有电子荧屏存在的绘画景观

    策 展 人：朱其
    展览时间：2010年2月6日—3月1日
    参展艺术家：林欣、翁云鹏、王煜宏
    作品形式：绘画、Video
    展览地点：其他画廊·北京

有电子荧屏存在的绘画景观
文/朱其

    写实绘画进入中国的一百多年，在绘画性上还是属于欧洲十九世纪前的视觉观念，即模拟肉眼所能看到的实体形象的物理外表。这一观念误区直至近十年才刚刚开始打破，这主要是中国开始进入电子荧屏的时代。
 

    电子图像对传统绘画的影响，早在十八世纪摄影暗箱出现就已开始，二十世纪的西方绘画的“写实”概念也实际上超越了肉眼所见的实体形象作为依据，如超级写实主义、里希特式的摄影化的“晕眩”形象，都超越了“肉眼所见”的边界，或者是表现“肉眼不可见”的只有在电子摄影下才能看到的细节（超级写实主义），或者是表现“肉眼所见”的实体形象的主观重组（图像拼贴），或者是摄影因为技术导致的实体形象的电子变形。
 

    当代绘画发展至今，不仅是绘画和摄影图片之间的相互吸收，Video影像和三维虚拟图像也开始对绘画的视觉观念和形式特征产生影响。这实际上涉及到当代艺术中的绘画性与电子荧屏的图像经验重新建立一个新的关系。绘画性的未来，对图像的艺术史和文化解构已经告一段落，接下来的重点在于绘画对电子经验的吸收。
 

    本次展览由翁云鹏、王煜宏、林欣三个艺术家组成，他们的作品都探讨了电子荧屏、电影的图像叙事、电子装置、三维虚拟与传统绘画的关系。翁云鹏最初的尝试是在社会空间放置一个电视机，不仅在一个实体世界植入了一个电子图像的荧屏，而且也使电视荧屏的光线成为馆、公寓房间、民工区、集贸市场、夜店的夜晚灯光的一部分。
 

    翁云鹏旨在探讨一个有电子荧屏插入的现实景观是如此神奇，正如马歇尔•麦克卢汉所言的，电视主导了人们的世界观，哪怕是一个城市民工，他也能通过电子荧屏感到他从未去过的世界的存在。问题是，这个电子荧屏提供的影像内容和叙说的价值观是经过图像编辑的，是一种新闻和文化创作，但这些虚构性的创作却使大多数人信以为真。
 

    电视提供的世界景观和这个电视所处的现实景观，到底哪一个是真实的，这是翁云鹏所感兴趣的。后来，他的兴趣转向探究电子荧屏自身的图像叙事，他将上万帧Video和电影图像看作一个个“单词”，他发现原创性的写实图像已经多余，他只要用这些别人创造的现成图像重新“写作”就行了。这源于一个简单的原理，图像自身也有一种“语法”逻辑，当代人已经习惯于图像阅读，并改变着读书时代的思考方式。
 

    王煜宏原先执着于传统的“肉眼所见”的古典绘画的描写，她的绘画图像是一组静物的怀旧画面，包括上海民国以及六、七十年代的器物，如老家具、连环画、鸟笼。这不仅是一组景物的描绘，而是一种记忆化的怀旧景观。近年她尝试将绘画和电子荧屏并置的绘画景观。让这些怀旧的景物装置化，并在画面中挖出一个窗口，将一个小型的电子荧屏镶嵌进去，使画面的“肉眼所见”、装置的“可触摸感”与一种流动的Video影像对话。她还尝试了触摸式的互动装置，在现场制造一种电子的荧光体验，并可以让现场观众的参与。
 

    林欣在电子图像的实验领域包括电子互动和三维虚拟，她的电子荧屏不仅是电视机、Video以及电子灯光的互动装置，而且还有计算机虚拟和电子游戏的图像。她使用虚拟技术再造一个虚拟的“女性”，并在计算机的荧屏空间内进行各种女性主义的生活，比如美容、下午茶、发呆等。这些电子“女性”具有电子机器人的质感，但不是传统绘画对“肉眼所见”的实体的质感。计算机的三维虚拟的创作不仅是一种 “半机械人”的形象，实际上电子荧屏中的图像还具有电脑自身的质感，这不是对实体的模拟，而是计算机荧屏自身具有的“肌肤感”以及“光线”特质。
 

    这种电子虚拟“机械人”形象的“肌肤”和“光线”在现实世界中并不存在。在从事计算机三维虚拟创作的同时，林欣还进行传统的绘画创作。但她的绘画更像是一种对电子虚拟图像的再现，尽管她使用油画或丙烯颜料，但她试图呈现惟有在电脑荧屏上才能出现的图像特质。另外，她还尝试使用日常使用的电子相框作为虚拟Video的呈现媒介，使这一新的日常化的电子荧屏进入艺术媒介。
 

    现代绘画的发展在于绘画性对电子影像经验的吸收。绘画的未来可能性也实际上在于不断与电子荧屏的对话，这不仅是对电子图像本身的视觉特质的拟仿，还在于电子荧屏已经会构成我们日常生活的一个不可缺少的景观，并影响着我们的世界观和思想方式。上述三位艺术家也在绘画中描绘了工厂、社区、室内以及私人物品构成的景观，但他们探讨了现实景观中的电子荧屏的存在。
 

    这个展览试图探讨绘画性与电子荧屏构成的语言和生存经验，如何在未来更加相互渗透并难分彼此地影响我们的审美和意识。

    2010年1月30日写于798艺术区

    Title: Pictorial Spectacle with Electronic Screen
    Curator: Zhu Qi
    Date: February 6 to March 1, 2010
    Artists: Lin Xin, Weng Yunpeng, Wang Yuhong
    Medium: Painting, Video
 

Painterly Spectacle with Electronic Screen

Zhu Qi

    For a century since the introduction of figurative painting in China, its pictoriality is still basically under the rubric of the visual concept of the European painting before the 19th century, in other words, the physical appearance of the substantial object seen by the naked eyes. However, this misconception has been breached though for only a decade thanks to the fact that China has started entering the era of electronic screen.
 

