Lost in Reverie 梦中丽人

October 27, 2022 2022年10月27日

“I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.” –– American artist Man Ray

This philosophy of using a camera to visualize an immaterial essence rather than simply using it as a documentary tool is aptly embodied in the work of film photographer Hu Shaoqi. There’s a clear retro feel to her work—a quality that can be attributed to the graininess and scratched textures of analog film. She prefers the dated medium, finding the high-definition images of modern cameras to feel overly polished, and by extension, fake. There’s an authenticity and immersion that comes with film. “Shooting on analog film helps me to think about what I really want to shoot,” she says. “It’s also incredibly enjoyable to develop the film. The complicated process makes the end result feel even more rewarding.”

Based in Chengdu, Hu’s body of work is populated by fantastical portraits, one layered atop another until recognizable forms become something ethereal and otherworldly. Contrasting neons and vibrant palettes infuse her images with a poetic surrealism, making for frames that sear themselves deep into viewers’ minds.

“与其拍摄一个东西，不如拍摄一个意念。与其拍摄一个意念，不如拍摄一个幻梦。” 以曼雷（Man Ray，法国摄影大师，二十世纪初超现实主义艺术的主力推动者）这句经典语录，来形容成都摄影师胡少琪（Shaoqi Hu）的作品再合适不过。她的肖像摄影作品就像是一场关于身体的梦幻，人物在多重曝光的催化下，达到了灵魂与空间的共颤；又在霓虹灯光线和高饱和度色彩的对比下，把气氛烘托得亲密且浪漫。当这种朦胧的质感让逼真丧失，我们眼里的那个现实被随即弹劾而去，像是猛然在嘴中塞住一块儿糖果，久久不肯化去。

Hu’s work has an organic retro feel to it—a quality that can be attributed to the graininess and scratched textures of her analog film. She’s loved the medium since buying her first film camera in 2018. To her, the high-definition images of modern cameras can easily feel overly polished, and by extension, fake. There’s an unimitable authenticity that comes with shooting on film. “Shooting on analog film helps me to think about what I really want to shoot,” she says. “It’s also incredibly enjoyable to develop the film. The complicated process makes the end result feel even more rewarding.”

The vast majority of artists whom Hu credit as influences are atypical from what you might expect of a photographer. Most are artists from the early twentieth century—a period when surrealism was at the height of its popularity. In addition to Man Ray, Paul Éluard, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, and many others have been tremendously influential towards her creative process.

胡少琪的作品给人一种浓烈的复古感，照片上可以清楚地看到画面的颗粒感、胶卷底片划痕等印记，这很程度上大归功于她所使用的胶卷相机。相比于高清数码相机带来的便捷与快速，胶卷相机对她来说则显得更为沉浸且真诚，她解释道：“我喜欢拍摄胶片的过程，给我更多时间去想我要的是什么，拍完照片洗胶卷也是很享受的过程。因为出片的过程更复杂，让我对结果更期待。”事实上，胡少琪走上摄影这条道路也是因为胶卷相机，那是一次偶然的机会，2018 年当时还在攻读英国文学的她走进一家旧相机店，让她从此与胶卷结缘。

你还会在她的作品中发现很多关于多重曝光、长曝光的运用，这是早期超现实主义摄影被广泛采用的创作方式，也是胶片时代的产物。其原理是在一幅胶片上拍摄几个影像，让一个被摄物体或人在画面中出现多次。对于胡少琪来说，即使当今数码相机依然可以模拟出这种拍摄技术，但总之不如胶卷相机来得自然。

Hu believes that photography should be a means of capturing a person’s emotions and truest inner self. Before shooting, she’ll ask her models to channel a specific feeling and to fully lose themselves into whatever it may be—joy, anger, melancholy, excitement, anticipation, and more. Through their facial expressions and movements, she looks for that emotion should burst from the frame. On certain projects, when she’s in the right emotional state, Hu sometimes even turns the camera onto herself. “I enjoy working and being alone,” she says. “It just make it easier to fully immerse myself into different emotions and mental states.”

胡少琪认为自己的摄影理应是捕捉情绪和内在的手段，在拍摄之前，她通常会让模特进入一种情绪，自然相处，然后再进行拍摄。这样的创作方式，让观众感受到了除了画面之外的更多情绪，进一步加深观众对画面的理解。暧昧的、惆怅的、兴奋的、渴望的……无论是人物的神态、动作还是肢体语言，你都能读得到情绪的存在。当情绪来时，胡少琪自己也会成为作品的主角，她解释道：“我喜欢自己一个人，因为更简单，更容易进入不同的情绪和状态中。”

In French author Andre Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism from 1924, he wrote that surrealism is a product of our subconscious. Surreal art is typically intuition driven, and an exercise of our innermost imagination. This is precisely Hu’s process. “Sometimes when I overthink, I feel I’m insignificant in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “I try not think too much and don’t follow any specific styles or aesthetics, which allows may creativity to flourish.”

在胡少琪喜爱的艺术家中，绝大多数都来自二十世纪初，那个超现实主义开花结果的年代。除了上文提到的曼雷，还有保尔·艾吕雅（Paul Éluard，法国诗人）、萨尔瓦多·达利（Salvador Dalí，西班牙画家）、弗里达·卡罗（Frida Kahlo，墨西哥画家）等等，都给予她很大灵感。

法国作家勃勒东（Andre Breton）曾在 1924 年的《超现实主义宣言》中写道：“超现实主义是人类的一种纯粹的精神无意识活动。”超现实主义作品往往是艺术家在无意识的状态下完成的，是脱离了任何既定的理论和认知，一切建立在个人想象力和潜意识的基础之上。胡少琪的拍摄的过程中同样是一种无意识的状态，大多数拍摄跟着自己的感觉进行，她说道：“有时候想的太多，反而会觉得自己很渺小很孤独。我不会跟着一种特定的风格进行创作，这样更能激发出我的创造力量。”

At times, it may feel difficult to articulate a dream into clear words. In turn, perhaps the most logical method in capturing the feeling of these visions may be through visual means. Hu’s work pieces together these fragmented dreams, stacking them one atop of another until they become something new—a poetic reinterpretation of everyday life. Through her photography, she demonstrates there are when you view life through a new lens, there are plenty of surprises to be discovered. In doing, she’s created an oeuvre that feels incredibly natural, and perhaps most importantly, approachable for even the casual viewer.

梦境，也许很难用语言文字来描述，画面便成为最为直观的表述。这也许是胡少琪弃文从摄的最好解释。而以梦的视角来记录个人所经历的人和事，这本身就是一件十分浪漫的事。当所有这些琐碎的梦幻交织在一起，恰恰成就了平凡中的惊喜。而她的作品也向我们映证，超现实主义也可以不必有太多繁杂、夸张的想象力。胡少琪的梦，做得自然而然、亲近无比。

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Contributor: Pete Zhang

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供稿人: Pete Zhang

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Sex Story 性爱摄影

October 20, 2022 2022年10月20日

It’s no secret that, over the past few decades, Taiwan has become a regional and global leader in promoting gender and sexual diversity. Here, artists and activists routinely push the boundaries of what it means to be human, with all the messy, beautiful, complex attachments and relationships that this entails. While much of the recent movement focus has been on marriage equality and family life, there are a number of artists challenging this narrow purview. Ning Wen, a Taipei-based artist, is someone whose work makes a forceful case that—no less than birth, marriage, and death—sexual relationships and dynamics are important milestones in life worth documenting and celebrating in their own right. His latest Sex Story exhibition dealt with this theme.

Despite the generally open-minded atmosphere of Taipei, this project wasn’t without its hiccups. While his exhibition was entirely legal, Ning Wen ran into at least one complaint that led to him having to make the case for his artistic vision to local police. Still, he’s undeterred—encouraged to have to the chance to showcase his work even in these circumstances to these enforcers of social propriety. Despite the potentially controversial subject matter, though, his work isn’t just about sex itself exactly or the merely pornographic, prurient side of contemporary art. It’s about what happens between real people before, during, and after sexual exploration and encounters. I spoke with him about this ongoing project.

