The Plural Form of Words

The Future of Books - Taipei International Book Fair Forum (Manuscript)

Interlocutor | Cécile PALUSINSKI, Zhang Junyi
Moderator | Cécile RENAULT｜Interpreter: Chen Wenyao
Time | 2023.2.4
Venue | Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1

What Cécile PALUSINSKI and I do have some things in common. For example, we both try to extend the experience of text reading through different forms of performance, and think about the various possibilities of text presentation. Therefore, I would like to discuss this commonality from two different entry points of curation and creation. First, let’s talk about how I make a novel participate in an exhibition as a participating work; secondly, let’s talk about how I use the text as a creative reference to think about a form of work between e-books and Internet art.

1. The possibility of the novel participating in the exhibition? —— "Wall Climber"
In 2018, I invited novelist Luo Yijun to participate in the "Daily+: Great Taipei Biennale of Contemporary" and asked him to write a novel along the exhibition space, that is, to write about the places where the works of participating artists will be stationed , let the novel become the first exhibited work to start the exhibition.

Later, Luo Yijun started from the historical background of the exhibition hall and its architectural space, and at the same time integrated the works of art that took place in these spaces in the past, and wrote a novel called "The Wall Climb". In the novel, the space of the exhibition hall is transformed into a very poetic text description, and the works that once happened in these homes are also subtly blended into the storyline of the novel.

After the novel was completed, I immediately sent the novel together with relevant information about the exhibition site, such as the floor plan of the exhibition site, photos of the exhibition space, etc., to all participating artists, as a reference for their creation of how to participate in this biennale. On the other hand, I began to think, how to present this novel in the exhibition? In other words, in an exhibition that starts with a novel, how to put this text-based work into the context of an art museum? Because for me, under the context of the exhibition, this novel is no longer just a book, but a work, a written work born from the exhibition site.

Reading Capsule
Later, I proposed three different forms of exhibition of works. The first is the form called "Reading Capsule", which is a semi-open reading space specially created for the paper book of "The Wall Breaker". There are more than 500 paper books of novels sealed in the space; these books It is embedded in the exhibition wall and built together with the space. At the same time, three paper books were placed on the live platform, as well as the audiobook of the novel read aloud by Luo Yijun himself.

The idea of this space design comes from the novel "Over the Wall". This novel contains a variety of very rich spatial descriptions. The novel mentions the words "capsule-shaped dreamland", which makes me want to contribute to this book. The novel creates a white arc shaped space. From the outside of the space, it looks like a section of a capsule. When readers stay in it for a long time to read, it is like being in this container tailored for novels and becoming an object for external audiences to watch; I want to see through this The reading space allows internal readers to create a certain internal and external relationship between the reading of internal readers and the viewing of external audiences.

Over the wall guide
The second is a form of work called "Guide to Overcoming the Wall". First, I extracted twelve sentences describing the exhibition space from the novel "Over the Wall". These sentences include capsule-shaped dreams, houses like folding space capsules, and coral reef ecological parks. I combined these sentences with The words related to space are distributed among the alleys of the exhibition site in the form of inscriptions.

Specifically, it is to put these texts back to the place where the novelist's writing ideas first originated, because the texts on these text tablets on the scene are all related to the spatial characteristics of the place, or to the works that have happened in the place. I combined these words with the "visual identification system" of the exhibition at that time, and made twelve groups of signs corresponding to the visual design form of the exhibition site, making them a part of the visual planning of the exhibition. In other words, let the text that was originally born in the exhibition site return to the exhibition site, creating a series of return process between "exhibition site-text-work".

Super daily satellite station
The third form is "Super Daily Satellite Station", which is a design derived from the space structure of the main booth "Reading Capsule" and the "pedestal", which is a common work carrier in the exhibition hall: on the "Satellite Station" There is an e-book version of the novel "Over the Wall" and an audiobook of "Over the Wall" read by Luo Yijun himself. The main body of the pedestal also has a miniature window for displaying the paper novel. This satellite station carrying novel works will be exhibited in art museums, galleries and bookstores in the greater Taipei area during the Biennale, just like a goodwill ambassador sent out from the "Super Daily" exhibition, allowing the audience Through this booth, you can read the first work that plays a central role in this biennale, which is the novel "Over the Wall".

