meiya lin's catalog

舞台上的真实｜一览林美雅的艺术 1965年秋天的一日，韩国艺术家白南准 (Nam June Paik) 手持他的SONY摄像机穿梭于 纽约大街小道。据说，由此便诞生了影像艺术 (Video Art)。2001年的一天，林美雅同 样地持着她的小型摄像机行走于家乡的旧城区，如此，开始了她的影像艺术生涯。 这前后四十年间，世界艺术风潮风起云涌此起彼伏。如发生艺术 (Happening)，极简艺术 (minimalism)，概念艺术 (Conceptual Art) 和网络艺术 (Net Art) 等等等等。每个艺术潮流派别在各自的时代背景下，有着不同的理念和主题。自60 年代白南准的影像实验之后，摄像机马上被艺术家广泛地运用于艺术创作中，艺术 家频繁地使用影像作为表现、展示的主要手段。到了90年代，随着科技的进一步发 展，随着电脑数码网络的盛行普及，艺术家更是将影像与不同的媒介结合运用，手 段丰富多繁。这种多元的艺术形式被称之为多媒体艺术 (Multimedia Art)。当然，这 样简单地将艺术进行归类不免流于机械和呆板。因为艺术家和艺术作品往往要复杂 得多得多。与其说这些专用术语都代表这不同的艺术风格或流派的话，倒不如说他 们仅仅是一些被艺术家使用的形式手段的称呼而已。将林美雅称为影像艺术家，她 所作的作品为影像艺术， 是因为她的绝大多部分作品都选择用影像来表现。她近期 的几件作品也有国外评论将之归入多媒体艺术的。本文无意于去把林美雅的艺术进 行归类或定性，其实我更愿意抛开这些先入为主的粗浅判断，近距离地寻找林美雅 艺术的踪迹和线索，体验一个艺术家的真实存在。 The Real Raw materials is not the camera and monitor, but time and Experience itself, and... the Real place the work exists is not on screen or within the walls of the room.

But in the mind and heart of the person who has seen it. This is where all images live. 真正的基础材料不是摄影机和显示器，而是时间和经验本身。作品存在的真 正空间不在屏幕或房间隔墙之间，而是存在于观者的意识和心里。这才是影像存在 的意义。 — Bill Viola 比尔 · 维奥拉

当林美雅拿着摄像机行走在街道上拍摄她的第一部影像艺术作品时， 她还是个在读生。几乎和当代同龄艺术家一 样，林美雅的专业是油画，在学院里受到严谨的基础训练。然而当知识获得越多时，才能有可能被越多的局限住。尤其在 那个时代背景下，学院的复杂体制更是促成这一典型的温床。但也正是在这地方，它给了艺术一个名称，形成一门专业， 艺术家成为了一项职业。林美雅便是在这成长环境里真正地经历这个过程，为之投入了大量的热情。当时她在艺术学院里 积极地担任外国艺术家的助手，参加一系列的涉外艺术工作。这些活动让她看到艺术创作的另外一些可能性。林美雅的第 一件影像艺术作品也就是在那个时期 (2001年)为了参加荷兰的一分钟影像作品竞赛而做的。 这件作品的名字叫《喘息者》。林美雅用一个朝向上的摄像镜头记录了她在工业旧城区行走时的感受。建筑与建筑 构成的狭窄，阴暗压抑的空间，束缚着人行为和心灵的自由。一声声伴随着的焦虑扰心的喘息体现出人类身处其中的无奈 和微弱的挣扎。即使是过了如许年，《喘息者》还时时被圈内人士津津乐道，并不是它屡次被提名于国际上的影像奖项， 而是林美雅用最单纯简洁的影像元素直接引发了观众强烈共鸣。首先，这件作品接近于黑白。因为拥挤的建筑造成的阴暗 和狭窄的天空形成的大反差画面效果，使画面没有包含太多的细节。而摄影机的逆光拍摄与低像素的画质也使得影像略显 粗糙但生猛刺激。其次，在摄像手法上，林美雅采用朴实的镜头顺着建筑行进的手法对环境作出了直接的描述和交待，令 人窒息的空间和阴森森的气氛在此得到恰如其分地表现。第三，声音作为影像艺术的很重要的一个元素之一， 伴随着画面 的喘息更加强了气氛的渲染， 也由之暗示了人类的存在和反映。第四，这件作品时间短，还持续不到两分钟。使观众能 容易顺畅地进入到作品中，与之产生共鸣。简言之，林美雅试图从她的作品表达出自己的真切感受。她用了最简洁原始的 办法达到她所希望达到的影像效果，把自己的感受如实地传达给观众。其中我们没有看到任何的矫情，造作和故弄玄虚。 这样的朴实就是真实。同样的手法在她另一件同一时期的影像作品中也可看出较多的相似之处。《悲伤》(2001年)，她记 叙的是一位女青年在镜头前的情感起伏变化。黑白的画面，随时间推移慢慢加入些许颜色，并使用音乐对气氛进行渲染等 等。我们可以看到，除了在形式上她用了当代的媒介来表现外，它和传统的绘画摄影手法没多大的区别。《悲伤》几乎可 以说就是一幅肖像绘画作品。 所以，林美雅不是一位概念艺术家。她观察，她注视，她反映或表达；她有自己的感受，有好恶，但是她不作评 判。2003年，她大学毕业，来到以前卫闻名的荷兰阿姆斯特丹瑞特维尔 (Rietveld Academy) 艺术学院的研究生部 (Sandberg Institute) 里继续深造。与我所见的许多留洋艺术家不同的是，荷兰学院所给予人不着边际的创作自由并没有让她不知所 措，而是给她提供了更多的创作空间。除了一些摄影，装置的作品外，她继续坚持着用影像作为媒介，以镜头作为眼睛，

<< 喘息者>> Breather · 作品长度

Length: 01min 37sec · 作品年代 Year: 2001 · 版数 Edition: 6

说她想说的话。其中两件作品是值得一提的：《快乐的在一起》和《不可知的愉悦》。第一件作品《快乐的在一起》林美 雅将摄像机安置在一群来自农村的美术赶考生的考前班的空间中，摄像机记录下这些年青人初见高科技仪器的欢喜反应。 手法简洁干脆，没有修饰。当然与其说是“手法”和“手段“，还不如说根本就不存在手法和手段。《不可知的愉悦》摘 取了很多中国人眼睛的影像，将“眼睛”这一说起来平常的器官放大并抽象化，投影在巨大的屏幕上。在播放的同时，她 特意放缓了播放的速度，并做了适当的特效剪辑，让左右眼处于不同的时间区，因此对同一事件的同一反应有了奇妙的时 间差，产生了视觉错位。让观众从这些“窗户”感受到人的真实存在。可以看出艺术家试图在影像艺术语言上所作的尝 试。 虽然其中仍有不足之处，然而可贵的是林美雅对对象的观察更为细致，表达上更为细腻了。 这个细腻也体现在她的一部为制作16mm胶片电影而准备的影像作品《红女孩，绿女孩》中。这件作品的起因源于 她参加了鹿特丹一个电影制作班。在那里可以接受到关于电影制作的基础知识和训练。作为这个课程的完成汇报作品，林 美雅自己编写了一初影像短剧，并找演员演绎，自己剪辑完成制作。在这件作品中，她并没有试图构造虚构的情节，因此 也不存在无病呻吟强做新词的尴尬。艺术家把注力回归到人的问题上，观察特定的人在特定的环境里面的一系列动态反 应。灵感是来自于她早期旅馆工作经验的回忆。当时她对对象细致入微的观察，通过眼睛进入大脑，经过时间的筛滤，留 下了些许零碎的记忆。这些记忆由林美雅表现出来便是一个具体的动作，一个姿态，一串声音，几块颜色，空间，时间， 光线等。她将这些抽象的元素组合成一部影像作品，并用两个大的投影机投射到两个大屏幕上。两个屏幕各自表现了一个 带绿色假发和一个带红色假发的青年妓女在旅馆里的片断生存状态。这也是作品名字的由来。作品中主人公的神态变化， 肢体表情，甚至是一声声口哨都能轻易让人受到感染。我们可以从艺术家所创作的空间营造的光线和气氛，从她对镜头的 运用，蒙太奇的切换中看出，艺术家用最写实微观的手法表现了一种最抽象的感觉，反映出艺术家对影像艺术语言的熟练 掌握。 到这里， 我们已经大致的看到了林美雅影像语言的一些基本元素和手法技巧。我们知道，很多的艺术家是以影像表 达概念，有艺术家以影像本身作为主题，甚至有许多艺术家执着于媒介语言的探究。与他们相比，或许林美雅的创作初衷 和创作方式可以称为传统。说得更极端一些，她的这种方式与传统上的绘画摄影相去并不甚远。但坚持以这种方式创作， 正是因为里面有着她坚信的真实。 2006年，她被国际著名的荷兰皇家艺术学院 (Rijksakademie) 邀请参加为期两年的艺术家驻留计划。此机构所选取的 艺术家大多已在业内小有名气，或者换言之，艺术家在各自的语言表达上已形成自己的体系。 学院给予艺术家最好的创作

快乐的在一起

<< 喘息者>> Breather · 影像抽帧

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条件，包括宽敞的艺术家工作室，安置有各类器材设备的小型制作工厂，富裕的生活工作费用，专业技术人员的支持等， 并可以邀请到世界各地著名的艺术家来进行交谈。在这样的一个优越的条件下，艺术家会想要些什么呢？ 从《红女孩，绿女孩》这件作品我们可以看到，艺术家的创作就如人说话写作，一个人能否将想要表达的表达出 来，在于他对语言的掌控能力。用母语来说话肯定是比新学的第二语言要表达得更清晰。这个过程几乎是每个杰出艺术 家所必须经历的一个过程。如果说林美雅早期影像艺术的成功有些误打误撞，或者说凭着个人的天赋说出了自己想要说的 话，那么《红女孩，绿女孩》就是美雅后来有意地在语言方面加强自己的词汇量了。这持续到她进了荷兰皇家艺术学院以 后，她仍然在这方面下了苦功。从数码技术、软件硬件的运用、到电子屏幕、集成电路的改装，甚至她还下车间学习各种 机床器材的使用。这些纯为“练气”的苦功夫，她都以坚强的毅力一一掌握，这对她后期的创作打好了坚实的基础。 然而 语言、技术本身难道就是艺术家的唯一追求吗？ 回顾影像艺术的发展，相当多一部分影像艺术家的兴趣是完全从技术和科技出发的：The Medium as subject matter （媒体成为艺术的主题）。其中自然不乏一些非常杰出的艺术家，我在此不想对他们进行褒贬。很显然，这和林美雅的艺 术还是有明显区别的。在她看来，媒介始终只是媒介而已，就好象语言只是表达的工具而已。 第一年的皇家艺术学院艺术家工作室开放日林美雅呈现了两件作品。第一件作品《等待蒸发》，林美雅在一个极大 的空间中间悬吊了两块平置的大型屏幕，屏幕的两边各安置了四个投影仪。在屏幕的一方，你可以看到民工从白色的背景 深处形象从小到大自左向右行走而出消失在屏幕的右边。缓缓的一个接着一个。而屏幕的另外一边，你可以看到他们的形 象一字排开站立在那儿。背景还是一个白色，形象是黑白的。由于影像排除了一切可以排除的多余元素，使得这些形象格 外亲切真实。 那些人行走的姿态，胳膊的摇摆，站立着的微笑，抽着烟或者面对镜头流露出的胆怯害羞， 都能给观众留下 深刻的印象。我们可能会发出这样的感叹：这些人平时生活在我们的左右，但我们从来不曾仔细地留心过观察过他们，甚 至我们此时此刻才感觉到他们作为“人”的存在。如果这是林美雅想要说的话，那我相信她达到了一定的目的，至少在视 觉上。 第二件作品《卡拉OK女神》，是三个在长方形状的金属箱子的小装置。他们都由小的LCD屏幕改装而成。每个箱子 在播放时，会在背后的墙上放射出旋转着的色彩光线。同时箱子正面的屏幕放映着赤裸上半身的女子手持话筒正矫情地唱 着小曲。女子的身周被一些漂亮的花朵的装饰所包裹。三片屏幕三个女子唱着三首不同的歌映衬在三个闪烁着的光束前。 后来我与林美雅聊过她创作的过程和理念： 她在这两件作品的语言上进行了两个极致的探索：加法和减法。在

<< 喘息者>> Breather · 影像抽帧

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《等待蒸发》里面，她采用的是减法，视觉上她努力排除了一切多余的元素，如城市背景、色彩和声音等，减之又减直到

了几十位民工让他们按照她的方式做不同的游戏，一个接一个。其中最精彩的一段是林美雅将他们请上一架天桥，排成一

不能再减为止。而在《卡拉OK女神》上，她较劲的则是加法，加之又加直到不能再加为止。虽说这些都是在语言上做的文

排。让他们一个传一个地点烟。她特别给这段片子取名为“传火”。除了这些民工在镜头前不同的反应被细致入微地捕获

章。然而不管是否如一位荷兰评论家说的，《等待蒸发》的语言像水晶一般的纯净，但艺术家在这两件作品的野心和所希

下来外，林美雅对空间这个概念若有若无地进行了发挥。天桥原本是个供人行走过路之处，而现在林美雅的对象排列其上

望达到的作品结果，是要看这两种方法是否能达到她所想要的作品真实。这真实表现在对观察的真实反映，对对象的真实

被镜头一个个横向扫过，与垂直于天桥位于其下面的高速公路来来往往飞驰的车辆形成强烈的对比，让画面呈现了一种近

表现，对自己的真实验证。

似超现实的气息。自然，这种气息的产生是由于林美雅对空间的精心安排：她让对象脱离平常的生活环境并将之移置于一

接下来的一年，2007年，林美雅用三件作品给自己做了一个小结。《失乐园》是她在2007上半年就完成的作品。林 美雅将分别骑着玩具车的裸男裸女安置在一个虚拟的数码空间里。这个四周有各种热带奇树的空间象征着伊甸园，这一对