毫无疑问，过去数十年里，台湾就性别和性多样化的话题上，举世瞩目。在这里，艺术家与活动家们站在同一联盟，以美丽的、多彩的、丰富的人际和恋爱关系，不断推动着人类生存意义的边界。尽管近来所举办的运动主要围绕婚姻平等、家庭生活展开，但仍有一部分艺术家尝试持续突破这一狭窄的范畴。居住在台北的艺术家宁文（Ning Wen）正在用自己的作品极力证明：性关系和性别的流动性，是和人类出生、结婚以及死亡同等重要的事情，值得被纪念与庆祝。他最近的“性爱摄影”（Sex Story）便是围绕该主题展开。

而就在台北一片开放的气氛当中，宁文的项目还是遭受阻碍。尽管作品合法展出，他依然收到至少一次投诉，因而不得不反复向警方辩解。他并没有因此退缩，在被动以及社会教条的处境下，他仍旧鼓励自己，只要一有机会就去展出。也许他的作品存在争议，但他的初衷绝不是表面的情色或淫荡，而是让观众关注性本身，以及更多发人思考的话题。其作品内容大多也是关于人在性探索和性接触之前、期间和之后发生的故事。我和他就这个正在进行的项目聊了起来。

Neocha: During our conversation at your exhibition, you talked about how the before and after of sex is something some of your works hoped to highlight: the care of showering together, for instance, or the immediate distancing that occurs after climax. What does it mean, to you, to decenter the “money shot”?

Ning: For photographers, certain moments have their own kind of romantic draw, particularly the pre-shoot and its aftermath. In these moments, it seems, the space and objects themselves become the true subjects of desire.

Before shooting begins, there is simply the serene, empty set, but it is rife with metaphors. Ropes, toilets, body piercing tools, etc. become something like the mosaic blur of an adult film—sensual in their mystery. Meanwhile, the vacated scene after sexhas all kinds of smells, objects, and emotions which linger. Sometimes the most naked relationships and stories between people develop only after the climax.

Although in the mainstream erotic image market, the key shots are almost always the “meat shot” (close-up genital intercourse) and the “money shot” (ejaculation, orgasm shots), to me, the moments that are unique to photographers consist in emotion and fantasy. So, when I shoot these other elements, people are no longer the subject; desire is.

Perhaps the climax shot is like the waves hitting the shore. Full of force, fecund, fleeting, and often attention grabbing. But what fascinates me more is what remains stranded when the tide retreats.

Neocha: 在我们于展览现场的谈话中，你谈到部分作品里，性爱前与性爱后是你想强调的内容。像是一次浴中爱抚的挑逗性暗示，又或是高潮退去后瞬间拉开的距离感。对你而言，这部分作品刻意略过性行为高潮的部分，其背后的意义是什么？

宁文: 有一些特别的时刻，是摄影师眼里独有的浪漫，就比如“开拍之前”与“散场后”。好像在那两个时刻，空间与物件成为了欲望的主角。

摄影之前的场景看似平静，却充满隐喻。绳子、马桶、人体穿刺工具等等，好像被蒙上一层马赛克，变得未知而诱人。而摄影之后的空景，残留了各种气味、物件以及还未散去的情绪。有时候甚至在高潮结束后，才显影出人与人之间最赤裸的关系和故事。

在主流情欲影像市场上，关键镜头几乎都是 “Meat shot”（性器交合特写）与 “Money shot”（射精、高潮镜头）。但那些空景，其实也充满浓烈的幻想色。所以我在拍摄这些另类的关键镜头中，人不再是主体，欲望才是。

也许高潮镜头像是在拍打岸边的浪花，激情、绽放、稍纵即逝，常成为观众目光焦点。但更吸引我的，是当浪潮褪去，当一切搁浅后，留在岸上的是什么？

Neocha: Is it true, then, in your view, that as Foucault once remarked, “Sex is boring”—and that what’s really at stake is what accrues around sex?

Ning: Maybe because I am a person with a low libido, in my life experience, I often feel that sex itself is lifeless, while I am born through various sexual experiences. For example, in the process of participating in handjobs, sex work advocacy, rope binding, BDSM, erotic photography, and workshops designed to help better understand our bodies, I found that these experiences are not only physical pleasures, but, far more so, explorations of the self and taboos.

Sexuality is often seen as the most intimate part of the individual, but it also communicates the most pervasive problems in society. For example, during the more than two years of my Amateur AV Interview project, issues ranged from the individual body to the social body, including childhood sexual abuse and misogyny, the confessions of sex workers and consumers, depression, BDSM, and the role of the virtual. They reveal, say, the world’s two-dimensional eroticism, or the erotic undercurrents of the Hong Kong demonstrations… It turned out that what I was exploring was not about porn or erotica itself, but looking back at life experiences through these.

Neocha: 傅科（Foucault，法国哲学家）曾评论：“性是无趣的”，真正的要紧的并非性本身，而是性爱周围所产生的事物，你认同这样的观点吗？

宁文: 可能因为我是低欲望的人，在生命经验中，我常觉得性是死的，却又在各种性经验中诞生自我。像是“手天使”（NGO Hand Angel，一个台湾的障碍者性权团体）、“性劳推”（T S I W R A，兴产业劳动者权益推动协会）、绳缚、BDSM、性爱摄影、还有一些跟身体对话的工作坊的过程中，发现这些经验不止于身体愉悦，更多是对自我、禁忌的探索。

“性”常被视为是个人最私密的部分，这是现今社会最普遍存在的问题。在我耗时超过两年完成的“素人AV面试”系列中，主题涉及个人身体到社会集体，包含童年性侵和厌女情结、性工作者与顾客的自白、忧郁症、BDSM、虚拟世界的二次元情欲、香港示威游行时的情欲流动……后来才发现，我在探索的不是色情或情色本身，而是透过这些主题，来回述生命的经历罢了。

Neocha: You also spoke of transforming the gallery space into a kind of porn studio, where models and sex workers facilitated the artistic event and process. Can you discuss the reasoning behind this, and what, if anything, surprised you about the outcome?

Ning: From my Sex Story series to Amateur AV Interview series, I tried to develop invisible images, like hushed taboos and confessions. However, the object developed through this solo exhibition is no longer just people but also extends to space. The process is full of surprises and upsets, such as “tea party” urinals, semen landscape paintings, rope binding projections, body writing, human dogs…

In fact, none of these subjectivities were “performers” that I specially arranged, and some of them were originally live audiences. This time around, through participatory art, participants gradually changed the tonality of the space, moved the boundary between the public and private spheres, and allowed for the invisible appearance of the space. I feel that this boundary is like an invisible wall. Desire becomes a kind of material, and space becomes sculpture.

In the beginning, everyone quietly listened to my guidance through all this while viewing my works. The space was still the “exhibition space” in the gallery. Then, someone began to test the boundaries, and the space gradually turned into a basement darkroom, slowly developing an invisible latent image. Finally, each corner has a different erotic practice. Everyone habitually picks up their mobile phones to produce custom erotic images, like a Twitter museum. The space changed from displaying images to producing images, and gradually became a “set.”

Between seeing and being seen, the audience becomes the work; and the segmented images produced become mirrors of this participatory film. Participants move between “consumers” and “producers,” and at the same time shuffle between the identities of director, photographer, interviewee, and viewer, reconstructing relationships such as bodily boundaries, sex/gender, and imaginal power.

What surprised me the most was that in the last week of the exhibition, even the police joined in as part of the participatory creation! After public power intervenes in eroticism, it lays bear a process of extracting “sex” from taboo, release, and suppression. I began to extend my thinking: Is the real danger the sex or the violation of the freedom of others? How does power exercise the reality of repression in the name of morality? How did porn become taboo? Sexual taboos in relation to history, culture, politics, religion, imperialist expansion… Many norms that are taken for granted, the more you understand the context behind them, the more surprising they became. At the end, I held a farewell ceremony for the exhibition.