The Different Reading Forms of Over the Wall
Therefore, from the viewer's point of view, "Super Daily Satellite Station" is to let those who have read this novel in other places outside the exhibition hall, be able to arouse some curiosity, come to the scene where the novel and the exhibition take place, and get a glimpse of the truth ; "Guide to Overcoming the Wall" is to let the viewers who come to visit the exhibition, when they walk among the labyrinthine alleys of the exhibition site, have these poetic words as the index of the visiting route, or the clues to watch these spaces; "Reading Gap" uses a space that seems to be cut in half, allowing the viewer to stay in the work while reading the novel and become a part of the work. No matter which form it is, the starting point of thinking is: how to make this book unfold along the text written in the exhibition site, and at the same time start the exhibition through it, to create an invisible linkage relationship between works.

2. What is the form of works between e-books and Internet art? ——New media person
Next, let’s talk about how I create with a certain text as a reference. "New Media People" produced in 2022 is an online work developed from a text, between "e-books" and "Internet art". The idea of the work comes from the writing of art critic Gao Qianhui A series of texts published online, it is a column called creative art criticism writing published in Dianzangjin Art. There are 33 articles in total, and the author later named these 33 articles "33 Halls". It is a narrative starting from the incident of flight delays at the airport. It is written in a style between art criticism and science fiction. It mainly metaphors various phenomena of Internet media and contemporary art in the current era, such as Internet media. The operating mechanism, or the competition for resources in the art circle, etc.

About "New Media People"
Generally speaking, the work "New Media People" mainly uses the grammar of the Internet to structure a text. The grammar of the Internet here contains two levels of meaning. One is to use the characteristics of the Internet media itself, such as the hyperlink function , including the continuous opening of new pages through the hyperlink function, so that the text can generate various possible reading paths; the other is to perform various translations of the text in the current Internet media language, such as idioms commonly used in social media, Lazy bag, farm text, psychological test, etc. are used as various copywritings of the website, and once again reinterpret this text that constantly alludes to the language of Internet media. So to be precise, the new media person is an interactive webpage work written in webpage grammar and composed of webpage language.

Second, the work is basically composed of different "choices". Many choices can be seen on the web browsing window. Every time the viewer makes a choice, a new path will be opened. There are many different nodes on the path. The nodes will be connected to different situations, and this different situation will bring You travel to different new media city-states. For example, you may come to a "Bang Bang Country" that likes to like, or a "Pai Pai Bang" that likes to rank, or you may come to a "Churning Milk Sea" where different factions are constantly competing for resources. In the process of reading travel, you may also come to a "singular point" that allows us to change our destiny and change our visiting path, or a "transition room" that allows us to take a break and recuperate.

After you have gone through a series of choices, maybe you finally have the opportunity to enter the "Pai Pai Bang", you will come to a city-state that likes ranking very much, and there are all kinds of orchids available for voting. It is said that orchids are the charmers of the plant world. Different species of orchids will use different charm techniques to seduce drones to collect pollen. There are detailed descriptions of these charm techniques on the website. While reading, readers can vote for their favorite orchids, and the voting results will guide you to other countries that suit you.

The maze-like narrative loop of the scroll
At the same time, within these city-states, there are various nodes that can lead to other places. That is to say, every reader can almost pull out a different reading axis when they go in and play. So the whole browsing process is a bit like a maze of scrolls. We walk between choices one after another to develop the visiting path formed by our own choices. Some choices we will only go through once, some choices will keep repeating and bring us back to the same choice, and some choices are destined to be missed forever after we make a certain choice. The work presents a variety of reading axes composed of various choices. Behind it is an intertwined narrative loop, trying to echo the relationship between human behavior and Internet media, which have long been interpenetrated, Or a relationship that has long been intertwined.

Plural forms of words
In the process of reading texts, I often have the idea of transforming texts into works. For example, let the novel "Over the Wall" be combined with pedestals or exhibition hall signs. These art galleries have the form of exhibition, which makes them different from books that are simply placed on the shelves; What is certain is that this work will not exist through the form of a paper book, but through something close to an e-book, but more than an e-book. But in any case, the point may not be just how to make words appear in a different way from books, but to return to the attributes of words themselves, or to return to the world developed by words, to think about how to make words read through different The experience expands again. As for the attempts I have made in the past few years, perhaps as the novelist Luo Yijun said, the text of a novel is originally an electric wave circulating in the brain, which has no materiality, but I have tried to make it explode like a puffer fish and let it explode. It differentiates into different forms of work. Because for me, what is interesting may not be the freshness of reading that new media or new technology can bring, but to find another form that fits the attributes of the text itself beyond the possibility of paper or e-books. Continue to look for the possibility of other forms of presentation.