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
