忠泰美術館五週年展《生生LIVES：生命、生存、生活》策展團隊文章彙整

忠泰美術館五週年展

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The 5 Anniversary of Jut Art Museum

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序／黃姍姍

生命的傳遞與轉譯／蔡宏賢

生之賦形、生之運行、生之碎形──關於《生生 LIVES》展／鄭慧華

在生命與生活的張力裡，前進──《生生 LIVES》展的時代反思／李明璁 生命的風景／洪廣冀

再次藝術，在瘟疫蔓延時／鄭陸霖

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策展團隊簡歷

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Preface/ Shan-Shan Huang

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Lives Disseminated and Interpreted/ Escher Tsai

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The Formation, Operation and Fractalization of Life —On the Exhibition “LIVES”/ Amy Cheng

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Moving forward in the Tensions of Life and Living —Zeitgeisty Reflections on “LIVES”/ Ming-Tsung Lee

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Lifescape/ Kuang-Chi Hung

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Art again, in the Time of Pandemic/ Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng

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About Curatorial Team

生 命 生 存 生 活

Life Survival Living

序序 未來，我們將如何活著？ 一萬年後的未來與一秒鐘後的未來，在不同刻度的時間投射中，我們還是我們嗎？建構在 物理空間中的身體記憶，還是被刻畫在區塊鏈中的數位行為，哪一個才能代表我們？「活 著」的標準是透過生物自身的意識，抑或是機械數據的高低？人類自以為的社會體系會不

會其實只是被另一個物種豢養的培養皿世界？未來，一個看似沒有限制的自由題，卻早已 在各個面向佈下了伏筆，或拉扯或牽引著我們後退與前進。

本展《生生 LIVES》作為忠泰美術館五週年展，在面對如此充滿不確定性的全球未來局勢， 試圖重新省思與探問最根本卻也最基進的主題：「生命」、「生存」與「生活」。

本展主題與架構設定，源自於 2019 年開始美術館團隊持續定期的研究會議，在內部團 隊共同摸索與凝聚出議題定為名詞「生／ LIFE」與動詞「生／ LIVE」的結合――《生生

LIVES》――聚焦於「生」的複層解讀之後，邀請蔡宏賢與鄭慧華擔任本展共同策展人，李 明璁、洪廣冀及鄭陸霖擔任策展顧問，共同加入這個持續一年以上的對話與討論，企圖以 跨領域的對話與思考，探討在科技與人文交織的當代，面對未來，我們將何去何從？

本展邀請來自德國、加拿大、美國、英國、臺灣等共 12 組藝術家共同參與，策展人蔡宏

賢與鄭慧華共同關注各種生命形式的可能性、生存哲學及倫理、科技發展與社會生活型 態，並從文化及生物觀點，探討社會建構和生存形式，包含人與自然之間，資訊與意識之 間的關係。

未來，或許早已到來，跨越 2019 至 2022 年的展覽籌備過程，COVID-19 加速了各種未來預

演和操練，逼著我們直視生命的脆弱與強韌，既定的生存法則與生活模式早已離我們遠去。 即使如此，我們依舊試圖邀請每一位正經歷著當下的你，放下既定俗成，與我們一同進入 這關於未來的思辨歷程，一個沒有答案的永恆考題。

忠泰美術館 總監 黃姍姍

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Preface

In the Future, How Shall We Live?

In futures projected at different time scales: whether 10,000 years hence or one second from now, will we remain who we are? Are we represented by corporeal memories constructed in physical space, or by our digital behaviors captured in the block chain? Are standards of “living” determined through the consciousness of the organism itself, or by the levels indicated in mechanical data. Are that which human beings consider to be social systems, actually just a world inside a petri dish cultivated by another species? This ostensibly boundless and unfettered topic of “the future” is mired in foreshadowing in every direction, dragging or leading us in progression or retreat.

In the face of an uncertain global future, LIVES - the 5th anniversary exhibition of the Jut Art Museum, attempts to re-contemplate and interrogate the most fundamental yet radical issues of “life,” “survival,” and “living.”

The theme and structure of the LIVES exhibition originated from a series of regular research meetings held by the museum team from 2019. Crystalized after internal team discussion, the theme for the exhibition LIVES amalgamates multiple interpretations of the plural form of the noun “life” and the verb “to live,” and invites curators Escher Tsai and Amy Cheng to co-curate the exhibition, with Ming-Tsung Lee, Kuang-Chi Hung, and Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng to serve as curatorial advisors; all participants in dialogs and discussions that lasted over a year. Our collective origin and path as we look toward the future is explored through interdisciplinary conversations and contemplation in a contemporaneity where technology and culture intersect.

A total of 12 artists and teams from Germany, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan have been invited to participate in the current exhibition. Curators Escher Tsai and Amy Cheng focus on the possibilities of various lifeforms, on the philosophies and ethics of survival, as well as on technological development and modes of living. They explore the social construction and forms of survival from both cultural and biological perspectives, encompassing the relationships between human beings and nature, and between information and consciousness.

The future may already be upon us. Over the course of the preparatory process for this exhibition, spanning the years from 2019 to 2022, COVID-19 has accelerated various rehearsals and drills for the future, compelling us to gaze intently at the vulnerability and resilience of life. We have long departed from previously established rules of survival and modes of living. Even so, we will make an attempt to invite each one of you currently experiencing the present moment, to cast away established conventions and join us as we embark on this speculative journey regarding the future; on this perpetual inquiry without an answer.

Director, Jut Art Museum Shan-Shan Huang

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文文

未來充滿不確定性的全球局勢，試圖重新省思與探問最根本卻也最基進

蔡宏賢（本展策展人）

生命的傳遞與轉譯

忠泰美術館五週年展以「未來」為主題策劃，《生生 LIVES》為題，面對

的主題：「生命」、「生存」與「生活」。「生命」作為基礎的省思與探問，

「生命」是如何形成？未來人類的「生命」又將往何處？

從模擬生物細胞的「細胞自動機」（cellular automata）到數位生命原湯中

的「生命遊戲」（Game of Life），生命可能源自簡單的生存法則，偶然的

參數介入，開啟生命演算組合的無限可能。人類的生命在浩瀚無垠的宇 宙中，代表了何種意義？基因除了是生命的組構密碼外，更成為擴增的 文明訊息載體，一首詩歌、陰道收縮的聲音，都能合成至基因分子中， 成為人類生命與外星生命溝通的橋樑。透過〈無限引擎〉（The Infinity

Engine）的運作，基因得以被編輯、改造與重組合成為全新的生命形態，

同時也迎來新的身份認同。當女性能夠由自體產生男性的精子時，顛覆 了既有傳統的生殖囿限，人類生命誕生的神聖二元性瞬時瓦解崩毀，全 新的生殖方式將改寫人類性別結構關係與文化敘事。〈酷兒白蟻計畫〉

（Queer Termite Project）所虛構出的跨物種的未來，狀似勇敢探索人與非 人生物的共存新關係，其實更明白直指目前正在形成中的「酷兒生態系」

的未來互利共生的景致。無論生命轉化成各種型態或無限的延續，現 下我們仍需面對生命的逝去與終結，〈遺書／輸入的痕跡〉（Last Words/

TypeTrace）代表了一個人類生命最終的情感細膩交代與記憶的回放，生 命自起至滅，如裝置機械鍵盤上下起落運動與其透射出的敘事光芒。

1950 年代數學家為模擬生物細胞的自我複製提出「細胞自動機」，但直

到 1970 年，英國數學家約翰．何頓．康威（John Horton Conway）所設

計的「生命遊戲」，才引起科學家們的注意，康威的數學運算「生命遊戲」 影響了後續「人工生命」（Artificial Life）的研究與發展。藝術家魏廷宇加

入機械運動和電子聲響，創造更多層次的感官和資訊維度，回應零玩家 遊戲（zero-player game）的概念，觀眾能夠自行撰寫程式並觀看演算後

的複雜結果，初始的單元設定成為結合數位美學的樂譜，隨著時間推移 產生無數的連續圖案和聲響軌跡，我們的宏觀世界成了一場可被微觀的 生命原湯，開啟每一次生命演算的可能性。

彼得．薩索斯基（Peter Sasowsky）的《天堂 + 地球 + 喬．戴維斯》（Heaven

+ Earth + Joe Davis）紀錄片，記載了被譽為「生物藝術之父」的怪才喬． 戴維斯的科學與藝術的生命探索歷程，1986 年喬與分子生物學家合作， 將象徵女性陰部的圖像符號編碼進入大腸桿菌的 DNA 中，成為世界上第

一件以分子生物科技創作出的藝術計畫。之後他將代表人類受孕的女性 陰道收縮聲音傳送至地球附近的恆星，藉此與外星文明交流 ; 將希臘詩歌

編碼於轉植基因生物，周遊世界，探索藝術、科學和物理世界之間密不 可分的聯繫。2021 年喬與巴基斯坦生物藝術家、生物工程師 Sarah Khan 合作〈Baitul Ma’ mur: House of Angels〉，計畫的內容回應了經院哲學討論 003

的古老命題：針尖上能夠容納多少個天使？根據伊斯蘭

evolution）探索人與非人生物的新關係，從非人類中心

字句就能增加天使的數量。計畫把阿拉伯文「讚美上

畫也嘗試思考如何重新詮釋由生殖與性別決定階級的白

文化的傳說，無論口誦、書寫或印刷出的「讚美上主」 主」文字編寫入 DNA 分子，每個 DNA 分子可儲存 19.5 次重複的「讚美上主」文字，將這些 DNA 放置於 0.75 公釐大的針尖上，就可以在一個針尖上容納 2,417 億的

天使。喬．戴維斯的創作一路走來透過科學、藝術等複

視角去重新省視白蟻作為「害蟲」的污名化。此外，計 蟻社會，並研究出非人生物在性別與勞動階級的新想

像，試圖推想一個由人與非人生物共同形成的「酷兒生 態系」（queer ecosystem）互利共生結構之可能性。

合的方式，轉譯、存儲、傳遞出生命的形式與意義。

當生命來到最後一刻前，您有什麼話想要留給最親愛的

媒 體 藝 術 先 驅 琳 恩． 赫 什 曼． 李 森（Lynn Hershman

集而來的「10 分鐘遺書」，裝置作品的鍵盤在無人操

Leeson）則解決了技術、媒體和身份之間的相互作用以 及身體與技術之間不斷變化的關係。〈無限引擎〉根據

既存的遺傳學實驗室重新建置的裝置、場域，讓表演、 資訊檢索、合成的 DNA 測試、以及透過人為手段強化 的人類物種演進的未來敘事可以發生。它也是一個展覽

空間，將攝影、繪畫、文件、與遺傳學和倫理學專家的 訪談影片紀錄並置呈現。琳恩回歸到基於真實、高度熱 門的科學發現和技術的身份主題，提出如何在基因工程

人？〈遺書／輸入的痕跡〉（展示著一篇篇透過網路收 作下自動打字，於桌上的螢幕顯現遺書所輸入的文字， 並還原呈現遺書的書寫過程，參與的書寫者當時的心理

狀態，包括輸入的力道、猶豫深思的時間等，都會生動 地反映在最後生成的文字。觀者可以觀看他人的遺書， 意識到文字書寫時生命主體的存在，也可以書寫自己的

最後遺言，重新梳理對自己、親友與世界，過去與未來 的種種思緒。

時代保護身份的問題，將自己的藝術創作儲存至自己的 DNA，以及由她的基因合成出的自身抗體。

〈可能〉（In Posse）是一件持續進行中的計畫／作品， 由藝術家夏洛特．賈維斯（Charlotte Jarvis）與蘇珊娜

（Susana Chuva de Sousal Lopes）教授共同研製出世界上

第一批「女性」精液，目的在改寫其文化敘事，並用藝 術和科學瓦解傳統生殖的階級制度。該計畫分為三個部

分：首先，夏洛特和蘇珊娜用夏洛特的身體來培育出精 蟲，同時夏洛特也培養了女性型式的精漿，最後以此重

現古希臘的地母節（Thesmophoria）。夏洛特在發展〈可

能〉作品細節時，經歷了懷孕、分娩，成為一位母親，

〈可能〉創作至今試圖結合創作過程與前述經歷，作品

同時也作為某種宣言，一種理論性的自傳、思想地圖， 更是此計畫在創意、科學、倫理及個人立場的回顧。

〈酷兒白蟻計畫〉由藝術家顧廣毅與研究社會性昆蟲 「白蟻」的科學家合作，共同建立一個虛構的跨物種未

來（interspecies future）情境。奠基在白蟻生物學的知

識基礎上，藝術家與科學家在該未來敘事中，共同創 造虛構的白蟻社會結構，並定義出九種階級作為分類基

礎，並衍伸出約一千種以上的不同階級。透過跨物種的

科 幻 原 型（sci-fi prototype）， 以 演 化 推 測（speculative 004

Lives Disseminated and Interpreted

TEXT Escher Tsai (Curator)

In the face of the prevailing global state of uncertainty, the 5th anniversary exhibition of the Jut Art Museum, with “the future” as curatorial focus and LIVES as its title, attempts to re-contemplate and interrogate the most fundamental yet radical issues of “life,” “survival,” and “living.” The subject of “life” serves as a basis for contemplation and exploration as we ponder the ways life takes shape, and the direction for the lives of future humans.

