text by Amy Huei-hwa Cheng
About CHEN Chieh-Jen
Born in Taoyuan, Taiwan in 1960, Chen Chieh-Jen is one of Taiwan’s leading contemporary artists. From the 80s to the early 90s, before and after the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, he was active in performance art.
Starting in 1996, he created the series Revolt in the Soul & Body 1900-1999, using the computer to alter historical photographs of criminal executions. In 2000, he collaborated with actors to create the photography series The Twelve Karmas Under the City, exploring the “virtual future”. His reflections on historical images and the relationship between image and power through intense and frightening images soon drew people’s attention. He has taken part in international exhibitions such as the 1998 Taipei Biennial, the Sao Paulo Biennial, the 1999 Biennale di Venezia (Taiwan Pavilion), the 2000 Biennale de Lyon Contemporary Art and the Kwangju Biennale. In 2001, he held his solo exhibition at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. He won the Special Award of the Kwangju Biennale in 2000. At the Taipei Biennial which opened in November 2002, his black-and-white film Lingchi - Echoes of a Historical Photograph is shown on three screens at a slow and lyrical speed. In the film, he links history and contemporary Taiwan society. When it was shown at FIAC in Paris, Le Monde commented, “Elle est atroce, mais c’est une des oeuvres les plus fortes qu’il nous ait été donné de voir ces derniéres années.
It all started with a historical photo
In the 19th century, with the development of colonialism, Westerners shattered the self-sufficient Eastern world with a new technology – photography. The East was seen and understood in a certain way and from a certain perspective. As a result, the subject became an object that was being seen and interpreted. Chen Chieh-Jen describes it as a kind of “soul-stealing”. In the process of being seen/photographed, one loses one’s subject consciousness and becomes the silent “other”. An image is thus “a kind of ‘death’ frozen on the photographic paper”. The photograph used by Chen Chieh-Jen showing a lingchi scene was taken by a French soldier in 1905 and made famous by the French thinker Georges Bataille. It not only shows the East seen through the eyes of colonialists (through a “technological medium resembling a kind of ‘soul-stealing’ instrument” ), but also a long process of dying. An analogy could be drawn between the photographed person having his soul stolen and the criminal’s trance-like state (as a result of the application of opium to delay death and pain). As a piece of historical evidence, the photograph reveals the power relations between spectator and spectacle. The photographed person had his soul taken away, just as the criminal was being subject to physical dismemberment. After the moment had been captured on camera, it became a sealed memory and a potential source of energy. In the West, thanks to Georges Bataille’s interpretation, this photograph has become a key image of the aesthetics of horror dealing with religion, lust, torture and ecstasy. In China, lingchi images only appeared in Chinese-language publications in 1997 for the first time. In 1996, Chen Chieh-Jen developed a series of photos with computerized montage based on this lingchi photograph, posing “questions about an array of issues: image/power, body/execution, politics/violence, reason/madness…self/others”.
This time, Chen Chieh-Jen has reworked this theme again in the film Lingchi, which elaborates on the theme of delayed pain and trance in order to explore contemporary living in Taiwan. More precisely, instead of revisiting the historical scene, the film deals with the present, which is the culmination of history. Through the method of “extension” (the slow motion of the film and the intercutting of scenes of different time and space), he magnifies the trance and prolongs the present. Only by staring at the open wounds can we step into the time machine and experience the pain numbed by the slow motion and have a close-up look of the moment. The film is full of references and symbols relating to contemporary reality, showing a cycle of past and present.
Chen Chieh-Jen has used “Nie-Ching” (Mirror in Hell) in Chinese Taoism as a metaphor and symbol in his discussion of image and power. In the images of hell used in funerals and funeral services in Taiwan, there are descriptions of “Nie-Ching”. It is said that dead people who have fallen into hell have to face its judgment. It will reflect images of their deeds during their lifetime as evidence for judgment of their sins.
Q: Before discussing the film Lingchi, maybe we should start with your previous series Revolt in the Soul & Body 1900-1999 of altered historical photos of criminal executions. While working on this series, you used the idea of “Nie-Ching” to discuss image and power. How do you see “Nie-Ching” and power?
Chen: It is a paradoxical mirror. On the one hand, it seems to objectively record the past life of the dead. On the other hand, it seems to be eternally watching. In folklore, it can also reveal the various desires in the subconscious of the dead. I am very curious about this mirror of judgment in hell. In the image of hell, it is never really depicted or represented. What I’m curious about is how does it mirror people’s desires? Or how do people affirm their own memories through the images? Who control the images and how are they recorded? This reminds me of the Cold War, when martial law dominated Taiwan’s politics and society. It was only many years later that I understood what I saw on TV as a child. Whether they were cartoons, historical or war movies, films about the invasion of extraterrestrials or love stories, their purpose was to rationalize the Cold War and educate by brainwashing with entertainment. Images are transmitted for a reason. It is not just a question of how to make images, but a question of what message to convey and whom to convey it to. While images are being transmitted, the message behind the images will sway viewers’ thinking. If we look at the history of images, we will know that the people and societies in the marginal regions were the first to be photographed in the history of photography. They were the silent subjects being looked at, described and written about. As an artist from a marginal region, I feel that we should perhaps talk about “a history of the photographed subject” before talking about any history of photography. That is why I want to “rewrite”, using fixed historical images as a starting point to “retell the story”.
