兩年前剛到荷蘭,在開學前臨時買了機票到威尼斯一睹雙年藝術展。一直以來專注文化研究的我,對於藝術的涉略還停留在古典美術的階段。以一般觀眾的身份,在短短的兩日光速掃描代表各國以及被大會策展人選出的當代藝術創作,並為之著迷。當時的我完全沒意料到不久的將來能有機會在這個令全球著迷的藝術盛宴裡工作。
比鄰總督宮與聖馬可廣場,每個在3X3X6工作的日子都因為川流不息的人潮而忙碌得很充實。從荷蘭南下的我以為五月的威尼斯會用盛夏陽光來迎接我,但現實殘酷地以罕見的低溫與陰雨揭開這次的展覽。不過,這樣的天氣與作為監獄前身的普宮相應,搭配著3X3X6展覽營造出昏暗的監視感打燈,彷彿是鄭淑麗刻意安排了這不舒適的情境,更能把觀眾帶入的十部科幻短片裡每個身心被禁錮的囚牢裡。
從預展週的破歷屆臺灣館紀錄高參觀人次,到開展期間每日三五百人的人流,解說的任務從緊張羞澀很快的被接踵的人潮推進到自在又流利地與訪客互動。預展期所見到每個國際知名的藝術家、藝評人、策展人和媒體,使我深深感受到鄭淑麗與Paul B. Preciado的國際影響力。待在接待桌的我迎接貴賓的我收到許多對展覽的讚許,更有長期關注臺灣館的策展人、藝評人如數家珍般和我分享歷屆看過的臺灣館展覽多麼令他們印象深刻。
正式開展後更是自己迎接挑戰的開始,起初擔心觀眾對於入口臉部掃描的隱私權、議題尺度有所疑慮,但實際來訪的觀眾其實對於展覽的高科技感到欽佩,並受展覽的敘事結構引導而接受這樣的展示手法。3X3X6 從聲援伊朗青少女梅德.霍加布里(Maedeh Hojabri)的民眾上傳跳舞影像來引起觀眾好奇,從「跳舞無罪」的普世價值的認同,拓展到在社會裡隱型的性別議題、身體、情慾自主的價值觀。與觀眾介紹與討論的過程,許多人表示這些第一眼非常抽象的短片和裝置藝術,在經由解說後使抽象的藝術展演變成深刻且的社會議題思辨。對於民眾保守的預設是自己的想像,很感動大多數的民眾都樂於討論,家長在聽完解說後更願意帶小孩繼續欣賞展覽、傳遞尊重多元價值的重要性。
鄭淑麗的十段跨龐克科幻短片和民眾討論時,總會有引起共鳴或者讓他們有其他社會事件的投射,觀眾聽完解說後大多可以理解展覽的論述,也對臺灣的政治民主發展表示讚許。有名訪客告訴我3X3X6是她今年最喜歡的展覽,因為每個裝置、展示手法和技術都有存在的必要性與不可取代性的。她說在鄭淑麗的作品中,藝術呈現好似另一種新的溝通方式,跨越現實中的言語限制來和觀眾交流。
在臺灣館的實習所積累的工作經驗,讓我兩個月有很充實的成長與難忘的回憶。無論是在展場中口頭的交流,或者從留言本上的交心,與每位觀眾的一期一會都為展覽留下不一樣的意義,也為彼此留下不同的回憶,。這是我第一次在藝術領域工作,很榮幸這兩個月身為代表臺灣藝術的一份子,也更理解導覽員在現代藝術展覽裡的引導的重要性。以導覽員的身份把握每一個機遇將臺灣和鄭淑麗的藝術作品讓更多人共同欣賞,也將3X3X6的反殖民思辨留在每個訪客的心中與未來。
Reflecting upon the transformation of surveillance techniques since the panopticon to include contemporary 3-D facial recognition, AI, and the Internet, Shu Lea Cheang’s 3x3x6 restages the rooms of the Palazzo delle Prigioni—a Venetian prison from the sixteenth century in operation until 1922—as a high-tech surveillance space. Taking as its starting point the story of libertine writer Giacomo Casanova, imprisoned in the Prigioni in 1755, Cheang has conducted in-depth studies on ten historical and contemporary cases of subjects incarcerated because of gender or sexual dissent, including Marquis de Sade and Michel Foucault, as well as contemporary cases from Taiwan and South Africa. Their fictionalized portraits become part of the exhibition’s system; the title of which refers to today’s standardized architecture of industrial imprisonment: a 3 x 3 square-meter cell constantly monitored by 6 cameras.