From the cellular automata that models biological cells, to the primordial soup of digital life in Game of Life, life may have originated as a simple law of survival where accidental interventions open up infinite possible calculations and combinations. What is the significance of human life in a vast and infinite universe? Beyond a code from which life is constructed, genetics may also become an informational vehicle for civilization. A lyrical poem or the sound of vaginal contractions may all be synthesized into genetic molecules that bridge communications between human life and alien life. Through the operation of an Infinity Engine, genes are edited, altered, and recombined to become brand-new lifeforms, which immediately ignites questions on the self-identification of new forms of life. Traditional limitations of the reproductive framework are thoroughly subverted when women are able to produce symbolically-male reproductive sperm cells within their own bodies. The sacred duality of human birth is instantly dismantled and destroyed. An all-new method of reproduction will re-write the relationship and cultural narrative of human gender structures. Queer Termite Project simulates a future of interspecies survival that is ostensibly a courageous exploration of new relationships of co-existence between human and non-human beings, when in actuality it clearly points to an anticipated future life vista of coexistence in a “queer ecosystem.”

Regardless of what forms life may mutate into, or of the potential for infinite continuity – we must inevitably confront the passage and termination of life. Last Words/TypeTrace is a representation of the exquisite emotional accounts and memory playback at the end of a human life. From emergence to extinction, life resembles the rise and fall of the keys on the keyboard, and the rays of light that spill forth from its narratives.

In 1950, mathematicians proposed the “cellular automata” to simulate the self-replication of biological cells, but it wasn’t until British mathematician John Horton Conway devised the “Game of Life” in 1970 that scientists took note. Conway’s “Game of Life” mathematical calculations influenced the “artificial life” research and development that followed. With the addition of mechanical dynamism and electronic sound effects, artist Tim Wei responds to the concept of this zero-player game by creating multiple dimensions of sensory and informational layers. Audience can create a program, then observe the complex outcome of the resulting calculation. The initial setting of the unit transforms into a musical score of integrated digital aesthetics, producing countless continuous patterns and soundtracks with the passage of time. Our macrocosmic world becomes a microcosmic primordial soup, that opens up possibilities for each calculated life.

Peter Sasowsky’s documentary film Heaven + Earth + Joe Davis captures the life of maverick genius Joe Davis, the “Father of BioArt,” and his exploratory journey in science and art. In a 1986 collaboration with biologists, Davis encodes and inserts a graphic emblem representing Venus into the DNA of the E. coli bacterium, which became the world’s first artistic project using biotech. In a later project, Joe records the sound of vaginal contractions then

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beams this signifier of human conception to neighboring stars,

While developing details for the work In Posse, Charlotte ex-

in an attempt to communicate with alien civilizations. He has

perienced pregnancy and childbirth and became a mother. To-

encoded Greek poetry into transgenic organisms, and traveled

date, the creation of In Posse has attempted to combine the

the world to explore the inextricable connections between

creative process with the aforementioned experiences. The

art, science, and the physical world. In 2021, Joe collaborated

work also serves as a declaration, a theoretical autobiography,

with Pakistani bioartist and bioengineer Sarah Khan to create

a mind map, as well as a retrospective of the work’s creative,

the work Baitul Ma’mur: House of Angels. The work responds

scientific, ethical, and personal positions.

to the ancient theological apagogical argument “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Islamic tradition holds

In Queer Termite Project, artist Kuang-Yi Ku collaborates with

that invoking the holy Arabic phrase “Subhan Allah” (praise

scientists who study the social insect of termites to jointly es-

be to God) whether spoken, written, or in print, would create

tablish a fictional scenario of an interspecies future. In this fu-

angels. The project encodes into DNA molecules the holy Ar-

turistic narrative based on a knowledge of termite biology, the

abic phrase “Subhan Allah” (‫ناحبس‬ ‫)هللا ناحبس‬ ‫ – هللا‬the repetition of

artist and scientists have created a fictional social structure for

which, either spoken, written, or in print, is believed to create

termites where nine social strata have been identified as cor-

angels. Each DNA molecule contains 19.5 iterations of “Subhan

nerstones for further classification. From this, more than 1,000

Allah,” so that some 2.417 quintillion angels can fit on a typical

different classes are further derived. In this interspecies sci-fi

pinhead measuring 0.75mm in diameter. Through a fusion of

prototype, the relationship between human and non-human

science and art, Joe Davis has consistently translated, stored,

organisms are explored through speculative evolution, and

and transmitted life’s forms and meanings in his work.

the stigmatization of termites as “pestilence” is revisited from a non-anthropocentric perspective. In addition, the project

Media art pioneer Lynn Hershman Leeson addresses the inter-

attempts to reinterpret reproduction- and gender-based hier-

action between technology, media, and identity, as well as the

archies in termite societies to develop a new imagination of

dynamic relationship between the body and technology. Her

hierarchies determined through gender and divisions of labor

work The Infinity Engine replicates installations and arenas from

in non-human organisms; thereby projecting possibilities of a

existing genetic laboratories that enable the realization of per-

mutually beneficial symbiosis in a queer ecosystem comprising

formance, information capture, synthetic DNA testing, as well

human and non-human organisms.

as artificially enhanced future narratives of the evolution of the human species. It is also an exhibition space that juxtapos-

In your final moments of life, what words will you leave be-

es photography, painting, documents, and interview videos of

hind for your beloved? Pages upon pages of “10-minute last

experts in genetics and ethics. Lynn Hershman Leeson returns

words” collected via the internet are displayed in the work

to themes of identity founded on real, celebrated scientific dis-

Last Words/TypeTrace. Messages typed by an unmanned

coveries and technologies and posits queries on ways in which

keyboard in the installation appear on a monitor on the desk,

identity should be protected in an age of genetic engineering.

replicating the original processes of writing these last words.

She stores her creative work in her own DNA and synthesizes

The emotional state of the participant at the time of writing,

antibodies from her own genes.

including the strength behind each keystroke, the moments of contemplative hesitation, etc., are all vividly reflected in

In Posse is an on-going project/work by artist Charlotte Jarvis

the final generated text. The audience is able to observe the

and professor Susana Chuva de Sousal Lopes have collaborat-

last words penned by others while conscious of the existence

ed to create the first batch of “female” semen with the objec-

of a living subject at the time of writing. They are also able to

tive of transforming its cultural narrative, and of dismantling

write their own last words that combs through their various

traditional reproductive hierarchies through art and science.

thoughts and emotions about themselves, their friends and

The project comprises three parts. First, Charlotte and Susana

family, as well as the past and future.

grow spermatozoa from Charlotte’s skin cells; Charlotte then cultivates a female form of seminal plasma; and finally, the female semen is unveiled during a festival of Thesmophoria.

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文文

萬物於陰陽和合中蘊生，乃至生生不息。而每一次的生又依於一次的滅，達到能量

鄭慧華（本展策展人）

關 於《 生 生 LIVES 》展 ── 生 之 賦 形、生 之 運 行、、生 之 碎 形

在老莊哲學裡， 「生」指的是動力和作用力： 「道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物」 ， 的循環和平衡。《山海經》裡，則描述了一種名為「息壤」的神物──能夠「遇損則

生」，是能夠不斷自我增長、演化的土壤。這種物質性的意象傳述了古人對於生生不

息、永不耗竭的想望。然而這些以各種方式來解釋與論證的「生之宇宙論」，似乎也 暗示了人類本能上期冀超克有限的命運，並在每一個時代以不同的方式找尋「生命 煉金術」的欲望。

《生生 LIVES》緣起於忠泰美術館成立五週年、並將邁向下一個五年之際，這是一個

同時具有回顧與前瞻雙重象徵意義的時間點；另一方面，它也是基於此刻，人們正 遭遇當代經驗中前所未有的「生之危機」而展開的宏觀題旨。

自全球新冠疫情發生以來，無論身在何處，活在現今的人們都躲不開這場關乎存續 的「生命之戰」。在世界以封閉、隔離的社會體制作為生存之保護策略的同時，更加 緊急的，在於人們將如何重新審慎地思考環境以及人與萬物之間的關係。換言之，

我們生活的世界，從物質性到精神面都產生了劇烈的變化，那些原本被視為理所當

然的狀態和價值正在崩解，而新的生活秩序尚未定形，在所謂的「後疫情時代」，以 及當代歷史地理學者所討論的「人類世」──當下，人類已然來到必須面對自現代 化以來，各種與自然的碰撞所發展的意識與作為下所鑿作出的「現實」，及其後果。

正如某些另類心理學者的看法：疾病代表了通往療癒的道路。而在災難的衝擊中，

也隱藏著轉化的契機。回顧人類文明發展，也總是在發展欲望與禁制（taboo）的雙 重性與矛盾性之間進行各種抉擇，並挑戰與萬物共存的信念。此刻，我們所遭逢的 足以讓我們回到當下、回到身體、回視欲望，這個歷史的轉折點，未嘗不是另一種 觸發「生生」動力的時刻。

因此，《生生 LIVES》欲以藝術的創造力挖掘關於「生命」、「生存」與「生活」這三

個最為本質，卻也是當下最基進的命題，包括探索生命形式和生存的倫理與哲學。

特別是今日，從個體的信仰到社會的集體意識，「生存」的概念已然遠遠超越生物本 能而成為高度政治體制化下的生命技術建構。由此出發，展覽將圍繞著人與自然、 科技發展與生命形塑、訊息與意識之間的關係，而展開環環相扣、複雜而龐大的命 題。而我們在展覽中，可以以喬瑟夫．坎伯（Joseph Campbell）神話學語境裡的「英

雄之旅」來作為一種進入和想像的方式，隨著藝術家的思想足跡抽絲剝繭，深入 生命的賦形與運行，並從中體認「生之碎形」──生活內在的實相。同時，《生生

LIVES》也期待觀者能以這三者共構出的視野，來對自身的生命、生存和生活狀態進 行更深層的探勘。

走入美術館，觀者首先將與何采柔的作品相遇。何采柔反思人們在生活中所碰撞的 各種生存系統與邊界。如同進行著一種生活「編舞學」（choreographer），她的作品

邀請觀者以實際的身體感受轉變，對日常中的社會動態關係進行想像。人們慣常的

「連結關係」，在觀賞過程中，有意無意間被攪動。〈搖欄 IV〉（Balancing Act IV）以搖 籃／圍欄之疊音與雙重意義，在既「親密」又「隔絕」的衝突意象中，讓觀眾意識

到與環境的依存張力。而位於忠泰企業大廳的〈Heads Down〉，則是將「紅龍」這種

規範人們行動的公共空間設計物，予以解構／倒置，通過遊戲互動，觀者以自身的 007

行動對這被曖昧化了的關係展開新的協商。何采柔以輕

物（一種帶著反思意味的擬「人」化的手法）從海底浮

放／封閉，以及親密／疏離的再思考。

物種觀念，並邀請觀者體驗火山、古微生物及海洋所

盈而幽默方式，在疫情時代提出了對於連結／隔離、開 相較於何采柔作品的身體性，英國藝術家埃德．阿特

金斯（Ed Atkins）擅長使用數位媒介創作，並對數位 ／物質、精神／身體、虛擬／現實等議題進行反身性 的 思 考。〈 溫 暖、 溫 暖、 溫 暖 的 泉 口 〉（Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths）是阿特金斯近十年前的創作，他

