生活作為形式 LIVING AS FORM 在地篇 2013.8.24~9.27
田鼠和白鷺鷥 會說話嗎？ Will the Vole and the Egret Speak?
王虹凱+自然生活工坊 Hong-Kai Wang & Natural Life Studio
田鼠與白鷺鷥會說話嗎? (一) 文/王虹凱 虎尾是一個位於台灣中南部雲林縣的城鄉小鎮，人口約70,510人。1895年至1945年之間的日本統治時期間 是以製糖業為主的經濟殖民地，綽號「糖都」。數十年來，許多人的生活皆與在地的製糖工業息息相關。政府於 1991年開放國外廉價糖進口後，台灣製糖業以及附屬各鄉鎮糖廠的社群便迅速解體。今日台灣只剩雲林虎 尾與台南善化糖廠仍在製糖。 在2011年台北市立美術館委任製作的《咱的做工進行曲》裡，我與虎尾糖廠的退休工人和他們配偶合作，以「 錄音」做為工具，探討當地製糖歷史如何透過每日工業勞動不斷被演繹與被認同。 2012年經由社會運動工作者康世昊的介紹，我認識了由虎尾科技大學黃士哲教授、林俊男教授和劉志謙、徐 子淳和王麗茵帶領的族群文化研究團隊「自然生活工坊」，他們的實踐專注於在地文化凝視與創新思維設計， 以生活實踐作為主要訴求，我們發現彼此理念相近並進而決定一起創作《田鼠與白鷺鷥會說話嗎?》，希望與 雲林製糖甘蔗生產者合作，檢驗當地製糖社群的社會經濟關係如何反映/被反映在製糖蔗田的土地使用和生 產過程，以及國際政治經濟的運作如何影響當地歷史身份的建構 。 本計畫將透過長期的在地研究，將「口語紀錄」轉化為一種產生「能動性」的工具，重新思考如何更新「口述歷 史」的建構，有系統地逐步建立、使用與具體化一個口語聲音資料庫：靜默、言語、歌曲、或人類和非人類的單 純發聲。 供應虎尾糖廠製糖的雲林蔗田已經無法避免地慢慢消失中，當歷史總是不斷地被建構與重新被建構中，參與 歷史進程的我們如何認知到這建構本身就是一個集體計劃？
(二) 文/林俊男 (自然生活工坊) 雲林蔗農在蔗糖產業發展過程中，幾乎是沈默的，燈光大多聚焦於糖業資本家或國家機構上。但是，蔗農的沈 默不是無語，只是沒有舞台而已。此蔗農口述歷史的藝術創作，是以提供蔗農的再現舞台為發想，從社會的探 究出發，並以聲音為媒介，揭露蔗農在不同世代間的插甘蔗之生產過程與生產關係，並且與長期和大規模的 制度性發展之間的相互連接。 為何選擇口述聲音為創作的媒介？主要是言語為社會互動的中介，且突顯言說者的主體性。一方面，言語反 應社會的意義；另一方面，言語也生產社會的意義。但詭異的是，聲音與意義之間卻沒有必然的關係。這種詭 異的處境，每個蔗農的言說間有所差異性，但是這些差異也創造出某些共同性。另外，在主體性的言說牽涉到 言說者當時的情境，在言說的過程中，有時也呈現曖昧和矛盾。而且，除了情境的樣態外，當然，這些口語也牽 涉了部分的、分裂的常識，其特徵是特定的社會關係之間的組構。 此作品希望透過蔗農的口語，經由他們敘事每日的生活，將其生活世界中自我主體的某個特殊觀點，去揭露 其自然而然的生活世界輪廓。 透過資料蒐集、訪談或工作坊等過程，希望釐清蔗農在雲林甘蔗發展歷史中，蔗農主體在蔗糖生產的時空中，
在不同世代的不同方式之建構與被建構。使觀眾理解這些蔗農說出來的話語，如何植入一個有其自身之歷史 和存在社會條件的網路中。此作品核心的關切，是蔗農與所立足的較廣大社會系統與結構之間的交錯，換句 話說，即是蔗農、國家和資本家在空間與社會之間之關連。 另外，本作品不是聚焦於資本主義或國家機器下，社會族群的不平等關係，或是族群歧視的再現。反而，希望 透過蔗農在微觀生活世界中，社會互動的體現，呈顯蔗農族群的象徵，與地方認同的想像，並容納他們對環境 的關切。 此次在台北的展出，是本作品的前導，展現一些無聲的言語的文件，和一次工坊的影音紀錄，此階段可以不同 的方式看到或聽到此作品的一些本質。此作品期盼長期的創作，藉由時間的厚度來展現社會關係的深度。縱 使，年底會回到雲林以聲音展出，那時也是階段的樣態。 這是，需要用時間琢磨的一起瞭解的過程，蔗農和我們。
Will the Vole and the Egret Speak? by Hong-Kai Wang Huwei is an urban-rural town located in Yulin County of Central-Southern Taiwan with a population of about 70,510. After the decimation by an epidemic circa early-mid nineteenth century, Huwei was rebuilt around the sugar plant at the end of the century by the Japanese colonial government. The town soon began to thrive, as its sugar manufacturing facility became one of the largest in East Asia. It was nicknamed as the Capital of Sugar during the 1895-1945 Japanese rules. After the Second World War, the industry’s heyday from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s saw up to 50 plants across the island. For decades in Taiwan, the lives of many revolved around the sugar plant located in their town. However, when the cheap foreign sugar imports were implemented in 1991, the sugar industry rapidly disintegrated and so did the communities attached to it. Today, Taisugar’s Huwei and Shanhua (in Tainan County) plants are the only two still in operation in Taiwan. In my project Music While We Work (2011) commissioned by Taipei Fine Arts Museum, I worked with a group of retired factory workers and their spouses. They returned to the Huwei sugar plant to make audio recordings while the current employees were at work. The project employed ‘recording’ as a conceptual tool to explore how the history of sugar production is performed and identified in everyday life through industrial labor. Later in 2012, through the activist Shi-Hao Kang’s introduction, I met the Huwei-based town-planning research group Natural Life Studio led by the professors Shih-Che Huang, and Chun-Nan Lin, and post graduate students Chih-Chien Liu, Tzu-Chun Hsu and Li-Yin Wang at National Formosa University, and subsequently invited them to collaborate on a new project titled Will the Vole and the Egret Speak? Together, we seek to work with the local sugarcane producers in exploring how their socioeconomic relations inscribe in the use of the sugarcane farms and its