text by Chia Chi Jason Wang
“The uncanny proceeds from something familiar which has been repressed.” [1]
──Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
In his solo exhibition "Disappearing Landscape" at the end of year 2007, Yuan Goang-ming presented a series of image works with the same title as the exhibition. The Disappearing Landscape series is expressed in two ways. One of which is where he scanned real objects into the computer, and applied digital technology to the images in post-production. After the digital manipulation, the abundant bushes of leaves are re-presented. When looking closely into those leaves, one notices that all of the veins have been removed via computer manipulation. The artist has carried on this concept of “removal” from his earlier works, entitled City Disqualified–Ximen District and City Disqualified–Liverpool, which were presented from 2001 to 2004. The only difference between the City Disqualified series and the Disappearing Landscape series is that the former is done by traditional optical photography, where he developed cityscape from film, then later scanned the film to transform analogue imagery into digital data; the leaves seen in the Disappearing Landscape series are digitally scanned at the beginning as the first data for post production.
As seen in the City Disqualified series, the artist has removed all moving objects, particularly pedestrians and vehicles. Without the public, the city loses its “qualification” that defines it as a city. In a similar way, the leaves without veins presented with only their shapes and aesthetic texture in Disappearing Landscape, share the same idea as the disqualified city. Their basic character is eliminated, and their individuality vanishes accordingly. Moreover, veins are the essential structure for carrying and transporting nutrition to the leaves. Once the veins are removed, the essential relationship connecting the leaves to the stem, roots, and branches is broken – in other words, it is the death of leaves. Whether it is leaves without veins or a city without people, these ghostly images continue to exist in Yuan Goang-ming's work.
Since his earlier works, it has been a common tool of rationale for Yuan Goang-Ming to combine the "removal" method and montage technique for image production. The two series City Disqualified and Disappearing Landscape are not the only examples. In the video work Fish on Dish of 1992, the fish is removed from real water, but virtually swimming on a white porcelain plate. In the Passing of 1996, the artist adopted the “rewinding” method to reveal his own image walking backward in Karlsruhe, the city where he studied in Germany. Walking backward is not only against daily logic and rules, but also demonstrates the artist’s conflict with the living reality in Germany. In The Reason for Running of 1998, the background is removed, and a nude runner – the artist himself – appears randomly on the screen as the projector moves freely up and down, and back and forth. The image of the artist represents an illusion of a ghost. In an interactive projection installation Fly of 1999, a monitor is used to replace a prison-like birdcage. When viewers push the hanging monitor, it swings from side to side like a pendulum. An image of a bird inside the monitor also swings repeatedly following its movement. Once the swinging movement exceeds a certain angle, the bird will burst out making noise and flying, and escaping from the monitor's confinement to be projected onto the wall as fast as an illusion. It then disappears from the projection wall. In the video installation Human Disqualified, shown in the solo exhibition "City Disqualified" in 2001, the artist utilized phosphor powder, the central element coated inside fluorescent tubes, to give off light to show viewers in a dimly lit space a city where all of the moving objects, people and vehicles, are cut off. The chosen place is again the Ximen District, one of the busiest areas in Taipei city. In the dark, a ghostly city without people can only be seen through phosphor powder to glow and reappear. It looks like a short-lived illusion that at first creates its image on the viewers' retina, and without notice, disappears unexpectedly at the margin of darkness and brightness.
The work by Yuan Goang-Ming reflects his autobiographical experience, as always. The removal or break down of veins indicates separation and floating apart. This concept in his work in a way tells stories of his own life, at least from the 1990s to the year of 2005 when he got married. The images after post-production, mostly become distanced from reality and are transformed into an illusion or virtual existence. These ghost-like formats contained within his work hover around "non-places", a state of mind in existence. The state of homelessness and displacement continues to imply in his later works. His masterpiece The Reason for Insomnia first shown in 1998 presented all sorts of nightmares, which keep irritating and interrupting the purpose of a bed – a place to rest and relax. Here, a "bed" can be regarded as a metonymy of a "home". But what makes viewers think is that, it is not a regular home, but a haunted one, a restless place to stay. It would be very hard to fall asleep in a ghostly house that makes people feel uncanny and fearful, even subconsciously. The boat in the video work Floating of 2000, which floats and sinks in the sea repeatedly like a reincarnated cycle can also be looked at as a metonymy. The "boat" not only can be viewed as a reflection of the artist as the subject, but also as an indication of a dwelling place or a kind of "home" that is unstable, floating around, and even capsizing at anytime. There may even be an implication of being drowned – a clue related to a fear of death.
In connection with "the uncanny" (in German: das umheimliche), a subject of aesthetics, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) tried to trace it back to its origin, from the viewpoint of psychoanalysis. In his opinion, the origin of dread and horror has a very close relationship with "home" and “homely” (in German: heimlich). According to Freud's thesis, "heimlich" implies "a place free from ghostly influences", and it is familiar, friendly, and intimate.[2] "The uncanny" as a derivative of "home" has stemmed from the "repression" of feelings about "home"; or, to quote from the Taiwanese psychoanalyst Cheng Tsun-shing, the reason for the uncanny comes from "a change in home". "All the 'familiar' things that belong to 'home', all of a sudden, change into something unfamiliar, strange, and uneasy, which leads to separation..." [3]
This brings us back to the second expression in Yuan Goang-ming's Disappearing Landscape of 2007, which can be observed in the video work subtitled Passing. Different from his earlier work to reveal or reflect individual existence, the Passing, a documentary film of reality, should be considered as the first significant "narrative" work in his career. The core space of the Disappearing Landscape – Passing is a newly renovated house after he got married. Since then, the imagery of "home" has officially entered into his work. Meanwhile, in the new house, his father and wife have added to the relaxed, intimate and comfortable atmosphere. With three cameras filming simultaneously, the lens moves forward and backward. In this repeated process, Yuan Goang-Ming actually uncovers even more potential crisis about "home". A homely conscious of "a change in home" follows wherever the lens goes just like a ghost. As Freud stated, "the uncanny" is also a feeling of "secretly familiar." The déjà-vu crisis that the artist foresees and cannot leave alone comes surprisingly from "an abandoned neighboring house".[4] The lens moves through Yuan's own house and his neighbor’s, in and out, and back and forth. The view sometimes also turns to include the nature, the forest and bushes. Moreover, it extends to driving through the cityscape of Taipei – even a glance of the Presidential Palace, flashing through the lens. Perhaps it is not all about the artist's fear toward death. Yet what has been kept and repressed underneath the video image is in fact a fear of a home falling into ruins. That is what Freud termed "a fear of something uncanny."
