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日常之外:陈志驹的手机摄影
艺评家 简丽庭
特定技术的普及往往意味着专业领域的开放或民主化,使相关的技术和论述从少数的专业人士手中释放出来,而能够让更多人参与其中。制造影像的历史充分表明了这种开放的历程,从绘画到传统摄影再到数位摄影,标示着影像生产成本降低与操作技术简化的进程。然而,或许直到智慧型手机出现之后,制造影像才真正融入于日常生活中:自拍、各种生活情境的分享、以拍照做笔记等…。手机摄影之所以无孔不入地渗透到日常生活中并非单纯的影像因素,而是它操作更为便利,并且有效地连结上数位化的社交生活。这构成了我们谈论陈志驹手机摄影的前提。
事实上,陈志驹的创作是双轨并进的。他有一系列相当耗时的作品,将影像视为绘画的元素,透过图层的大量重叠与调校,呈现出绘画般的繁复性质 。相反的,在此所谈的他的手机摄影则是另一种快速而偶然的制作,来自于生活中看似随意的观察与拍摄,仅简略的在手机中调校色彩而不再进行其他后制。因此,相对于前者在工作室中以绘画的方式操作,手机摄影则类似速写(sketch),它的工作方式对时间、地点都没有限制,具有高度的灵活性。
此系列作品的讨论请参阅简丽庭,「给定-绘画:陈志驹个展」,See Art Space,www.seeart.space/new-page-2
然而,陈志驹的手机摄影虽然取之于日常生活,却不能简单地视之为日常生活的投射。他意不在于快速地记录都市生活百态,如同波特莱尔(Charles Baudelaire)笔下的现代生活的画家那样;相反的,他的创作一直有一个清晰的轴线,也就是重视造形的表现(expression)而非对象的描述(description)。换言之,他对于影像的思考与现代绘画的脉络更接近,只不过现代绘画在寻求画布表面效果的进程中,可以透过强调造形结构的纯粹性或绘画媒材的物质性,进而削弱主题内容甚至朝向抽象;但是摄影则受制于光学与机械的运作,仍必须将镜头指向一个实际的对象。在这个意义上来说,摄影自身无法抽象,只能透过强调它的视觉效果去「趋近」抽象。因此,陈志驹的手机摄影所关注的,不在于生活即景或拍摄的对象为何,而在于如何借由这个对象去处理视觉的,以及透过视觉所牵动的心理学的效果。在此,他的若干操作手法尤其值得关注:
其一,他对于场景(scene)的处理通常不是描述性的,而是为了捕捉特殊的整体造形,因此经常採用诡异的视角,甚至任由它失焦。有时则刻意将极近和极远的景物同时收入景框,而呈现出清晰与模煳的强烈对比。
其次,他经常拍摄对象的局部,透过极近的拍摄距离使读者失去空间座标。甚至有些作品中的景物已难以辨识,只留存下特殊的质感,画面因而趋向平面与抽象。
其三,他经常透过一个中介物来拍摄,比如透过镜面的反射、水波及其倒影、玻璃的反光与背后的景物等…。相对于另一系列将许多图层重叠在一起的创作方式,直接拍摄中介物有时也具有类似的叠影效果。
上述这些手法互有关联,并且经常混用。此外,或许是出于强调影像表现效果之故,陈志驹手机摄影的作品中大多调整为黑白,并且裁切为正方形的画面,而有别于手机摄影的预设形式。这些细节的考量或可视为他的创作表态。在影像泛滥、人手一机的今天,摄影的操作已不是难事,艺术才是真正的难题。在陈志驹的案例中,创作概念、作品形式、工作程序与工具性能是一併思考的,也唯有如此,艺术家才能摆脱惯性,形塑出自己的语汇。
Beyond the everyday life: Zeno Chen’s smartphone photography
Art Critic JIAN Li-Ting
Easy accessibility to specific technology always leads to the openness or liberalization of professional domain. Professional knowledge is released from the few owing the better cultural and economic capital to the public, and more people can participate. From painting, traditional photography, to modern digital photography, the history of image production fully illustrates the process of such technology liberalization, including cost reduction and operation simplicity. However, maybe, only after the invention of smartphone, image production is deeply integrated into daily life, such like selfie, share of life circumstances, photograph notebook, and so on. The key for smartphone photography to be so much penetrating into our daily life is not its function of making images; instead, its easy use and efficient connection to the digital social platform are the reasons for its popularity. And, these also initiate our discussion about Zeno Chen’s smartphone photography.
In fact, Zeno Chen’s artworks are made in two different ways. He has a series of quite time consuming works in which photographs are turned into the elements of an image. By a lot of overlapping photographs with adjusted positions, a property of complexity like a painting is demonstrated. On the other hand, his smartphone photographs are randomly and swiftly created by catching occasional life observations with only simple color adjustment equipped in the phone. If the photograph which is made in his workroom is a painting, the smartphone photograph is more like a sketch which has high flexibility without time or place limitation.
However, although Zeno Chen’s smartphone photography has caught ideas from daily life, the works can not be considered as the reflection of daily life. His intention is not to swiftly record what happens in daily life, like those modern artists in Charles Baudelaire’s book. His works have a very clear axis, emphasizing expression instead of description. In another words, his deliberation for creating images is quite close to that of modern painting. Nevertheless, modern painting can weaken the subject, even making it abstract, by emphasizing the purity of the model structure or the painting material in the process of seeking the surface effects on the canvas. For photography, under the constraints of optics and mechanism operation, a camera still has to be aimed to a real subject. Therefore, photography actually can not be absolutely abstract. The photographer can only make his work “close” to abstract by focusing on visual effects. What Zeno Chen wants to tell in his smartphone photographs is not a record of the life or the subject in the photo, but the visual and the psychological effects created by the photo. Several skills are worthy of paying attention:
1. It’s usually not descriptive when he deals with the scene. In order to catch a whole special model, he often uses strange visual angles without caring about losing focus. Sometimes, he intentionally includes the very far and very near views into his frame to create strong contrast of clearness and fuzziness.
2. He often takes only a portion of a subject with very short distance, so the viewer will lose space coordinate. Sometimes, the scene can not be recognized and the picture tends to be flat and abstract.
3. His photos are often taken through a medium, for example, reflection of mirror, reflection of water with wave, subject through glass with light reflection...etc. Sometimes, by through a medium, he creates a similar multiple image effect like overlapping the photos.
All the above skills relate to each other and are often combined used. In addition, maybe intending to focus the image effect, Zeno Chen’s mobile phone photos are mostly adjusted to black and white, and cut into square, different from the default setting of mobile phones. Care of these details can be considered as his personal style. With flooding images and easy access of mobile phones, to take a photo is definitely not difficult, even the photo quality has can be very difference. In Zeno Chen’s case, artwork ideas, form of works, production procedure, and tool functions are all considered. Only in this way, an artist can break the inertia, and invent his own art language.