“Nie Ching” also exists today. Surrounded and dominated by the globalized media, we cannot escape from being “looked at” and “written about”. From being the silent other, we have become amnesiac aphasics and manipulated blind seers. As a response in the contemporary world, we must try to “rewrite” and “re-discuss” issues.
Q: In the Revolt in the Soul & Body series, you put yourself into the images and assume the multiple identities of the victim, the executioner and the onlooker. How did you choose the historical photographs to be altered and why the multiple identities?
Chen: I tried to choose the photos of executions with unknown history as far as possible. The executed is the “photographed subject” who could not escape. He could not speak and could not even escape in death. I am not interested in national history. I am interested in the “trance”-like state and “fragmentation” in the history of images because of the uncertainty of the event and the silence of the photographed subject. While looking at these images, we become lost in the maze of images and become split between being “viewers” and the “photographed subject”.
According to the Taoists, a person’s soul has ten different identities. As someone who was brought up by film and TV during the Cold War and martial law period, I feel that we have fallen into a kind of schizophrenic trance. By analyzing this schizophrenic trance, maybe we could understand our present plight – the plight of being the “photographed subject”, by looking at both the past and the future like the two-headed Buddha from the Western Xia regime in the 13th century or the god Janus in Roman mythology.
Window/Wound: the beginning of the gaze
The process of going from “looking” to “being looked at” and “gazing anew” proposed in the series Revolt in the Soul & Body derived from the metaphor of “Nie Ching” is still the basis for the appreciation of the film Lingchi. The film opens with the image of a ruin. In the scene of destruction, we see a “window”. This foreshadows what Chen Chieh-Jen wants us to reflect on regarding the process of lingchi. The most stunning image in the film is the two huge wounds left on the chest of the tortured after being dismembered. It’s the beginning and focus of the gaze. It’s also the beginning of the colonialists’ look at the exotic East, a pictorial metaphor for colonization. This metaphor runs through the whole film, from the window to the wounds, and from the wounds to the hole of the camera lens. The process is being continuously recorded and observed. As the film unfolds, time also moves forward. The late Ching onlookers become a group of modern women workers. Their silent and concentrated gaze suggests a kind of historical parallel. The most speaking passage in the film is when two modern women gradually appear through two wound-like windows. They slowly open up the clothes of a young man between them, who also has two wounds inflicted by lingchi.
When the camera enters the body of the tortured, the historical “ruins” also appear. Whether it is the site of Unit 731 in Harbin, the Luchou Village on Green Island or the heavily polluted RCA electronics factory in Taoyuan, they are all seen in relation to the symbol of the ruins of the Summer Palace in Beijing. The Summer Palace destroyed by the eight-power allied forces stands for all those ruins of modern factories which were the sites of political and economic domination. They tell the same story and suffer from the same damage. Chen Chieh-Jen sees and shows the present in the light of history. All the ruins he saw in the process of filming sing the elegy of the weak. In this film, history is the occurrence of similar events over and over again. Chen Chieh-Jen says he is concerned about the women workers’ loss of orientation after being eliminated in the process of globalization. Contemporary history is characterized by this trance-like disorientation.
Q: If the aesthetics of the black-and-white photo series Revolt in the Soul & Body is based on the reworking of historical photos, what do you think of the film medium and the relationship between the inside and outside of the body?
Chen: The Taoists have an Internal Medicine Diagram, using landscapes and the seasonal division points to illustrate the balance between the internal microcosm of the body and external nature. But what is the inside of our body like today? In my view, on the historical lingchi photo, the mutilated body of the tortured is also like a ruin and the centre of trance. That’s why I let the camera enter the inside of the body like a drifting “soul”. There, we see the historical ruins and the modern ruins of the factories outside the body. To me, they form a kind of continuity.
Most of the actors in the film are unemployed workers. A few of them are students. Most of them acted in a film for the first time. Their bodies hardly move in the film.
I’m interested in the “immobile” bodies under globalization.
Taiwan is dominated by multi-national audio-visual media. Its record and film industry has all but disappeared. The still existing industry can only serve consumers. While reflecting on the aesthetics of images, perhaps we need to recognize that we are in a state of “fragmentation”. As opposed to the continuous narrative of the film medium, I wanted to use a “fragmented” narrative structure in my film, so that the audience would ask questions about the people and objects in the film because of the gaps in the narrative.
I hope the questions will begin where the film ends.
Because to me, “fragmentation” is the present state of things. It is both an aesthetic form and the content of the narrative.