The Disappearing Landscape – Passing II of 2011 is the follow-up work of Yuan Goang-ming’s aforementioned work in 2007. The video still focuses on "home" as its subject matter. Through these two works, the artist gets back to what he has been through and establishes his own style of narration. The cameras dive straightforward into reality as if they have good intention to dig out the internal part. The lens travels back and forth from one place to another, zooming in and out. It creates the visual friction of rubbing leaves and bushes against the lens and makes unexpected noises in the process. This sound effect seems to be the personification of the touching sense. The lens moves repeatedly forward and backward, between the interior of the house and outdoor space, between Yuan’s own house and the neighboring house, between architectural space and nature, between organic life space and ruins, between mountains and ocean, as well as between brightness and darkness. Yuan Goang-ming seems to be building a virtual "passage" of imagery. Through this passage, he attempts to connect between life and death in the universe, between the “can-be-seen” and the “cannot-be-seen”. Furthermore, this passage could be a path toward the underworld to evoke memories of his father. Perhaps not accidentally, in the artist statement of the current solo exhibition "Before Memory", he sentimentally states that in the year 2009, only within four short months, he had experienced the happiness of the birth of his daughter and the sorrow of the death of his father. He also remembers how his father used to be. In the Passing II, a small, dark room is presented in the inner space of "passage" created by Yuan Goang-ming. In this space, the realistic connection to his father is lost. Only transformed illusionary imagery could be used to express the memories of his father, now stored permanently in his work.
Before Memory of 2011, Yuan Goang-Ming's new piece, is a cube-like large scale installation of a four rectangle projection wall. As he indicates, the birth of his daughter and the death of his father drive him to ponder how our "memory" is formed and the "status" of its existence in our mind. The filming technique is not much different from the previous two Disappearing Landscape works. It is again mainly the representation of documentary reality, with expressionistic filming style. The nature scene of mountains and ocean as well as man-made abandoned ruins in the real world are the material for the artist's video work. The major scenery sites include "Yin-yang Sea" near Shuinandong in Rueifang Town, Remain of the Thirteen-Level Smelting and Refining Plant (1933-1985), a swimming pool and the interior of Yuan Goang-ming's neighboring villa. The Plant, located on hills, with a structural gap as deep as thirteen levels, provides a possibility for the lens to move upward and downward in long distances. The artist creates a make-believe montage video of a magnificent view, coming from the sky, entering into the earth, from underground diving into the ocean. Hence, the lens keeps scanning vertically and horizontally inside historical cemetery and contemporary ruins, and looking for pieces of memories. Facing the abandoned broken neighboring villa, Yuan Goang-ming admits that he sees "pieces of window drapery blown by wind, vines growing all over the place, lively and energetic".[5] This is the meeting point of history and reality, crossing time and space. It is the influx of trio, home, hometown, and imagery of native home. We encounter scenes from surreal forest, flooding, and wasteland. Memory sinks into darkness; mysteries are buried in dreamland.
From the reminiscence of memory to the anxiety of memory, and even the panoramic search and scanning of memory, Yuan’s works seem to disclose his compulsive possessiveness of images. The reminiscence of his father is kept in the image work, and therefore is transformed into visible and tangible memories. From this point on, he begins to store his only beloved family members, especially his young wife and toddler daughter, into memorable and ritualistic images for keepsakes, as seen in the Disappearing Portrait (2011) and Smiling Rocking Horse (2011). Nevertheless, what is paradoxically peculiar is that it seems to be the artist's own projection of his consciousness. His wife's image in the Disappearing Portrait, shown in a floating state, blurred and clear, approaching and leaving away repeatedly in a cycle, is like memory, as well as a ghost. Shadowy silence, darkness, and solitude, are emerged again from the fear for "a change in home"...
(Translated by Tung-hsiao Chou )
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[1] The English text, "[T]he uncanny proceeds from something familiar which has been repressed," is quoted from the English version of Freud's thesis, originally written in 1919. See Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” webpage: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncanny.html.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Quoted from Cheng Tsun-shing's conference paper, originally delivered in 1997, on Wang Wen-hsing’s novel "Family Catastrophe". At the end of the paper, Chen also mentions Freud's discussion on "unheimliche" and attempts to interpret it from the origin of "a change in home." See Cheng Tsun-shing, "Pajama Pants and Slippers under the Lamp Cover," in Wood or Night—Which Is Longer? (Taipei: Flâneur Culture Lab, 2009), p. 192.
[4] Chia Chi Jason Wang, "Home: Contemporary Taiwanese Art as Context," in Home: 2008 Taiwan Biennial. (Taichung: National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2008), p. 28.
[5] See Before Memory, monograph of Yuan Goang-Ming on his own work, unpublished, 2011. |