Neocha: 你也提到，将画廊空间改造成色情片片场，以模特和性工作者的行为，激发出艺术事件和经过。是否可以稍微叙述一下这背后的理念？以及这个程中，最让你感到惊喜的事。

宁文: 从“性爱摄影”系列到“素人AV面试”系列，我试着去构建一种不可见的影像，像是社会的禁忌、个人的独白这种平日难以流露于表面的内容。对象不再只是“人”，而是扩展到“空间”。过程充满许多惊喜与不安，比如以尿液代替茶水的激斗、精液山水画、绳缚投影、人体签名本、人形犬等等。

当中其实没有一个人是我特地安排的“表演者”，有些人原本就是现场观众。这次透过参与式艺术，让参与者慢慢改变这个空间的调性，去质疑私密、公共空间的界限，显影空间不可见的样貌。我觉得这条界线像是一面隐形的墙壁，欲望是创作的原材料，而空间则成为雕塑。

刚开始，像所有展览一样，我向观众导览，观众静静聆听、观赏，展览空间也还是原样。紧接着，开始有人试探界线，空间渐变成地下室暗房，缓缓呈现出一些隐形的图像。之后，每个角落进行不同的情欲实践。大家习惯性的拿起手机生产自定义的情欲影像，像是座推特博物馆。空间从展示影像转为生产影像，逐渐成为所谓的“片场”。

在看与被看之间，观众成为作品；而生产的片段影像，成为这一部参与式影片的分镜。参与者在“消费者”与“生产者”之间摇摆，同时也切换着导演、摄影师、被摄者、观者的身份，重新建构身体界线、性、性别、影像权力等关系。

最让我感到意外的，是展览最后一周连警察也参与进来，成为这创作的一部分。当公权力介入情欲后，“性”会呈现出从禁忌到释放，再到压制的过程。我开始延伸思考：真正危险的是性还是对他人自由的侵害？权力如何以道德之名行压制？色情如何成为禁忌？性禁忌与历史、文化、政治、宗教、帝国主义扩张的关系……许多被视为理所当然的规范，越深入了解背后的脉络，越让人惊喜。最后为了纪念这次展出，我专门还举办了一场告别仪式。

Neocha: In your work, you talk about the mysterious absence of sex photography relative to, say, marriage or funeral photography. And yet, you then bring this work, unlike most of those photographers, into a museum space. All this suggests a kind of re-contextualization of the space itself, in contrast to traditional gallery and museum models. Can you say a bit more about this?

Ning: Almost everyone can produce images these days, but many still turn to professional photographers to record important moments in their lives. It seems that photography is not just about producing images, but professional photography as a kind of ritual, written into the experience along with important moments of life.

However, these rituals have become taboo when it comes to “sex.” So, I created a “sex photographer” profession, releasing a series of virtual interviews, websites, exhibitions, and so on, using the approaches of “professional photography” as a concept and mode of artistic collection.

This program is not limited to sexual orientation, gender, or body, and includes all kinds of desires: vanilla sex, foot fetishes, rope bondage, human urinals, BDSM, wild nudes, fetish… I photograph all these desires, good and bad, as taxonimized by Gayle S. Rubin’s sexual class system, as if it were a scale of highs and lows, forming a movement of desire. However, these notes are not fixed, and different desires may switch classes depending on temporal and spatial backgrounds, becoming an ever-changing organic process.

Although the identity of “sex photographer” was born from the art space, I hope this persona is not only an artistic project, but also someone who participates in society in more diverse manners. In fact, I am very grateful to the participants who authorized the exhibition for honestly revealing the diversity of desires. The whole process felt confessional; some approached psychological counseling; some felt it was a social movement, possibility.

Neocha: 你提到过，相对于平时受聘于婚礼或葬礼的摄影师，性爱摄影在生活中却是空缺。但与此同时，你在画廊中进行的创作，与广义的摄影工作有别。这个过程中，你似乎将传统艺术空间重新构架。对此，能多聊聊你的想法吗？

宁文: 现在，几乎每个人都能生产影像，但在生命中的重要时刻，许多人还是会找专业摄影师来记录。好像摄影不只为了生产影像，而是将专业摄影作为某种仪式，与生命中的重要时刻一同载入记录。

然而这些仪式，却在触及“性”时成为禁忌。所以我构思了“性爱摄影师”这个职业身份，创作了一系列拟设专访、网站、展览等。并从“专业拍摄”的角度，让创作传递一种观念、甚至作为艺术品收藏。

该系列不限性向、性别、身体，包含各种欲望的表达形式：香草型性爱（vanilla sex）、恋足、绳缚、人形小便斗、BDSM、野裸、恋物等等。我拍摄关于鲁宾（Gayle S. Rubin，美国人类学、女性学教授）所提及的性阶级制度中好与坏的欲望，好像是高高低低的音阶，共谱成一首关于欲望的乐章。然而这些音符并不固定，不同欲望会在不同时空背景下切换阶级，成为一个不断变动的有机状态。

“性爱摄影师 ”这个身份虽然是从艺术空间中诞生，但我希望其不仅仅是个艺术项目，还会以更多元的形式影响社会。其实很感谢授权参展的被摄者们，诚实揭露欲望的多样性，整个过程有人觉得像自我的坦述、有人觉得像是一场心理咨询、有人觉得是社会运动。而我也正持续探索画廊、美术馆等空间的更多可能。

Neocha: Much of your work really flies in the face of a kind of traditional, static, one-sided viewing experience. In particular, your decision to upload whatever unfolds in the gallery on your website suggests a kind of inchoate, ongoing, and processual approach to work. How do you see your role as artist: facilitator, collaborator, mediator, voyeur, or something else?

Ning: My role in this work is not fixed but fluid, like the rest of the audience. Together, we switch between multiple identities, such as director, photographer, and viewer, in our works. And I am like a viewer who has been there for the longest time, seeing the work evolving from nothing at all and slowly growing into an individual with a very different personality from me, and then dying unexpectedly. Finally, at the farewell ceremony, I took a photo of the exhibition.

Neocha: 你的许多作品有违于传统、静态或个人的观看体验。将艺术空间里发生的事上传至网络，你的作品似乎带着渐进、持续、过程性的创作方向。你怎么看待自己作为艺术家的角色，是促进者、调解者、合作者、偷窥者还是其他角色？

宁文: 我在这次作品中的角色不是固定的，而是跟其他观众一样，身份不断流动。我们一同在作品中切换导演、摄影师、观者等多重身份。而我，则像是一个展内呆最久的观众。这些作品像是有血有肉，从无到有，慢慢成长，直到生命戛然而止。我也在告别式上，替这次展览拍下了遗照。

Neocha: In some of your works, including the VR piece, you interviewed anonymous porn amateurs about their experiences. Can you speak a little about anonymity and how this freed some of your interviewees?

Ning: I think sex can be public art or it can be a private collection. In the Amateur AV Interview project, I opened up to the participants the choice of freely choosing anonymity, vocal change, and revealing what’s beneath the mosaic blur. The focus of this work is not to deal with sexual desire, but to use the form of a fake interview to construct an imaginary that transcends the framework of one’s own identity, body, and gender.

The participants in Amateur AV Interview are not adult film actors, but “amateurs” who live within taboos. In fact, in these short three years, I can feel the movement within certain forbidden boundaries. But no matter how the taboo moves, there are always unpopular stories. This reminds me of the fables and mythology that Walter Benjamin mentioned in The Storyteller. Those AV fantasies and taboo stories under the table, although there are often marginal and taboo in various cultures, can more honestly reflect the collective subconscious of an entire generation.

In VR, I create an inner space that allows interviewees to express themselves and feel at ease with their “nakedness” through the “reversed panoramic mosaic”; at the same time, I also allow the off-screen audience to re-examine themselves and their voyeuristic “nudity.” In addition to being visually mosaic, narrative is also mosaic. The stories of everyone in the work are cut up and reassembled, like threads of different textures now spun into a new web. The viewer can see the outline of the story of the overall era, but cannot peep into the privacy of the individuals concerned.

A interviewee once told me that he was both worried and excited during an interview. While worried about the secrets being disclosed, he is excited about confessing his story. There were even other interviewees who brought friends to watch the VR, but these friends didn’t know that the pixelated person was him. It seems that mosaic blur has become a thin veil for the viewer and an interviewee through which they can play with taboos. If it’s too much or too little, it will lose its beauty.