个她所创造或设定的空间或舞台背景之上，由之形成的两者之间的关系。可是或许有些观众还是不禁要问，这是否是种真 实的诠释呢？

裸男裸女自然就隐喻着亚当和夏娃了。背景音乐是我们从小耳熟能详的“让我们荡起双桨”，但却是做了音效处理的。这

答案是勿庸置疑的。对“真实”的诠释也正是林美雅一贯孜孜以求的。通过以上谈论的一些作品，我们可以大概地

件作品林美雅运用了大量的数码电脑技术，把氛围达到了诗一般的效果。随着镜头的推进和抽离，观众仿佛置身于一个美

了解到什么是林美雅的真实。概括而言，首先，她是一位观察者。她不仅观察着她身周的人和物，更重要的是她同时还小

丽祥和的伊甸园中，而作品的主人公，却似乎又神游物外，心不在焉，抽着烟，悠闲地骑着玩具晃晃车。可是他们头上的

心谨慎地观察着自己、自己和身周人与物的关系并由之产生的情感。这样的方式在二十一世纪初或许会被人称之为老派，

乌云始终漂浮不散，熟悉的曲子似是而非的荡漾着。我想，这样的意境对观众来说早已不说自明了。尤其就生活在二十一

但也正是这种朴实无华的创作方式避免了就像当今很多艺术家因为一味地追求概念、想法或科技而使作品显得冷漠、空泛

世纪的观众来说，我们应该与林美雅有着同样体会的。这里我想提一下的是林美雅在这件作品里所创造的这个虚拟三维空

不着边际。也正是因为她从人最根本的情感作为创作的出发点，使作品更容易产生接近人本性的真实。其次，林美雅的在

间。说它‘三维’，但恰恰是地面，艺术家却刻意地留了白，让整个空间显得平面。与其说这是一个空间， 还不如说是林

创作手法上都是以如何反映对象的真实为前提的。她对对象的记录或安排，皆建立在对对象深刻地观察和了解的基础上。

美雅设计的一个舞台。她将实拍出来的两个人物， 重置到她所设计的舞台上，这样的手法我们在她以前的作品中也曾看到

随后再将他们进行再创作。她把他们重置入于她设计建造的空间之中。这个空间是为了再现对象的真实，再现艺术家的真

过。

实而存在的。它其实更象是一个主基调 (main stream)，观众似乎感觉到现实世界中的真实还不及这个舞台上的来得真实。 林美雅的另外两件作品，一件是《时代在召唤》，另一件是《游戏/传火》。《时代在召唤》的灵感仍然来自于林

美雅在中国时亲见了当今小朋友在学校做早操以后唤起的回忆，同时被新款早操在姿势上对旧款的颠覆所吸引。孩子们用

当然这里‘舞台’并非是林美雅艺术创作的概念，应该说是观众通过她创作的手法所找到的一个线索。这片舞台也非字面 意义理解的舞台，上面演出着的不是‘戏’和‘剧’的那种再创造的真实，而是超越现实真实的真实。

他们本然的姿态和着音乐展臂踢腿。这一切和曾经是多么相似却又多么䑤异。林美雅用一个移动的镜头自左至右然后又自 右至左慢慢地扫过早操的队伍。每个小孩的神情体态被这近镜头记录下甚至被放大。其实这些孩子并不象我们所见到的 整齐规矩。他们在学校受到同样的教育和训练后，在同一支歌曲引导下，却有着完全不同的表现：不仅仅是在身体形态上 的，甚至思维灵魂上都不处在同一时刻。林美雅此刻已不再存在着对语言的纠缠，就好象一个作家在写作品时已忘记了词 汇的运用，句子的组织等等技巧手法。她专注的只是表达自己想要表达的。林美雅在这件作品里的空间处理上运用了以前 她所掌握的办法，有些象《等待蒸发》。她抽离空间在视觉上三维的存在，却又恰到好处地给出了暗示。这便是林美雅所 创造的舞台。小朋友们的每一个蹦跳在这个舞台空间里显现得一览无遗。另一件作品《游戏/传火》是游戏，艺术家邀请

鞠晓闻

<< 喘息者>> Breather · 影像抽帧

Video Still

Staging Reality｜Enter Meiya Lin’s Art World One autumn day in 1965, Nam June Paik, a North Korean artist, roamed the streets of New York, carrying his Sony video camera. It is said that Video Art was born then and there. One day in 2001, also with a camera, a small one actually, Meiya Lin traveled in the old part of her hometown and started her career as a video artist.

The four decades between the two artists has seen an unceasing ebb and flow of art trends: Happening, Conceptual Art, Net Art and etc. Times have bestowed each trend or school with varied notions and subjects. Ever after the visual experiment of Nam Jun Paik in 1960s, camera has been instantly put into wide use in artworks while video has become a frequent medium for expression and exhibition. In 1990s, with the booming of technology, popularization of internet, computer and other digital devices, artists furthered to combine video with other mediums and initiated a new art form called “Multimedia Art”. Obviously, simplified categorization is somewhat mechanical and rigid.

Artists and artworks are far more complicated than that. Artistic terminology is more about the medium in use than about differentiated styles or schools.

Meiya Lin, for instance, can be regarded as a video artist in that video is chosen as medium for a majority of her works, although some of her recent artworks are categorized as multimedia art by foreign critics. This article is not meant to categorize or define Meiya Lin’s art. Instead, the author would rather cast away stereotyped rough judgments and feel the real state of the artist by probing into traces and clues of her art.

The Real Raw materials is not the camera and monitor, but time and Experience itself, and… the Real place the work exists is not on screen or within the walls of the room. But in the mind and heart of the person who has seen it.

This is where all images live.

-Bill Viola Meiya Lin was a college student when she walked on streets to shoot her first video. Like contemporary artists of her age, Meiya Lin majored in oil painting

and received rigorous academic training. As knowledge accumulates, the risk of being bounded rises. At that time, the complex academic regime had provided a hotbed for this model. However, it is the academy that offered a niche to art, set up the major and made artist an occasion. With great enthusiasm, she experienced the transformation of the environment where she had grown up. Back in college, she once worked as an assistant for foreign artists and participated in a series of foreign artistic affairs. These activities allow us to see her other potentials besides art. During this period (2001), Meiya Lin made her first video for the One Minute Video Contest in Netherlands.

In this work entitled “Breather”, Meiya Lin applies an upward shoot to record her feelings of walking in the old industrial area. Human behavior and freedom are cooped up by the depressing narrow dark space between buildings.

Breathes, loaded with anxiety and concerns, reveal the helplessness and frail struggle of the inhibitors. After many years, Breather is still acclaimed by insiders, not for its repeated international nominations but for its concise visual elements that strike a strong and direct chord with the viewer. Firstly, the video is almost black-and-white. Details are shadowed by the sharp contrast between dark crowded buildings and the narrow bright horizon. Backlighting and low definition have produced a raw yet stimulating effect. Secondly, in terms of technique, Meiya Lin takes a plain shoot by walking along the buildings in a direct introduction of the surroundings, exposing the ghostly atmosphere and the suffocating space to a full scale. Thirdly, sound, as a key element of video art, accentuates the atmosphere in the form of breath, implying the existence and reaction of human being. Fourthly, the short film, two-minute minus, enables the audience to enter smoothly and feel its pulse. In short, Meiya Lin tries to convey her true feelings to the viewer. Certain visual effects are achieved via simply primitive methods so as to convey her real feelings. In it, we find no affectedness or make-believe but innocent truth. Similar treatment could be found in another video work of the same period. Sadness (2001) depicts an emotional young woman. Colors are added slowly to the black-and-white picture with music punctuating the atmosphere. We can tell that it bears no difference from traditional painting photography except for its contemporary medium. Sadness is almost a portrait.

Therefore, Meiya Lin is no conceptual artist. She is an observer who watches before revealing and expressing herself-affection or abhorrence-without making any judgment. Upon graduation in 2003, she pursued graduate courses in Sandberg Institute in Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, an academy known for avant-garde art. Unlike some other artists studying abroad, she did not feel at loss before the boundless freedom of creation provided by the Academy. Instead, her realms were extended. Apart from some photos and installations, she continued with video as medium, voicing her thoughts with lens. Two of the video works deserve special attention: Happy Together and Unknown Pleasure. In the former, the camera is installed in a pre-exam class of rural art students in order to record their

<< 时代在召唤>> The Times Are Summoning · 作品长度

Length: 02min 40sec · 作品年代 Year: 2007 · 版数 Edition: 6

excitement before the hi-tech machine. Her technique is concise and clear-cut void of any ornaments. Or there is no technique or methods at all. The latter selects images of eyes of some Chinese. The ordinary organ is then blown up, made abstract and reflected on a huge screen. When it plays, she slows the speed and edits special effect so that the left eyes are in a different time zone from the right. As a result, it produces a wonderful time difference in the same reaction to an event, together with a sense of visual displacement. These “windows” enables the audience to feel the real existence of human being. Through her endeavor to experiment on visual language, Meiya Lin has developed a subtler perspective towards her subjects and expressed herself in a more delicate way, although it is not perfect.

Such a delicacy can be seen in Red Girl Green Girl, her preparation for 16mm film. She had participated in a workshop in Rotterdam where she received fundamental knowledge and training for film-making. To conclude the course, she wrote a short script herself, cast main roles, and made edition. In this video, she did not attempt to make up plots so there is no awkwardness of trying to be different. The artist returns to the issue of Man by studying a series of dynamic reactions of particular people under certain circumstance. The inspiration springs from her memory of her early working experience in hotels. Her careful observation entered her brain through her eyes, leaving some fragments with the filtering of time. The memory are brought out by the artist in the form of a certain movement, a posture, chains of sounds, colored areas, space, time, light and etc. These abstract elements are mixed into one video and shown on two huge screens with two big projectors. Each screen shows segments of states of two prostitutes in a hotel. One is wearing a green wig and the other a red one, which explains for the title. The viewer tends to be touched by slight changes of their facial expressions, postures and even their whistles. A most abstract feeling is revealed in a most realistic microscopic manner with the aid of man-made space, lighting, atmosphere, skillful manipulation of camera and montage. Meiya Lin is a master of video art language.

Up to now, we have seen the basic elements and technique of her language. As we know, some artists use video for concept, or as an independent subject. Others are fascinated about the language of medium. In comparison, her motivation and methods can be regarded as traditional. To put it extremely, her approach is not distinct from traditional photography for painting. However, she holds on to such a way in that it contains truth in which she firmly believes.

In 2006, Meiya Lin was invited by world-acclaimed Rijksakademie as resident artist for a two-year span. Most of the artists chosen by the institute have made a name in the circle, In other words, they have developed their own systems of language. It provides ideal conditions for the artists, including spacious studios, well-equipped small factories, handsome allowances, and professional support from technicians. Additionally, renowned artists worldwide

Unknown Pleasure

are invited for lectures. In a privileged situation like this, what would an artist desire?

Red Girl Green Girl enables us to see the resemblance among artistic production, speech and writing: mastery of a language is the key to successful expression. Beyond doubt, mother language can serve the purpose better than the second language. Every prominent artist has to go through the process of acquiring a second language. If there is an element of luck in Meiya Lin’s early success, or her talent has made self-expression possible, Red Girl Green Girl marks that she had made conscious efforts to increase her glossaries. After her arrival in Rijksakademie, she continued to invest in learning digital technology, software, hardware, electronic screen and renovation of circuit. She even went down to the workshop to learn the use of machine tools. With remarkable resilience, she mastered basic technique through hard work, which lays the foundation for her later production. Nevertheless, is language or technique the only pursuit of an artist?

Looking back on the road of video art, plenty of artists were first intrigued solely by technique or technology: the medium as subject matter. There are extraordinary artists among them as well, about whom I would reserve my comment. However, art of this type is divergent from that of Meiya Lin, for whom medium is medium as language is a tool of expression.

In the first year, Meiya Lin made two artworks for Rijksakademie Open Ateliers. In Waiting for Evaporation, two screens are hung back to back amidst a huge space. Four projectors are installed for each side. On one side, rural migrants, out of depth of white background, walk from left to right and exit from the right side of the screen, one by one slowly. On the other side, black-and-white images stand in line in a white background.

Erased of any erasable elements, these images seem quite amiable and real. The audience tends to be impressed by their postures, swinging arms, smiles at pauses, smoking gesture and cowardly shyness. We may lament that we have never noticed or observed these people around us. Rather, it is by now that we have sensed their existence as “human being”. If this is the information Meiya Lin hopes to convey, I believe she makes it, visually at least.

The second work, The Karaokei Goddess, consists of three small installations of rectangle metal boxes, transformed from small LCD screens. When every box plays, it casts revolving colored ray on the wall behind. On the front, a girl, upper part of body naked, is singing tunes with a mike. She is surrounded by fancy flowery ornaments. On three screens, three girls sing three different songs before three flashing beams.

Later on, the author conversed with Meiya Lin about the process of production and her conceptions: she made two extreme experiments on language in this two works- addition and division. For Waiting for Evaporation, she uses division so as to reduce redundant elements such as city backgrounds, color and sound to a maximum degree. For

<< 时代在召唤>> The Times Are Summoning

· 影像抽帧 Video Still

The Karaokei Goddess, she applies addition to extreme. Apparently, it is an effort on the language and the language of Waiting for Evaporation is acclaimed as pure as crystal by a critic in Netherlands. However, the artist’s ambition and expectations rely on whether the two methods can bring true artworks. They are supposed to be true to the artist’s observation, to subjects and to the artist herself.

The next year, Meiya Lin made a conclusion for herself with three works. Lost Paradise was finished in the earlier part of 2007. A couple, both naked, is riding toy cars respectively in a virtual digital space. The space, surrounded by rare tropical trees, represents Eden while the naked couple Adam and Eve. It plays the familiar song of “Let’s paddle the boat” in the background yet with sound effect reprocessed. She applies a lot of digital technique to create a poetic atmosphere. With the camera zooming in and out, the viewer seems to enter tranquil beautiful Eden meanwhile the main roles are smoking and riding the rocking cars absent-minded. Dark clouds are scattering above head and the familiar tune flows ambiguously. Such a scene can definitely make sense to the viewers, especially those living in the 21st century who must sympathize with the artist. The author would like to discuss about the virtual 3D space in this work. The ground is intentionally left blank, making the space flat. It is more like a stage than a space. The artist installs the two characters she shoots for real on a designed stage. We could see same technique in her early works.

Two other works are The Times are Summoning and Game/ Passing the torch. The former was also inspired by the artist’s memory, triggered by her sight of Chinese pupils doing morning exercise. She was fascinated by those “subversive” new moves. Accompanied by the music, children are stretching their arms and kicking their legs in a natural way. There is an estranged familiarity in the scene. The artist moves the camera slowly across the queues, from left to right and then backwards. Each child’s expression and posture are enlarged with close-up and the lines are not as orderly as we have expected. With the same education and training in school, they perform differently from each other to one tune, physically, psychologically, or even spiritually. Meiya Lin stops clinging to language as a writer forgets the technique of wording and sentence organization. She focuses on what she wants to say. As for treatment of space, Meiya Lin reuses the old method in Waiting for Evaporation, hinting at the existence of a 3D space without providing any visual proof. This is a created stage where each move of the pupils can be captured. In Game, the artist invites dozens of rural migrants to play one-by-one games designed by her. The climax is when she asks them to stand in line on an overpass and light cigarettes one-by-one. This section is dubbed as “Passing the Torch”. Apart from details of their reactions before the camera, Meiya Lin makes slight elaboration on the notion of space. She runs her camera across her subjects over a pedestrian walkway, which strikes a sharp contrast with the rapid flow of traffic on

the highway below and creates a quasi-surrealist atmosphere. The atmosphere, of course, is attributed to her careful layout of space. Her subjects are removed from their usual environment to a created or designated space or stage so as to build a relation between the two. Perhaps, some of the audience may ask: is this a true kind of interpretation?