Cheang departs from the architecture of the panopticon to construct the central space of the exhibition in Room A: the surveillance tower has been inverted to project the portraits of the ten prisoners and connected up to a newly developed 3-D camera surveillance system, which installed at the entrance of the exhibition scans the visitors’ faces—by electing to enter the exhibition they are accepting to become part of the system and to having their face modified. Here, gender and racial morphing become queer digital strategies to disrupt the tradition of colonial and anthropometric identification techniques, extending from Alphonse Bertillon’s criminological photography of the nineteenth century to today’s facial recognition technologies. Connected to the Internet 3x3x6 allows visitors (both physical and virtual) to send selfies and images to the exhibition system. The visitors are thus inside the total surveillance apparatus. Moving into Rooms B and C of the updated Prigioni, the physical visitors then wander into a maze of monitors that unfold the stories of the ten prisoners across time and space, histories and cultures. Whereas in the eighteenth century Casanova’s libertinage and Sade’s atheist negation of morality were the object of surveillance and discipline, in contemporary technopatriarchal digital conditions, the black man constructed as “rapist,” the HIV-positive homosexual, the transgender person, as well as women constructed as sexual e-hunters and witches are the new subjects beyond the law. Finally, in Room D, visitors are invited to discover the control room and the very operating system of the surveillance apparatus in function.
Hacking digital surveillance technologies and social media, Cheang uses the site of the prison to create a real-time dissident interface that the visitor is invited to join. Involving legal documents, fake news, historical reports, myths and fantasies, as well as the data retrieved from 3-D surveillance cameras and the images uploaded by visitors, the exhibition constructs a collective counter-history of sexuality—where trans-punk- science fiction, queer, and anti-colonial imaginations provide visual and critical frameworks to think through the histories of subjection and resistance—and activates a critical proliferation of poetic and political actions for digital times. A contribution to the digital avant-garde, Cheang’s 3x3x6 equally challenges the aesthetics of Internet global capitalism and the gender, sexual, and race norms that hold up its hidden infrastructure.
普里奇歐尼宮(Palazzo delle Prigioni)是威尼斯從十六世紀起一直使用到1922年的監獄。
鄭淑麗的作品《3x3x6》將其打造為一個高科技監控空間,反思從全景監獄(panopticon),到當代3-D人臉辨識、人工智慧、網際網路等監控技術的變遷。鄭淑麗以1755年被囚禁於總督府的浪子作家賈科莫.卡薩諾瓦(Giacomo
Casanova)的故事為出發點,深入研究了十位歷史上及當代因在性別及性傾向上持有異議而遭囚禁之人的案例,包括薩德侯爵和傅柯,以及臺灣及南非的當代個案。這些人的虛構肖像成了展覽體系的一部分。而此次展覽的標題《3x3x6》有意突顯當今監獄體系的標準化建築結構:由六個攝影機監控的3x3平方公尺牢房。
鄭淑麗以全景監獄為靈感來打造A展覽室:監控塔被反轉用來投射十位囚徒的肖像;並透過展覽入口處安裝的最新3-D攝影監控系統,掃描參觀者的臉部——只要選擇參觀展覽,觀眾即接受成為展覽體系的一部分,與自己的臉被改造。在這裡,性別與種族的轉化成為酷兒數位策略,藉以對殖民及人體測量識別的傳統提出質疑——這類技法從十九世紀阿方索.貝蒂雍(Alphonse Bertillon)發明的犯罪攝影到今天的人臉辨識技術,不一而足。《3x3x6》透過網路連結,讓觀眾(包括現場觀眾和網路觀眾)可以把自拍及其他圖像傳送給展覽體系。由此,觀眾被納入了整體監控體系的內部。接下來觀眾進入升級後的普宮B展室和C展室,在這個螢幕迷宮內,講述著十位跨越時空、跨越歷史文化的囚徒生平。在十八世紀,卡薩諾瓦的浮浪和薩德對道德無神論式的否定都是監控和戒律的對象;而在當代數位化技術父權下,被認定為「性侵犯」的黑人、患有愛滋病的同性戀者、跨性別人士,以及所謂的E女巫,則成為新的法外之徒。最後,在D展室,觀眾被邀請進入控制室,探索正在運作中的監控系統。
鄭淑麗以駭客方式入侵數位監控技術和社交媒體,利用監獄場域創造了一個即時的異議界面,並邀請觀眾參與。這個作品採用了法庭文件、偽新聞、歷史報導、神話想像,以及從3-D監控錄像採集的數據,與觀眾上傳的影像,由此集體創作性的「反歷史」——在這部歷史中,跨龐克(trans-punk)科幻、酷兒,以及反殖民想像提供了視覺與批判的框架,讓我們思考征服與抵抗的歷史。同時,這個展覽批判地激發了數位時代的詩意行動及政治行動。作為對數位前衛藝術的貢獻,鄭淑麗的《3x3x6》挑戰了網際網路全球資本主義的美學標準、以及隱藏在其結構中的性別、性及種族規範。