Neocha: 在你的一些作品中（这当中也包含你的 VR 作品），你有采访了那些参与情色表演的匿名素人关于这次体验的看法。能否粗浅地为我们介绍这些匿名者吗，以及他们是如何从这次展览中得到释放的？

宁文: 我觉得性爱可以是公共艺术，也可以是私人收藏。在“素人AV面试 ”系列中，我让参与者选择开放，可以自由选择匿名、变声、选择需要反转马赛克的部位等等。作品的重点不在于安放性欲，而是以“虚拟采访”的形式，建构出超越自己身份、身体、性别等框架的想象。

“素人AV面试”系列的参与者并非 AV 演员，而是生活在禁忌之内的普通人。其实在这短短三年间，我就可以感受到禁忌界线的移动。但无论禁忌如何移动，依然有些“不入流”的故事发生。让我想起瓦尔特·本雅明（Walter Benjamin，德国思想家、哲学家）在《说故事的人》中提到的寓言、民间传说。那些台面下的 AV 幻想与禁忌故事，虽时常存在各个文化边缘、禁忌之处，却更能诚实地反映了时代的集体潜意识。

在 VR 中，我通过“反转全景马赛克”，创造出一个自我、内在的“赤裸”空间；同时，让画外观众重新审视自身窥淫“裸体”（Nudity）的欲望。而除了视觉上被马赛克，叙事也同样被马赛克。作品中每个人的故事都被剪碎重新拼贴，像是一条条不同质地的线，交织成一整张全新的网。观者看得见时代下的故事轮廓，却无法窥视其中个体的隐私。

曾经有受试者跟我说，他在采访时感到既担心又兴奋。一边担心秘密被发现，一边兴奋于马赛克下的自我坦述。甚至有其他表演者会带朋友来观看 VR，但朋友并不知道马赛克下的人就是他。好像“马赛克”成为观者与受试者共同玩弄禁忌的一层薄膜，太多或太少都将失去美感。

Neocha: Who are some of your own influences and inspirations? How do you view your own projects vis-à-vis the wider artistic and cultural context in which you work?

Ning: If the “dying self” is a person, he is the most influential. Often when I make seemingly absurd decisions in my life, I think back to my former self and ask for his opinion. Because in the face of death, all obstacles will become small, and the choice becomes clear.

Besides, I think amateurs, actors, conservatives, police, family, people who have hurt me, and people who have loved me, they are all my inspirations.

Currently I feel like I’m in an ambiguous, fluid, and uncertain stage of exploration. I try to chart a new path between contemporary art and erotic film and television. For example, some works may be suitable for the artistic space, and some works are better suited for pornographic film festival in various countries.

Neocha: 哪些人是你的灵感来源，并对你产生过影响？在更为宽泛的艺术与文化语境下，你是如何看待自己作品的？

宁文: 如果人在“临死前的本体”也算是一个人的话，他是最具影响力的。我常常在做一些人生中看似荒谬的决定时，会回想起曾经面临死亡时的自己，并询问他意见。因为在死亡面前，所有的阻碍会变得渺小，而选择变得清晰。

除此之外，我觉得素人、演员、保守派民众、警察、家人、曾伤害我的人、爱过我的人，都是我的灵感来源。

目前我喜欢暧昧、流动、不明确的探索阶段。我试着在当代艺术跟情欲影像之间创作，找寻新的路径。像是有些作品可能适合被拿到艺术空间去，有些作品则适合流放在各国的情色电影艺术节上。

Neocha: Finally, where do you see your work going from here? What do you hope to explore going forward?

Ning: At this stage, Sex Story and Amateur AV Interview are just a starting point. No matter what form it eventually takes, I think I will continue to execute these until I die. It took longer to develop the parts I can’t see yet. In the end, it is no longer that I take ownership of the works worth exploring, but rather let the works lead me to explore. Through porn and erotica, in addition to exploring something external to yourself, you also delve more deeply into yourself.

Neocha: 最后，你认为未来你的作品会是怎样的？还有哪些是你想要去探索的？

宁文: 现阶段的“性爱摄影师”和“素人AV面试”系列只是起点，无论最终演变成什么形式，我想我会一直执行到死。这样，才能在更长时间中，表达出我现在还未曾触及的部分。最后不再是我通过作品去探索什么，而是让作品带我去探索。色情、情色，不只是向外的探索，更是向内挖掘自己。

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Website: www.ningwen.art

Contributor: Brandon Kemp
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们的微博与微信。

网站: www.ningwen.art

供稿人: Brandon Kemp
英译中: Olivia Li

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Neighborhood Watch 记忆迷宫

October 18, 2022 2022年10月18日

What makes a neighborhood? Is it the people? The buildings? The streets? Korean artist Heo Hyeon-sook would argue that it’s all of the above. However, in her work, she focuses on the built environment as the representation of the human lives that inhabit it. Everyday details of an old home that we may overlook—such as household items, patches of gardens, and visible renovations—are records of the people who lived there and their existence can stretch back generations. “I refuse to see these things as old and obsolete; Iconsider them to be a wonderful archive containing unique stories and history of people from the past,” she argues.

街坊由什么构成？人、建筑、还是街道环境？在韩国艺术家许贤淑（Heo Hyeon-sook）看来，所有这些加起来共同构成了街坊的概念。她的作品将韩国街坊细致描绘，那里有低矮的平房、植被还有住过痕迹。瓦砾之间，处处是生活的点滴，后院摆放的坛坛罐罐、空调室外机、商店招牌，等等这些生活中看似不起眼的老旧细节，都埋藏在她的绘画里。“我不认为这些元素陈旧或只停留在过去式。在我看来，它们是生活的档案，讲述事物、人还有历史，”她说。

Her illustrations have a surreal feel to them, with buildings teetering in unrealistic ways and climbing up vertical slopes. Walls unfold like paper notes, crowding out any walking space. The areas Heo depicts are actually built into steep hills and the eagles-eye perspective are based on her own observations of city life, but she also uses her artistic license to include more information than our eyes or a camera could capture, such as splaying open a building to show all four walls and the roof all at once. “I don’t want to make a one-dimensional reproduction,” she says. “Instead, I express multi-faceted stories within a single artwork. There are so many stories contained in traces, features and functions of a single house, and my artwork contains all of them at once.”

许贤淑的作品看起来并不真实，建筑物像童话故事里的插图一样，给人一种摇摇欲坠的不规则感。建筑的屋顶、墙壁严丝合缝地粘连在一起，拥挤到完全没有行走的余地，就连后花园里也摆满了物品。

她笔下的街坊小巷，位于陡峭的山丘之上。在她的作品中，垂直与俯瞰视角处于同一平面，她希望通过多重视角，将街的多维度展示在同一平面上，建筑与周遭都被平摊呈现，这是相机和肉眼都无法完成的效果。许贤淑解释说：“我不想单一维度的创作。相反，我想在一件作品中表达多方面故事。一栋房子，从外观、用途到岁月的痕迹，如此丰富的信息量，我希望我的作品同样可以呈现。”

Heo zeros in on communal lives across Seoul, recreating neighborhoods gone or disappearing with pencil on beige Korean bark paper. It looks archival due to the traditional mediums and style, helping cement the recent past and the precarious present in our collective memory. Her work presents scenes of unimaginably dense, low-rise cityscapes in the style of traditional Korean landscape painting to record real and inferred histories at risk of being forgotten forever. Her style commits them to the past, overtly claiming them as historical, but keeps them alive with energy and passion.

许贤淑平时关注首尔公共生活，她喜欢把那些老街用铅笔画在树皮纸上。这让她的作品看似一部城市历史档案，引起观众对于过去和现在之间的思考，加深人们的集体记忆。绘画方式上，她选择韩国传统山水画风格，尝试与过去进行联系，并融入自己对画面的理解，为作品注入活力和创意，赋予其生命力。

Features of landscape painting, like the characteristic dark mountains and rivers that frame the edges and slide through a scene, are common in Heo’s metaphorical cities. Rivers and identical thoroughfares serve as a gathering space where people can unwind and socialize or shop. The river of her childhood was a place to do laundry and then became a communal park. “The works that I create are inspired by my town, and the river and the road are depicted as an ever-present existence,” she explains. They’re core features. Whereas European and American-designed cities feature large central squares, Korean cities revolved around and grew out of these rivers.

正如上述所说，一些中山水画经典元素频频出现在她的作品当中——譬如以深色勾勒的河流，它们偶尔位于画面的边缘，或是蜿蜒于城镇之间。在她童年的记忆里，河边最早是附近居民们洗晾衣服的地方，后来才逐渐演变成公园。“作品的灵感来自于我的家乡，那里的生活围绕河流展开，”她回忆道。在欧美国家，城市的设计以大型的中央广场为特色，而在一些国家，城市往往依水而建。

When Heo was just 9 years old, her family of three generations was unceremoniously and forcibly removed from their home, and they had to move a few times after that before finally settling again. She remembers those early years wistfully, surrounded by loving grandparents, caring neighbors, and parents’ friendly coworkers. When her grandparents passed, she realized there were no photographs or documents from her days with them. So she set out to recreate them through art based on memories and imagination.

“I wanted to leave meaningful recordings of my grandparents’ essence with detailed and painstaking reconstructions of their everyday life,” she says. “But I use the spaces they inhabited, rather than realistic portraits.”