Absolutely. Moreover, interpretation of truth itself has been a permanent pursuit of the artist. Over discussion of aforementioned works, we may know roughly what truth means for Meiya Lin. On balance, first, she is an observer who observes not only surrounding people and objects but also herself, her connection with her surrounding, and her emotions inspired by such a connection. Her approach may be thought as out-dated at the beginning of the 21st century but its simplicity has excluded the possibilities of cold-blooded unrealistic works that spring from artists’ fascination about concepts, ideas and technology. Her starting point of basic human emotions has made her artworks closer to the true natures of human being. Second, reflecting truth of subjects is the premise of Meiya Lin’s production. Her thorough observation and comprehension have provided foundation for her records, arrangements and following reprocessing. She places her subjects in a designed space which serves to represent their truth and artists’ truth. In fact, it is a keynote of her art. The audience seems to realize that reality is not as true as truth on stage.

Yet “stage” is not the concept of her art but a clue hinted by her approach. Meiya Lin’s stage is not stage in the literal sense but one that presents surrealistic truth rather than reproduced reality of operas or dramas.

Xiaowen Ju Curator, Art critic

我们的世界远不是奇妙园, 毫无疑问。但是艺术家的双手能把奇妙的事物带到我们面 前, 即使是虚假的童话或是现实让人不安的方面。林美雅是一个观察者, 她留意城市 中极为社会化的行为, 对于人们努力相信生活会更好的态度抱以开放的视角。同时,她 是一位视觉艺术家,创作影像有自己的视觉价值观。她把对存在的关注通过一个做减 法的过程抵达影像。2001年一分钟影像作品《喘息者》中甚至完全没有人的存在。 但是在单色调的城市场景中移动, 在断壁残垣和小路间穿行, 幽闭的恐惧夹杂着数瞥 远景, 都给人留下强烈的心理冲击。林美雅最近的影像装置《等待蒸发》中, 人物从 表面看连成一片, 其实每个形象都自成一体。他们像陌生人那样走过, 衣着普通, 表 情平淡, 身份无法辨识。《等待蒸发》中的男人女人抽象化的黑白形象让观众不安, 心生好奇, 而不是同情怜悯。艺术家开始拍摄的是中国大城市街上等活儿的民工, 他 们已经抛开了过去, 但又没有融入城市。作品排除了颜色、声音等元素, 呈现了一个 不确定的关于希望的噩梦。色彩鲜艳的《卡拉OK女神》可以看作是平衡 (《等待蒸 发》) 的一个作品。唱歌的女子欢快地取悦观众。这个作品装饰性强, 但细心解读的 人会思考命运以及努力改变命运的徒劳。 廷尼卡·瑞德

Our world is far away from wonderland, no doubt about it. But wonder can be brought nearby by artists’ hands, even if it’s about fake fairytales or unsettling aspects of reality. Meiya Lin is an observer. She registrates sharply social behavior in the city and has an open eye on human attempts to believe in a better life.

At the same time she is a visual artist. She creates images with an autonomous visual value. The connection between her existential preoccupations and her video-images consists of an implacable process of deduction. Breather, a one-minute video from 2001, is even completely devoid of human presence.

Nevertheless the movement through a monochromatic cityscape, a disturbing journey along disconnected walls and alleys, has a strong psychological impact based on claustrophobia mixed with glimpses of prospect. In Meiya Lin’s most recent video-installation the protagonists may appear full length, they are cut loose from every context. They pass by like strangers, their neutral clothes and blank expression give no clue for identification. Reduced to black and white abstractions, the men and women presented in Waiting for Evaporation provoke uneasiness and amazement in stead of empathy. What started as a shooting of people who wait for jobs in the streets of Chinese cities, people who have left their past behind and are far from being embedded in the city, ends up by its subdued transformation, as a undefined bad dream about hope.

The colourful Karaokei Goddess could be seen as a balancing counterpart.

The singing girls are cheerful and entertaining. The set is full of decoration. But close reading arises comparable thoughts about destiny and our vain attempts of influencing it.

Tineke Reijnders Art Historian, Art critic

小说美雅 说一个艺术家，可以只说他的作品，有时只有这样才恰当。但对美雅，我做不到这 点。因为我们很熟。我们熟主要是因为脾气相投，品性互解，作品的作用是次要 的。所以在评论美雅这个艺术家之前，我就对自己说：“其实我对美雅这个人的了 解比她的作品更多，一说她的作品就有点妄谈的意思”。确实是这样。但反念一 想，她是个艺术家，更多的人要了解的是她的作品而不是这个人，评人不评艺好像 说不过去。有这点自作多情的责任在就注定这点文字不会是太好的东西，反正好歹 大家凑合看吧。 美雅是阚萱介绍给我的，我去阿姆斯特丹之前知道她是在那混的少数几个中 国艺术家之一，我到那之后投靠的第一个人就是她，我在阿姆斯特丹吃的第一顿人 饭（中餐）就是美雅给我做的。面条、烧茄子。在初到一个完全陌生的外国城市， 有人专门给我做一顿人饭那是空前温暖的，一想到这，感激之情就油然而生，从那 以后我就认定美雅是个体贴别人的好人。 后来我们基本不太联系，直到她也进驻荷兰皇家艺术学院，我们便天天混在 一起。混在一起除了打打闹闹就是对那单位里的艺术家品头论足的八卦，很少谈艺 术，只有一次我印象深刻。那次不知怎么我俩就叫起真儿来，我记得我的观点是： 当艺术家产生创作冲动的那一刹那，是理性和感性共同支配的，或者说在那一刹 那，理性和感性是二合一的。而美雅则坚持认为只有感性，不可能有理性的参与， 因为冲动的意思就是感性本身。我又说人的感性不可能只是单纯的感性，它是由人 的经验、理性等其他东西共同积淀而成的。然后她说……她说什么来着我忘了，可 能美雅也忘了，反正这不太重要，重要的是美雅给了我第一次有关她的想法的鲜明 的印象：她主要靠直觉干活儿。 我觉得这个印象是符合她的作品的。她的处女作《喘息者》就是这样的。这 小段录像呈现的是艺术家的原始冲动和对艺术语言的敏感。如果从影像语言的角度 说我是个外行，从我外行的角度看，这个作品不需要太专业的技术，不需要多深刻

<< 等待蒸发

第一卷｜排队>> Waiting for Evaporation - Roll One｜In Line · 作品长度 Length: 07min 50sec · 作品年代 Year: 2006 · 版数 Edition: 6

的思想，不需要多少艺术史的知识，它就是一个手有寸铁的艺术家小试牛刀的开刃之作，它靠的就是生不楞的直觉把握，

的是你只能做你理解范围之内的事。注意，这个“理解”不等于“知道”：你知道一件事情不等于你理解它；你可能不知

这个直觉并不一定清楚行为的确切意义，并不一定清楚自己的想法在哪，但她清楚该拍什么、怎么拍、拍完了怎么处理，

道行为的结果但你一定理解整个事情，不然你不会去那样行动。又扯远了，弯儿转得有点多，脑子缠住了，反正我的意思

也就是说她知道如何抓住吸引自己的信息再如何恰当地呈现这个信息。这样，作品获得了感人的力量。但这个力量在满脑

就是美雅不是走思辨和观念路子的人，她的直觉……算了，再说就废话了。

子“观念”和艺术史的艺术家眼里并不存在。这个力量在愿意聆听蚊子唱歌的人的眼里才存在。

再说美雅关注人的某种状态，这种状态通过简单行为呈现，背后又有复杂社会背景，但她的作品又向人传达“虚

但话又说回来，艺术家的能力如果仅仅停留在这阶段肯定不够，也是不可能的，艺术家无时无刻都不在主动或被动

空”（或空虚）的信息：这些人在那站着、走过来；女孩面无表情地卡拉OK；一帮人挨个学抽烟，他们不可能什么都没

地接触着艺术史和各种信息，冲动不可能总是原始的，刀开刃了不可能不再用也不可能不钝。可能大多数艺术家都处在越

想，但他们传达出什么都没想的情态，这是美雅作品吸引我的另一个东西。但这东西它……怎么说呢，它怎么样都不怎么

用越钝的阶段里，他们可能顾不上磨刀也可能根本不愿意磨，因为那样会耽误眼前的活儿，也违反惯性。虽然他们也知道

样，它就是让人不能怎么样，你可以说它无聊，但这真实，它是一种对世界的理解，这理解包含着激荡后的平复。

“磨刀不误砍柴工”的道理，但我们也都知道了，现在市场这么好机会这么多，不多砍柴不是对不起这个时代嘛！可话再

美雅的大多数作品的制作都挺耗时间的，短短的一分钟她能把大半年的时间都搭进去，天天两眼发绿的遒在编辑室

说回来，不磨刀的艺术家还能砍出什么样的柴？骚瑞，话有点扯远了，再回到美雅，美雅也不是不存在这问题，我认为她

里，真是够“浪费”的，但不知情的人根本看不出来。她是“高技派”的艺术家。我原来老问她某个东西做……完了吗，

的钝刀砍出来的东西有《失乐园》、《卡拉OK女神》、《时代在召唤》等等；像《等待蒸发》这样的东西就有点像刚磨完

但总是半年也问不出个结果来，后来我就懒得问了。这种问题能泄漏出我的无聊，也能泄漏美雅的烦：她好像是烦自己出

刀干出的活儿。美雅同学多包涵，我知道我这么横加论断这些作品是简单而粗陋的，其实这些作品都是从不同角度指向美

东西这么慢，但谁有办法？不都是她自找“麻烦”吗？由她去吧。

雅内心所关注的类似的东西（这话需要再再说回去），可我不管这些，因为我现在站着说话。 话再再说回去，为什么美雅的刀钝了也没太影响她干活儿？因为她脑子里还有另一根筋，那就是对人的关注。这个

我们一见面就瞎闹，跟小孩似的，不厌其烦的以“衰人”自嘲和互嘲，莫名其妙的表情一对上号就能癫笑个半天， 也不知道笑个啥劲儿，但我们都理解如何是笑料。别说，同样的情景，换了别人还真癫不起来。这衰人！

“人”既指美雅自己也指她周围的人。如果单单这么说也没啥新奇的，可以说没有不关注人的艺术家，我的意思是美雅关 注人处在相对简单的行为但又有非常复杂社会背景的这个交汇点的状态。她所有的《喘息者》之后的影像作品都是这样。 举个例，《等待蒸发》里的这些人，站成一排，向观众走来，没背景。简单吧？可它很复杂：这些人怎么就那样站着？他 们怎么就穿着这样的衣服？他们怎么就那样走路？怎么就那样的表情？这都很复杂，这复杂是社会造成的。但我猜美雅并 不想探讨社会，也不想阐释观念，她只是找到了最恰当的方式呈现简单与复杂的微妙交汇点。这表明她知道自己能干什 么，知道自己作为艺术家的作用在哪儿。这样看来她至少比那些不弄出点“观念”就没法做作品的艺术家要明智很多。也 许热爱“观念”的艺术家不喜欢这话，我并不是要否定“观念”的必要性，但我坚决反对迷信“观念”。艺术家的独特性 在于通过身体行动与觉悟的结合点以一种形式呈现对世界的理解，而不在其观念。我认为理解是人的精神与外界接触后产 生的头一个后果。理解导致一种观念，不理解也导致一种观念（但这是半吊子观念。错误的理解并不导致半吊子观念）。 艺术家你怎么就能认定你的观念不是半吊子的？也许有人说：“你以为你理解了但你也许根本没理解，你怎么就认定你理 解了？”但这这种疑问是无效的，因为不管你怎么以为或认不认定，你理解多少就是多少，这虽不可量化和比较，但肯定

梁硕

<< 等待蒸发

第一卷｜排队>> Waiting for Evaporation - Roll One · 展览现场 Exhibition Scene

A Few Words about Meiya Artwork can be the focus in talks about an artist. For certain occasions, it seems to be the only appropriate way. Yet it does not work with Meiya, an old friend of mine, whose temperament I know well and fits mine perfectly.

Artwork, however, is comparatively minor in the establishment of our friendship.

Before I started to write about her, I thought to myself: “I know her better than her artworks. To talk about her artworks is too pressing for me.” Yes, indeed. Yet the viewer may hope to learn more about her artworks than her. As a critic, I just can not gossip about an artist while leave his or her works unmentioned.

Nevertheless, this article is doomed to be inferior due to the forced sense of duty. Forgive me.

Meiya was introduced to me by Kan Xuan, another friend of mine. I learnt that Meiya was one of those few Chinese artists who “hung around” in Amsterdam. At soon as I arrived, I went to her for support and she made me my first decent meal there (Chinese food). I remember it was noodles and braised eggplant. For a newcomer to a foreign city, what can be warmer than a carefully prepared meal? Even now, thought of it makes me grateful for her hospitability.

From that moment on, I knew that she is a considerate nice lady.

We did not contact much after that until she also became a residence artist in Rijksakademie. We hung around every day, joking, gossiping about other artists in our institute yet seldom talking about art. I could but remember once when we got serious in our art talk. My opinion was that an artist is dominated by both sense and sensibility the moment he or she is impulsive to make an artwork. In other words, sense and sensibility is two in one. Meiya, however, insisted that sensibility is the only element, for impulse means sensibility in itself.

I refuted that there is no absolutely pure sensibility but what mixes experiences and reason. She continues that…. I forget what she talked then. Meiya might have forgotten as well. It does not matter, after all. She has left me a strong imprint of her idea: intuition matters.

<< 等待蒸发

第二卷｜行走>> Waiting for Evaporation - Roll Two ｜ Walk out · 作品长度 Length: 04min 50sec · 作品年代 Year: 2006 · 版数 Edition: 6

Certainly, the imprint accords with her artworks. Breather, her début, is a case in point that speaks volumes for her primitive impulse and sensitivity about art language. In terms of video language, I am an outsider. In an outsider’s perspective, this work does not require much professional technique, in-depth thought or much knowledge of art history. It is no more than a trial work for an artist equipped with a sharp craft knife. It relies on her bold intuition that did not certainly know the definite meaning of such a behavior or where her idea was. Yet she knew more than clearly what she must take, how to take and how to edit. To put it differently, she knew how to capture attractive information and present it in a proper manner. Consequently, the work is bestowed with a power to touch the viewer. The power does not exist in brains packed with “concept” or art history but in the eyes of those willing to hear mosquitoes sing.

