Art Works: Installation
All About Cinderella (中文版)
I created All About Cinderella with a few random thoughts in mind.
First, I believe in theory as practice. As a researcher of Cultural Studies, I have always sought to break down the boundary between artistic creation and critical research. I want to create experiences to prove that such a boundary is not only breakable, but that its erasure would lead to inventiveness in artistic practices. All About Cinderella is, therefore, not another of my experimental series. I focused on the activities of story-telling, and created a series of intervention – through field interviews, literature and object research, narrative construction, and so on.
Second, story-telling normally belongs to the domain of literature. From an inter-disciplinary and cross-media impulse, I have juxtaposed on a single space many associative and extended practices related to story-telling: the talking head often used in news reportage and conventional documentaries, installation, book-making and wall projection. As a result, I am inviting visitors to approach my works via a combination of reading, listening, searching and observing. To me, experimentation in art is necessarily inter-disciplinary.
Third, I have regained my interest in oral modes of communication. Orality, which is normally classified as a “pre-modern” phenomenon, has been charged with new energies in the space of the worldwide web; I am particularly fascinated with the speech mode of communication, which has found its way to inflect styles of writing on the web. Stepping back for a second look, orality has never really rested in the history of modernity and technological advancement. In the intimate moments of bed-time story-telling or the play-time of children in school, children continue to receive stories murmured into their ears by story-tellers who would most freely interpret whatever they read in print form. Children thus acquire their first lessons of the way of the world and human relations, and have their first desires shaped – often via tales and wonder stories that seem only to give them fun.
Fourth, from the point of view of play and gaming, a set of plot points form the framework for endless re-fabrication of the same story. Not only is the adult story-teller participating in re-creation via interpreting a written text, but the children, too, carry on the process of creation way beyond memorization and repetition of the story. Omission, playful change, and fabrication of details, or careless adaptation culminate in the most inventive acts of creativity. Looking into the brighter side, story-telling itself is the site in which children perform and discover, and practice their subjectivities. Play, from this perspective, is liberating, constructive, and even subversive, as some of the children I interviewed will demonstrate. Play, to me, is the core of artistic creation.
Fifth, from a critical perspective…
Story-telling is the most primitive form of play. Mild and harmless it may look, it is also the most sophisticated embodiment of power control and ideological workings. The same story of the “ash girl” (Cinderella) hides and re-generates all sorts of facts about a child: her family background, moral formation, the effects of socialization, her aspirations and projection of a good life and so on. A beautifully and freely told story can sometimes be for me a location of hidden concern and entrapment – when I see a little girl obsessed with the details of a beautiful dress, embarrassed and yet fascinated with the coming of the prince, or when I hear the meandering story of the ash girl simplified to the pursuit of marriage. It occurs to that even by inviting girls to tell the story of Cinderella, I may be reinforcing certain gender stereotypes which have already be turned into the common sense for children. This is why I have decided, at the end of making All About Cinderella, that I will not ask any children to just repeat the story of Cinderella for fun.
Sixth, sequential ordering is the most basic of narrativity, the most unnoticeable mode of persuasion, thus also the subtlest politics in action. I have, therefore, set this game of mine as that of juxtaposition and sequential ordering for the critique of narrativity.
《灰姑娘誌異》
在《灰姑娘誌異》裏，我有幾個創作重點。
第一，我致力把文化研究與創作性的活動的界線打破，二為一體。嚴格來說，我不把這個作品看為我別的實驗性錄像作品看，而視之為對說故事這個活動的多重介入。我做了一連串的訪問，寫筆記，翻譯，進行延伸性的文本、物件的搜集……。
第二，講故事原則上屬於文學活動。從跨界、跨媒體的角度出發，我想用新聞報導或紀錄片常用的｢會講話的大頭｣、裝置、做書等等，把眾多的成果並置於同一個空間；這樣，閱讀、聆聽、觀察就同時發生。於我來說，實驗性的創作的本身基本上是跨媒體的。
第三，我對｢口傳｣發生了莫大的好奇。這個本來屬於｢前現代｣的標記活動，在互聯網的時代好像支取了新的力量，成為最基層的傳遞、流通法。同時，｢口傳｣也好像重來沒有停息過∶在現代社會裏，科技如何發達，小孩知覺的模塑，總離不開爸爸媽媽長者在他們耳邊輸送的人情世故，而且都是披戴著繽紛的情節外衣的。
第四，從遊戲的角度，一個基本的劇情框架，經過說故事的人親身演繹文本，小孩重重複複的聽，或強行記憶，變成了無數的故事。在模仿的同時又糅進自己的想像、生活的小節；遺漏、誤傳、偽裝，成了最創作性的活動。從正面看，《灰姑娘》一次再一次的傳下去，虛構的活動讓小朋友在遊戲中發展了個體的主導性。遊戲不但釋放，也帶著顛覆的意味，正是藝術創作的核心。
第五，從批判的角度看，講故事是最原始的遊戲活動。這個最原始的遊戲，表面溫和，也最充滿操控性、權力的彰顯。同一的《灰姑娘》故事包裹著各式各樣的小孩的生活背景、社化效應、家庭教育的印記，甚至對將來的有意無意的潛望。娓娓動聽的故事，有時候令我驚恐，尤其是見到女孩們生動的表演著對王子的渴望、對一身華服的羡慕；這令我在完成《灰姑娘誌異》之際，決定了在往後的田野研究中不會再叫小孩給我一遍又一遍的講《灰姑娘》。
第六，排序是最精簡的敍事、說理的政治。於是，我用排序式的敍事法去玩這次的創作遊戲。 （2006年12月 / 高雄）