As such, her early works are directly inspired by her childhood: The basement level house she was born in, the schoolyard slide she played on and the street market where her father was a vendor.

许贤淑九岁时，一家三代人被迫离开家园，在经历数次搬家之后，最后才安顿下来。这些年恍惚的回忆中，慈爱的祖父母、热情的街坊邻居，都久久不能忘怀。当时过境迁，亲人朋友纷纷离去，许贤淑才意识到，并没有信物或是照片，来留住这份情意。凭借记忆和想象力，她决定以艺术来重建美好过去。

“想要把关于祖父母的一部分记忆表现出来，重现过去生活的样子，”她说道，“不是通过肖像，而是生活的真实写照，这样更温馨一点。”

她早期的作品正是基于她童年经历而创作完成的，包括她出生时住的类似电影《寄生虫》里刻画的地下公寓、学校里玩过的滑梯以及父亲曾经常摆摊的街市。她将自己去过的地方，交往过的邻居、亲戚和友人，纷纷反映在创作当中。

Relying on memories can be a tricky thing and her affection is colored by nostalgia. When you look at Heo’s drawings, the dilapidated buildings and tight alleyways don’t look pleasant. But to her, it was a wonderland of joy, an endless maze of paradise and adventure. The one building still standing from the neighborhood of her youth—located across the street from her current studio—is her old school, which she says felt gigantic but is actually quite small. The playground is now a vacant lot.

“I may have lived in a tiny and not-so-pleasant house with an outdoor bathroom. I may have lived in an alley too narrow for cars to fit through. Yet the mental space that represents my childhood is constructed with fond of memories of my youth,” Heo reasons. “But I feel sorry for having the best childhood imaginable when for my parents it was the absolute worst. The home of my childhood is an edited version of reality; a compilation of the best-of.”

The neighborhood and those who inhabit it were Heo’s extended family. She says her parents were always busy at the factory, and so the woman living above her, the lady living behind her, and the storeowners next door took care of her. “Back then the whole town was involved in raising the kids. The love that everyone in the neighborhood showered me with remains deep in my heart.”

但有时记忆并不确信，记忆也会因怀念而多出一层滤镜。观看许贤淑的画作，破旧建筑和狭窄街巷看起来并不那么赏心悦目，但对她来说，这里是充满乐趣的花园，是回味无穷、充满冒险的记忆迷宫。她如今的工作室，正对儿时生活区域里的一座学校。小时候，她总觉得学校很大，但现在看来学校其实很小，学校操场如今也已变成一块空地。

“以前的房子很小，住着不舒服，连浴室都是露天的。记得那会儿巷子很窄，有的连汽车都无法通行。但每当回忆起来，却倍感开心，”许贤淑说，“但对于父母来说，那却是一段非常艰难的经历，每次回想起来又觉得过意不去。童年对于我来说，经过了情感上的编辑，只保留了美好的部分。”

街坊居民对于许贤淑来说就跟家人一样。她回忆起那时父母忙于工厂的工作，因此自己总睡在邻居家里。“那个年代，镇上所有人都会相互帮忙照看孩子。他们的关怀让我今生难忘。”

Part of the reason there are no records of those days is because cameras were not widely available in 1980s Korea. “People were focused on survival,” Heo says. “It’s up to our generation, which grew up carefree and in prosperity to record them.” But it’s also because history is written by the victors. “The history of society is really the history of a regime.”

Historic artifacts are remnants of what was enjoyed only by a select few and are not representative of the wider reality. Her childhood neighborhood was clearly not worthy of recording, but she made sure to correct that glaring oversight.

To keep it from happening to others, Heo has expanded her work to include the neighborhoods of others that are threatened by or have fallen victim to similarly rampant development. She explores the city and pours over historical documents for inspiration. The city portraits of her more recent work represent a social phenomena rather than depicting her own life, but they’re still heavily influenced by her childhood experience: “People’s hard work without self-preservation laid a foundation for progress, and they should be remembered and celebrated.”

80 年代的韩国，并不是每家都有相机，“那个年代，人们一心只想着努力生存。这让我们这一代人肩负一种责任，对于我来说，责任便是记录过去。而那些广为流传的历史，通常是关于某某人的丰功伟业，社会的历史实际上是权力的历史，平凡人的历史却查无踪迹。”

历史文物不过是曾被少数精英所拥有的物品，并不能代表民众百姓。也并不是逛逛博物馆，就能了解一座城市的过去。而童年记忆里的街坊显然没有任何人来记录，她愿意用自己的作品来改变人们对于历史的观念。

为了“留住”更多地方的记忆，许贤淑扩大了她的创作范围，包括更多逐渐被城市现代化吞噬的街坊。她四处探索这座城市，翻阅历史文献来寻找灵感。她的作品也不再仅仅关于自己，而是关于整个社会。但童年的那段经历，仍对她启发最大，许贤淑说：“每一个人，都是社会默默无闻的贡献者，是城市进步的积淀，每一个人，都值得被铭记和赞颂。”

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Instagram: @heohyeonsookart

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

Instagram: @heohyeonsookart

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Eccentric Panels “救火”与“就餐”之间的奇妙连接

October 13, 2022 2022年10月13日

Monsters assembled from the severed limbs of its victims, humans riding flying cats, and planet-eating entities. These are the types of characters that inhabit the mind of Taiwanese comic artist Huang Liang-Chun, better known by his alias Karmarket. He’s an artist unafraid to explore the deep recesses of his mind, those dark corners of horror we usually strive to avoid. But he consciously gives his stories emotional breadth and meaningful depth. It’s also frequently infused with his own signature brand of humor.

残臂断足、飞猫坐骑、舔舐星球的庞然巨物——这些猎奇元素均来自台湾漫画家 Huang Liang-Chun（又名 Karmarket，藥島）的内心深处。对此，他毫不避讳，直面那些人们避之不及的黑暗角落。与此同时，他的作品丝毫不缺乏内容的深度与宽度，很多时候还会以意想不到的幽默感公示于众。

"I see a spark."
"There's a burning smell."
"I can feel the heat."

"Let's go help!"

Huang writes and draws all his comics, drawing inspiration from dreams and daydreams alike. His first comic, “Somewhere On Fire,” was inspired by photos he took of local street food vendors. It started as three standalone illustrations, but due to the inspiration of a surreal Japanese manga, he developed a full comic out of the scenes. It became an outlandish story about a man who sees smoke in the distance and jumps onto a flying cat to go to the rescue, only to discover the smoke is actually just steam from a restaurant. So instead, he just sits down and orders food.

“It doesn’t really have a clear plot or make much sense,” Huang laughs.” “I wanted to draw people eating street food and it grew into this.” At the end of the comic, news of a real fire is broadcast on television and the hero looks on, depressed. It’s a helplessness that mirrors Huang’s own feelings when watching the news.

从故事到绘画，所有创作均由藥島一人包揽。梦境、胡思乱想是他的灵感来源。他的第一部漫画《某处起火了》，其灵感来自当地小吃摊贩。漫画起初仅由三幅独立插图构成，后来在受到一部日本超现实漫画启发后，他决定将这个离奇的故事讲述完整：一个男人感受到不远的烧焦味，决然跳上飞猫前去救援，结果发现眼前的浓烟不过是餐厅里冒出的蒸汽，于是他竟索性坐下来点餐。

“这部漫画其实没有明确的情节，也没有特别的意义，” 藥島笑着说道，“只是想画一些在路边摊吃饭的人，画着画着没想到却画出故事感来。”漫画结尾，电视上播出真正的火灾新闻，看到新闻后，男人痛哭流涕、一副郁闷的表情。而这种无助感也是藥島自己在看到这类新闻时的内心独白。

"Heat..."
"I'm here to help!"

"Ah!"

"Interrupting your broadcast for breaking news."

"Snap crackle whooosh"

Since that first comic, Huang has completed two others. All are drawn in the same style, strictly black and white with an almost pointillist shading technique. “I’m a little color blind and my college professor told me my color sense is terrible,” he chuckles. “I was using a brush tip pen in high school, then used a fine tip, and when I switched to digital I continued the style.”

第一部漫画之后，藥島又完成了另外两部作品。所有作品遵循一致的绘画风格，只有黑白两色，并采用了类似的点绘手法。“我有点色盲，我的大学教授说我对颜色的感觉糟糕透了，”他笑着说，“我在高中时用的是软头笔，后来又改用细头笔，后来又运用数字创作，一直延续着这种风格。”

"I've always wanted to leave earth."