However, it is both insufficient and impossible for an artist to linger in such a stage. He or she is forever in contact with art history and information of all kinds, either on their initiative or in a passive way. Moreover, primitive impulse is not permanent. Once a knife is used, it may be used again and its blade may become blunt. Most artists are using blunt knives, for when they are too busy to sharpen their tools or totally unwilling to do so. Knife-sharpening can delay the job at hand and against the rule of inertia as well. Despite of the saying that “knife-honing never delays wood-chopping”, how can one help chopping more in an Age when wood sells so well and there are so many woods out there? However, what wood can an artist chop down with his or her knife unsharpened? Sorry, I am a bit off the track. Let’s return to Meiya who seems to have the same problem. With a blunt blade, she had chopped down woods such as Lost Paradise, Karaokei Goddess, The Times are summoning. With a knife freshly down from grindstone, she finished works like Migrant Workers. Dear Meiya, please forgive me for my ruthless judgments that are simply raw.

After all, her works point to similar concerns of her in various directions. I know there are too many twists and turns in my remarks. Yet I do not care, for I am now the one who stands by the lectern.

As another twist and turn, her blunt knife has not hindered her production. Why? Because she bears in mind something else: human being. It refers to herself and others surrounding. You may say: no big deal. Every artist cares for human being. What concerns Meiya, however, is the converging point between simple human behavior and intricate social background. It could be seen in all of her works after Breather. For instance, Migrant Workers features queues of them walking towards the audience seemingly out of nowhere. It is simple, isn’t it? Yet it is far more complicated than what it seems: why they walk like that, dress like that, why they have such expressions, and so on. It contains a complexity attributed to the society. Yet I speculate that Meiya is not to probe into the society or elaborate on certain concepts. She has just found the best way to depict the subtle cross-point between simplicity and complexity, which shows that she knows her capabilities and role as an artist. In this sense, she is much wiser than those who would fail to make an artwork without concepts. Those who fancy concepts may get offended by

my remark. To further my idea, I oppose superstition of concept instead of its necessity. What is unique in an artist is not concept but an ability to convey his or her comprehension about this world in a manner that combines physical action and enlightenment. When a soul connects with the outside world, comprehension comes first and results in concept. Insufficient comprehension gives rise to concept as well, yet of an incomplete form. Incomplete concepts can never be produced by miscomprehension. As for this assertion, someone may challenge me by saying that: How can you make sure that your concept is not incomplete? You thought that you have understood something but it may be not true. How can you make sure you got it?” Challenge of this kind is not valid. Personal understanding fails measurement or comparison. No matter how you define or think about something, you understand as much as possible and you can but follow what you have comprehended. Comprehension is not equal to knowledge. You can know something without understanding or act with comprehension yet without knowing the results. Again, I am off the track. My brain gets stuck with too many twists and turns. In short, Meiya is an artist, neither dialectical nor conceptual. Her intuition…. Forget it. I had better stop.

To revert to Meiya’s concerns, the human state, I would like to explain further. The state shows as simple behaviors yet implies a complex social background. Meanwhile, her works seem to convey information of “emptiness” or “meaninglessness”. The protagonists stand and approach; girls sing with blank expressions; a bunch of people pass cigarettes one by one. They must have something on their mind but they appear empty-minded. It is another charm of Meiya’s artworks: it is both something and nothing that makes you unable to do anything. It can be regarded boring yet is 100% real. It carries an understanding towards this world, the process of rejuvenation in the aftermath of turmoil.

Most of Meiya’s works are time-consuming. A one-minute take can cost her over half a year to edit. How lavish she is! An outsider can not recognize her as an artist of the Hi-tech school. At first, I kept asking her if a work was done or not. Half a year passed and my question was yet answered. I was reluctant to ask any more, for it reveals both my boredom and her pain. She was frustrated about her own speed but no one can save her. She asked for it. Let it be.

Whenever we meet, we have fun like kids and mock ourselves as loser. In some ridiculous moments, we can laugh on and on without knowing why. Yet we do know what can trigger it. If not for her, I would not run amok for the same occasion. What a loser!

Liang Shuo Artist

<< 等待蒸发

第二卷｜行走>> Waiting for Evaporation - Roll Two ｜ Walk out · 展览现场 Exhibition Scene

身体出租｜经济的欲望和欲望的经济 林美雅多层次的艺术作品具有独到的美学，让人惊艳。在作品中，她不仅关注她所 聚焦的主体，而且关注技术手段的限制。这使得她创作出的作品无法过于简单地解 读。

裸裸的身体。显而易见，他们无路可走，剩下的只有对路的幻想。 然而，这些人似乎并不绝望，他们随时待命，愿意做各种工作。你很难判断他们的年龄、过去和背景；我们只看到 他们的现状，也是无所事事，等着更有效地利用时间。看到他们什么都乐意为之的态度，美雅决定采取更主动的举措。在

很寻常的一天，在很多年轻艺术家的作品中我第一次见到林美雅的作品。她

《民工系列之二 (2007)》中，她租用了他们的身体，设置简单的任务和游戏，让他们在摄影机面前完成。为期五天，她想

一系列的摄影给我留下了深刻印象。图像取虽材于日常现实生活，却充满诗意。照

测试他们愿意服从到什么地步。结果看来，他们可以无限地地满足雇主的要求。美雅成了他们的“主人”，有条不紊地在

片上，一个人光脚站在冰冷的地板上，捕捉到的光影是时间流逝的印记，给人留下

空间里指挥他们的身体，为摄影机演奏了一首由这些民工的脸、手、腿的运动组成的交响曲。在《雨中舞 (2007)》中，她

难以磨灭的印象。

雇用了一个由女舞者和乐师组成的表演团，表演团自称能在任何场合任何环境下演出，美雅就较真了。表演团的节目单上

再看到她的作品是几年以后了，展示《卡拉OK女神》的灯箱深深吸引了我。 对于这件作品，观众的亲身体验显然至关重要：观众走近时会被灯箱播放的音乐慢

有为葬礼准备的悲伤歌曲，嚎啕大哭，也有适合婚礼和节庆的欢快乐曲。他们为美雅在船上载歌载舞，还得小心不掉进水 里。随着时间的推移，海水奔涌，下起雨来，但我们的舞蹈演员坚持表演，不顾一切只为达成使命。

慢催眠。再走近，几乎要碰到这些女神时，音乐变成了某首歌。艺术家把灰暗的现

一开始，美雅把所有这些不同的人放入新情境和人造场景的做法让人发笑。过了一会，我们意识到屏幕上这种悲剧

实画像变成了光芒四射的物体，这种手法也把我催眠了一会儿，继而曝露了我想要

性的表演原来只是为了取悦观众。于是，观众忽然发现他们脸上戴着隐形面具，古怪的面容不再，而是变成了折射自己目

占有它们的隐蔽欲望。

光的镜子。他们的身体也成了镜子，反映出他们生存现实之沉重，他们不得不每隔两天“游戏”，此外还有飞速前进的自

要确定美雅作品的主题，有两条主线我想明确说明。第一条是她的作品中随 处可见对降低到身体存在的人的生存状态的描画。这些人包括：社会底层，被放逐

由资本主义主宰的更严肃的游戏。自由资本主义已经在社会底层新发现了一个金矿。在这个全球化的新浪潮中，在中国还 是在某个西方国家当非法劳工变得无关紧要，反正主人一样，奏出的交响曲听上去也仿佛。

的人，以及非法人员。他们被排斥，被掩藏，他们是不合法的存在但被人们容忍。

对美雅而言，她把他们人性的一面带回到屏幕，让我们直面他们幽灵般的存在状态。在《民工系列之一：等待蒸

美雅的几件作品带我们走进他们或想象或真实的生活。在作品中，她拒绝把他们表

发 (2007)》中，我们不得不观看和真人等大的投影：他们在不可名状的空间里出现、走过，然后消失；从莫名的地方走出

现成受害者，而把他们的身体作为出发点。这些身体是沉默的，被带入各种情境，

来，又像幽灵一样消失。可以看到他们一样有脸和手，穿着衣服和鞋子。面对虚幻的街道上这几十个非法民工，我们不禁

来展现他们忍耐的极限，以及会在多大程度上满足顾客的需求。美雅不可怜他们，

问自己：他们和我到底哪里不一样？

所以刻画出了他们真实的样子。 2005年的作品《红女孩绿女孩》让我们一瞥两个妓女的日常生活。她们的身 份一看便知，而艺术家也没有把她们的生活浪漫化。我们看到的是她们日常生活客 观的琐碎 ：无所事事的时候，工作之前休息片刻，夹缝中的时间，现在以及未来让 人麻木的现实，简单的人生，像周围其他一些人那样简单的人生。 美雅决定不把底层阶级表现成受害者，而认为每个人毕竟都有选择走哪条路 的自由。尽管如此，似乎别的人或我们称之为环境的东西已经为她作品中的人物作 出了选择。这些人别无选择，只能为这个不断需要流动劳动力的新市场提供自己赤

中国几十年前憧憬的未来难道就是这些数以百万计的沦为社会转型剩余品的身体吗？在《失乐园 (2007)》中，美雅 创造了一个世界：乍看之下如幻似梦，再看更像一个梦魇。一个男孩和一个女孩像我们孩提时那样坐在玩具电动车上，周 围是一个色彩过于艳丽的花园，他们显然生活在虚幻的世界。背景音乐是一首颂扬美好未来的歌曲的慢版，但几年以后发 生的警示世人的事件使歌曲原本乐观的基调蒙上了迷幻而可怖的色彩。 这种想要抓住过去、理解现在的愿望是美雅作品的第二条主线。她根据家庭相簿上的照片新创作的系列影像也反映 了这一愿望。通过介入过去的场景制造新的情境，把对照片的客观记忆呈现给我们。过去变得有趣甚至荒谬，变成了具有 讽刺意味的《美好旧时光 (2008)》。人的记忆能忘记坏事美化好事，记忆环绕衬托着这些牧歌般美好的照片，使得美雅不 由得把玩一番，以获得乐趣。

雨中舞

另一方面，对其运用的媒介，美雅显示出非凡的掌握力。这一点在处女作《喘息者 (2001)》中表现得一览无遗，影 像把我们带进一座废弃的工厂，摄像机随着台阶、墙壁和天花板的建筑线条移动，我们听到一个人被迫跑过这个空间沉重 的喘息声，也随即意识到自己也快呼吸不过来了。不到一分钟的观影体验让人领略了移动图像的威力，以及它们对身体其 他部分的影响。这种类似晕船的感觉充分证明了图像在我们日常生活中的力量。在这件作品中，艺术家技艺娴熟的双手赋 予了摄像机这种力量，给予我们重要启迪。 美雅擅长描画现实和真实人物，她迫使我们深入自己的灵魂和身体，考验我们是否还有感受力。关于作品《悲伤 (2002)》，不同情人物是无法创作的，但是美雅避免了这种情感，表现了仍有感受力的身体的快乐。这样的身体和灵魂将 对我们已然成就的未来负责，对我们生在其中的未来负责。 “……生于此 就医昂贵，死反倒便宜 律师昂贵，认罪反倒便宜 生于此国：监狱人满为患，精神病院大门紧闭 生于此地：大众把傻子捧成富有的英雄 生于此 行于此 历于此 死于此 哑于此……” 查尔斯 · 布可夫斯基：《Dinosauria, We》

维丝娜·玛德佐斯基

<< 民工系列之二

传火>> Emigrant Serial Number 2 - Passing the Torch · 作品长度 Length: 03min 10sec · 作品年代 Year: 2007 · 版数 Edition: 6

<< 民工系列之二

游戏>> Emigrant Serial Number 2 - Game · 作品长度 Length: 13min 35sec · 作品年代 Year: 2007 · 版数 Edition: 6

<< 民工系列之二

游戏>> Emigrant Serial Number 2 - Game · 影像抽帧 Video Stills

Bodies 2 Rent｜The Desire of Economy, the Economy of Desire When one encounters Meiya Lin’s artworks, it is an encounter with a multilayered body of work of stunning beauty and particular aesthetics. In them, Lin gives enough attention to the subject she focuses on, as well as to the technical parameters of the medium. All this creates art pieces where simplified reading can do more harm than good.

My first encounter with her work happened on a very usual day, among many works of dozens of young artists. Her series of photographs left a strong imprint in my memory, storing images of poetic beauty made out of everyday reality. The photographs of someone’s feet standing barefoot on the cold floor while capturing the rays of light as traces of the passage of time, created an impact that was never erased.

The next encounter happened several years later when I was deeply touched by her light boxes that were introducing her Karaokei Goddess (2006).

In this case, the physical experience of her work became clearly of crucial importance: while approaching them, one is slowly hypnotized by the music coming out of the boxes, music that becomes a particular song when we come closer and almost touch the goddess. This gesture of turning the portrait of dark reality into a shining object hypnotized me for a while and revealed my hidden desire to possess them.

If I try to define the main subject in Lin’s work, there are two main lines I could define clearly. The first one is the prevalence of portraits of human beings whose existence is reduced to their mere bodies. The underdogs, the outcasts, the outlaws… rejected and hidden, tolerated but illegal. In several of her works, she takes us into the lives of these people, whether imaginary or real. Lin refuses to show them as victims, and instead takes their bodies as her starting point.

These bodies are silent and brought into situations that will show how far they are ready to go, how much they can obey to fulfill the demand of the customer.

Lin does not pity them and succeeds to makes portraits of who they really are.

Untitled Photograph

In Red Girl, Green Girl (2005) we are allowed to take a glimpse into everyday reality of two prostitutes. We are aware of who they are from the first minute we see them and their reality is not romanticized at all. What we see is the objective banality of their everyday existence: empty time, a break before they continue, time in-between, a dumb reality of their present and future; simple life, like many other lives around them.

By taking the decision not to make victims of the less privileged, Lin shows her belief that every human being has a choice after all when deciding which way to go. Nevertheless, her heroes seem to be the ones whose choices were already made by somebody else or something we usually call the circumstances. These people seem to have no other choice but offer their bare bodies to this new market which is in constant demand of recycling humans. It becomes clear that there is no way out for them, they are left with the mere illusion of it.