出地表為故事主軸，挑戰人們所認知的時間、空間和 歷經的自然時間。此外，SUPERFLEX 同時也展出了攝影

作品〈每個終點都是一個新的起點〉（Every End Is A New

Beginning），照片中荒蕪而素樸的景象，看似是一個尚 未有人為力量介入的世界，但那其實只是洪加東加島上 所收集來的一粒沙子的放大圖。

在本作中即開始展現出對數位社會與虛擬存在的敏銳

鄭波的作品從另一個角度回應疫情後的社會隔離現實。

辨識軟體，以自己的臉為原型創造了一個「數位化身

政治，後來也將這份關注延伸至探討跨物種之間的平等

體會。作品中，阿特金斯使用了動作擷取裝置和臉部

（digital avatar）」，這個「化身」有著一頭神秘、反地 心引力、讓人困惑的飄動長髮，既像生在海底，又像

居於「無處」 （no-place） 。這個角色既是阿特金斯本人， 也是虛擬空間中無數意識的「漂流」的可視化。男子

赤身坐在椅子上喃喃自語，並以略帶憂鬱的口吻反覆

背誦「我不想在收音機裏聽到任何關於週末天氣的消 息」 （ I don’ t want to hear any news on the radio about the

weather on the weekend），在這句聽似日常描述的詩句

中，令人聯想今日地球上的物種在極端氣候生存中所 可能遭逢的處境。

阿特金斯的作品之後，觀眾將走進入德國作曲家尼古拉

斯．布斯曼（Nicholas Bussmann）的冥想空間。在隔離 與封閉的時代，布斯曼仍舊相信來自人們身體感官與直 覺的真實感受，並期望人們在身體行動受到諸多限制的

今日能有機會再度拾回這種本能。《生生 LIVES》委託

創作的〈未來逝者的口述檔案〉（The Oral Archive of the

Future Dead）是一件回應「生存」自身的作品。布斯曼 創造了一個懸浮於展場中間如有機物般、隱約透光並發

出呼吸聲的裝置。它似有生命律動的形式，邀請觀眾緩 緩地環繞它或於展間中靜坐共處，布斯曼期望這些代表

生命的「頻率」與「能量」能在靜謐的氛圍中與你我產 生共鳴，並轉化為一場與個人內在的對話。

他過去長期關注人類社會中族群、性別和階級中的生存 倫理，並以此探索萬物共存之道。面對新冠疫情爆發， 鄭波反而得到了平日忙碌生活中少有的機會，每天走入

居住環境周遭的山野裡，以近似「觀修」和以傳統臨摹 為方法與自然相處。在疫情肆虐的這一年期間，他完成

了 366 張 24 個節氣的《寫生》（Drawing Life ）系列。 觀者得以在舒適的榻榻米展間裡自在地接近這些樹木與 野草的素描，並直接望見窗外周遭的綠意與環境。

走 出 美 術 館， 觀 者 可 隨 著 藝 術 家 張 欣 所 設 計 的 一 趟 結合遊走及聆聽經驗的「聲音散步」（sound walk）：

〈一千七百步〉 （1700 Steps） 展 開 另 一 重 身 心 體 驗。 〈一千七百步〉將我們重新置入臺北城市的記憶、歷史

與景貌中，通過我們手上的行動裝置呈現的 GPS 定位 方向引導，讓在我們美術館周遭的「日常」景況與疫情 的「非常」狀態之中重新體驗；並再次通過有意識的與 環境互動來理解時空的紋理。張欣描述這是一場以聲音 來引導的實驗性漫步計畫，她期望通過聲音來引發觀眾

對環境生態的重新閱讀並與之對話，對她而言，人的身 體亦是宇宙運行的縮影，她援用了東方藥理與身體論， 將聲音視為「藥引」而得以展開人的內在與外在的共相

體察和進行平衡調節。而《生生 LIVES》也衷心期待著 觀者在完成觀展，以及這趟探索性的散步中延伸和推展 出我們的未來生活與世界的新關係。

2018 年， 丹 麥 的 藝 術 團 體 SUPERFLEX 搭 乘 了「 達 達

奈 拉 」 號（Dardanella） 船 前 往 位 於 南 太 平 洋 上 的 洪 加 東 加 島， 拍 攝 了 電 影 作 品《 洪 加 東 加 島 》 （Hunga

Tonga）。 這 部 影 片 探 索 人 類、 微 生 物 和 南 太 平 洋 新 形成的火山島之間的聯繫，猶如一趟在不知名星球及

海洋中旅行的夢境。事實上，洪加東加島是十多年前

（2009）一次火山噴發後由海洋深處浮出水面的新生島 嶼，SUPERFLEX 以幽默的想像力，通過虛構的人形生

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The Formation, Operation and Fractalization of Life

TEXT Amy Cheng (Curator)

“

–On the Exhibition “LIVES

”

In the philosophical edifice of Daoism, “Sheng” (life) refers to impetus and force: “The Way generates the Unique; the Unique generates the Double; the Double generates the Triplet; the Triplet generates the myriad things.” The harmony between yin and yang incubates the myriad things that grow and multiply in an endless cycle. The end of a life marks the beginning of another, hence the dynamic balance of energy. Besides, in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, “Xirang” (lit. living earth) is a magical substance known as “autopoietic soil that will expand and evolve when suffering damage.” Our ancient ancestors’ hunger for inexhaustibility finds vivid expression in such material imagery. These “cosmologies of life,” interpreted and argued in whatever manner, also show signs of the human urge to transcend the hand of fate through the “alchemy of life” in each epoch.

The exhibition LIVES arises at an opportune time when the Jut Art Museum is celebrating its 5th anniversary and looking forward to its next five-year development. On the one hand, this is a significant point in time that is as much retrospective as forward-looking. On the other hand, what runs through the exhibition is the macroscopic theme addressed in response to the unprecedented “crisis of life” hitting contemporary people here and now.

We’ve been fighting the “battle for survival” since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, from which escape is nowhere on the horizon no matter where we are. Whilst the measures like lockdown and quarantine become the survival strategies of our world, it appears more imperative to cogitate upon the environment and also the relationship between people and things. To put it another way, our world has undergone a sea change in both the material and the spiritual dimensions. The states and values used to be taken for granted are disintegrating, while a new order of life has yet to take shape. Nowadays, in the so-called “post-pandemic era” and the “Anthropocene” vigorously debated among contemporary historical geographers, humankind has been forced to come face to face with the “reality” and its consequences chiseled out of the consciousness and practice developed through the sundry collisions with nature since modernization.

According to some scholars of alternative psychology, disease is the path to healing. After all, every cloud has a silver lining. With a retrospect of the history of civilization, humankind has been trying to opt between the contradictory duality of “desire for growth” and “taboo,” as well as to challenge the belief about coexistence with everything. What we’re experiencing now is powerful enough to switch our focus back onto our own bodies and desires in the present era.

This turning point in history is tantamount to another watershed moment at which the force of “lives” is catalyzed.

The exhibition LIVES is intended to harness the power of artistic creativity to explore the most essential and contemporarily the most radical propositions – “life,” “survival,” and “living” – that involve life forms and also the ethics and philosophy of existence. Especially in the wake of the global crisis today and whether in terms of individual beliefs or collective consciousness, the concept of “survival” has gone far beyond biological instinct and become a bio-technological construct which is nothing if not politically sophisticated and institutionalized. Against this very background, the exhibition seeks to tackle interrelated, portmanteau propositions by revolving around the relationships between humanity and nature, technological advancement and life formation, as well as between message and consciousness. We may enter and imagine this exhibition from the perspective of the “hero’s journey” in the mythological context popularized

by Joseph Campbell, whereby we can follow the artists’ ideological footsteps to the kernel of life forms and survival, and ergo comprehend the “fractals of life” – the inner truth of our quotidian existence. Meanwhile, this exhibition expects the visitors to delve deeper into the state of their own life, survival, and living from the new horizons opened up by the relational trinity.

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No sooner do the visitors enter the exhibition venue, than they will be greeted by Joyce Ho’s works that well represent her individual cogitation on people’s everyday encounters with the myriad systems and boundaries of survival. Her works beckon as if the “choreography” of life, inviting the viewers to imagine the dynamic social relationships through the changes in their corporeal sensation. The “connections” to which people get accustomed are disrupted intentionally or otherwise in the process of viewing. Using the homophonic terms of “cradle” and

“fence” in Chinese as well as their double meaning, the work Balancing Act IV makes the viewers aware of the tension of human reliance on the environment through the symbiotic yet conflicting imagery of “intimacy” and “isolation.” Heads Down, the work installed at the lobby of the Jut Headquarter, deconstructs/inverts “retractable barriers” designed for regulating people’s movement in public spaces. By dint of game-based interaction, the viewers may personally negotiate with this ambiguous relationship in a new fashion. With lithe grace and gentle humor, Ho proposes her deep reflection on connection/isolation, openness/closure, and intimacy/estrangement in the pandemic era.

In comparison with the corporeality featuring in Ho’s works, British artist Ed Atkins excels in using digital media to reflexively tackle the issues about digital/material, spirit/body, and virtuality/reality. Atkins created the work Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths nearly a decade ago. His discerning eye over the digital society and virtual existence found expression as early as in this work. When making this work, Atkins modeled a “digital avatar” on his own face with a motion capture device and a facial recognition system. This avatar’s long flowing hair is mysterious, anti-gravitational, and puzzling, as if the avatar lives in the depths of the sea but also in “no-place.”

This avatar simultaneously represents Atkins himself and the visualization of innumerable “drifting” consciousness in virtuality. Appearing naked, the man sits on a chair and mumbles to himself in a slightly melancholic tone over and over again: “I don’t want to hear any news on the radio about the weather on the weekend.” This sentence, which sounds like an ordinary description, is reminiscent of the situation that the species on Earth may encounter in extreme climate events nowadays.

Subsequent to Atkins’ work, German composer Nicholas Bussmann will guide the viewers into a realm of meditation.

Even in the time of quarantine and lockdown, Bussmann still sets great store by the life experiences derived from people’s physical senses and intuition, and expects people to be able to reclaim such instinct in the present era when they are physically restricted in many aspects. The newly commissioned work The Oral Archive of the Future Dead echoes the idea of “survival” per se. Bussmann designed a quasi-organic, faintly translucent installation floating in the center of the venue.

With its audible sound of breath and rhythmic move of life, this work welcomes the viewers to walk around it at a relaxed pace or sit in silence beside it in the venue. Bussmann hopes that these “frequencies” and “energies” of life will resonate with the viewers in such a tranquil setting and be sublimated into introspective dialogues.

Aboard the ship Dardanella in 2018, Danish artist group SUPERFLEX undertook an expedition to Hunga Tonga in the South Pacific, where the artist group produced an eponymous film of the island (Hunga Tonga). This film is intended to investigate the connections among humanity, microorganisms, and this newly formed volcanic island in the South Pacific, which

bears more than a passing resemblance to a dreamlike voyage across an unchartered planet and ocean. In fact, Hunga Tonga is a nascent island formed from the depths of the ocean after a volcanic eruption in 2009. SUPERFLEX challenges people’s perception of time, space, and species with its humorous (based on an anthropomorphic technique with a touch of rumination) surfacing from the bottom of the sea around which the storyline revolves. The artist group also invites the viewers to experience the physical time in which volcanos, microorganisms, and oceans came into existence. Furthermore, SUPERFLEX juxtaposes the film with its photographic work Every End Is a New Beginning, which shows a desolate, prosaic landscape seeming like a world untouched by human beings but is actually an enlargement of a grain of sand collected on Hunga Tonga.

Bo Zheng’s work responds to the social estrangement in the post-pandemic era from an alternative angle. He has long been concerned with the politics of survival within ethnicity, gender, and class in human society, and has extended his scope of interest to the ethics of interspecies equality, based on which he explores the way of coexistence of everything.

Zheng has been afforded a rare opportunity to slow down his hectic pace of life due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. He goes on hike in the wilderness near his residence every day, where he communes with nature by means of quasi- “insight meditation” and drawing, through which he produced the series Drawing Life comprising a total of 366 drawings within the year when the pandemic swept the world. This series allows the visitors to comfortably get close to these drawings of plants in the exhibition room paved with tatamis and meanwhile glance out of the windows at the vegetation and scene.

Designed by artist Sheryl Cheung outside the museum, the “sound walk”: 1700 Steps blends the experiences of walking and listening, affording the visitors another level of bodymind encounter. Her work 1700 Steps immerses us in the memory, history, and cityscape of Taipei. Guided by the GPS navigation on our own mobile devices, we will not only resituate ourselves amidst the “everyday” contexts around the museum and the “exceptions” conditions during the pandemic, but also grasp the very texture of space-time via conscious interaction with the environment. Cheung stated that this work is an experimental project of sound-oriented walking intended to encourage the visitors’ re-reading of and dialogue with the environment. As far as she is concerned, the human body is little more than a microcosm of the universe.