"It's because I'm tired of seeing ghosts. Yup. I can see them all."
"They're everywhere. It's revolting."

"A decade plus later, my dream came true."
"I thought I could escape these entities in space and find my peace."
"I was mistaken. Wrong to a shocking degree."

"You're clear to dock. Docking successful. "
“Mir spacecraft MS01 has docked at 8.20pm. Welcome aboard."
"Finally making it to space..."

“Ghosts From Outer Space” drills deeper into feelings of despair and horror. In one panel, a giant, blob-like monster growing out of the Earth with tentacles that eat up ghosts in space. Circular orbs glom onto each other, creating the shape of growing tendrils the stretch into the exosphere, which is packed with the white silhouettes of ghosts floating aimlessly in orbit. This illustration was the comic’s initial inspiration. Huang had drawn it for fun and decided to expand it into a full story afterward. “I was having trouble explaining to people what the drawing was about, so I created a whole story to back it up.”

作品《宇宙的幽灵》表达了绝望与恐惧的深层感受。其灵感最初来自一张克苏鲁意味的概念作品：一个由数个球状体组成的怪物从地表冒出。球状体相互粘连，生长出漫无边界的触手，伸向外大气层外，那里漂浮无数个白色幽灵。藥島出于好玩画下了这幅作品，之后决定将其扩展成一个完整的故事。

"I saw millions of apparitions. They all had a faint white glow. Their numbers were so vast that I couldn't tell whether it was starlight or more of them in the distance."

“I think that when our physical bodies die, our spirits become untethered and float off into space."
"I supposed this is what people call heaven."
"Mom left and went to heaven."
"Yup. Heaven is right above us, so if you miss her, just look up..."

"...and you'll see her."
"Mom? What are you doing here!"
"Mom!"
"Why did you leave me by myself?"

"Why haven't you come see me?"
"Growing up, I saw so many spirits, but I never saw you. I miss you so much."
"At that moment, from the abyss of the galaxy, something crawled out of the darkness."

It’s the story of a woman who’s been haunted by spirits her whole life—their mangled, tortured bodies present at every waking moment. She joins NASA to escape from it all, hoping the vacuum of space will offer peace and quiet. Instead, she finds the entire history of human kind on Earth in orbit, including her mother. Then the blob grows into space eating the ghosts, mom and all. Her fellow astronauts can’t see the ghosts and think she’s gone insane, so they send her back to Earth, where babies start being born dead without souls.

故事讲述了一位生来被鬼魂缠身的女子，只要她睁开双眼，就能看到亡灵那残缺不全、饱受折磨的身体。为了逃避这一切，她加入 NASA，希望在宇宙里能重新找回生活的平静。然而事与愿违，在宇宙里，她却看到地球上死去的人类，化作幽灵漂浮在太空。她看到球状怪物将触手伸向这些这些亡灵，那其中有她曾去世的母亲。其他宇航员观察女人的一举一动，断定她是疯了，并将其送回地球。从那之后，地球上发生了怪事：只要是婴儿，一出生便消失的无影无踪。

"Mom!! Run!"
"Maybe it's because of earth's gravity, or interference from the planet's atmosphere, I've never seen anything like this. But in space... it's clear as day."
"What is it?..."
"What does it want? Why is it devouring human souls? Where did it come from? I had no answers."

"A week later, it came for human souls on earth. It was a massacre, of which I was the only witness. Billions of souls were eaten."
"My crew mates became worried about me. We trained together and underwent pre-flight therapy together, why was I the only one so out of it? I don't blame them. They're lucky that they don't see what I see."
"In the end, command sent me back down to earth. And you know the rest."

"This is your explanation? And we're supposed to believe it?"
"It doesn't matter what you believe. I'm not going back."
"In recent days, an unexplained disease has seemingly spread around the world that's affecting all newborns."
"They're seemingly without conscious. They don't cry or move. It's like they have no souls. There's no medical explanation."

"I miss mom... and even all the other spirits."

For “Phantom Limb,” Liang-Chun wanted to draw a full-fledged horror story. Although it’s pretty gruesome, full of blood and guts, it’s also about coming to terms with trauma. A man who’s been hospitalized with a lost limb after a car accident sees visions of monsters made from other people’s body parts. In the hero’s dream, he feels the soft and tender wet grass on his missing foot and wakes up happy. Originally, Liang-Chun just wanted to draw a bunch of hacked off limbs but added the deeper themes after getting that part out of his system.

接下来的这部《幻肢》漫画则充满血腥和重口味元素，同时探讨了创伤应对的话题。医院里，一名因车祸失去右脚的男子瘫倒在病床上，脑海中，他看到一只由残肢断臂拼成的怪物。幻觉的同时，他缺失那只脚却真实感受到了潮湿柔软的草地的触感，这让他欣喜不已。这部作品的雏形，来自藥島在稿纸上乱画的残肢，后来在不断完善的过程中，增加了整部作品的深度和情感。

The cover page for "Phantom Limb."

"I dreamt that my severed leg was deep in the forest, rotting away."
"But it wasn't just my foot."

All of Huang’s comics are available on the Creative Comic Collection website, a government-sponsored comics portal. He printed a couple of them before working with CCC, but readers will have to wait for the rest to be published. He says they’ve approved ten stories, which he expects to be published in about a year. “The government pays me to draw,” he smiles. “I won’t be rich or anything but I get paid to draw what I want.”

现在，藥島的所有漫画都可以在 Creative Comic Collection 网站上找到，这是一个当地政府赞助的漫画网站。其中一部分漫画现已印刷出版，还有些作品将很快已纸质形式和读者见面。他表示，其中十个故事已经通过审批，预计将在一年左右出版。他笑着说道：“政府出钱让我画画。虽然我不会因此变得富有，但我可以靠画自己想画的作品获得报酬。”

"Like my foot, countless other limbs were also there, appendages that had no place to return to. All of their woes, hate, and pain binding them together."

"By way of lighting, we were given power and life."

"And I could walk again."
"The grass cut into my soles, and the soft mud with the mushy leaves felt wet and soft."

"That sensation brings me back."
"It felt as if I were a kid again, running through the backyard. No direction and no destination—just freedom."

Huang’s work delves into dark themes, with gore and destruction always a page away. Even when it’s just a scene of restaurant patrons enjoying tasty noodles, it looks ghastly and dangerous. Massive spreads of ghouls and blazing fires are regular. They’re fantastical stories, happy to explore unreal worlds with flying creatures and blurred lines between the living and the dead. But he always strives to bring a human element to his tales, something that speaks truth to our souls. His characters deal with trauma, whether that be the death of a loved one or a life-changing accident. Some find peace and others don’t, much like the real world. It’s a balance that lets readers escape but also keeps them thinking.

藥島的作品以一种意想不到的方式探讨黑暗主题。即使只是顾客在餐厅享用美味面条的场景，也可以看起来格外可怖和危险，巨型的食尸鬼和熊熊燃烧的大火更是时常可见。这些异想天开的故事探索着生与死的界限。与此同时，他总是努力在作品中加入对人性的探讨，一些能与我们的灵魂产生共鸣的故事：从亲人离世到改变人生的事故，他笔下的角色遭受了各种创伤。有的人重拾了内心的宁静，有的人却没有，这就正如现实世界一样。这种平衡一方面为读者提供了逃离现实的空间，同时又能启发他们思考现实与想象的冲突。

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Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

Instagram: @karmarket

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Meantime 与此同时

October 11, 2022 2022年10月11日

Issue 2 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第二期“鬼故事”

Pang Xue Qiang wanted to create a passion project before graduating from university and starting his full-time job. He pitched this vague idea to his friends—who were studying journalism, design, and photography—and they were immediately all on board. Considering their shared interest in print media, Qiang suggested, “why not a zine?”

It was imagined as a one-off project where they would write the stories themselves, design the layout, and scout for distributors to sell their zine. They met their goals, but it didn’t quite end up as a one-off issue. Two years and three issues later, Meantime Magazine continues to document Singapore stories lost to time.