Nevertheless, those human beings do not seem in despair - they are up and ready and available for multiple use. It is hard to determine their age, their past, their background; what we see is their present and, again, empty time while waiting to spend it more economically. Taking their readiness as an invitation for action, Lin decides to use more radical measures. In Emigrant Serial No.2 (2007) she rents their bodies and gives them simple tasks and games to play for the eye of the camera. Lin rents them for five days and tests how far they are willing to go. As it seems, there are no limits for their readiness to fulfill the demand of their “workgiver”. Lin becomes their master, meticulously orchestrating their bodies in space, crating a symphony of their faces, hands, and legs for the eye of the camera. When she rents an entertainment group of girl dancers & musicians in Dancing in the Rain (2007), she takes seriously their advertisement that they are able to perform on every occasion and under any circumstances. In their repertoire they have sad songs and crying ready for the funerals, merry ones for the weddings and celebrations, and for Lin they are willing to go on a boat and sing and dance trying not to fall into the water. As time goes by, we see the sea becoming more and more eruptive, the rain begins to fall, but our dancers continue with their performance, risking everything they have just to deliver the ordered.

At first, Lin’s decision to put all those different people into new situations and created circumstances makes one laugh. After a while, the viewer realizes that this sadistic performance on the screen is there for his/her pleasure only, and suddenly we are aware of the invisible masks covering their faces. Their grotesque faces stop to be only faces and turn into mirrors that send back our own gaze. Their bodies are mirrors as well, reflecting the heaviness of the reality they live in, the games they are forced to play every other morning and day, more serious games dictated by the galloping liberal capitalism who has discovered a new golden mine of the underprivileged. With this newest

<< 卡拉OK女神>>

The Karaokei Goddess

｜苹果 (背景光绿色) Apple (Green bunch of light behind) 作品长度 Length: 04 min 11 sec ｜菲菲 (背景光红色) FeiFei (Red bunch of light behind) 作品长度 Length: 04 min 31 sec ｜燕 (背景光黄色) Yan (Yellow bunch of light behind) 作品长度 Length: 03 min 40 sec 作品年代 Year: 2006 版数 Edition: 5

wave of globalization, it became irrelevant if one is illegal in China or in some Western country; the master is the same and the music sounds alike.

From her side, Lin brings their humanness back to the screen and confronts us with their ghost-like existences.

In Emigrant Serial No.1: Waiting for Evaporation (2007) we are forced to participate in the encounter with the life-size projection of their bodies; they are passing by, appearing from and disappearing to undefined in-between spaces.

They come from the unknown places and they disappear as ghosts. We are able to see that they have faces, hands, cloths, shoes just as we all do. We end up in this imaginary street among dozens of illegal workers, forced to ask ourselves what makes them different from me?

Are those millions of bodies as leftovers of transition the future China used to dream of just couple of decades ago? In her Lost Paradise (2007) Lin creates a world that at first glance seems like a dream, but after a while it becomes clear it is closer to a nightmare. A boy and a girl are riding mechanical toy animals as we all used to, surrounded by the garden with unnaturally bright colors, making it clear to us that they live in the imaginary world. The accompanying music is a slow-motion version of a song made to praise the fantastic future, but the wake up call that happened many years later rendered its optimistic tones into psychedelic horror.

This desire to grasp the past and understand the present is the second line that can be noticed in Lin’s work and is to be found again in her new series of videos created out of the found photographs in the family album. Her interventions onto these landscapes from the past create new situations and confront us with the objectiveness of the photographic memory. The past becomes funny, even ridiculous and turned into ironical Good Old Times (2008).

The ability of human memory to forget the bad things from the past and glorify the good ones circles around those idyllic photos, forcing Lin to play with them and simply have fun.

From the other side, Lin shows an incredible mastering of the medium she decides to work in. This is clearly evident in her first video Breather (2001) that brings us to an abandoned factory where the camera follows the architectonical lines of the steps, walls, ceiling... We hear the sound of heavy breathing of someone forced to run through this space, very soon realizing that we are also staying short of breath. The physical experience of the image we are made to watch for only one minute makes us aware of the power of the moving images and their physical imprint on the rest of our bodies. This induced seasickness becomes a strong evident of the power of images on our everyday existence. In this case it is the power given to the camera in the hands of a skilful master who wants to teach us couple of important lessons.

<< 卡拉OK女神>>

The Karaokei Goddess

苹果 Apple 展览现场 Exhibition Scene

As a skilful portraitist of reality and real people, Lin forces us to dig deep into our souls, into our bodies and test our ability to still feel something. Sadness (2002) is hard to depict without becoming pathetic, but Lin manages to escape this and shows the happiness of the bodies still able to feel. The same bodies and souls responsible for the future - the future we became, the future we were born into… “(…) Born into this Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes Born into this Walking and living through this Dying because of this Muted because of this (…)”

Charles Bukowski, Dinosauria, We Vesna Madzoski Curator, Art Critic

<< 哀伤>> Sadness

· 作品长度 Length: 02 min 46 sec · 作品年代 Year: 2002 · 版数 Edition: 6

<< 哀伤>> Sadness

· 影像抽帧 Video Still

小船儿飘荡在水中 我对林美雅一无所知，但是我一直等待那些陌生的艺术不期而至，由于没有偏见和

观者的心，又像一把利剑切了你的手而没有流血。我以为，当影像创造出让令人窒息的氛围在扩散时才接近影像艺术的真

先入为主的习惯，因此可以对那些被阅读的作品保持沉默。这种沉默只有在一种情

实。

况下被打破，那就是，对象是绝对的陌生，作品要绝对的雷。然而林的录像作品， 让我无法沉默。

林美雅的录像作品不是来自概念，而是来自观察的瞬间。《快乐的在一起》(Happy Together) 给我们带来清新的感 性，2003年她在荷兰发表了这部作品，可是在和林美雅交谈之后才发知道，这是她在赴荷兰之前就完成的录像。粗旷的作

我是从林美雅还是在校生时，2001年拍摄的第一部1分37秒的影像《喘息

品中有初次接触新的记录工具时，摄影者所带有的本能和直觉。。这是从安置在一群来自农村的美术赶考生的考前班的空

者》(Breather) 接近她的作品，仅从这部作品就可以看到她有着影像艺术家所具有的

间中获取的影像，作者在摄像机的位置上同时安置了一个小的播放机，在镜头前边的一群年青人可以看到自己在镜头前边

素质，她准确地把握到影像艺术的语言。那么这些素质其实在她从事影像之前的摄

的表演。摄像机一动不动地，客观地，在完全没有人操作，也就是完全排除构图意识的情况下，记录下初见摄像机时的天

影作品中就可以看到，如果我们把《喘息者》的连续影像做截图处理，就可以找到

真反应。在这些反应中是喜、是怕、是惊奇、还是害羞并不重要，重要的是林美雅排除了一切人为的、先验的成分，记录

它和这之前的摄影之间的密切关系。这件作品是为了参加荷兰的一分钟影像作品竞

下人在认知外界事物的过程中最原始的感知部分。出现在摄像机前n双好奇的眼神，让我想起我在伦敦动物园里拍摄企鹅

赛而制作的，这是她的出道作，也曾屡次在国际影像奖项上被提名。

园的一个细节，我忘记不了企鹅走近我的相机镜头，并好奇地盯着镜头的情景。我觉得《快乐的在一起》这个题目渲染了

《喘息者》的镜头至始至终都是一直朝天激烈的移动，像是跟踪一座被居

主题，其实快乐不是这部作品的本质，主题应该是单纯的好奇，从好奇中我们感受到无邪的魅力。

民楼包围的废弃的工厂老区，镜头贴着墙移动，好像在勾勒着废墟一样的建筑物的

我们有必要关注林美雅的作品中是多次出现的元素“色”。“色”是多义词，一是SEX，二是色彩，这两个含义都

边线。林美雅不想让自己的摄像机成为简单猎物的道具，所以她让墙在摄像机里成

在林的影像中并存。《红女孩，绿女孩》(Red Girl Green Girl) 是这两种“色”都有而又极其浓烈的作品。除此之外，林美雅

为被牵着走的附属物。有时摄像机随着墙角急剧地旋转，在视觉上废弃的工厂已经

的影像都有一条主线，这条线很单一，没有过多的情节，她注重眼的观察和凝视，林是靠细节来向观众展示或者用暗示来

没有了故事性，而成为被架空的影像框架，这种手法可以理解为重新构筑。影像的

展开主题。《红女孩，绿女孩》是典型的女性视点，虽然全片只有五分钟，但是两个妓女的小动作、手势、口哨、眼神、

画面比较暗，那些从建筑物顶上透下来的光线缝隙，好像是压抑的摄影者呼吸的通

坐姿、携带物品，都显示出女性观察者特有的敏感和细腻。由于这件作品的灵感来自她所学习和居住的城市阿姆斯特丹红

道。这种压抑感是由于摄影者的她和她所持的摄像机，都不可能飞出那狭小的空

灯区的展示橱窗，所以基本上是以自我表现为手法的摆拍录像，而形象和色彩确是百分之百的中国，红和绿放在一起是中

间。虽然画像素很低，但并不影响作品中含有的生猛的艺术感染力。而那压抑的喘

国草根艺术中最炫的对比色。

不过气来的音乐反而加深了作品的深度，把我们带向影像的深层。

通常我们很难确认一个时期的美学，会在多大程度上影响后人和后人如何继承它。影像装置《等待蒸发》(Waiting

2001年拍摄的《悲伤》(Sadness) 像一幅静止的肖像画，居于画面中间几乎

for Evaporation) 表现了一组从没有背景的空白中走出来的人群长卷，它有一种浮游的感觉，他们都是一些普通的人，面无

不动的女子，在时间的延长线上只有很少行为在发生。那就是女孩从涂口红到把口

表情，身份无法辨识，但是来自城市。表面看连成一片，其实每个形象都自成一体。“自成一体”又是一种样式。我们记

红抹去。脸颊上滑落的一滴泪，和画面上由黑白转为彩色，又由彩色转为黑白的过

得在明清绘画中出现一种风格，就是“自成一体”的人物肖像，这些人物大都是以人物的动作和姿势为主，由于没有背景

程，这个过程暗示着情感在无言状态下的转换，这种手法让我想起爱森斯坦的名作

和只有极少的与人物有关的道具，所以人物的活动和表情都显得分外清楚，这可能是受到戏剧舞台表演艺术的影响。中国

《战舰波将金号》，那是世界电影黎明期的杰作。《悲伤》的影像像鱼钩一样勾住

地方性的人物年画和像文人画家陈鸿寿笔下的人物都有着共同的特征，这样看来，《等待蒸发》的影像人物美学好像是和

明清那个特定时期的美学有着文脉的关系。值得注意的是，林美雅还是巧妙的使用了她一贯的手法，那就是再次排除了颜 色、声音等元素，而人物却在不知不觉中走出了画面，这种戏剧场景在以往传统的绘画表现上从未出现过。 《卡拉OK女神》(The Karaokei Goddess) 在形式上像大头贴的花边快照，是极其波普的影像方式。菲菲，苹果和燕三 位卡拉OK女神以真实的身份先后出现在坛花和光芒四射的歌箱中。这光芒是那么的熟悉，它曾出现在万岁、万岁、万万岁 的慈禧太后的画像背景上，也出现在造神上瘾的文革时代，而林美雅的意图是把这些不能主宰自己命运的社会边缘女子， 放在神台上，这些神台的设计纹样都是林所出生的城市厦门风土中自有的物品。我们听着那悲凉跑调的歌声，没有一丝的 兴奋，而隐藏在影像之后的是艺术家的怜悯心。 “让我们荡起双浆/小船儿推开波浪/海面倒映着美丽的白塔/四周环绕着绿树红墙/小船儿轻轻飘荡在水中/迎面吹 来凉爽的风/红领巾迎着太阳/阳光洒在水面上/水中鱼儿望着我们/悄悄地听我们愉快歌唱/小船儿轻轻飘荡在水中/迎面吹 来凉爽的风”我们会随着《让我们荡起双桨》这首在中国已经传唱了五十年的家喻户晓的革命歌曲，走进《失乐园》(Lost Paradise) 的影像世界，当这首背景音乐在《失乐园》中出现时，我们已经完全感觉不到它原有的含义。林美雅只是采用了 歌曲提到的大部分元素，并加以转变。用3D制作的虚拟乐园象景片一样随着歌声在晃动，而两位骑着玩具晃晃车的一男一 女都是裸体，从他们那像水一样流出来的《让我们荡起双桨》的歌声，不知道为什么那样无邪，而又充满诱惑。这首歌曾 经飘荡在倒影着白塔的北海上，林，只不过是完成了一个从现实的虚拟世界过度到电子的虚拟世界的过程。林美雅在自叙 《自圆其说》中，道出了这件作品最初的动机：“小时候父母跟我说过他们对于共产的最终幻想，几乎和我后来读圣经里 面的伊甸园一模一样。“影像里那些美丽的植物和放大的花，是幸福的象征和最终幻想。值得看上几遍，它让你着迷直到 坠入其中。 林美雅七十年代末生于福建，从学习油画开始步入艺坛，2003年厦门大学艺术学院毕业之后前往荷兰学习视觉艺 术，从2001年以来不断有影像作品发表，但2004年之后主要的艺术活动都是在海外，这就是我们对她的名字感到陌生的原 因。现在好了，小船儿飘到了中国。

方振宁

<< 失乐园>> Lost Paradise · 作品长度 Length: 03min · 作品年代 Year: 2007 · 版数 Edition: 6

<< 失乐园>> Lost Paradise · 影像抽帧

Video Still

The Boat Floating on Water I knew nothing about Meiya Lin yet I have been waiting for unfamiliar art to emerge. Without stereotyped presumption, I am able to keep silent in front of the inspected artworks and the silence can only be broken on condition that the absolutely strange works are absolutely brilliant. Before Meiya Lin, it is hard to not to break the silence.

My encounter with her works started from Breather (2001), a 1’37’’video she made as an undergraduate. The work tells all her potentials as a video artist who is gifted with precise mastery of the language of video art. Actually, these potentials could be found in her photographic works ever before this video, which, once scene-printed, becomes relevant of the former. Afterwards, this début made for One Minute Video Contest in Amsterdam won her numerous awards in international contests of the same kind.

In the video, the camera, keeping an upward view while moving violently, seems to be searching around an abandoned old industrial area surrounded by urban apartments. It moves along the walls, capturing the outlines of the debris-like architecture. By refusing to make her camera a simple hunting instrument, Meiya Lin turned the walls into the picture’s attachment which is being dragged forward. With abrupt random turning at wall corners, the factory is visually deprived of its story and degraded into a blank frame in a technique that can be read as reconfiguration. In the gloomy picture, the gap between buildings, with light penetrating, seems to be the breathing channel for the video-maker, for both she and her camera are not able to escape from the narrowness. Despite of its low definition, the picture maintains a raw power, bringing us to depth of images punctuated by the suffocating music.