She invokes oriental herbal medicine and body theory, treating sound as the “enhancer” to help us discover our inner- and outer-universality and strike a harmonious balance through regulation. Similarly, the exhibition LIVES also expects the visitors to cultivate a novel relationship between their lives and the world in the future after viewing these works and having the exploratory walk.

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文文

幼稚園。門口一群等待爸媽來接回家的小朋友，熟練地給自己

李明璁（本展策展顧問）

《生生 LIVES 》展的時代反思 ── 在生命與生活的張力裡，前進

在忠泰美術館開完策展會議的某個午後，我散步經過小巷裡的 戴上口罩、雙手用酒精搓揉消毒，儘管有人連鞋帶都還不會綁、 外套也要褓姆幫忙穿好。

看著這些天真孩子，隔著口罩大聲唱歌說話、緊緊擁抱爸媽的 可愛模樣，我暗自揣想――他們才剛來這世界所開啟的人生旅

程，與 COVID-19 擴散全球所改變的人類命運，已經無可迴避地 緊密交織在一起了。

《生生 LIVES》展覽在此時此地的獨特價值，或可從這般日常生 活場景，隱然卻清晰地窺見。

「生」，這個簡單的字，有著極多義的符號指涉與想像空間。首 先是「生命」，─直到今天，科學家都還很難給出一個概括的定 義。不過至少有些特徵似乎是共識：由細胞組成、有維持恆定

狀態的系統，能新陳代謝、適應環境、運動反應與生長繁殖。

但比如病毒、或者數位世界的虛擬生物，是否亦屬某種「生命」， 持續仍在爭論。很顯然，這不僅涉及科學問題，相當程度也是 個倫理議題。

其次是「生活」，可以說是人類在這世界存在方式的總和，或 者用簡單一點的話來表示：我們日以繼夜的食衣住行、人我互

動、勞動勞心、喜怒憂愁。而就像「生命」來到基因工程與數 位科技時代有了更複雜的演化，所謂的「生活」在當代亦有類 似變異。最具體的實例，莫過於社群網路所架構出的新生活配 置。從最初我們還會有線上／線下、或虛擬／真實之分，但很

快的許多界線都已經被打破、翻轉，乃至消融一塊了。也因此， 相對於前人比較被動地「過」生活，新世代將更為積極主動地

「創」生活。

更進一步，「生命」與「生活」作為《生生 LIVES》展覽的兩組 基本命題，並不是概念上的靜態分類，在真實世界裡其實充滿 動態的、甚可說是辨證的「生存」張力。

一方面，生命在演化論與食物鏈的解釋邏輯下，相生相剋，也 相互依存、競爭、消滅與壯大。而人類做為地球上擁有具大支

配能力的物種，在文明推進中也逐步擴增以科技控制生命、甚

至能夠「製造生命」的野心。諷刺的是，於此同時，人類卻突

然深陷病毒威脅，一隻細小至極、甚至能不能被定義為「生命」 都還無法確知的冠狀病毒。 011

如果 ，生命總是劇烈拉扯於自然天擇與人為介入之間；那麼另 方面，生活的張力，就展現在文化經濟的差異、與社會分化的

不均。我們都知道，生而為人，應然皆有人權，但實然卻非如 此。這世界大多數人辛苦維生，極少數人卻揮霍度日。而你我

想望的美好生活，除了訴諸消費主義許諾的「生活風格」，能 不能更建立在分配正義的公民權利？

《生生 LIVES》展覽是不會只有「生生不息」的正面意象和浮面

感受，或者更精確地，「生生不息」的鼓舞訊息，必須也只能建

立在對上述生命衝突與生活張力的反思上。這些反思既是巨觀， 也是微觀。

感謝兩位策展人與多國跨域的藝術家，在如此生存充滿風險的 不安時刻，為臺灣帶來這些層次豐富的作品。願我們舉重若輕 地走入展場，能有如誕生在大疫時代孩子般的元氣腳步，無懼 而自在地迎向每一個生機隱現的當下。

012

Moving forward in the Tensions of Life and Living— Zeitgeisty Reflections on “LIVES “”

TEXT Ming-Tsung Lee (Curatorial Advisor)

One afternoon, after a curatorial meeting at the Jut Art Museum, I took a walk and passed by a kindergarten in a small alley. A group of children were waiting for their parents to pick them up at the kindergarten’s gate. They proficiently put on their own masks and rubbed their hands with alcohol for disinfection, even though some of them didn’t know how to lace up their shoes and needed the nannies to help them pull on their jackets.

Seeing these innocent, adorable kids singing and talking loudly behind their masks and hugging their parents tightly, I had an inner monologue that the journey of life they just embarked on has been inextricably tied to the fate of humankind under the devastating impact of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Quotidian scenes like this may afford us a subtle yet clear glimpse of the particular value of the exhibition LIVES here and now.

The simple Chinese character “Sheng” ( 生 ) is a polysemous and

imagination-igniting signifier. First of all, it refers to “life,” of which a general definition remains wanting among scientists so far. Nevertheless, there seems to be a certain degree of consensus about its diagnostic properties: it is a homeostatic system of cells capable of metabolism, environmental adaptation, motor response, growth and reproduction. However, the question as to whether viruses or virtual creatures in the digital world can be counted as “lives” is still under debate. Apparently, it is not merely a scientific issue but also an ethical one to some extent.

Secondly, it refers to “living,” viz., the sum of the lifestyles human beings lead in the world; or, to put it in simpler terms: our basic needs, interpersonal interaction, physical and mental labor, as well as all our emotions and urges. Just as “life” has evolved in a more complex way in the age of genetic engineering and digital technology, the so-called “living” has changed in a similar way in the contemporary era. No example is so telling as the new lifestyle configured by social networks.

In the beginning we could distinguish between online and offline or the virtual and the real, yet these boundaries have been crossed and even blurred before long. As a result, the new generation will be more proactive in “creating” their lives vis-à-vis the previous generation who “lived” theirs in a relatively passive fashion.

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On a more specific basis, “life” and “living,” while running through LIVES as its two underlying propositions, are not so much static conceptual categories as dynamic and even dialectical tensions that build around “existence” in the real world.

Following the logic of evolution and food chain, different lives stand in a relationship of mutual promotion and restriction to one another. They also perish and grow with a mixture of interdependence and competition. Humankind, as a dominant species on Earth, has progressively ambitioned to manipulate and even “create” lives with technology over the course of civilization, only to be suddenly under the grave threat posed by a virus, a coronavirus so infinitesimal that it is uncertain as to whether it can be defined as “life,” which is nothing if not ironic.

If life is always enmeshed in a fierce tug of war between natural selection and human intervention, the tensions of life are thus manifested in cultural and economic differences as well as growing social polarization. We know that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, however, this is not the case in reality. The great majority of people in the world must work hard to earn a living, whereas a distinct minority enjoys a wildly extravagant lifestyle. Can the life of consummate happiness we’ve yearned for be based on the civil right of distributive justice apart from the consumerist promise of “lifestyle”?

Against this background, the exhibition LIVES is more than conveying the positive image and superficial impression of “everlasting circle of life.” To put it more precisely, only via the macro- and microscopic reflections upon the aforementioned conflicts of lives and tensions of living can such an inspiring message of “everlasting circle of life” reach us.

I’m genuinely grateful to the two curators and the transdisciplinary artists from different countries for bringing Taiwan these works of profoundness when human beings are struggling for survival in such an unsettling, risk-laden time. May we walk into the exhibition venue with a spring in our step, just like the children born in the pandemic era who embrace each moment of emerging vitality in a fearless and carefree manner.

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文文

生命的風景

《生生 LIVES》為忠泰美術館成立五週年的展覽，以生命、生存與生活為主軸。館方 於新冠肺炎還未於臺灣肆虐時即展開一系列籌備會議。作為生物學史的研究者，我

洪廣冀（本展策展顧問）

很榮幸地受邀參與籌備工作。我還清楚記得，在首次會議中，在某間有著巨大窗戶 的會議室裡，明亮的陽光斜射入內，館方以精美的幻燈片，向與會者解釋為何該展 以《生生 LIVES》為題。現場的氛圍是如此祥和與舒服，讓人幾乎忘記新冠肺炎正在

寸寸進逼（當時的我們也無從預料，臺灣的疫情會急轉直下，於五月轉為三級，會

議也改為線上）。我也記得，即便當時的我完全同意《生生 LIVES》作為展題的重要， 我的直覺卻是，這註定是檔「名不符實」的展覽。

「名不符實」自然不是個正面的詞彙，出現在展覽手冊更不恰當。然而，當我試著在

腦海中描繪該展的可能形式時，我實在無法不想到 16 至 17 世紀於義大利、荷蘭、 英國等地冒出的解剖劇場（anatomy theater）、植物園與博物館。這些機構的目的 與內涵互異，其共同點卻是把生命從其生息之處搬到人類伸手可及之處「經驗」

（experience）。

這是什麼意思？在其死後出版的《新亞特蘭提斯》 （New Atlantis） （1627）中，英國

哲學家與啟蒙思想家培根（Francis Bacon, 1561-1626）描繪一個名為 Bensalem 的烏 托邦。據培根的說法，Bensalem 的核心與基石為一處叫做 Solomon’ s House 的所

在，由規模宏大的植物園、博物館、解剖劇院與實驗室所構成。徜徉其中，你會看 到乾癟的動植物標本、被開膛破肚的人體、眼神空洞且不停撞牆的動物，以及水土

不服、葉緣微微枯黃的植物。為你導覽的 Bensalem 人會靠過來，驕傲地跟你說， Bensalem 之所以成為如此完美的國度，係因為 Solomon’ s House 源源不絕地生產關 於自然的事實。他還補充，當中祕訣便是把生命從自然中移走，轉為人們可細細檢 視的「藝術」（art）。

你會感到奇怪，為何 Bensalem 人要大費周章地把生命從自然中移走以深究生命的自 然之理？事實上，此弔詭正是啟蒙的精神。要知道，在培根置身的時代，人們多認

為生命為造物者的精心創作；你可以欣賞生命，但探究其運作機制卻是讓人無法原

諒的褻瀆。而啟蒙思想家卻不這麼想，他們認為，人們應該崇敬的是造物者本身， 而非造物者的作品；面對生命，若人們能勇於探索其機制，揭露其精巧與神秘，便 是對造物者最好的禮讚。約瑟夫．賴特．德比（Joseph Wright of Derby）的名作《氣

泵裡的鳥實驗》（An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump）（1768）充分捕捉此啟蒙的精

神。我們看到一位自然哲學家，挑釁地望著你；他正把一隻鳥投入真空幫浦中，準 備進行某種實驗；在他身旁有一群人，婦女與小孩臉露驚恐，掩面不忍直視。可以 理解，把鳥放在幫浦中，再把幫浦抽真空，或許可以揭露鳥為何會飛的機制；但實 驗過後，這隻鳥如不是窒息，便是爆成一灘血漿。這也讓我聯想到，在其演講中，

哈佛大學栗山茂久（Shigehisa Kuriyama）教授提及，在 17 至 18 世紀的人體解剖圖

鑑中，除了高懸的骷髏、開膛破肚的屍體、表情木然的醫師與好奇的圍觀群眾外， 常會出現一兩隻狗。栗山教授告訴我們，這些狗的意義至關重要：人的身體本身不 具備神性的；人死後就是一攤血肉，解剖學者可盡情探究其構造與運作機制，殘餘 的屍骸拋給狗吃也無所謂。 015

生命是無法被展示的；要展示生命，當中最富生命的 部分得先被移走。

我曾經是這樣想的。不過，在歷次籌備會議中，當我 聆聽著策展人鄭慧華與蔡宏賢老師拋出種種讓人驚艷

的想法，我也開始反省，我對於生命、生機等關鍵詞 的理解是否過於狹隘。雖說在我寫這些段落的當下，

我無從得知展覽成形的樣子；但從兩位策展人的規劃

與說明來看，我認為大有可為。關鍵就在於「名不符 實」四個字。就生命此主題而言，誰說的生命才算數？ 誰有權力界定生命的本質？生命真的有本質嗎？若我

們拋棄生命有其本質的想法，那麼《生生 LIVES》展覽 的「名不符實」，就剛好而已。

當然，這並不意味著這是個不實在、不著地、不接地 氣的展覽。正好相反。雖說規劃期間恰逢臺灣疫情正

性的定義過於狹隘。如果說能動性意味著完成事物的能 力，他問讀者，真有任何事物可以靠人的一己之力完

成的嗎？沒有。從古到今，事物都是靠人與物一同完 成的，因此能動性必須分配至那些與人聯手的「非人」

上。從海德格的物哲學出發，拉圖甚至提出「萬物議 會」的概念，主張面對全球的生態危機，可行之道便

是盡可能地網羅那些可為物代言的專家，如潛心研究珊

瑚礁的海洋學者，或致力探索各種材質之潛能的藝術 家，讓物可加入決策與行動綱領的民主辯論。晚近關 心物的研究者更進一步的主張，在萬物議會中，關鍵

不在於物如何被代言，而是設法讓物發言。乍看之下，

如此「新物質論」 （New materialism）的見解相當荒謬， 但仔細想想，當晶瑩剔透的玻璃、閃爍著寒光的刀鋒、 覆蓋著溫潤色澤的原木、沈甸甸的石頭等物，現身在 你面前，難道你不會自身體深處湧起一陣「想拿這些 東西做些什麼」的想望嗎？以新物質論者珍．貝內特