    The impact the electronic image has on traditional painting has been felt since the 18th century with the appearance of the camera obscura. In fact, the concept of “realism” of Western painting during the 20th century has transcended the boundary of physical appearance seen by the naked eyes, from Super-Realism to Gerhard Richter’s photography-like giddy figures, all have transcended “what the naked eyes can see”, expressing what “the naked eyes cannot seen”: details can only be legible with the assistance of electronic photography(Super-Realism)，the recombination of the substantial images “can be seen by the naked eyes”(imagery collage), or the electronic deformation of substantial entities due to photographic technology.
 

    Up to the present days, not only paintings and photographic images are mutually attractive, video photography and 3D virtual images have become influential in the area of visual concepts and forms of painting. This, in effect has involved the reconstruction of a new relationship in contemporary art between pictoriality and images on electronic screens. In consideration of the future of pictoriality, the passage of imagery art history and cultural deconstruction have suspended, the intellectual priority now should be given to the painterly assimilation of electronic experience.
 

    The three artists on the exhibition (Weng Yunpeng, Wang Yuhong and Lin Xin) are committed to the effects of electronic screens, the pictorial narratives of film, electronic installation, and the relation between 3D virtuality and traditional painting. Weng Yunpeng’s early experiments involve placing a TV set in the social space, thus he not only implanted an electronic pictorial screen in the physical world, but also made the light radiated from the screen a part of that of hotels, apartments, civilian workers’ communities, markets and night stores.
 

    What Weng intends to show is the surprise made by the factual spectacle with electronic screen, as Marshell McLuhan suggested, the word view is dominated by TV, even a worker in city could have a sense of the problems of the world he has never been to through the screen. But the trick is, the imagery content provided and the values inscribed by the screens have been imagerily edited, a creation of news and culture, but are often accepted as the truth by most people.
 

    Weng’s interest lies in what is true between the world spectacle constructed by the TV screen and the physical spectacle in which the TV is placed. Later, he paid more attention to the imagery narrative of the electronic screen itself, in recognizing tens of thousands of frames of the video and the film images as “words”, he found that the originality of realist images is not necessary any more, he only needed to “rewrite” in the ready images created by others. His artistic practice is legitimatized by the theory that an image has its own “grammar” logic, while contemporary men are used to imagery reading, the ways of thinking from book-reading era are being changed.
 

    Wang Yuhong used to be devoted to the traditional “naked-eye-can-see” classical painting, her still life subjects include things from the Shanghai during the Koumintang era and stuff from the 1960s and 70s, like old furniture, comics and bird cage, the scene be understood not just a depiction of objects but also a nostalgic spectacle. Recently, she experimented with painterly spectacle by juxtaposing paintings and electronic screens thus installationalized these nostalgic objects. She also tried to cut a window on the picture, and filled in a small-scale electronic screen, this way, the interaction among the “naked-eye-can-see” painting, the “touchable” installation and a fleeting video can be established. Meanwhile, she tried touching interactional installation, making a site-specific electronic fluorescence experience, and inviting the participation of the audiences.
 

    In the field of electronic imagery experiment, Lin Xin’s activities include electronic interaction and 3D virtuality. Her screens are not just TV, Video and interactional installation of electronic lights, but also include computer vituality and computer-game images. She reconstructed a virtual “female” with virtual technology and created a typical female daily life in the space on the computer screen, like cosmetology, afternoon tea and trance. Though these electronic “females” may feel like a robots, different from the “naked-eye-can-see” physical texture of the tradition painting. The computer-aided 3D virtual creation is not only an image of “semi-robot”, in fact the images on the electronic screen share the texture with the computer itself, this is not the imitation of physical entities, rather the “skin-like” and “light-like” texture of the computer screen itself.
 

    The “skin” and “light” texture of the computer-created “robot” does not exist in the physical world. While working on the computer-aided virtual programs, Lin Xin is also committed in traditional painting practice. Her painting works are more like the representation of electronic virtual images，though she opted oil color and acrylic, her real intention is to create the very imagery characteristics only available on computer screen. In addition, she tried digital photo frames as a media of presenting virtual videos, bring the ordinary electronic screen into the artistic media.
 

    The future of contemporary painting practice lies in the painterly absorbtion of electronic imagery experience, and a constant interaction with the electronic screen. This is not only the imitation of the electronic images, but also the screen has already become a crucial part of our daily life, and has a great impact on our world view and way of thinking. The three artists depicted the spectacle constructed by factories, communities, indoor and private things, they also probed the existence of electronic screen in the factual spectacle.
 

    The exhibition is devoted to the linguistic and living experience formed by pictoriality and electronic screens, as well as how our aesthetic sense is being influenced by the ongoing mutual-penetration of the two.
 

    Jan. 30th , 2010, 798 District, Beijing