Sadness (2001) is a still portrait featuring a motionless girl in the center.

On the timeline, there are few movements except lipstick wearing and wiping.

A teardrop falling down from her cheek, the transition from black-and-white to colors and backwards again, hinting at the emotional wave among silence,

remind me of the classic film of Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein, a masterpiece in the dawn of world film history. The images can hook up the heart of the viewer or slip into his hand like a sharp blade with no blooding.

Personally, what comes near the truth of video art is a created suffocating atmosphere in spreading.

Moreover, Meiya Lin’s video works come from observing moments rather than from concepts. Refreshing sensitiveness can be felt in Happy Together, 2003, a work public released in Netherlands yet finished ever before she left for the country. Instinctive intuition of a photographer can still be seen in her initial contact with the new medium for recording. The images have been obtained by a camera installed in a supplementary class for the Entrance Examination for art colleges. Meanwhile, a small player is put side by side with the camera so that the youngsters can see their own performance. Clear of human operation or any sense of composition, the camera, silently and objectively, records innocent reactions of the young men before the machine. It does not matter whether it is excitement, fear, surprise or shyness. The artist cuts out all artificial transcendental elements yet retains the most primitive feelings contained in the cognitive process of human beings. The curious eyes before the camera reminded me of a detail of picture-taking in the Penguin pool in London Zoo. I can never forget how the penguins looked into my camera with great curiosity. However, the title of the video have somewhat over-punctuated the subject, for the work is not about happiness but simple and charming curiosity.

It is not unnecessary to heed the element of color in Meiya Lin’s work. As a polysemous noun, color, in Chinese, can refer to sex and color in the literal sense of the word. Both references prevail in her video works and Red Girl Green Girl is a particularly colorful one. Besides, all of her works contain no more than one simple subject matter with economical plots. With observing or gazing eyes, she brings out the subject matte with details or by implication.

The five-minute Red Girl Green Girl, 2005, in a typical feminine perspective, shows sensitivity and delicacy of a female observer by depicting the two prostitutes’ casual movements, gestures, whistles, posture and personal belongings.

Due to the fact that its inspiration came from the show window in the red-light zone in Amsterdam where the artist used to live and study, this video features basically self-expressive poses while the image and color is 100% Chinese using red and green, the most showy counterparts in China’s grass-root art.

Usually, it is tough to define how aesthetics of a particular period has influenced later generations and the way of inheriting. On a scroll, lines of people walk out from a blank background in the drifting video-installation Waiting for Evaporation, 2006. These common protagonists have few facial expressions and their identities are hard to identify.

They do come from cities, however. They may appear full-length yet each image is an aloof existence. Such a style

of aloofness can be found in portraits in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which center around movements or postures of protagonists with no backgrounds or at most a few instruments relevant with them. As a result, their facial expressions and moves stand out. This method of painting may have been influenced by performance art of opera. The same characteristics can be found in local annual portraits and those made by Chen Hongshou, a renowned literature painter in Qing Dynasty. As it seems, the visual aesthetics in Waiting has its root in that of the two dynasties. Moreover, Meiya Lin has skillfully adopted her old technique of erasing color, sound and other elements, producing characters walking beyond the picture in a dramatic scene that never appears in traditional paintings.

The Karaokei Goddess, 2006 is typical pop art bearing a resemblance to big head sticks in its form. The three Karaoke Goddess, Feifei, Apple and Yan, appear one by one before flower decoration and radiant light boxes in their real identity. The familiar beams had once appeared as the background of the portraits of Empress Dowager Cixi and also in Cultural Revolution, the Age with a craze of god-making. Meiya Lin, however, is intended to exalt these fringe girls whose fate is doomed to an altar, the patterns of which are borrowed from local handicraft in Xiamen, the birthplace of the artist. Listening to the sorrowful off-key singing, we are far from excited. What is hidden behind is an artist’s compassion.

Let’s row the oars Let’s row the oars The little boat pushes away waves The beautiful White Tower reflected on the Sea Surrounded by red walls and green trees The little boat floats lightly on water The cool breeze kisses our faces Our red scarves welcome the sun Sunshine on the water Fish under peeking Overhearing our merry song The little boat floating lightly on water The cool breeze kisses our faces Accompanied by the revolutionary song that has been a household name for five decades, we enter the visual

<< 失乐园>> Lost Paradise · 影像抽帧

Video Still

world of Lost Paradise, 2007. When the song plays in this work, its original meaning becomes totally alien to us. Most of its elements are borrowed and then shifted. Like a landscape film, the three-dimensional virtual paradise rocks with the music while the song flowing out from the naked boy and girl on toy cars strikes us both innocent and tempting.

Through the song once echoing on the North Sea with White Tower reflected on, Lin just finished transforming a virtual world in reality into an electronic virtual world. In To Justify Myself, the artist revealed the motive of this work: “The communist final fantasy my parents used to tell me in my childhood turned out to be the same as Eden that I later read about in the Bible.” The fancy plants and enlarged flowers are symbolic of happiness and the final fantasy.

The video deserves repeated watch. The viewer may get mesmerized and absorbed.

Born in the end of 1970s, Meiya Lin started her career as an oil painter. Upon graduation from the College of Fine Arts of Xiamen University, She went to Netherlands to study visual art. Ever since 2001, she has released a lot of video works and has been based mainly abroad after 2004, which explains why her name is not familiar to domestic gallery-goers. Here comes the good news: the boat now floats back to China.

Fang Zhenning Curator, Art Critic, Artist

<< 失乐园>> Lost Paradise · 影像抽帧

Video Still

自圆其说 一个艺术家想要自圆其说，其实是很费劲的一件事情。首先是视觉艺术所考虑大部 分的是“视觉”的部分，东西到要“说”的地步，就不是同一回事了。

姿态。 概念上可以这么分，但重点仍是和人和情感有关，即本体本身，粗略看来，它没有和外力产生直接关系。它在所有

然而整理总是必要的，既然非要说，也就只好把它当作一件全新的事情来做

作品的概念里面“事”的面目比较抽象。 可以说是一个向内走的过程，更多应该理解为感情作为感情的符号出来。独立开

了。连我自己也成了旁观者，和别人唯一不同的地方可能就是毕竟自己是从头到尾

任何情感载体的相对无形的东西。然而既然形成语言， 某种意义上来说即是“物”。这个“物”仍然无体，不过经过系统

经过了这些过程，且试图客观一点而已。 真正对创作产生理解，应该是在荷兰初期学英文时对Subject与Object这两个 英文单词的理解开始： 英文中Subject一般理解为“课题”，然也可译为“本体，载体”。而Object 作为与之相对的词存在，普意为物体，也可译为客观存在，对象。 本体与客体的关系互相牵制，作为本体，它需要有“物”载。 而客体，则

过滤，它是有一定形的，可以接收的。 就像一个人说“这女人太美了”，线索是说者的表情，牵动的情绪和讲的语气传达 出“美”这么个概念。而另个一个则是说“像早春第一道阳光照耀下的稚嫩小花般美丽”，传达的过程有“载体”，“画 面”。它的重点就不是在那个“气氛”上， 而是词汇。 我的作品里面有《悲伤》和《红女孩绿女孩》这两件即是运用词汇营造气氛的作品。是以个人主观意念为出发， 回 到个人主观意志的作品。可以说是单纯的感情的消耗。它更多是没有正面也不是负面的一种情绪影响。 作为共鸣存在，而 诱发的也是“感情”的回报。其中《悲伤》同时是对影像表现手法上的一次练习。 单纯的对通过影像语言， 挖掘人情感里

完全是相对于主体而言。作为理清思路的一个开始，试想比较具体地落实到本体和

面的哀伤可以在视觉里塑造出怎么样的张力。 拍的时候我其实比较冷静，就想着怎么视觉化一个情感，如何深入再释放以

对象这个概念。人和任何“物“产生关系都有基本态度、信仰、道德、直觉，个人

产生说服力等等。

经验，社会职能等等决定这个态度。我的关系确切的说，态度更多应还原为情感问 题，判断肯定有，但以感情为引。

《红女孩绿女孩》说到底源于幻想, 许久前，经验上有机会接触到一些妓女和皮条客。无论是好奇于她们的职业本 身还是更大的关于“命运”的关注。 当时她们屡屡结束例行谈话后，转身上楼的身姿和从容的楼梯脚步声对我产生了一种

总体来说，逐渐做作品的过程，是以此成就自己的价值观取向的过程，以感

近乎“悲壮”的神奇印象，与他们上楼后完全的了无声息之间有很大断层，愕然即止。就动作本身而言也全无连贯性，然

情做手段，认识自己以认识他人。像潜水艇的声纳原理一样，以自己为中心，通过

而姿态本身已经很强大，象没理由硬生生的扇了你一耳瓜子转身走了，其他的让你自己想去。恰恰就是这么个矛盾冲突提

发出一个声音，以它抵达各个点所反弹回来的距离和频率等数据建构出客观实际。

供了空间供我充分臆想，杜撰内容填补情感落差。她们在上面是做着什么呢，想什么呢？或是什么都不做不想？是在回忆

早期的作品感情因素多一些，多是建立在对事物的抽象判断和艺术直觉上。

过往？还是忙于日常琐事？我慢慢完成了个混沌的认知。拍出了这么个看似似乎做了很多事，其实百无聊赖的两个人的那

如果说艺术家每做一件东西都在踩钢丝，那我开始时更多是敏感的“嗅”(Sense) 到

么种状态。隐去它 “身份”符号，用一系列直白的动作以消解情感理解上的空洞，用缓慢的节奏表现两个“宇宙”的各自

钢丝，而后期的作品则倾向于认识到它应该在哪里，控制的部分多多了。

为阵的互动关系。既然作品是幻想引出来的结论， 就必须把结论“做”出来。这个影像也是初次采用类似“戏剧”手法，

早期作品有：《喘息者》、《不可知的愉悦》、《蜘蛛的想法》、《悲

塑造出给自己或他人“观”的舞台。它更多的力量来源于“戏剧”，而非“真实”。

伤》、《红女孩绿女孩》等。这个时期的抽象判断来源于对现实现状的好奇或反

同一时期的《喘息者》、《不可知的愉悦》、《蜘蛛的想法》都是建立在表达一个可以说经过“提炼”的概念。它

叛，在很多平铺开的点 (Idea) 上跳跃。而后期的作品《失乐园》、《等待蒸发》、

呈现的无关思维演变过程，而更多是品味“踩在钢丝上”那种唯一性，试图把和人有关的抽象的情绪提炼为简练的语言存

《卡拉OK女神》、《时代在召唤》和《游戏/传火》里更多有从一个点深入探索的

在。比如《喘息者》里给人的生存环境“画像“，《不可知的愉悦》是把人理解为一个无可了解、不确定的事物去面对。

蜘蛛的想法

《蜘蛛的想法》人的因素落实得相对具体，是取材于边缘艺术家游离，困难的现实处境，以拟物的方式，借情在另一生物 的生存状态以放矢。其中《喘息者》是我最直接的和环境产生关系的一件作品，空间的挤压抑郁造成的近乎紊乱的生理反 映透过视觉语言传递出来。影片整体调子沉重无力，情绪被控制在一种承受不能呼吸的恐吓氛围之下，透过心理暗示凸显 “人”作为这么个“感情”生物的存在感。 早期作品给我以后的创作定下了个基调，对很多特定的社会现象保持一贯的好奇和关注。对冲突比较大的人群结构 好奇就更多了一些。近年陆续做的几件作品就手法上侧重为定位本体和载体之间的关系。关于卡拉OK配唱小姐的《卡拉OK 女神》，城市农民移居现象的《 等待蒸发》、《游戏/传火》 和规范早操制度的《时代在召唤》。 这类关注是具有很强个人趋好和私人动机的。是建立在特殊情感之上才成立的。也是对现实的发生比较立刻、直 接的反应。 比方说《时代在召唤》，我在为拍学生纪录片收集资料偶然接触到的“新版”早操。完全陌生的招式和背景音 乐。或许是从新角度去看的缘故，早操动作看上去相当诡异，没有逻辑，是结合了体操、太极、舞蹈、保健操的四不像组 合。 有些人相信你每拍一张照片就丢掉一部分灵魂，也许是妖言，而我当时却也突兀的如此觉得。几乎可以想像这些动 作具有类似邪教的扰人心智的作用，最后复制出一堆灵魂一致的东西。作品一开始就想“做“出这么个效果。技术上采用 俯视的镜头，所有的学生很整齐的等候着指令的开始。学生们穿着制服具有鲜明的一统性，而早操的背景音乐则透露着非 常强大控制权的气息。镜头拉近摇摇晃晃，学生们静默不知所措蠢蠢欲动。 而当动作开始，长镜头已延伸到两排为单位的 近距离，於是镜头开始由左至右进行军队式审视。角度是平视偏低。而孩子们的自然形态上则体现出他们单纯的面对体制 的一面，透露着近乎狡猾的妥协。 学生中存在着的对生命强大的好奇和早操背景声音里面同样强大的控制的声音。这两者间产生着冲撞矛盾。记得曾 经看过北朝鲜军教片里面整齐划一的体操运动员的场景，是一个把复数挤压成单个“1“的魔鬼般的悲剧力量。给予指令 的一方力量是集权式压倒性的强大，中间没有过多的灰色地带。是在那个社会环境里面的唯一”真理“。它的强大是源于 它的“毋庸置疑”。而 《时代在召唤》 则不然，里面却有我理解的相同问题在中国的独特消解。 这规范的和受教的两方 有种不同层面的较量。 力量势均力敌。 可以说这里面的“1”是个假象，事实上仍是个复数的形式。只不过它终究是个向 “1”靠拢的过程，还是个向“1”背离的过程就很模棱两可。又或者两者间存在重叠，含混不清。 事实上看到的也就是些“印象“，然而无论如何它对我产生了作用。它的奇怪和突兀在被大多数人自然而然接受

<< 红女孩，绿女孩>> Red Girl Green Girl · 作品长度 Length: 04min 41sec · 作品年代 Year: 2005 · 版数 Edition: 6