熾烈的時期，在兩位策展人的努力協調下，不僅不少

（Jane Bennett）的話來說，這就意味著拉圖的論點還是

術家以其新作共襄盛舉。當中又有不少作品是你可以

反，物時常驅使人去做事――不管是日常生活的瑣事，

頗具代表性的作品將首次來臺展出，同時也有臺灣藝 觸摸、對話與互動的。在我看來，這是《生生 LIVES》

別開生面的所在。與其說當中展出的作品是在再現某 種外在於哪兒的生命，倒不如說在這兒的物自身就是 生機勃勃的。

如此把物視為自帶生機的視野可說是晚近人文社會科 學的最大突破之一。在西方的人文傳統下，「物」常被

理解為客體，是人們思考、情感與慾望投射的對象。 20 世紀的現象學大師海德格（Martin Heidegger, 18891976），或許從其黑森林漫步中得到啟發，認為此理解

方式過於狹隘。他追溯「物」的字源，認為物（Ding;

thing）一詞帶有「集會」（gathering）之意――不少歐 洲現存的議會建築，上頭還高懸著「Ding」的字樣。據

此，海德格發展出獨樹一幟的「物哲學」。他認為，物 的本事就是能把眾多異質的人與物匯聚在一起，再從中

蔓延出去，帶出一種生活方式，以及獨樹一幟的風景。 一條路可能催生出一座城，一座橋可能長出一片村，

太舊了。物不需要與人的連結才具有能動性；正好相 還是改變歷史的大事。就以本次學測作文考題「當我 打開課本」為例，新物質論者可能會咕噥，從來不是 你打開課本，而是課本要你打開它。

《生生 LIVES》註定會是個名不符實的展覽，且謝天謝

地，就生命此主題而言，它是個名不符實的展覽。《生 生 LIVES》當然不會是培根筆下的 Solomon’ s House，顯 然也不會是當代生命科學的科普或「發想」，更不會是

藝術版的生命大百科或動物星球。至少從目前的規劃

來看，被《生生 LIVES》吸引的觀眾，看完展後，離去

時不是一頭霧水，也不是點頭如搗蒜地「天啊，原來 這就是生命的真諦」，反倒是玩得盡興，自拍打卡樣樣

來，然後再呼朋引伴，準備二三四刷。期待這些生氣 勃勃的物，就如海德格筆下的橋一般，讓來自四面八 方的人事物得以聚集、碰撞且形成各種連結，由此蜿 蜒開來，成就一幕又一幕生命的風景。

一件作品可以串起一條街；羅馬是條條大路造成的。

在海德格的基礎上，曾任 2020 年臺北雙年展策展人的

布魯諾．拉圖（Bruno Latour），進一步倡言物的「能動

性」（agency）。他認為，既有人文社會科學對於能動 016

Lifescape TEXT

Life, survival, and living are the main themes of the Jut Art Museum’s 5th anniversary exhibition,

Kuang-Chi Hung (Curatorial Advisor)

ravaged Taiwan. As a researcher in biological history, I was honored to have been invited to par-

LIVES for which the museum initiated a series of preparatory meetings before the coronavirus ticipate in the preparatory work. I vividly recall the bright sunlight filtering through the enormous picture window at the conference room where the first meeting was held. The museum explained the rationale behind the exhibition theme LIVES using exquisite slides. One could almost forget the advancing coronavirus in the calm and comfort of those surroundings. (At the time we could not have foreseen that the pandemic situation in Taiwan would take a turn for the worst, reaching Level 3 by May; or that further meetings would be moved online.) At the time, I concurred with the importance of LIVES as the exhibition title, even though my intuition told me this would be a misnomer for the exhibition.

Naturally, the word “misnomer” has negative connotations, and is perhaps inappropriate in an exhibition catalogue. However, while mentally sketching out possible exhibition formats, visions were conjured of the anatomy theaters, botanical parks, and museums that emerged in 16th and 17th century Italy, Holland, and Britain. The purpose of those institutions might have differed, but each displaced life from its habitat into a location accessible to human experience.

What does this all mean? In Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) posthumously published book, New Atlantis (1627), the British philosopher and Enlightenment thinker described a utopia called Bensalem. In Bacon’s tale, the cornerstone at the core of Bensalem was an institution called “Solomon’s House,” which was an amalgamated grand botanical garden, museum, anatomy theater, and laboratory. Inside, you would encounter mummified specimens of animal and plant life, human cadavers splayed open, animals with soulless eyes beating their heads against the walls, and wilting vegetation unacclimatized to the new environment. Your guide to Bensalem would approach and proudly explain that the facts of nature continuously produced by Solomon’s House is the key to Bensalem’s perfection. The key here, he would add, is that life has been isolated from nature and transformed into “art” for humans to scrutinize in detail.

You might wonder why the people of Bensalem would go to great lengths to remove life from its natural context in order to delve into the natural laws of life. In fact, the paradox here precisely illustrates the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment. During Bacon’s time, it was widely accepted that life was the meticulous work of the Divine Creator. Life can be appreciated, but exploring its inner workings was unredeemable blasphemy, which Enlightenment thinkers did not agree with.

They believed that human beings should show reverence to the Creator rather than to his work.

To face life by courageously exploring its mechanism and to reveal its precision and mystery, are the highest form of praise for the Creator. Joseph Wright of Derby’s renowned work, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), fully captures this spirit of enlightenment. In the painting, a natural philosopher gazes upon the viewer in defiance. He is poised to throw a bird into a vacuum pump in preparation for an experiment. Among the crowd gathered around him is a woman and child shielding their terrified faces, unable to look on. Understandably, putting a bird in a pump and then creating a vacuum may reveal the mechanics behind their flight, but the bird will either suffocate or explode into a pool of blood and tissue matter in the process. This brings to mind a speech where Harvard professor Shigehisa Kuriyama mentions that in 17th and 18th century illustrations of human autopsies, besides dangling skeletons, splayed corpses, an emotionless doctor, and curious spectators, there are always a dog or two. These dogs serve as a reminder of the profane nature of the human body. All that remains after death is flesh and bone whose construction and operational mechanisms can be fully explored by anatomists. What remains are scraps, to be fed to dogs.

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Life cannot be exhibited; to exhibit life, that which endows it

lieved that agency had been too narrowly defined by existing

with life must be removed.

social sciences and humanities. If “agency” denoted an ability to accomplish a task, he queries whether anything could be

This was what I once believed. However, after curators Amy

accomplished by a human being acting alone. Everything ac-

Cheng and Escher Tsai proposed numerous dazzling concepts

complished since time immemorial had resulted from the ef-

over the course of several preparatory meetings, I began to

forts of human beings and things. Therefore, agency should be

reflect on whether my understanding of key terminology, such

imparted to non-human entities that collaborated with human

as life or vitality, have been too narrowly defined. Although,

beings. With Heidegger’s philology as a point of departure,

at the time of writing, I have no knowledge of the form the

Latour went further to propose the concept of a “congress of

exhibition will take, I know it promises to be magnificent based

all things,” advocating that, in the face of a global ecological

on the planning and descriptions by the two curators. The key

crisis, a way forward is to recruit experts who can speak for

is in the word “misnomer.” On the theme of LIVES, who defines

“things;” for instance, oceanographers immersed in the study

life? Who determines the essence that constitutes life? Does

of coral reefs, or artists committed to exploring the potential

life have an essence? If we abandon the concept that life has an

of various materials, so that “things” can participate in the

essence, then the misnomer of the LIVES exhibition is just that.

democratic debate for decision making and action plans. More recently, researchers concerned with “things” took this a step

Of course, this is not to suggest that the exhibition is unre-

further to suggest that in the congress of all things, the key

alistic, groundless, or disconnected; on the contrary, despite

isn’t in ways of representing things, but in empowering things

preparations made at the height of the pandemic, the effort

to speak for themselves. At first glance, this New Materialist

and coordination by the two curators have ensured that, not

perspective may seem absurd, but on closer inspection, pre-

only will several representative works make their Taiwanese

sented with crystal clear glass, a gleaming blade, warm-toned

debuts, but Taiwanese artists will also mark the occasion by

wood, or a heavy stone, evokes a deep-seated corporeal desire

presenting new works. Among these are works that can be

to “do something with these things.” For New Materialist

touched, spoken to, or interacted with. In my opinion this

theorist Jane Bennett, Latour’s ideas are still too antiquated.

is where LIVES stands apart. Rather than describe the works

Things do not require human connection to embody agency;

exhibited as a certain re-presentation of lives that exist else-

in fact, things often compel humans to take action, whether in

where, one might say that the objects here are full of life.

everyday tasks or to change history. To use the essay writing topic of this year’s General Scholastic Ability Test prompt of

The vision that bestows things with a life of their own can

“When I open my textbook” as an example, a New Materialist

be described as a major breakthrough in modern humanities

would argue that it was never you who opened the text book,

and social sciences. In the Western humanist tradition, things

but the text book that beckoned you to open it.

are often understood as foreign objects onto which human thought, emotion, and desires can be projected. Perhaps

LIVES was destined to be a misnomer; and thankfully, it is a

inspired by a walk through the Black Forest, the master of

misnomer in terms of an exhibition about lives. The LIVES ex-

20th century phenomenology, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

hibition is of course not a version of Bacon’s Solomon’s House,

believed that this approach to understanding was too limited.

nor is it a contemporary popularization and imagination of the

Tracing the etymology of the German word for “thing” (das

life sciences, and definitely not an artistic rendition of the En-

Ding), he discovered it had a connotation of “assembly.” Iter-

cyclopedia of Life or of Animal Planet. From the current plans,

ations of this can still be seen in the names of national legis-

visitors to the LIVES exhibition do not depart from the exhibi-

latures in several European countries. Heidegger developed a

tion in a state of confusion, nor do they nod knowingly with

unique philology on this foundation. He believed that objects

sudden epiphanies on the meaning of life. Rather, they have a

have the ability to assemble heterogeneous people and things

wonderful time, taking selfies, and checking-in on social media;

together; then, spreading outward to evoke a certain way of

then, they call friends and companions to visit, three or four

life and a unique landscape. A road might give rise to a city, a

times more in hopes that, like Heidegger’s bridge, these living

bridge could nurture a village, a work of art could link an entire

things would bring people, events, and objects together from

road. Rome was created by all the roads that lead to it.

all directions in a collision that shapes various connections, that thus unfurls to achieve one lifescape after another.

