FUSE Residency: Silas Fong - Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, FUSE 駐留藝術家 - 方琛宇 : 雪夜林邊

FUSE Residency: Silas Fong - Stopping By Woods On A Snowy EveningFUSE 駐留藝術家 - 方琛宇 : 雪夜林邊

02/02/2018 - 11/03/2018

FUSE Artist Residency – Silas Fong : Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

The freedom to be still

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

—excerpt from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

The text of the poem was written in one fell swoop after Frost stayed up all evening till sunrise. It describes the internal musings of a lone rider, taking pause to watch the snow drifting in the woods. This pause can only be kept for a moment, with the rider reminding himself of his promises to keep. Often used in eulogies, this poem captures the spirit of Silas Fong’s work, which acts as a soft reflection of the possibilities of slowness within urban life in Hong Kong. In mobilizing the trappings of expanded cinema, Fong produces an installation that creates breathing space and experiments on the feeling of being in time. As a prime example of where accelerationist ideals can be taken to its maximum, the fantasy of stillness becomes a radical gesture. Fong describes his creative process as one that emerges from boredom, where one’s mind is not directed by neon signs but by nuances in shifting sunlight. It is a quest for the freedom to be still.

In speaking of duration, it is always referred to as a deeply felt time. Duration is time embodied, usually in a feat of endurance. The differential temporality and differentiation of time will be taken up by privileging the embodied rather than finding its clarity in spatialization. The confusion of temporality – defined more hegemonically in its quantification, and more nebulous and unrecognized in the form of qualitative heartbeats – is that in all that, it still marches forward. Then, to resist the spatialization of time would be a refusal in bracketing off the past, present, and future as separate ropes, for they actually form an entanglement.

In a banal conversation, duration becomes a form of endurance, giving the semblance that for time to be felt, it must be a form of suffering. People are deemed to be ‘taking up space’ in discourse, yet what they are really doing is taking up time. Historical memory and trauma is attached to the materiality of physical space, yet the vocabulary for describing the sense of shared time remains evacuated. Space is considered to be given and and taken up, yet time must be managed and harnessed. As Adrian Heathfield asks, “what does it mean for an artwork to present life, to be a life, or to remain in the present tense?”

Through slow-moving videos, images, and objects that are oft missed, Fong creates an encounter with the everyday in a controlled environment to allow the visitor to be with the urban in a different way. Many of the images are personal to Fong, and he brings in three textual perspectives (including this one) to obscure this narrative of his memories, opening them up to be shared. Bringing in media art theory into more traditional image-making practices, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening employs a light touch in a grand gesture toward a place where we can choose to be still.

FUSE 駐留藝術家 – 方琛宇 : 雪夜林邊

面向安穩的自由

森林又暗又深真可羨，

但是我已經有約在先，

還要趕多少路才安眠，

還要趕多少路才安眠。

－節錄自羅伯．佛洛斯特（Robert Frost）《雪晚林邊歇馬》，余光中譯本

佛洛斯特在某個清晨熬夜至破曉，撲倒在地上時寫下此詩 — 孤獨的旅人暫歇時看林裡飄雪，內在的靈感正在喘動。他回想起曾經許下的承諾，結束這短暫的休止。常見於悼詞，此詩捕捉方琛宇作品的靈魂，對香港城市生活緩慢節奏的可能性作出省思。作為擴延電影概念的靈活運用及延展，方氏的裝置創造出一個喘息的空間，實驗人在時間之中的存在感。當加速主義理想達至極致時，對於寂靜的幻想成為一個激烈的反動。方氏指其創作過程源自其沉悶的時刻，當思緒被一縷縷陽光所導引而非喧鬧的霓虹，自由此刻想要變得安穩。

時間可以是短暫片刻的，又可以是綿綿不斷的，給予耐性你或許能夠感受其本質。對於時間，人們對其質性概念上的理解以及量性量度的方法皆存在著差異，取決於我們放任身體去感受時間或以理性計算著時間兩者間的選擇。

時間的概念彷佛是絕對的，時鐘裡秒針逐格向前走，一秒、兩秒、三秒，在重覆的節拍下世界如此運行著。時間的概念可以是相對嗎？我心每分鐘跳八十次，你心每分鐘跳一百二十次，你我所感受的時間從不相同。時間是如此交織著，無論如何，時間一直在向前走。

「時間」一詞逐漸成為耐性的一種體現，似乎一段足以讓人感受到其本質的「時間」定必是一場苦難。在日常的論述當中人們總是被視為佔有著空間，實則人們佔有著的是時間。歷史回憶及創傷往往與現實的物理空間掛勾，然而關於那段時光的意識卻被忽略。我們佔有或放棄空間，與此同時，我們必須意會時間的存在，並加以治理。正如亞德里安‧希斯菲爾德問道：藝術品要如何去展現生活、成為生活、抑或只停留在此時此刻？

透過在日常常被忽視的錄像、圖像及物件緩慢的移動，方氏在特定的環境內讓觀眾以日常以外的方式感受城市。作品中源用方氏私密的圖像，他引用了三個文本作為作品的切入點，混淆了對其回憶的敍述，開放予觀眾加以幻想。結合媒體藝術理論及傳統製圖方法，雪夜林邊 壯麗地輕描淡寫出選擇安穩的空間及狀態。

（原文請參照英文版）