下来的情况下，其中夹缝中的不可调和性常给我比较大的刺激。比如说《等待蒸发》 和《游戏/传火》一开始我是先关

充斥着烟味尿味的刺激气味所兼容吞噬，太多人同时唱歌说话导致什么也听不见的动物的嗡嗡声音。不可见的空间，暧昧

注这个群体的社会地位。这是最鲜明的矛盾。但作品到最后它恰恰与创作的动机没有那么多关系，而是我跟他们是什么

的氛围，人粉饰起来的情感。我有个直观感觉是这些不需要过多的价值判断，同情啊，理解啊，厌恶啊等等，情感完全没

关系，我怎么看他们，或者说他们怎么看我。2006年时做的《等待蒸发》, 这么些乡下来的民工，总看到他们站在街口等

有必要。所以撇开情感判断，客观的以“主流”价值观去归类他们的话，关系就明确起来。 他们事实上是处于社会比较边

着，日复一日旧人逐渐的不见了，其中一些能被命运挑上，去从事未知的工作。剩下的一些和新来的人一起继续等着，

缘的，社会地位比较低下的，面对的也是挑战人性底线的问题的群体。是个例。当如此判断自己和他人的位置， 其中的对

等不了的就此消失到另外一个城市接着等。 我每天经过就拿着摄像机拍点片段，问几个问题。几个月来连续的片段接

话在我看来无论真实与否都或多或少有悲剧色彩。 因此“情”的因素反而出来了。基于此我做出的主观判断是反转，或更

触，给我的感觉这些人都没有根的，浮萍一般在这里消失在那里出现。他们数量众多的活在社会边缘，哪儿都要他们，

具体说是摒弃“普遍观念“的存在价值。试图创造出另外一种与其说是价值取向，不如说是更多是形成类似有宗教色彩的

然而跟什么都不靠边，跟我也不靠边。他们群落分明，形象特征异常明显。比如象不知道哪儿借来的西装，天气热时随

虚无精神以图消解平衡。所以基于如此意愿 (subject), 相较于他们的底层状态 (object)，我选择把这些人“神”化， 把她们

意的象藏民一样撂下一边袖子露出破了洞的背心，吸烟时拇指和食指掐着烟屁股很后面的地方伸着头狠命的吸，几乎所

“工作”的阴暗地点换在一个很一览无遗的亮堂位置。把他们从任何一个混沌的群体形象中能够抓出来独立体现近乎发光

有人脚都抖得厉害，脸上时常莫名其妙流露出非常兴奋的表情。这些“相”很容易就可以把他们和任何别的存在划分开

的“个体”， 单独发出声音。

来。到了一定阶段的接触，自然而然地我和他们的位置就被定出来了，出发点即是“观看”，作品就回到“观看”的视

后来的《失乐园》也同样具备类似宗教情节。我感觉的这种宗教情节不一定要和宗教本身是同概念，更多是倾向于

角，把这些对象脸谱化，让这些所谓的“小民”在类似卷轴的宽幅画面里面有成就“英雄气概”的机会，这是主观意

信仰的东西，象相信社会主义和相信上帝在某种程度上来说是一回事，多少都算建立在臆想之上，从现实生活里面寻找本

识。隔了一年，我做了这个系列的第二部,《游戏/传火》， 同样的民工元素，依然整群整群地等在某个角落的生存状态，

不相干的人事物以支持该理论的逻辑性和完整性。做这件作品出发点就在这里，小时候父母跟我说过他们对于共产的最终

但不同的是我好奇的范围更进入了一步，意图了解他们在“等”的背后民工的功能性的问题，他们最大的底线在哪里，

幻想几乎和我后来读圣经里面的伊甸园一模一样。虽说两者没有直接关系，但都是在极端平和的状态下幸福得无所事事。

他们对必须面对我诸多无理要求， 或接受或防范或抵触又是如何反映。可以说我在这件作品作为艺术家主导控制的意识

当中潜在危机还是有的，只是因为画面感十足而被人稍事忽略或刻意隐瞒，那个真空的时刻在后来我的想法里面它更象个

变强， 强调了两方的角色位置。相比较上一件作品把他们从任何可能发生联系的环境事物中隔离出来。《游戏/传火》

寓言，所有的细节都美丽得近乎无聊且毫无意义，它的作用是模糊着背后更大的不着边际的虚空。在影像里面我用了小时

都在实景里面拍摄，也强调与空间的关系。拍摄前做了的很多取景考察同时也是发展想法的过程。其中对空间的意图比

候随着长大的童谣，它不遗余力的刻画着“幸福”的画面，是曾一度给我们带来幸福的感觉的，哪怕都不知道幸福的含义

较集中的是点烟的那段。在现实材料里面寻找虚拟的因素，在合理里面强调他们的不协调。所以《游戏》 里面所有的动

是什么。

作其实都是司空平常的，错位的是时间和空间使这些动作显得非常不合理。而当我和他们双方都心知肚明其中的不合理

我觉得我的个性里面有很“诗意”或准确地说有回避某些客观现象的能力。有些东西我不想看见就自然看不见。 后

时， 就产生了拉锯的力量。我“雇”了他们，在双方关系上我是强大的，任何不合理要求在当下无论如何都是成立的。

期作品里面的控制感并无关所谓力量的问题。更多是培养面对的姿态，让可以看见的东西多起来。无论用什么方式，在态

所以过程里面的较量就很有趣，一方面我声嘶力竭地力图控制他们，一方面他们若有似无的“对付”我。最终作品的潜

度上我是希望介入进去的。 虽说大体上这样的个性决定了作品的调子将多少会建立在非理性的抽象判断上而左右其涉世的

在台词还要回到他们职能性和社会地位那里，这是个指向性很强的动机，但荒谬的动作语言模糊了其中的主要矛盾。

深浅，却也的确在某种程度上保留了我作为艺术家该有的直觉上的敏锐。 人是个比较不切实际的人。看到的， 甚至有时时间跨度只有极短的0.1秒的印象片段，听说的，哪怕是因缘的杜

另外一例是《卡拉OK女神》。首先它是在一个声色业很发达南方城市，男性社会，特种行业这么个范围内。这些 人在这个位置做的事情，反映了特定的社会真实。而在这之前，我的直觉已经给了真实以理解。而直觉更多的是对这些

撰。回忆的，或许仅仅是梦呓而不曾真实存在过。在自己内部有这么个地方重塑出来，建构出一个世界，里面有它的客观

人与事的判断，有判断才有了创作的动机， 它来源于具体接触时哪怕是互通的或者说是对抗的气场也好，针对对象而做

实际，有它的人物形象特质，系统上达成上下文关系，形成自身价值体系，所以“妄”而成型。

出的一系列选择。比方说当我开始“看”到这些人的时候她们更多是几乎隐没在黑暗中半透明的混沌状态， 五光十色被 美雅

<< 红女孩，绿女孩>> Red Girl Green Girl ·

影像抽帧 Video Stills

To Justify Myself It is a daunting task for an artist to justify himself. Visual art, above all, mainly deals with vision so it may alter when it comes to speech.

Despite of this, there is still a necessity of sorting-out, which I will approach as something brand-new, playing the role of stander-by. The only difference between me and other standers-by may consist in that I have undergone the whole process and are trying to be more objective.

I had not developed a real concept of artistic production until I began to learn about “subject” and “object” in my early English learning in Netherlands.

English equivalence of subject is “Theme”, “Noumenon”, or “Carrier”. In opposite, the equivalence of object is “Article”, “Objectivity”, or “Physical Existence”.

As two interdependent sides, subject requires a carrier of object while object is totally relative to subject. As a beginning of sort-out, I will try to specify the concept of this two. We tend to have a basic attitude in our relation with objects, an attitude determined by belief, morals, intuition, personal experiences or our social functions. In my case, my relation with objects, or rather my attitude towards them, should be traced back to the issue of sentiment that has triggered my judgment.

Generally, each artwork of mine contains a process that fulfils development of certain values, a process of knowing oneself and others by means of sentiment. Like the sonar of submarine, I define myself as the center, sending out a sound and recording rebounding data such as distance and frequency so as to map out objective reality.

My early works are sentimental, basing themselves on abstract judgment and artistic intuition. If every artist is treading on a steel wire in creation, I was then deliberately sensing it while my later works saw a tendency to dominate more and figure out where it should be.

Early works include Breather, Unknown Pleasure, Spider thought, Sadness and Red Girl Green Girl. In this period, abstract judgment was rooted in my curiosity or rebellion against reality, jumping over many spread-out ideas. Indepth exploration into a particular idea can be found in my later works such as

Lost Paradise, Waiting for Evaporation, Karaoke Goddess, The times are Summoning and Game / Passing the torch.

Such a categorization works but it is mainly relevant of human and of sentiment, namely, the subject itself.

Apparently, it has no direct bond with outer forces, assuming abstract concepts in all of the artworks. It can be regarded as an inward process during which sentiment, as a symbol, is separated from any carriers in a comparatively intangible form. Now that it results in a certain type of language, it is a subject in a sense. Through systematic filtering, it develops a particular form for the receiver, although it is still intangible. To further my idea, for instance, a man acclaims: “How beautiful the woman is!” We have but clues like the speaker’s expression, his excitement or his tone, which serve to convey the concept of “beautiful”. Another person says: “She is as fair as a delicate flower bathing in the first morning ray.” To convey her beauty, certain carriers or visions are applied. The focus is on the term rather than the atmosphere.

Among my works, both Sadness and Red Girl Green Girl apply terminology to achieve certain atmosphere, starting from and rebounding to personal subjective intention. Simply, they are about innocent consumption of sentiment or an emotional influence neither positive nor negative. They exist in resonance and trigger sentimental feedbacks. Sadness is also a practice of visual expression and an exploration of the visual strength of human sorrows simple by means of visual language. When I shot the video, I was quite cool, pondering about how to visualize a sentiment, dig into and then release it to make it convincing.

To trace back to root, Red Girl Green Girl came from my fantasy. I had some contact with prostitutes and pimps, either out of curiosity about their jobs or for serious concerns about “fate”. After routine talks, these girls would go upstairs. Their turning around and unhurried footsteps on stairs always left me with a “solemn” impression, which struck a contrast with the abrupt silence afterwards. There was no continuity in their actions. Yet they were as intense as an unexpected hit on your face, leaving you bewildered. Such a conflict had provided me room for imagination and invention so as to compensate my emotional frustration: “what are they doing upstairs? What is on their mind? Or they are doing nothing and having nothing on mind. Are they lost in memory or busy with daily trifles? ” Gradually I completed my vague picture and shot a state in which they seemed to be busy yet bored to the core. The symbol of identity hidden, a series of straightforward actions are taken to fill the gap of sentimental comprehension. Moreover, a slow tempo is used to reflect the interaction of the two independent “universes”. As a conclusion inspired by imagination, I had to bring it out. For the first time, I adopted technique analogous to drama in order to create a stage for myself and others to watch by. This work is mainly powered by drama rather than reality.

All of the artworks of the same period, namely, Breather, Unknown Pleasure and Spider Thought, are based on a refined concept-sensing the uniqueness of “ steel-wire-trending” instead of logic evolution. It is an attempt to boil

abstract human emotions down to a concise language: Breather depicts the living environment of human being; Unknown Pleasure regards human as a difficult uncertain object; Spider Thought specifies the element of human, the drifting awkward living status of fringe artists, by depicting that of another species. Among other things, Breather is a most direct dialogue with the environment during which physiological disorder caused by spatial suppression can be felt via the visual language. Its overall tone is heavily sapless with emotions suffocated by an intimidating atmosphere that psychologically hints at the existence of the emotional being.

My early works have set a key-note for my later production, namely, curiosity and concern about certain social phenomena and communities with structures in obvious conflicts. My recent works, in terms of technique, gravitate more towards the subject- object relation, including Karaokei Goddess with singing girls in karaoke, Waiting for Evaporation and Game / Passing the Torch about rural migrants in cities, together with The Times are Summoning about regulations in morning exercises.

Concerns of this kind are strongly personal and private. Based on specific sentiments, they are instant spontaneous reactions to reality. For example, The times are summoning is actually about the new version of morning exercise that I bumped into in material collection for my documentary film for students. With totally strange moves and background music, the new version struck me as a bizarre and illogical mixture of gymnastics, Taichi, dancing and Health Exercise.

Some believe that you lose part of your soul in each photo-taking. It may be superstitious yet I somewhat took it in at the sight of this version. Imaginably, these moves seemed to have a cult impact on the mind, producing souls of no difference. Bearing in mind a created effect of this at the beginning, I took an overhead view of students standing in line for instructions and of the oneness of uniforms, accompanied by music extremely dominant. The camera unsteadily approaches while the pupils maintain an unsettling silence. When it begins, a long take of two lines as a unit starts a military inspection from left to right with a horizontal view slightly low. Physically, the pupils show their innocent side to the regime in a crafty compromise. A collision can be sensed between the pupils’ strong curiosity about life and the equally strong controlling voice in the background. It reminds me of the orderly gymnasts in a military educational film of North Korea and the tragedian devilish force to impress many to one. As the only “truth” in the social climate that ensures its power for indisputability, the order-giver is overwhelming as if in autocracy, allowing not many grey zones in-between. This is not the case in Times are summoning when the same issue is being dissolved in a Chinese style with the regulator and the regulated evenly matched in various layers. Being deceptive, oneness is actually in its plural form. What is uncertain is whether many approach one, or drift away from it, or just overlap with it in an ambiguous way.

<< 往事如烟>> Once Upon a Time · 作品年代 Year 2008 · 版数Edition 6

喜事 Old Family Fairy Tale · 08min 58sec

<< 往事如烟>> Once Upon a Time · 作品年代 Year: 2008 · 版数 Edition: 6

孔雀 Peacock · 01min 59sec︱当年情 Year of Friendship · 01min 37sec︱旧好时光Old Good Time · 01min 09sec︱杂耍 Play 01min 19sec

<< 往事如烟>> Once Upon a Time · 作品年代 Year: 2008 · 版数 Edition: 6 毛主席万岁 Long Life Mao · 01min 37sec｜等着你回来 Waiting for your back · 01min 20sec｜送别 Farewell · 01min 09sec｜鸡得糊涂 Chicken got Confused · 01min 42sec

Nevertheless, these are no more than impressions that did influence me and whose bizarreness and abruptness, accepted by most, have stimulated me strongly with the irreconcilability of an in-between state. At first, I was concerned about the social status of this group in Waiting for Evaporation and Game / Passing the Torch, which turned out to be more relevant of my relation with them and how we look at each other. When I started on Waiting in 2006, I found rural migrants waiting on the street, some of whom had the luck to be chosen for unknown jobs while the rest kept waiting with newcomers. Those of bad luck disappeared to another city to continue to wait.