On Heidegger’s foundation, curator Bruno Latour of the 2020 Taipei Biennial further advocated the agency of things. He be018

文文 鄭陸霖（本展策展顧問）

再次藝術，在瘟疫蔓延時

萬千人命岌岌可危之際，還談什麼藝術？

已經肆虐全球進入第三年的 COVID-19 病毒催生了《生生 LIVES》展覽。刁鑽狡猾 的 Omicron 變種病毒更帶來嚴峻的疫情，亦步亦趨地陪著藝術登場，正忙著在防 疫緊繃中摸索著人類如何在「後 COVID-19」的想像中重生的我們，挪移視線進入

美術館凝視藝術，接近奢侈甚至冒著風險（矛盾又多麼生動）是為了什麼？通過 當代藝術的稜鏡可以折射出人類存在處境怎樣的光譜？藝術暗示了怎樣的啟示與 允諾值得我們分神關注？

恐怖的黑死病為歐洲揮別中世紀並跨入近代注入動力，天花與霍亂伴隨美洲帝國 的衰退與歐洲殖民地的開展，黃熱病的疫情阻止了法國勢力給了美利堅合眾國壯

大的機會，一次又一次造成大量人口銳減與集體生存恐慌的瘟疫，措手不及地在 短期間衝擊人類社會的正常運作，也是造成人類歷史急速斷裂與意外轉向的巨大

干擾力量。上次的病毒大流行傳染是 1918 年 1 月爆發的西班牙流感，在 1920 年 4

月結束前，最高估計奪走了五千萬條人命。夾在兩次慘烈世界大戰之間的病毒在

全球肆虐，逼使人們徹底懷疑原本沾沾自滿的文明價值，在隱形病毒的突襲下， 生命的脆弱更加對照到人類運用高科技於戰爭暴力集團相殘的荒誕，事實上，當

代藝術「正是」在大瘟疫的嚴峻撞擊刺激下，藉脫軌的感官迷走質疑人類自視清 明的理性「奢侈冒險」地誕生，而最具地標性的事件就是布勒東（André Breton） 於 1924 年發表的「超現實主義宣言」。

百年一度，藝術再次質問生命意義

百年之後，從 2019 年 10 月中國武漢開始的 COVID-19 疫情，在跨入已超越西班 牙流感紀錄的第三年之際仍沒有減緩的趨勢，新變種病毒領軍的第四波攻擊橫

掃全球甚至打破了臺灣固守許久的清零防線，就在 2022 年 3 月的此刻，《生生 LIVES》兩位策展人精心策劃的一系列藝術創作，詰問疫情下人類顯得搖搖欲墜的

生命處境，凝視著我們據說終要學習「與病毒共存」的生活樣態。當代藝術在全 球疫情的召喚下再度登場，不僅適時適地，也是讓我們借病毒創造的時勢，衡量 當代藝術可以如何探測人類文化的自省契機。

因此，《生生 LIVES》的顧問邀約著實難以抵抗，就算我拒絕了工作，腦海裡也從 此很難擺脫糾纏――在世紀疫情的巨變中重思「lives」的真意，怎麼說都是「躬 逢其盛」的我們，很難逃避既龐大又深邃的提問。《生生 LIVES》的英文名稱簡潔

有力，讓我想到 311 東日本震災時，設計師太刀川英輔（Tachikawa Eisuke）在日 之丸（O）之後加上「Live!」（活下去！）的「OLIVE」救災行動；lives 在英文中

是個複合歧義的概念，中文的表達雜多殊異，但反而更適合拆解 lives 的豐富內涵， 可以透析出人類存在三個若即若離的基本狀態：生存、生命與生活。

受到威脅的究竟是什麼？

「生存」、「生命」與「生活」，「語詞」是「存有」的狀態，反映出人堆疊著差異 內涵的立體樣貌，失之毫釐差之千里，不可不辨。

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「生存」關乎一呼一吸之間的脆弱肉身，是作為生命與

從日常社交的毛細單元開始被迫大範圍的徹底調整；

生活前提的物質底層，是我們盡可能規避面對虛空原

「生命」不再激發熱情，而只能被困壓在「生存」與「生

我們逐日「向死」的宿命，生存 to live 是在維生最低

字塔倒轉也是拜瘟疫所賜，西班牙流感的全球瘟疫絕

點的恐懼，只有在無奈病殘之際，才會被愕然提醒， 限度的邊際線上，迴避被迫提前「歸零」的掙扎。

「生命」是對立「生存」另一端的存在想像，從一顆種 子，在不止地辯證超脫中，成就一株巍峨的大樹，我

們隨處都可以感受到一切 lively（生氣蓬勃）生物的內

在原始能量，生命作為抵抗地心引力下墜般死亡糾纏 的向上成長動力，永遠遙指著未來那更加完熟統合、 自我實現的「1」。

最後，「生活」是在 0 與 1 之間許多瑣碎重複的微細

片段，在「生存」與「生命」之間，一天、一週、一月、 一年看似重複循環的尋常，生存的歸零恐懼在生活靜

好中得以遺忘變得遙遠模糊，雖然生存所繫脆弱無常 的肉身一直都在；生命熱情在規律如梭的生活中也漸 被撫平，錯過的回首嘆息我們自知注定等在未來。但

也不要因此看輕了「生活」，畢竟唯有能夠融入循環 復始「生活日常」的才是踏實孕育一切值得珍惜、永 續之物的溫床。

被病毒翻轉的「馬斯洛金字塔」

在漫長抗疫中快被我們遺忘的「前疫情」日子裡，心 理學者馬斯洛（Abraham Harold Maslow）樂觀主義的

金字塔想像，是主導著我們如何關照 lives 的慣性模式： 生存、生活與生命，由下而上依序堆疊，我們在資本 主義生產消費、馴服肉身的忙碌現實「生活」中，暗

自企盼、自我武裝、催眠自我實現意義充滿的「生命」

活」費解的糾纏底下匍匐展開。百年前，上一次的金 非偶然地同時召喚出了超現實主義的藝術力大爆發。 從現在回頭看，佛洛伊德（Sigmund Freud） 與病毒的

結盟，完勝了承平之際才被自我感覺良好的人們，朗 朗上口的馬斯洛，潛意識的原始生存慾望，顛覆了理 性生活的表面話術，看似非現實的藝術幻覺，反而足 以逼近肉眼不可及的超真實、真世界。

當代藝術的全新戰場：資訊與生物科技

百年後在又一次的世紀瘟疫肆虐中，《生生 LIVES》

理所當然地匯集當代藝術登場，在二戰後資本主義的 短暫榮景中，好不容易被「扶正」的馬斯洛金字塔被

病毒們合力傾覆，當代藝術創作從生存肉身的物質重 組以及生活脈絡的拆解再拼裝中，再次揭開了關照生 命的超真實魔鏡。藝評家邁爾斯（William Myers）敏 銳地指出，千禧年後歐美當紅如今傳染全球的「生物 藝術」，與上世紀初的那波藝術大爆發一脈相承，可 以說是「當代的超現實主義」！只是這一次受惠於百

年來的科技進步帶來全新的素材，人造器官與基因工 程讓物質感官的血肉之軀再度返回藝術展台，病毒迅 雷不及掩耳幻化般的快速變種一再竄流，結實地反覆 出重拳打破了人們「文化 vs 自然」原本根深蒂固的虛 假二分，人與非人的物種邊界在當代藝術的探索中， 彷彿跟病毒串通好了般，被不倦地挪移重畫，這就是

《生生 LIVES》讓當代藝術與疫情共舞、再次探問生命 底層奧秘的歷史性。

高潮。一切安好，直到一隻渺小的肺炎病毒穿越、突

收筆之際，我正在搜尋第三劑疫苗的接種站，以便加

這野性不遜的自然表徵，悄悄隱身潛入人群、打臉我

變種的微型怪獸！不同於西班牙流感時人類只能單純

破了人類一廂情願認定涇渭分明的文化／自然界限，

們的白目無知、再度把人類破綻百出的文化，包圍在 自然母體的黑漆當中，逼迫個體在社交距離的互動新 規範中，成為孤立的泡泡，COVID-19 至今毫無預警 的突襲已奪走了將近 600 萬條人命。

瘟疫毫不留情地翻轉了我們習以為常的「馬斯洛金字

塔」，現在最原始底層的「生存」考量登上至高的王 座全面壓倒一切商業、娛樂、教育的活動；「生活」

入人類集體免疫的肉身陣仗、對抗「敵方」最新升級

依賴隔離來對抗，這次我們有了尖端實驗室裡培育、

快速配置移轉到工廠裡量產的高科技武器──疫苗。 當中依賴數位資訊模型的生化創新── mRNA 疫苗尤 其醒目，我們將核糖核酸的「信使」（messenger）注

射送入人體內、委託它傳送一段攸關戰局成敗的關鍵 指令。這段材料的郵件旅程據稱會在細胞核前停步，

然後對我們的身體下達嚴正的要求，細胞接著將會聽 令行事，生成跟自己體質相斥的刺突蛋白（像極了異

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形？），它們與 COVID-19 病毒的特徵高度相似，因此最後會欺騙了「我

們的」身體（是嗎？），以做出反制外來異物的免疫抗體。這段 mRNA

的臨時訊息據稱會在刺突蛋白生成後自動銷毀，這新生化武器的優點是 在病毒新變種出現後，可以機動地快速模仿複製後，產生新指令，在這 場人菌螺旋上升的軍備競賽中，開發出最新型的「人體」投入戰場。

有沒有注意到，在這段超現實的描述中，世界的內外秩序悄悄顛倒了？

一方面，我們在體內微小細胞的深處所進行的資訊操縱，決定了每個抗 疫個體所處的外部環境（也就是「疫苗覆蓋率」）；另一方面，在離我

們最遠的尺度上，一種「人類共同體」休戚與共的生物／資訊版社會論 述正在流傳，人道主義者指責西方強權因為罔顧疫苗的全球分配不均， 才造成了最近這波疫情第三世界南非的破口，One for all/All for One （我

為人人／人人為我）。再貼近觀察最新一波大規模「破口」後，戰爭前

線的短兵相接，實聯制手機記錄的足跡追蹤，與確診者體內病毒基因定 序追蹤，兩者的結合描繪出「人體／病毒資訊戰」的一體兩面，資料庫 跨越了人與非人、文化與自然的界限，從實驗室、臨床病房一直到公衛

現場，我們在一端敞開肉身細胞成為公領域，另一端又都活在他方的雲 端伺服器。這個交戰前線的細小切片採樣透露了《生生 LIVES》背後某

種浮現中的新時代感知，生物工程與數位資訊的結合，誕生了一種準備 好接手主導「後疫情」時代混種的世界／身體想像。

如何「與病毒共存」？

據說我們終需學習「與病毒共存」，但人菌大戰的這些戰線推移的線索， 在我看來，似乎更像暗示著我們正奔向「將自然徹底地文化化」的路途 上，我們真的要以這樣的方式「生存」下去嗎？生活領域也正在發生極 為相似的事。「社交距離」為網路媒介的虛擬互動打開了無窮的商機， 臉書極力推銷「元宇宙」（Metaverse），為受困於疫情的我們提供了

適時的安慰劑──一個據說保證無菌的新天地，即便（可以預期地）我 們在人造的宇宙裡遇見了「病毒」（沒有？那怎麼夠現實！）應該也只

是不用肉身緊張備戰的虛擬真實，科技富豪跟我們掛保證外面的「自 然」會繼續安全地存在「我們的文化」中。

「元宇宙」背後的慾望一點都不新，它是人類再一次慣性地渴望建一座

隱形防護罩的「文化縫補」，讓我們人活在「自己人」裡面。面對藝術

作品呈現的諸般生命樣貌，讓我在顧問與無盡的自問中不禁大膽地思索 起來：會不會……真正的問題不在「社交距離」，而是人類在超級都市 化的文明進程中，原本就因過度擁擠而「喪失距離」？靜心想想，「都 市」不正是人類隔離於自然之外的文化原鄉？

「社交距離」這門病毒為人類開的課題，很多人想拿「與病毒共存」來 敷衍應付。「與病毒共存」說起來容易，但想想美國的白人與黑人、

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主 流 社 會 與 同 性 家 庭、 都 市 的 開 發 與 自 然 的 石 虎 ……「 共 存 」（co-

existence）從來不是順口浪漫（或戰鬥疲乏）的簡單事，更不會是交空

白卷以便擁抱人類彼此的放棄；而是需要強者的自我管束、放棄佔有的 空間讓渡、自我料理的風險承擔、不窩在自己人裡取暖的安適……許多 改變人與人、人與世界共存方式的覺悟與努力。

如果我們稍稍努力抵抗一下「人類中心」的思考慣性，不要想直接利用

網路虛擬聚會的高科技來彌補人與人的隔離，把握世紀病毒與慘痛疫情

刺激我們「終於」開始認真思考的難得機會，想想……那什麼是人與人、 人與世界社交的「合理距離」？

答案，我的任性揣測，難道不正是開放讓病毒所表徵的自然足以進入人 與人之間、甚至足以隔離作為單體的人與人，這樣的測量暗示？「社交

距離」不是「與病毒共存」的對立，恰恰相反，人不該趁此疫情肆虐百

年難得的大好機會，以啟蒙自立的個性單體之姿，坦坦蕩蕩地加入自

然，就像 19 世紀首批脫離山下過於擁擠的人群、卸除武裝、單身赴會、 攀爬進入自然崇嶺的登山家們，以平等之姿在自然裡，寫生萬物的生命 風采，然後終於關照到人類自己在世界的位置，如《湖濱散記》裡與眾 樹為友並為其著書的梭羅（Henry David Thoreau），或許真正的「與病

毒共存」更像這樣，人們終於學好如何跟疫情前的「舊文明」(Ancient régime）保持社交距離的「後 COVID-19 烏托邦」。

在藝術中甦醒，抑或麻痹？

藝術家，當代的超現實主義者們，純熟撥弄著基因工程的生物藝術，巧

於撩動資訊科技挑逗生命的數位藝術……究竟這些立在人類世末的十字 路口上，會讓我們赫然驚醒的巨大糾結，將因而更為沈澱深思，還是讓

我們在文化極致的藝術遊戲、感官思辨的歡愉中加速麻痹？在這條被稱 為「後人類」的征途上，藝術究竟是新盟友，還是舊敵人？顧問如我也

沒有把握，我的職責只負責「向藝術發問」，不可能有說服得了你／妳 的答案。班雅明（Walter Benjamin）曾說過，藝術品在博物館裡展示的

是它自己的複製品。在我看來，回到藝術創作時最初的那個時刻來理解 這段話，藝術品是「藝術出沒過」（This art happened），「曾經有」

藝術家「實驗探索過」的一些證據與若干痕跡，它對觀眾應該是一番：

「那，換你的話，會怎麼探索？」的召喚。最終只有你親身來一趟展場， 才能透過在《生生 LIVES》，與藝術家面對面的展示裡所透露的當代， 思考屬於你／妳自己一個人 how to live 的答案！

藉「我們的」病毒之助，思想「你／妳的」藝術。

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Art again, in the Time of Pandemic TEXT Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng (Curatorial Advisor)

Why bother art when human lives are at stake?