Q: How about the slow pace of the film from beginning to end? Is the film silent?
Chen: The punishment of lingchi is a slow and endless process, a process that goes on and on. At the same time, with the slow pace, I want the audience to “gaze” at every face in the film. The actors are not only reconstructing a historical execution, but also expressing their present plight. That’s why I let the actor playing the tortured keep his modern haircut. He should retain his contemporary identity.
I don’t think we can really “reproduce history”. What I wanted was to trace the origin of our “trance” and the beginning of fragmentation from our present feeling, and how we entered an endless cycle of subordination from there.
The film is silent most of the time. Only in a few places can you hear the faint electromagnetic sounds of the skin. I magnified the noise in the exhibition area. I took part in the film with the sound of my own skin.
Pain and Trance
The person being tortured represents the subject of the history of the weak. But as part of historical development, are we conscious of the pain ourselves? This is probably one of the reasons why Chen Chieh-Jen wanted to explore and present the state of “trance”. In the film, the tortured is given opium to prolong the trance and delay the pain. The moment between life and death is extended to the present. The face of the tortured going from trance to ecstasy remains etched on our memory. If the historical truth is all too obvious under Chen Chieh-Jen’s gaze, is it also the most accurate reflection of our situation?
Taiwan is undergoing a modernization and globalization process. The coming of the world of consumption and technology may have brought some optimism about the future. But that may be because we are in such a trance that we are unable to feel the pain, or even unconscious of the present moment. Chen Chieh-Jen aptly described the state of “trance” or even “ecstasy” we are in: “…In my view, Taiwan is perfectly happy to play the role of an end-receiver in the world of consumption created by multi-national enterprises and the media. It is happy at being dominated and being a participant.” In fact, it is even difficult to differentiate between our pain and our happiness.
The post-colonial period is an extension of the colonial period. Third World countries continue to be dominated by the cultural, capitalist, technological and globalized ideology of the colonialists. Although the post-colonial period also signifies a turning point, nurturing the growth of ideological opposition in Third World Countries, such opposition cannot stop the continuation of manipulation. If the future turns out to be analogous to the past, can we escape from the recurrent tracks?
Q: If the trance has become internalized, can we break away from this “trance”?
Chen: The trance has not merely been internalized. We are in a collective trance. We can’t be anywhere else. We are not even in the “East”. We are merely inside the consumer society dominated by multi-national capital. There’s no escape. But this does not give cause for pessimism.
Due to the Cold War, Taiwan became a downstream processing site for multi-national capital. While making this film, I went to the processing sites and saw factories which had closed and fallen into disuse, as well as a growing number of unemployed workers. We once got rich by serving multi-national capital. Now, we have been dumped after the globalization of multi-national capital. The bubble has burst.
“The bubble has burst” - this is a very important lesson for us.
Taiwan once helped to rationalize the Cold War. We served the interest of multi-national enterprises and Western hegemony and discriminated against the poor, non-western countries. We called these the values of “progress” and believed in them. We let ourselves be completely alienated.
The trance to ecstasy state of the lingchi victim is to be differentiated from the trance caused by alienation. The trance of the tortured was caused by passive taking of opium. But the ecstatic smile was active. There’s potential energy in the trance to ecstasy state of the tortured. In making the film, I wanted to re-examine and explore this energetic state. The faint smile of the lingchi victim in the historical picture was a “counteroffensive, active” smile while being given opium, while being dismembered and while being photographed. It was not just ecstasy, but a small active smile full of defiance – a smile that looks to the future.
It is a hundred-year smile captured on the photograph.
To me, this smile suggests an attitude that defies the “new order” of the masters under globalization. It is a “mad awakening” versus the new order as well as an active cultural strategy. With this mad “mode of existence’, one tries to break away from the value system of the new order and the consumer society, retell the story and rename oneself.
Naming the future
To Chen Chieh-Jen, history is not linear, but spiral-like. He uses the Buddhist concept of reincarnation to explain the analogy between historical events. In his eyes, time has to do with cause and effect that can be changed and started all over again. As such, there is no real past, present or future. What the historical photo shows is a moment. With it as a starting point, if we can transcend the chronology of time, the power relations and the position of viewing, we may be able to understand the present and the future. As a portrayal of the present, Lingchi – Echoes of a Historical Photograph opens up a hole in the “present” for energy to flow through and thus also opens up possibilities for active change for the future. As a result, it is no longer impossible to re-define the future actively.
The interview took place in December, 2002.
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1.Author: Harry Bellet; quoted from Le Monde (28.10.2002).
2. From Chen Chieh-Jen’s statement in 1997.
3. Ibid.
4. Lingchi photos first appeared in Chinese territory in the “Old Photographs” magazine published by Shandong’s Pictorial Publishing House in mainland China in March 1997.
5. Chia Chi Jason Wang, Catalogue of the 2002 Taipei Biennial, pp. 86-87.
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