早在大学毕业开始工作之前，Pang Xue Qiang 便希望做一个纯粹出于热爱的项目。他把想法告诉新闻、设计和摄影专业朋友，所有人当下一拍即合，决定 “做一本杂志！”

起初，团队仅把这本杂志当作一次“快闪”性质的项目，其内容全部由他们自己编写、排版并找分销商兜售。然而，在完成第一本杂志的制作后，他们却并未停下脚步，并在接下来的两年内发行三期。现在，《与此同时》（Meantime）杂志仍在继续，记录着新加坡那些迷失在岁月里的故事。

Issue 2 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第二期“鬼故事”

Now an annual publication, Meantime Magazine publishes interviews of Singapore locals who are open to sharing their past, traumatic and joyful times included. Qiang sees the magazine as an archivist, documenting memories of Singapore by focusing on personal stories. He says that whenever the editorial team approaches the interviewees, they are often surprised and ask them why the team is even interested in what they have to tell.

“They don’t see themselves as the protagonists,” Qiang says. “Nobody has given them the time and platform to voice their stories. If Meantime doesn’t exist, we feel that people will just go on with their lives and let these stories disappear because nobody will pay attention to them anymore.” Qiang hopes that decades down the road, people can rediscover Meantime —pick up a copy somehow in a library, someone’s home, or at a vintage magazine shop—and reminisce about what Singapore was like in the past.

《Meantime》是一本年刊杂志。杂志的报道对象都是新加坡当地人，讲述他们过去里喜怒哀乐的故事。Pang Xue Qiang 将这本杂志视为一份档案，透过个体的故事，记述新加坡的历史。他说，每当编辑团队联系受访者时，对方往往都会很意外，并问编辑团队为什么会对他们的故事感兴趣。

Pang Xue Qiang 说：“这些平凡的人从不认为自己是主角。生活在继续，但却没有专门的人去记录，这些故事最终会随时间烟消云散。”Pang Xue Qiang 希望，也许几十年后，会有人在图书馆、储物柜或是古董杂志店里发现《Meantime》，追忆起普通新加坡人的过去。

Issue 1 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第一期“爱情故事”

For its first issue, the editorial team found inspiration from the New York Times “Modern Love” column, which told stories about relationships, feelings, revelations, and betrayals. “We felt connected to these love stories, even the ones that happened in New York City where we’ve never been,” he says. The personal revelations of the readers to their co-readers form a sense of community that Qiang wanted to recreate. He thinks that love stories are universal and that everyone has their own story about love. “We thought if we could look at Singapore, which is a small country that people might not even pinpoint where it is on the map, and talk about the love stories of those living there, we could create a space people could connect with. That was how the first issue, ‘Love Stories,’ came about,” he says.

Qiang notes that their team’s editorial process meanders. There’s no specific theme directing the content, but each issue always has an anchor story that guides the team on what stories and photos to include. For the “Love Stories” issue, the anchor is a story about a photo studio along Kerbau Road where young men from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka have their portraits taken. The studio prints their pictures, and the men send them to their hometowns via post in the hopes of finding a bride.

“In Singapore, we have foreign workers from India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka who work in construction. We see them every day and meet them on the streets, but we don’t know their stories. When we found this photo studio, it was very interesting for us that it takes pictures of our young foreign workers so they can send them to their families for an arranged marriage. We wanted to tell the studio and the clients’ stories as one,” says Qiang. The team was told that once the families receive the images, they would show their pictures to their relatives and friends, and share how their son now works in Singapore, young, earning, and ready for marriage. Once the families find the right fit for the bride, the arranged marriage begins.

杂志初刊的灵感来自《纽约时报》的“现代爱情（Modern Love）”专栏，探讨了人际关系、情绪和背叛等话题。“爱情故事能让人产生共鸣，这是人类共同的话题，”他说。从读者的角度出发做一本杂志，Pang Xue Qiang 想通过杂志建立一种人与人之间的社区感。他认为爱情故事更具普世性，“新加坡不大，人们甚至可能找不到它在地图上的位置。但我们觉得，通过讲述生活在这里的人们的爱情故事，或许我们可以创造一个让人们相互联系的空间。这就是我们初刊主题 ‘爱情故事’（Love Stories）的由来。”

然而，杂志内容的采编过程并不轻松。每期杂志首先会围绕既定主题编写出先导故事，然后再由团队围绕该故事进行延伸。初刊的先导故事讲述了当地加宝路（Kerbau Rd）一家照相馆——来自泰米尔纳德邦和斯里兰卡的年轻男子会在这里拍下肖像照，并邮寄回家乡用来相亲。

“新加坡有许多来自印度、孟加拉国和斯里兰卡的外籍劳工，在这里从事建筑业。每天都能在街上看到他们，但从来不知道他们的故事。当我们发现这个照相馆时，觉得特别有趣的是，年轻的外籍劳工会在这里拍摄照片，然后寄给家人来安排婚事。我们想将照相馆和顾客的故事结合起来讲述，”Pang Xue Qiang 说道。团队了解到，一些年轻男子的家人在收到照片后，会在亲朋好友之间奔走相告，告诉他们，儿子正在新加坡工作，年轻、有收入，已准备好结婚。一旦找到合适的新娘人选，就会安排结婚。“当人们谈论起爱情时，他们会变得脆弱、会变得敏感，这也能从侧面袒露出爱情的色彩”，Pang Xue Qiang 说道。

Issue 2 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第二期“鬼故事”

A pivot from the mellow tone of the “Love Stories,” the editorial team wanted to shift to something haunting and gripping. “After the first issue, we realized that when people talk about love stories, they become vulnerable as they relieve their pasts, showing the tragedies of love as well,” he says. “We were inspired by this, so we decided to make the second issue ‘Ghost Stories,’” says Qiang, who adds that ghost stories don’t always mean haunted houses and paranormal activities.

Qiang wrote the anchor story himself, a feature that remains dear to him. He looked into the death penalty for drug traffickers in Singapore and how the system worked. Instead of interviewing a legal expert to help him investigate the death penalty system in the country, Qiang spoke with a retired Catholic nun who worked as a death row counselor for drug traffickers and prisoners in jail. “For months, she would counsel the prisoners who were convicted or on trial then on their last day, she would walk them to the room where they would be hanged or face death,” he says.

继“爱情故事”的温柔过后，编辑团队希望转变调性，讲述奇情、且扣人心弦的故事，于是决定制作第二期“鬼故事”（Ghost Stories）主题杂志，其并不一定是关于鬼怪和超自然现象的故事，也囊括了许多猎奇的轶事。

这一期先导故事由 Pang Xue Qiang 亲自编写，讲述了新加坡毒贩死刑制度及其运作方式。编写过程中，Pang Xue Qiang 并没有向法律专家征求意见，而与和一名退休的天主教修女攀谈起来，这名修女曾担任毒贩和死刑犯的心理疏导员。“在为期几个月的工作中，她一直担任囚犯的心理辅导，陪他们走到生命的最后一间房间，”Pang Xue Qiang 说。

Issue 2 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第二期“鬼故事”

Qiang shifted the tone, once again, for the third issue. Smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, the editorial team found themselves locked in their own homes for months. “We didn’t want to do anything depressing after that,” says Qiang. They wanted to laugh again and share that contagious dose of happiness with their readers, so for the third issue, they focused on humor. Qiang seems to have reinvented the meaning of ‘funny stories.’ The third issue, “Funny Stories,” contains tales that don’t make the readers enjoy full-belly laughter. Instead, they might make them raise their eyebrows, wear a quizzical expression, or gasp in disbelief.

第三本杂志中，Pang Xue Qiang 再次改变风格。疫情期间，编辑团队被困在家中数月，“经历这些之后，我们不想再去讲一些令人沮丧的故事，”Pang Xue Qiang说。他们想再次放声大笑，并将这一份快乐与读者分享。第三期杂志内容以“滑稽故事”（Funny Stories）为主题，围绕幽默展开，其中内容并不会让读者捧腹大笑，反而是让他们摸不着头脑、无厘头，甚至是难以置信。

Issue 3 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第三期“滑稽故事”

The anchor story is based on an anecdote about Singapore banning long hair for men in the 1970s. “It was called ‘Operation Snip Snip’ which was funny to us,” Qiang says. “We found out that Singapore didn’t want men to have long hair because, at the time, it was associated with drugs, low life, hippie culture, laziness, and not wanting to work hard. The government didn’t want to promote those values.” In present-day Singapore, Qiang and the editorial team scouted out men with long hair, and they were asked to recall their relationship dynamics with their fathers who lived through the ban.