After ravaging the world for the past three years, the COVID-19 virus has induced the birth of the LIVES exhibition. Nipping at the heels of this artistic debut, the cunning and insidious Omicron variant has further exacerbated the severity of the pandemic. Those of us engrossed in seeking methods for human rebirth in the post-Covid imagination have redirected our sights into museums to fix our eyes upon art, an approach that is both luxurious and potentially perilous (the contradictions in these two phrases are so vivid); but to what end? What spectrums of human existence are refracted through the prism of contemporary art? What revelations and assurances are implied by art that warrant our distraction and concern?

The horrors of the bubonic plague injected an impetus for Europe to bid farewell to the Middle Ages and make strides toward Modernity. Smallpox and cholera accompanied the decline of Empires in the Americas that launched the development of European colonies. The outbreak of yellow fever staved off French forces and gave the United States an opportunity to strengthen its forces. Time and again, plagues that catalyzed drastic declines in human populations and triggered a collective panic for survival have brought immediate rapid impact on the normal operation of human societies. These disruptions have triggered rapid ruptures and unexpected turns throughout human history. The pandemic contagion preceding COVID-19 was the Spanish flu outbreak that began in January 1918, which took an estimated 50 million lives before it finally subsided in April 1920. Bookended by two traumatic world wars, that virus devastated the globe, compelling human beings to question the value of civilizations that had once been a source of pride.

Under attack by an insidious virus, the fragility of life stood in even starker contrast against the absurdities of utilizing high tech for human mutual destruction through war and violent organizations. In actually, contemporary art, marked by the publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, was born precisely of the luxury and peril, afforded by the confusion of derailed senses that called into question the rationality of human self-consciousness under the severe impact of the Great Plague.

A centennial re-interrogation of the meaning of lives A century hence, the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, China in October 2019 has now entered its third year, in duration surpassing the record held by the Spanish flu, and showing no signs of attenuation. A fourth wave of attacks led by new variants has swept across the globe, breaking through Taiwan’s long-held zero-cases line of defense. At this moment in March 2022, a series of art works painstakingly culled by two curators for the LIVES exhibition, initiate an examination of the precarious position of human existence under pandemic conditions, gazing at the modalities of life as we learn to ultimately “coexist with the virus.”

Contemporary art heeds the call of the global pandemic and takes to center stage once again. This is not only timely and appropriate, but also enables us to evaluate ways in which contemporary art prompts an introspection of human culture in this opportunity created by the virus.

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And so, an invitation to consult for the LIVES exhibition was

temper life’s passions, a look back on missed opportunities

irresistible. Even if I had declined, my mind would be unable

leads to lament for the destinies that we know await us in

to progress, mired in this entanglement. The fact of the mat-

the future. However, “living” should not be taken for granted,

ter is, our attendance is required in this re-contemplation of

because integration into daily routines nurtures all that which

the true significance of “lives” in the midst of a pandemic of

is worthy of cherishing and sustaining.

a century. A vast and profound inquiry cannot be avoided.

The concision and force of the English exhibition title, LIVES, recalled for me the work of Japanese designer Tachikawa Eisuke in the aftermath of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, where he added the word “Live!” to the red circle symbolizing the Japanese flag, and launched the “OLIVE” rescue call to action. In English, “lives” is a compound concept with various distinct equivalent expressions in Chinese which suitably deconstruct the rich connotations of “lives,” into three basic ambiguous states of human existence: survival, life, and living.

What exactly is at stake?

Viruses turn our lives (and Maslow) upside down.

In those pre-pandemic days, now a distant memory in our long battle against COVID-19, the optimistic “hierarchy of needs” described by psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow served as a guide for managing routines in lives: survival, living, and life, stacked in that order from the bottom up. In the bustling reality of our subjugated corporeal “lives” within capitalist production and consumption, we surreptitiously hoped, self-fortified, and self-hypnotized to realize a climactic and meaningful life. All was going well until a tiny little virus transgressed and broke through the culture/nature boundaries

The words “survival,” “life,” and “living” are states of being

arbitrarily declared by human beings as incontrovertible. This

that reflect a three-dimensional human appearance with mul-

untamed emissary of nature silently and stealthily infiltrated

tiple layers of disparate connotations that must be differenti-

human crowds to deliver a slap in our eye-rolling ignorant fac-

ated; a fraction of difference can be a world apart.

es, re-enveloping human culture with all of its imperfections back into the dark folds of nature’s matrix and forcing individ-

Survival concerns each breath of the fragile corporeal body. It

ual humans to become isolated bubbles in the new norm of

is the prerequisite physical underpinning of life and living. It

social distancing. To-date, the covert COVID-19 attacks have

is the fear of facing the void of our origin that we avoid at all

taken some 6 million lives.

costs; it is the inescapable fate that we are “dying” with each passing day, that we are alert to only when we are helpless

The pandemic has ruthlessly upended the once-familiar

with illness. Surviving is on the margins of the lowest thresh-

Maslow’s pyramid. Conditions for survival, previously occupy-

old of maintaining life; it is a struggle to resist being prema-

ing the lowest strata, has ascended to the apex to override all

turely returned to nothingness, to zero.

commercial, entertainment, and educational activities. “Living” has been compelled to undergo a large-scale and thorough re-

“Life” is the imagined state of being on the other end of

adjustment, beginning with the minutiae of daily social inter-

“survival.” In a continuously dialectical detachment, a seed

actions. “Life” no longer arouses passion, and is relegated to a

becomes a majestic tree. We can sense the primordial energy

tentative unfurling under the incomprehensible entanglement

intrinsic to all living organisms. Life becomes an impetus for

of “survival” and “living.” A century ago, Maslow’s hierarchy

upward growth in resistance against the downward gravita-

was similarly overturned by an epidemic. Not coincidentally

tional pull toward death; it forever points to a more mature,

the global pandemic of the Spanish flu ignited a concurrent

unified, and self-actualized “1” that lies in the distant future.

powerful explosion of surrealist art. In retrospect, Sigmund Freud’s alliance with the virus triumphed over Maslow, who

Finally, “living” comprises the routine minutia and micro-frag-

became a household name among self-congratulatory human

ments that exist between “0 and 1.” A day, a week, a month,

beings during a time of relative calm. The primal subconscious

or a year between “surviving” and “life” may be a repetitive

desire for survival subverted the superficial discourse of ratio-

cycle of normalcy, but this uneventfulness of survival diffuses

nal life. Seemingly unrealistic artistic mirages were, instead,

the fear of a return to nothingness as something distant and

able to approach the surrealist, actual world otherwise inac-

vague, despite the perpetual presence of a fragile and imper-

cessible to the naked eye.

manent corporeal body. Routines for living also eventually 024

A whole new battlefield for contemporary art: Information and Biotechnology As a matter of course, the LIVES exhibition assembles contemporary art on stage in the midst of another Plague of the Century a hundred years hence. Maslow’s hierarchy that had eventually righted itself during Capitalism’s short-lived postwar days of glory, has once again been toppled by an alliance of viruses. By reorganizing the materiality of the surviving corporeal body, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of contexts of living, contemporary art creation has once again unveiled the magical surrealist mirror of existence. Art critic William Myers astutely points out that the popularity of BioArt in the new millennium, which has since spread across the globe, is in keeping with the wave of artistic eruptions at the turn of the last century, and can be described as “a contemporary surrealism”! A century of technological progress has provided all new materials; synthetic organs and genetic engineering have returned the corporeal bodies of material organs to center stage. The lightning-fast and phantasmagoric mutations of viruses repeatedly find new channels to deliver a sucker punch that breaks open the deep-seated false dichotomy of “culture vs. nature.” In explorations of contemporary art, the boundary between human and non-human organisms have been tirelessly amended and redrawn as though in collusion with the virus. This is the historicity of LIVES, enabling a dance between contemporary art and the pandemic as it re-interrogates the mystery at the foundations of life.

As this essay comes to a close, I am in the process of searching for a vaccination center to administer my booster shot, so I can join the corporeal ranks of human herd immunity in the resistance against the “enemy’s” newest upgraded mutation of these microscopic monsters! Unlike the Spanish flu where human beings relied solely on sequestration as a defense, we now have cutting edge laboratories that can cultivate and rapidly disseminate high-tech weapons – vaccines to factories for mass production. In this process, the biochemical innovations of the mRNA vaccines which rely on digital informational

025

semblance to the COVID-19 virus, and will ultimately deceive “our” (really?) bodies into generating immune antibodies that resist foreign bodies. This temporary mRNA message will supposedly self-destruct after the production of spike proteins.

The advantage of this new biochemical weapon is that when new variants of the virus appear, it can be rapidly imitated and replicated to produce new commands and develop the latest battle-ready design of the “human body” in this rapidly escalating arms race between humans and viruses.

Did you notice that in this surrealist narrative, the external and internal order of the world has been surreptitiously reversed?

On the one hand, we are carrying out information manipulation in the depths of tiny cells within the body in order to determine the external environment where each individual battling the epidemic is located (that is, the rate of vaccine coverage). On the other hand, a certain biological/informational social narrative of the collective experience of “the human community” is being circulated on the other end of the spectrum. One for All, All for One: humanitarians accuse Western powers of ignoring the unequal distribution of the vaccine, causing the latest wave of the pandemic in the South African outbreak. A closer inspection of the two-pronged hand-tohand combat at the frontlines of the latest wave of large-scale out-breaks: real-time contact tracing using mobile phones, and using tracing genetic sequencing to track covid-positive patients -- depicts two sides of the “human/virus information war,” where the database traverses the boundaries between human and non-human, and between culture and nature.

From the laboratory, to the sickbed, and all the way to the site of public health, we open corporeal cells to the public domain on one end, while on the other end, they all exist in off-site cloud servers. This slice of life at the battlefront reveals a certain emerging new sensibility behind LIVES, where bioengineering and digital information have combined to give birth to an imagined hybrid world/body ready to lead in a post-pandemic era.

modeling have been especially eye-opening. A messenger

How do we coexist with the virus?

RNA is injected into the human body, entrusted with trans-

It has been said that we eventually need to learn to coexist

mitting a command crucial to the outcome of the war. The

with the virus, but the clues at the moving battlelines of the

postal journey of this material will supposedly arrive at the

human vs. virus war seem to suggest that we are rushing

cell nuclei and impose a demand on our bodies. These cells

down a path of “thoroughly culturalizing nature.” Do we truly

will then obey and carry out these commands and produce

want to “survive” in this way? Similar events are occurring in

spike proteins repellent to their own constitutions. (Does this

the lifestyle realm. “Social distancing” has opened up endless

sound like the film Aliens?) These have a high degree of re-

business opportunities for virtual interactions in online media,

with Facebook making a strong pitch for the “Metaverse” that

as dictated by the virus; or, the measurements implied as suf-

provides a timely placebo of a new world that supposedly

ficient for isolating people as individuals. “Social distancing”

guarantees to be virus free, for those of us trapped by the ep-

does not stand in opposition to “coexisting with the virus.”

idemic. Even if (predictably) we do encounter “viruses” in the

On the contrary, human beings ought to seize this rare op-

artificial universe (no? then how would that seem real?), it will

portunity afforded by this pandemic of the century to rejoin

only be a simulated reality that won’t require anxious physical

nature in the posture of enlightened, self-reliant individuals.

preparations for battle. The “nature” on the outside will con-

like the first group of 19th century mountaineers who left the

tinue to safely exist within “our culture.”

crowded throngs in the lowlands, laid down their weapons, and made their way alone into the nature of the mountains.

