded by the anxiety haunting our pandemic days. If we stubbornly keep anchoring our thought to rational grounds, perhaps the only thing we get is simply nothing. Speculative science suffocates us, leaving us no space for our heart and mind. Imagination and artistic perspectives are ever fresh, giving us the time to rethink and the air to breath. I would like to thank TCAC and all the participating artists. My homecoming kickoff has never been more energizing. This new way of cooperating has shown us another way for me, and for SSAS, that the uncertainty of our uncertain future is both opportunity and possibility; something that can propel us far ahead of our worries and fears.