这期先导故事讲述了新加坡在 1970 年代实行的禁止男性留长发的政策，Pang Xue Qiang 说：“政策被定名为‘ 剪刀行动’（Operation Snip Snip），光听就感觉很有意思。我们发现，新加坡之所以禁止男性留长发，是因为当时人们会将长发与毒品、不良生活、嬉皮士文化、懒惰和不想努力工作联系在一起，而政府不想助长这些风气。”于是，Pang Xue Qiang 和编辑团队在新加坡寻找留着长发的男子，听他们回忆起父辈的故事。

Issue 3 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第三期“滑稽故事”

Surprises come but never go with every print issue of Meantime Magazine. The cover page of “Love Stories” is individually hand-torn to show the fragility of memories, and different copies have other surprises—some come with a paper boat, a pressed flower, or a pull-out love letter between the pages. The almost-black cover of “Ghost Stories” is temperature-sensitive and changes hue due to heat from the reader’s hands, the room they are in, or the weather, revealing images underneath the layer. For the recent issue, the upper right part of the whole print is chewed up, a prelude to the beguiling stories and photographs inside. “For every issue of Meantime, we try to have print designs and elements that push the boundaries of print. It’s a print magazine, after all. We hope to give reasons to our readers to buy the physical copies,” says Qiang.

每一期《Meantime》纸质杂志都会从外观、材质上带给读者惊喜。“爱情故事” 的封面由手工撕制而成，用来表达脆弱与回忆，而每本杂志又夹杂着不同的惊喜——纸船、压花或是可以拉出的情书。“鬼故事” 近乎全黑的封面采用热敏性材质，能根据读者双手的温度、室温或天气而变色，变色的同时，浮现封面和封底的图案。最新一期杂志的右上角像被咬掉，为杂志本身增添一抹无厘头、怪诞的气质。“对于每一期杂志而言，我们都想在设计和材质方面做出一些改变。毕竟，这是一本印刷杂志，我们希望给读者提供购买纸质杂志的理由，”Pang Xue Qiang 说。

Issue 3 of Meantime Magazine 《Meantime》第三期“滑稽故事”

Before starting on the first issue, Qiang and the editorial team sat down to come up with the title of their magazine. They wanted to explore and tell stories about Singapore from its people, archives, and history. They looked first into the concepts of the passing of time and consistent memory. Qiang thought that time was ‘mean,’ seeing it as a malignant force that never stops and makes everyone and everything become forgotten as it moves forward. This thought culminated in the name of the publication.

“We were also fascinated with the phrase ‘in the meantime,’ as if it were a juncture that intervenes two periods, a pause or a break,” he laughs. “We wanted people to pause and read our stories, to take their time to savor them.”

Qiang reveals that they’re almost done with the fourth issue, but that’s the only bit of information he’s willing to share. Rest assured, Meantime Magazine won’t be short of distinct stories dedicated to preserving the untold narratives of Singapore and its inhabitants.

在初刊开始制作之前，Pang Xue Qiang 和编辑团队曾一起就杂志名深入谈论。他们想从新加坡人、档案和历史中探索和讲述有关新加坡的故事，并首先考虑了时间流逝和不变记忆的概念。Pang Xue Qiang 认为时间是“卑鄙的”，因为它就像一股永不停歇的洪流，随着它的流逝，冲淡一切人与事。而这最终也成为了杂志名字的由来。

“我们也很喜欢‘in the meantime’（与此同时）这个表达，感觉就像是介于两个时间段的连接点，是一个停顿或中断，”他笑着说，“我们希望人们能停下来读读我们的故事，花一点时间细细品味。”据他透露，《Meantime》的第四期已即将完成。他们将一如继往，记录着新加坡和新加坡人不为人知的故事。

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Instagram: @meantime.zine

Contributor: Matthew Burgos
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

Instagram: @meantime.zine

供稿人: Matthew Burgos
英译中: Olivia Li

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Traditional Contexts 胳臂上的文物

October 4, 2022 2022年10月4日

Blooming lotus mandalas, angular lattice patterns, and whirling smoke clouds; snakes, dragons, and demons colored in brilliant tones—this is the work of Seoul-based tattoo artist Jung-hyun Kim, better known at PittaKKM. His art is a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Korean art styles and Buddhist art, mainly those inspired by temples around his country.

绽放的莲花曼荼罗，棱角分明的篱笆图腾，还有那些穿梭在云雾之间的蛇、龙以及恶魔——这些不同元素共同构成了首尔纹身艺术家 Jung Hyun Kim 的艺术风格。他以当代媒介重新诠释韩国传统和佛教艺术，呈现出别具一格的纹身样式，其灵感大多来自韩国当地的寺庙。

His main influence is dancheong art, which translates to “balance and contrast between vermillion and turquoise.” It’s a decorative painting style used on buildings and artifacts, defined by vibrant colors; maze-like patterns; and bold linework. Its roots stretch as far back as the Goguryeo Kingdom tombs from the start of the common era, but it reached the distinctive identity it’s now known for during the Joseon Dynasty in the late 1600s. The style utilizes the five obangsaek or elemental colors: blue, red, yellow, white, and black, which respectively represent wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.

Jung Hyun 的作品明显受到了丹青（Dancheong）艺术的影响。丹青在韩文里，意为“朱砂和蓝绿两种颜色彼此映衬的效果”，是曾经用来装饰建筑或文物的一种艺术色。在创作时，除了赏心悦目的对称性，其成品往往由鲜艳色彩、迷宫般的图案和干净俐落的线条构成。其最早可追溯至公元初高句丽王国时代的墓葬，并在 17 世纪末的朝鲜王朝迎来了鼎盛。丹青主要运用五种基本颜色：蓝、红、黄、白和黑，这些颜色分别代表木、火、土、金属和水，也就是俗称的五方色（obangsae）。

Traditionally, dancheong is functional and a form of beautification, but it was also symbolic of hierarchy and spirituality. Kim eschews that past and makes a point of avoiding meaning in his work: “I just focus on how it looks, how to make it as beautiful as possible,” he says. “Meanings and viewpoints change, but there are always absolute standards of beauty.”

历史上, 丹青其实也是一种装饰形式，是阶级和精神的象征。不过，Jung Hyun 在创作时刻意避开了这些含义。他解释道：“我只关注视觉上的效果，美观至上。意义和观点会变，但对于美的标准不会。”

About ten years ago, as a senior at an arts high school in Incheon, Kim became fascinated with body modification. After graduating, he began pursuing his love for body mods in the form of tattoos. “I got lots of tattoos by popular artists before making my own,” he recalls. “I loved getting them but also wanted to learn how they do what they do.” Although he enrolled in university for sculpture, he never gave up on tattoos, and now he runs a shop in Seoul with 13 artists called Mizangwon.

大概在十年前，那时的 Jung Hyun 还就读于仁川一所艺术高中，也是从那时开始，他着迷于人体改造，如穿孔和扩耳等等。美术专业毕业后，他想以纹身作为职业，并展开进一步学习。“在开始纹身之前，我找了很多圈内的大咖来帮我纹身，”他回忆道，“出于热爱，我想成为一名出色的纹身师，但首先要懂得学习才行。”现在，他在首尔经营一家纹身店，店的名字叫作 Mizangwon，共聘有 13 位驻店纹身艺术家。

Kim’s style has been relatively the same since he started in 2015, although he’s continuously refining and evolving. Aside from his bold use of colors, the most consistent feature of his style is super clean line work, which did not come naturally to him at first. “My lines were really bad at first, and I struggled a lot to make it happen,” he laughs.

As rewarding as it is to see so much history repurposed through the modern art form of tattoos, Kim infuses his own ingenuity into the style. Through unexpected color schemes, experimentations with contrast, and unique line work, he’s created a style that carries on his culture’s traditions and furthers them for a new generation.

从 2015 年成为一名职业纹身师以来，Jung Hyun 在保持一贯风格的同时，一直不断尝试改进和提升。除了色彩的运用，其作品最一致的特点便是干脆俐落的线条，这是他苦苦练就的成果。他笑着说道：“刚开始那会儿的确很糟糕，但后来我倾尽全力去实现我的目标。”

借鉴传统并将其融入纹身，固然意义非凡。Jung Hyun 也相信自己能凭借努力和一双巧手，来实现充满创造力的融合。无论对于传统文化、还是在纹身圈来讲，他的作品通过出人意料的色彩搭配与实验性的色彩对比，为韩国本土增添了一抹全新的活力。

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Instagram: @pittakkm

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

Instagram: @pittakkm

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li