Every day when I passed by, I would take a section and ask them a few questions. Over successive short encounters for months, they seemed to me as rootless as duckweed drifting here and there. In large numbers, they live on the fringe, needed everywhere and relevant of nothing, neither of me. They, as a separate community, have distinctive images such as seemingly borrowed suits, wearing coats like Tibetans with one sleeve down and revealing a wore undershirt, smoking a cigarette end greedily between thumb and forefinger, ubiquitous leg-shaking and frequent fits of excitement on the face. These images tell them easily from any other existence. Following initial contact, their positions and mine were naturally ascertained by returning to a watcher’s perspective from the starting point of watch. My subjective intention was to symbolize my object by placing the “humble men” on a scroll-like wide screen to give them a chance to be heroic. After one year, I finished Game / Passing the torch, No.2 of the series, continuing the old element of migrant worker in the same state of waiting in groups in some corner yet extending my curiosity to an ambition of knowing their functions behind the gesture of waiting, how far they are willing to go if confronted with my bossy demands and whether they will accept, ward or boycott. This work found me with a strengthened sense of dominance as an artist, together with punctuated roles on both sides of us. Unlike separating them from any relevant circumstances in my last work, Game / Passing the Torch was shot on-site, its relation with space equally emphasized. Before the take, I visited many spots and developed a plan. The section of cigarette-lighting can speak volumes for my intention about space, seeking virtual elements in real materials and stressing the irreconcilability of rationality. Every gesture in Game is not unusual yet made irrational by wrong time and space. Despite of the irrationality known to both parts, it initiated a tug-of-war between us and any irrational order given by the powerful work-giver can find a solid base. During this amusing process, I was trying to control them at top of my voice while they messed around indifferently. Finally, the subtext should be brought back to their functions and social status. Yet as a motive too directive, the main conflict has been blurred by the ridicule of the language of motion.

Another case in point is Karaokei Goddess. First, the background features a Southern city with a booming entertainment business, a male-dominated society and a special profession. Particular social reality can be seen in what these girls are doing in this position, a reality that had been read by my intuition. Intuition helps me judge about these people and happenings while judgment gives arise to a motive to make something. It is a series of choices made in contact with the object within fields either communicative or counteracting. When I first met them, the girls

were almost sinking into half-transparent chaos in the darkness, into vain glamour compatible with and swallowed by stimulating smells of cigarettes and urine, into animal-like buzzing caused by too many people singing or speaking simultaneously, into the dark space, the sensual atmosphere and into affected emotions. My intuition told me not to have value judgment: no need for compassion, comprehension or abhorrence. With sentimental judgment exempted, the relation was easily established according to objective “mainstream” values. Actually, they are an unprivileged fringe group of minority challenging the bottom-line of human nature. My position and theirs ascertained, our dialogue, real or not, contained a tragedian shade and naturally became sentimental. Based on this, my subjective decision was inversion, or rather, abandoning the value of “common sense” and attempting to create a religion-like virtual spirit to dissolve the balance. Bearing in mind my intention (subject) and the low status of these people (object), I chose to deify them by transforming their dark workplace into an open well-lit position, elevating them out of an ambiguous group image into almost radiant individuals with their own voices.

My later work of Lost Paradise shares a similar religious complex, which is more like belief than religion itself.

For instance, belief in socialism is in some way analogous to worship of God in that illusion is their common base and worshipers search in reality for initially irrelevant clues to support the logic of its theories and its intactness. This is the starting point of this work. The communist final fantasy my parents used to tell me in my childhood turned out to be the same as Eden that I later read about in the Bible. Although they seem irrelevant, both offer idle happiness with extreme tranquility. Lurking crisis is slightly ignored or intentionally hidden in a picture too vivid to be harmed. In my later memory, this vacuum moment is more like a fable with details boringly impeccable and meaningless. It serves to shadow the boundless emptiness hidden behind. In this video, I added in a children’s ballad in my childhood.

Tirelessly, it depicts the pictures of happiness that did make us feel so back then, although the meaning of happiness may be lost in the wind.

I admit that I have a poetic gene in my character, or rather a tendency to avert my eye from some objective phenomena. If I do not want to see it, I just will not. Strengthened dominance in my later works is irrelevant of power but an attempt to develop a facing attitude so as to see more. No matter what the technique is, I hope to get more involved. My temperament, to some degree, retains my intuitional sensitiveness as an artist, although it determines that the keynote of my works will be based on irrational abstract judgment and therefore with limited social integration.

I am somewhat unrealistic. What I see can be a clip of impression in a split second; what I hear may be invented tales; what I remember can be dream talks that have not existed actually. They are remodeled somewhere within me, building up a new world that cherishes its own reality, typical protagonists, systematic coherence and value systems.

Bold enough, the model completes itself.

Meiya

林美雅

电影/影像巡演

1979

生于福建厦门

2008

[舞台] Streaming艺术节, 荷兰海牙

2003

毕业于厦门大学艺术学院油画专业/学士

2008

[原生态关注：全球的视角] CineacT影像基金会, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2005

毕业于荷兰阿姆斯特丹桑德伯格艺术研究院视觉艺术专业/硕士

2008

[中国矛盾论] Smart Project Space艺术基金会, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2006-07

荷兰皇家艺术学院驻留艺术家

2008

[血腥星期天] SPARWASSER画廊, 德国柏林

个展 2008

[Staging Reality] 西五艺术中心, 中国北京

2007

[林美雅作品展] Docks艺术中心, 法国里昂

2006

[林美雅作品展] Artspace Witzenhausen 画廊, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

展览

2008

[季节片段] ALBA艺术机构, 黎巴嫩Sin el Fil

2006

Friesland媒体艺术节, 荷兰Leeuwarden

2006

上海边缘艺术节, 比翼画廊, 中国上海

2006

[边缘线] 站台, 北京影像艺术节, 中国北京

2006

当代艺术学院, 英国伦敦

2005

武汉艺术节, 中国武汉

2005

[Beeldhouwkunst van de Chinese Avantgarde] Beelden aan zee美术馆, 荷兰Scheveningen

2003

国际巴西电子艺术节, 影像巴西2003, 巴西

2003

中国北京短片电影节参展影片

2003

阿姆斯特丹Paradiso影像艺术机构, 荷兰

2003

[一分钟在中国] 圣华艺术中心, 中国南京

2003

DV影像空间, 中国厦门

2008

[地球的夜晚] 上海、柏林、赫尔辛基城市项目, M2画廊, 芬南赫尔辛基

2008

[团队并非一切] Victoria & Albert美术馆, 英国伦敦

2008

[2008年度城市博物馆艺术作品收藏计划] 城市博物馆, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2008

[林美雅与安东] Spaarnestad 37画廊, 荷兰哈林姆

2008

[本国脉络] 立方体37法兰克斯通画廊, 澳大利亚墨尔本

2008

[自然之邪恶] 第7届Kunstvlaai 艺术节, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2008

[团队并非一切] ISIS艺术基金, Slab艺术机构, 英国钮堡

2007

[开放工作室] 荷兰皇家艺术驻留机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2007

上海艺术博览会

2007

荷兰格罗尼根Sign艺术基金会

2006

2007

哥伦比亚Artbo 2007艺术博览会, Bogota

第6届Kunstvlaai 艺术节, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

鹿特丹艺术博览会, 荷兰

2006

[De toren van Babel] 中国当代艺术群展, 荷兰乌特勒支

2007

数字&影像艺术博览会, 美国纽约

2006

[在彼岸] Parts艺术机构, 中国厦门

2007

2006

[开放工作室] 荷兰皇家艺术驻留机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

访谈/电视媒体转播

2005

[让我听到你身体的谈话] Arti et Amicitiae艺术机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2006

影像作品转播 - 美术星空 / 中央电视台十套, 中国

2005

[De Kaap in transit] Zet艺术基金会, 荷兰鹿特丹

2005

访谈 - 观点 / 厦门卫视, 中国

2005

[强调 – Uitgangspunt tekenen] Consortium艺术机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2005

影像作品转播 - 荷兰中央文化艺术频道, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2005

[新艺术的奇妙] Bos en Lomer艺术区, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2004

影像作品转播 - 荷兰A1艺术频道, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2005

[一分钟影像项目] 阿姆斯特丹中国艺术年, 荷兰

2005

[继续影像] Het Langhuis画廊, 荷兰祖沃尔

2005

[祖国] Inhalexhale画廊, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2004

[Marbles] Consortium艺术机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2004

[法国的春天] CRAC Alsace – Rhenan当代美术馆, 法国阿尔基思

2004

第5届Kunstvlaai 艺术节, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2004

[状态的表情] 后江棣路艺术仓库, 中国厦门

2003

[配料巷] 厦门大学美术馆, 中国厦门

2003

[上一站和下一站之间] 中国厦门

2002

[FFF影像展] 乌特勒支城市美术馆, 荷兰

2002

[Rendezvous at Xiamen] 中国欧洲艺术中心, 中国厦门

2002

[动] 中国欧洲艺术中心, 中国厦门

艺术博览会

工作/策划/项目 2008

项目策划 - [世界的一分钟影像艺术展] 今日美术馆, 中国北京

2007

讲座 - [中国情结] 阿姆斯特丹大学国际亚洲研究中心, 荷兰

2006

客座教学 - 厦门大学艺术教育学院, 中国

2005

策划 – [一分钟项目] 阿姆斯特丹中国艺术节, 荷兰

2005

策划 - [Volume] 荷兰国际影像收藏机构 / Mediamatic艺术机构, 荷兰阿姆斯特丹

2005

16毫米电影工作站, 荷兰鹿特丹

2005

项目策划 - [中国一分钟影像颁奖典礼] 中国厦门

2004

策划 - [状态的表情] 中国

基金会支持 2006 荷兰外交部/DCO/IC, 荷兰 2006 联合国文教基金会, 法国

Meiya Lin 1979 2003 2005 2006-07

2007-

Born in Xiamen, China Graduated from Fine Arts Department of Art Academy of Xiamen University, China / B. A. of Oil Painting Graduated from Fine Arts Department of Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam / M. A. of Visual Art Artist-in-Residences at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten / Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, Amsterdam Live and work in Amsterdam

Fellowships / Stipends 2006 Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs / DCO / IC, Netherland 2006 UNESCO-Aschberg, France Selected Solo Exhibitions 2008 [Staging Reality] C5Art, Beijing, China 2007 [Meiya Lin Solo Exhibition] Lyon Docks, Lyon, France 2006 [Meiya Lin Solo Exhibition] Artspace Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherland Selected Group Exhibitions 2008 [Night on Earth] Connecting urban art scenes in Berlin, Shanghai, China / Helsinki, Finland 2008 [Gemeentelijke Kunstaankopen 2008] Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherland 2008 [Meiya Lin en Anton Cotteleer] Galerie 37 Spaarnestad, Haarlem, Netherland 2008 [Vernacular Terrain] Cube 37 Frankston Regional Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2008 [Evil by Nature] Kunstvlaai 7, Amsterdam, Netherland 2008 [There is No I In Team] ISIS & Slab, Newcastle, UK 2007 [Open Ateliers] Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, Netherland 2007 [Untitled] Sign, Groningen, Netherland 2006 [Chinese hedendaagse kunst] De toren van babel, Utrecht, Netherland 2006 [Open Ateliers] Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, Netherland 2006 [Kunstvlaai 6] Amsterdam, Netherland 2006 [Rijksakademie at Parts] Parts, Xiamen, China 2005 [Let me hear your body talk] Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, Netherland 2005 [De kaap in transit] Stichting ZET, Rotterdam, Netherland 2005 [Underline-uitgangspunt tekenen] Consortium, Amsterdam, Netherland 2005 [The Mystery of New art] Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, Netherland 2005 [The One Minute] Amsterdam China Festival, Amsterdam, Netherland 2005 [Cinema Continue] Galerie Het Langhuis, Zwolle, Netherland 2005 [Motherland ] Internet Inhalexhale Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherland 2004 [Marbles] Consortium, Amsterdam, Netherland 2004 [French Spring] CRAC Alsace – Centre Rhenan d’art Contemporain, Altkirch, France 2004 [Kunstvlaai 5] Amsterdam, Netherland 2004 [The Expression of Life] Xiamen, China 2003 [Lane] Xiamen, China 2003 [Last Stop, Next Stop] Xiamen, China 2002 [FFF Videoshow] Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherland 2002 [Rendezvous at Xiamen] CEAC, Xiamen, China 2002 [Movement] CEAC, Xiamen, China

Selected Film / Video Screenings 2008 [Opera] Streaming festival, Dan haag, Netherland 2008 [LOCUS FOCUS: The Global View] CineacT, Amsterdam, Netherland 2008 [China paradox] Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, Netherland 2008 [Bloody Sunday] SPARWASSER, Berlin, Germany 2008 [Seasonal Cuts] ALBA, Sin el Fil, Lebanon 2006 Media Art Friesland Festival, Leeuwarden, Netherland 2006 Shanghai Fringe Festival, BizArt, Shanghai, China 2006 Beijing Video Art Festival, Borderline, Beijing, China 2006 Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK 2005 Wuhan Art Festival, Wuhan, China 2005 [Beeldhouwkunst van de Chinese Avantgarde] Museum Beelden aan zee, Scheveningen, Netherland 2003 Videobrasil 2003 – International Electronic Art Festival, Brazil 2003 Short Film Festival, Beijing, China 2003 Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherland 2003 Shen Hua Art Center, Nanjing, China 2003 DV space 2003, Xiamen, China Selected Art Fairs 2007 Shanghai Art Fair 07 (With Artspace Witzenhausen, Amsterdam, Netherland) 2007 Artbo 2007, Bogota, CO (With Artspace Witzenhausen, Amsterdam, Netherland) 2007 Art Rotterdam, Netherland (With Artspace Witzenhausen, Amsterdam, Netherland) 2007 Digital & Video Art Fair, New York, US [With Artspace Witzenhausen, Amsterdam, Netherland] Televisions 2006 CCTV, China - [Art World] Video Broadcasting 2005 Xiamen Channel 1, China - [Standpoint] Interview 2005 NPS, Amsterdam, Netherland - Amsterdam China Festival, Video Broadcasting 2004 Salto A1, Amsterdam, Netherland - Video Broadcasting Others 2008 2007 2006 2005 2005 2005 2005 2004

Project coordinator - [World One Minute Exhibition] Today Art Museum, Beijing, China Lecturing - [Haunted by Chineseness] , IIAS, UVA, Amsterdam, Netherland Teaching - Art College of Xiamen University, China Curator - [One Minute] Amsterdam China Festival, Amsterdam, Netherland Curator - [Volume ] Montevideo / Mediamatic, Amsterdam, Netherland 16mm Film workshop, Rotterdam, Netherland Coordinator - [The Chinese one minutes video award] Xiamen, China Curator - [The expression of Life] China