The desire behind the “Metaverse” is not new. These are the

They made sketches depicting the vivid colors of all life forms

cultural sutures of the habitual human desire to construct an

as their equals, then reflected on the position of themselves as

invisible protective shield that enables us to live among “our

human beings in the world, just as Henry David Thoreau did

own kind.” In confronting the various life forms presented in

in befriending the trees and writing On Walden Pond. To truly

the artworks, I can’t help but wonder as a consultant, and in

“coexist with the virus” should perhaps be undertaken in this

perpetual self-interrogation, whether the real problem is not

capacity, in a “post-COVID-19 utopia” where human beings

in “social distancing,” but the loss of distancing from human

finally learn how to maintain social distance from the pre-pan-

overcrowding in the civilizing process of super-cities. Aren’t

demic “Ancient régime.”

“cities” precisely the cultural homeplace of human beings who are sequestered from nature?

“Coexisting with the virus” is deemed by many as a salve to cope with the “social distancing” challenges posed by the virus to human beings. “Coexisting with the virus” is more easily said than done. When we think of black and white Americans in the United States, of mainstream society and gay families, of urban development and the leopard cat… Coexistence has never been a simple matter of romanticized verbalization (or of combat fatigue), nor is it a blank check written to facilitate a mutual embrace and surrender. Rather, it requires the powerful to self-discipline and to surrender the spaces they occupy, to take responsibility for the perils posed by self-care, and to eschew the comforts of staying within one’s own community, as well as having an awareness of and making efforts toward changing the ways in which humans coexist with other humans and with the world.

If we make a slight effort to resist the “anthropocentric” contemplative inertia, without immediately resorting to utilizing high-tech network-simulated gatherings to compensate for distancing between human beings; if we seize this rare opportunity stimulated by the Virus of the Century to “finally” begin to contemplate and think in earnest… What is a reasonable social distance between human beings, and between humans

In the name of Art, awakened or anaesthetized Would artists and contemporary surrealists adept at the BioArt: of manipulating genetic engineering and skilled in rousing information technology to provoke life, ultimately awaken us to a profound contemplation on the grand entanglements at the crossroads of the apocalypse? Or would they hasten our paralysis in the cultural extremes of artistic gaming and in the joy of sensorial speculation? On this journey called “posthumanism,” is art a new ally or an old enemy? As a consultant, I am uncertain. My responsibility is relegated to “querying art,” without providing any answers that may possibly convince you. Walter Benjamin once said that works of art exhibit their own reproductions in the museum. My understanding of this, taken from the moment of artistic creation, is that a work of art is a declaration that “this art happened.” It is evidence and traces for that which artists have experimented with and explored. To the audience, it is a call to action that says: “Now, it is your turn. How will you explore?” Ultimately, your physical presence is required at the exhibition venue in order to stand face to face with a contemporaneity revealed by the artists in the LIVES exhibition, and to contemplate an answer to “how to live” that belongs uniquely to you!

Contemplating YOUR art, with a little help from OUR viruses.

and the world?

My willful speculation surmises that the answer is: precisely the amount of open nature required between human beings 026

策展團隊簡歷

* 按中文姓氏字首筆畫順序排列 *The list shows in order of stroke numbers by Mandarin surnames.

About Curatorial Team

策展人 Curators

蔡宏賢

鄭慧華

Plus 超維度互動創意總監、文化部《科技藝術實驗創新及輔導

Project Space）的共同成立者。她以「拓展策展」為實踐，致

資深新媒體藝術工作者、製作人與策展人，現為 Dimension 推動計畫》主持人。曾任臺灣當代文化實驗場（C-LAB）科技

媒體實驗平台資深顧問、第 58 屆威尼斯國際美術雙年展臺灣 館《3x3x6》製作總監。策劃過的展覽包括：2021 年《C-LAB

未來媒體藝術節》策展人、2017 年《桃園科技藝術節》策展 人、2016-2017 年《白晝之夜》策展人及 2016 年擔任《伊東

豊雄的劇場夢》觀念建築展策展人。此外，蔡宏賢也是國內 重要數位藝術創作組織的計畫製作人，像是 C-LAB 的《Lab kill

獨 立 策 展 人、 臺 北 非 營 利 機 構「 立 方 計 劃 空 間 」（TheCube 力於與藝術家、文化行動者及研究者的深度合作，並發展長 期的研究暨策展計畫。鄭慧華的策展實踐關注亞洲與世界的

關係、歷史及地緣政治，以策展為方法共同推動臺灣現代聲 響文化的研究，並以立方計劃空間為平台，延伸至出版、線 上資料庫及網路廣播電台等各種形式的文化實踐。

鄭慧華策劃過的展覽包括：2020 年《液態之愛》（臺北，未

Lab》及《FUTURE VISION LAB》計畫，並曾擔任微型樂園創意

來回憶錄三部曲之一） 、2019 年《銜尾蛇》放映展（臺北、盧

工作坊策劃人。

2011 年威尼斯雙年展臺灣館《聽見，以及那些未被聽見的

總監、數位藝術知識與創作流通平台計畫主持人及 Playaround

Escher Tsai Escher Tsai is a New Media artist, producer and curator. He devotes himself into digital art research, promotion and creation. Now Tsai is the Creative Director of Dimension Plus, and Director of “Arts and Technology: Creative Innovation and Counseling Project”. He was senior consultant of the Preparatory Office of Technology Media Center (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, C-LAB), also served as production supervisor for “3x3x6” Taiwan Exhibition in 58th Venice Biennale. He was worked on the curator of C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival (2021), Taoyuan Art x Technology Festival (2017), Nuit Blanche in Taipei (20162017) and Encounter Once in a Lifetime – Toyo Ito Architecture Exhibition (2016). In addition, he was planner of important digital arts creation and center, such as production supervisor for “Lab Kill Lab” and for “Future Vision Lab” at C-LAB. He was also the creative director of Microplayground, the host of Taiwan Digital Art and Information Center, and the planner of “Playaround Workshop”.

森堡） 、2016-2018 年《現實秘境》 （臺北、吉隆坡、首爾）、 ──臺灣社會聲音圖景》 （威尼斯）；共同策劃的展覽包括：

2016、2018 年《告訴我一個故事──地方性與敘事》 （上海、

杜林） 、以及 2004 年台北國際雙年展《在乎現實嗎？》 （臺北） 等。鄭慧華曾受邀擔任 2017 年第 57 屆威尼斯雙年展大會評審 委員、2015 年 Hugo Boss 亞洲新銳藝術家獎評審委員及 2018 年西班牙 Han Nefkens 基金會錄像藝術獎提名委員。

Amy Cheng Amy Cheng is a curator and writer based in Taipei. In 2010, she co-founded TheCube Project Space, which serves as an independent art space devoted to the research, production and presentation of contemporary art in Taipei. Her curatorial practices center on the historical and geopolitical relations between Asia and the world in the contemporary scene. With the aim of delving into local culture and establishing long-term relationships with artists and cultural practitioners, Cheng explores the possibility of “expanding curating”. Since 2009, she has carried out several research projects, including sound cultures in Taiwan and Critical Political Art and Curatorial Practice Research, for which she contributed to and edited the publication Art and Society: Introducing Seven Contemporary Artists.

The exhibitions curated by Amy Cheng include: Liquid Love (2020, Taipei, One chapter of The Trilogy of Future Memories), The Ouroboros Screening program (2019, Taipei, Luxembourg), Towards Mysterious Realities (2016 – 2018, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul), Taiwan Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia: The Heard and the Unheard: Soundscape Taiwan (2011). She also co-curated the exhibitions such as Tell Me a Story: Locality and Narrative (2016, 2018, Shanghai, Torino) and The 2004 Taipei Biennial: Do You Believe in Reality? Cheng has been appointed as the nominating member of The Han Nefkens Foundation Video Art Award (2018) and jury member of the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2017) and of the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award (2015).

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策展顧問 Curatorial Advisors

李明璁

洪廣冀

會人類學博士，現任教於國立臺北藝術

位，目前為國立臺灣大學地理環境資源

社會學家及作家，劍橋大學國王學院社 大學。為公視《保持聯絡》節目製作人， 其主持參與的公視《我在市場待了一整 天》，曾獲金鐘獎非戲劇類最佳攝影等

3 項大獎，並以第 2 季入圍 4 項金鐘 項。 現為「探照文化」執行長，專注文化研 究、策展與各類內容產製，執行多項廣

受好評的出版與設計專案，包括獲金鼎 獎的地方文化刊物《屏東本事》等。著

有《物裡學》、《邊讀邊走》等書，曾獲

《GQ》 選 為 2018 年 與 2020 年「Men of the Year」、《La Vie》2019 年度最具創意

影響力人物。致力於公共社會學推廣與 大眾文化教育。

Ming-Tsung Lee Sociologist and author Ming-Tsung Lee received his doctorate in Social Anthropology from Kings College at the University of Cambridge, and currently teaches at the Taipei National University of the Arts. He is a producer on the Public Television Service (PTS) program Alone Together, and a participant and host on the PTS program See You at the Market which has received three major Golden Bell Awards in the Non-Drama category, and has been nominated for four Golden Bell Awards in its second season. Currently the CEO of Searchlight Culture Lab, whose work focuses on cultural research; on curating productions with a variety of content; and on executing several widely-acclaimed publications and design projects, including the Golden Tripod-winning regional publication, Very Pingtung. MingTsung Lee has published several books including Thing-ology, and I Read, We Meet. He has twice been named GQ magazine’s “Men of the Year” in 2018 and 2020, and was celebrated as the “Most Creative Influential Person” by La Vie magazine in 2019 for his commitment to the public promotion of sociology, and to cultural education for the masses.

於 2013 年取得哈佛大學科學史博士學

學系副教授。洪廣冀的研究包括生物學

史、林業史與科學知識的地理學等領域。 過去五年來，因緣際會接觸到臺灣藝術

社群，對於藝術家如何構思與製作作品， 以及策展人如何展示作品並發展論述深 感著迷。他相信地理學社群應該向藝術 家與策展人學習與交流，從而推動臺灣 環境人文的發展。

Kuang-Chi Hung Kuang-Ch i Hung received h is PhD in the history of science from Harvard University in 2013, and now he is an associate professor in the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University. Hung’s research concerns the history of biology, the history of forestry, and the geography of scientific knowledge. For the past five years, he has been fortunate to be able to work with artists and curators. He is fascinated by the issues of how artists contemplate and bring their artworks into being, and how curators display artworks to develop and support their arguments. He endeavors to facilitate the interactions between artists and geographers to promote the development of environmental humanities in Taiwan.

鄭陸霖

美國杜克大學社會學博士，前中研究院 社會學所副研究員，現為實踐大學工業 產品設計系副教授。專攻產業、經濟與 設計社會學，研究成果發表於《國際城 市與地區研究》、《區域經濟》、《區域 研究》、《國際設計期刊》、《臺灣社會 學刊》、《臺灣社會學》等重要期刊，現 任《國際設計期刊》編輯委員。曾任《南 方》、《數位時代》、《週刊編集》、《La Vie》專欄作家從社會學角度面向大眾書 寫設計。 2015 年起加入實踐大學設計學院，並為 修煉設計時代的社會學新感知成立「DxS Lab 設計 X 社會實驗室」，全力研發讓 社會與設計可以彼此廝混、互相撩撥、 雙向給力的各種套裝知識，讓落地的思 想可以親近大眾、回流社會。

Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng A former Associate Research Fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology, Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University in the United States.

Currently an associate professor at the Shih Chien University Department of Industrial Design, he has published extensively on research regarding industrial and economic sociology and the sociology of design, in prominent periodicals including the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Regional Economies, Regional Studies, the International Journal of Design, the Taiwanese Journal of Sociology, and Taiwanese Sociology. A member of the editorial committee of the International Journal of Design, Cheng has penned numerous columns on design from a sociological perspective for The South Magazine, Business Next, The Affairs, and La Vie magazines.

Since joining the Department of Industrial Design faculty at Shih Chien University 2015, Lu-Lin (Jerry) Cheng has founded the Design x Society Lab (DXS Lab), which aims to distill new sociological perceptions for the design age. By developing various knowledge sets on the cross-fertilization, mutual provocation, and bilateral e fforts between d esign and society, the organization hopes to produce approachable concepts on the ground that give back to society.

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