corresponding production and vice versa, investigating the relationship between the making of local history and identities and that of local economy in the intricate workings of international politics. Conceived as a long-term research project, it utilizes “documentation of oral expression” as a form of organized agency and proposes to renew the existing production mode of “oral history”, in the efforts of creating an archive consisting of silence, spoken words, songs, or simply vocal utterances as a means of storing and transmitting knowledge. The sugarcane farms in Taiwan are irrevocably diminishing. While history is continually made and remade, how do we who are involved within the process recognize itself as a collective project?
by Chun-Nan Lin, Natural Life Studio Sugarcane farmers in Yunlin County have been almost absent in the history of sugar production in Taipei, wherein the capitalists and the national corporation get most of the attention. The sugarcane farmers are not silent; they simply do not have a platform to speak. Using sound as a tool, this project researches into the social relations engrained in the sugarcane’s production process and relationship across different generations in relation to the grand systematic workings. Why do we choose to work with oral expression? Language is the mechanism in this project. It mediates social interactions, and exemplifies the speaker’s subjectivity. It also reflects and produces meanings in a society. But paradoxically, there is not necessarily a consequential relationship between sound and meaning. Every sugarcane farmer’s way of speaking is different from one to another, yet these differences can be shared by their respective circumstances, ambiguities, contradictions and fragmented knowledge. This project attempts to paint a world with the sugarcane farmers’ oral expressions on their lives’ work. By conducting research, interviews and workshops, we hope to comb through the identity making of Yunlinbased sugarcane farmers across times and generations, in a networked excavation of the historical, social conditions wherein this process is embedded. The project is ultimately concerned with how sugarcane farmers intersect with the whole sociopolitical system i.e. the state and the capitalists. Moreover, rather than focusing on the struggles and inequalities in the economics of capitalism and state apparatus, this project seeks to create a platform that allows for the sugarcane farmers to share their interactions, speculations of local identity and concerns with the environment. The exhibition at TheCube in Taipei is a lead up to an upcoming presentation of the project in Yunlin at the end of this year. For now, with audiovisual and written documentations, we hope to share our vision for a long-term, in-depth examination on the complexity of the social relations we are looking into. This is a process that takes time and understanding, between sugarcane farmers and us.
2013年7月6日於自然生活工坊舉行的討論會： 主持：陳柏偉 | 參與：吳進福、黃水木、林忠勇、丁陣、吳麗華、吳進益、李茂 興、黃玉蘭、康世昊、王虹凱和自然生活工坊成員 | 攝影錄音：陳又維 特別感謝：林榮輝 Workshop at Natural Life Studio on 6 July 2013: Moderator: Bo-Wei Chen | Participants: Chin-Fu Wu, Shui-Mu Huang, Chung-Yung Lin, Chen Ting , Li-Hua Wu, Chin-Yi Wu, Mao-Hsing Li, Yu-Lan Huang, Shih-Hao Kang, HongKai Wang, and the members of Natural Life Studio | Photography & recording: You-Wei Chen Acknowledgment: Jung-Hui Lin 立方計劃空間 TheCube Project Space 策展人 Curator | 鄭慧華 Amy CHENG 專案管理 Project Manager | 羅悅全 Jeph LO 專案助理 Project Assistant | 梁以妮 Ini LIANG 行政助理 Exhibition Assistant | 董淑婷 Dale DONG 展場技術 Technical Support | 藝術戰爭公司 Art War Company 翻譯 Translator | 錢佳緯 Leonard CHIEN 特別感謝 Special Thanks | 蔡家榛 Jia-Zhen TSAI 主辦 Co-organizers 贊助 Sponsors