Papers by Fang-Tze Hsu
Culture Politics , 2023
Art Histories of a Forever War is an exploration of modern art in postwar Taiwan and its enduring... more Art Histories of a Forever War is an exploration of modern art in postwar Taiwan and its enduring resonances. To understand this historical milieu, the exhibition unpacks and contextualizes Taiwan's modern art as part of a Cold War convergence of art, design, and technology.1 On a global scale, and in relation to the American military-industrial complex and its attendant neo-imperialism (Immerwahr 2020: 13–144), the post–World War II and early Cold War period of the 1940s–60s has been described as “a period of accelerated commercialization, of decolonization and—in the context of advanced aesthetic practice and thought—of considered reassessment of the effects and legacies of the modernist avant-garde” (Martin 2005: 4). Modernity in this period was transformed by wartime techno-scientific developments and the competition for cultural supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union.
BFMAF 2019 Catalogue, 2019
arteBA, 2017
In the first installment of our debate, we, Dorota Biczel, Andrea Giunta and Luis Vargas Santiago... more In the first installment of our debate, we, Dorota Biczel, Andrea Giunta and Luis Vargas Santiago, asked questions about the current meanings of the term “decolonization.” Yet, we have to admit that what we want to see as the denormativization of social life remains only an aspiration—and one likely held by just a fraction of society. Not a single decolonial battle has been resoundingly won. We live in a world that continues to be hostile to at
least 50% of its inhabitants. Not a day passes without at least one piece of news about violence against humans, usually against women. Every day women are tortured, raped, murdered; their bodies discarded like trash.
Since the early 2000s, “Ni una más”/“Ni una muerta más” has been the cry of activists in Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, demanding that this violence come to an end. Starting on June 3, 2015, when demonstrations broke out in major plazas across Argentina, that cry has been inverted as a way to refute the loss: “Ni una menos”–“Ni una mujer
menos.” The pace with which the #NiUnaMenos movement has gained momentum across the continent shows that no country is immune to the problem of femicide or to systemic gender-based violence. An international women’s strike with public demonstrations in fifty-four countries on March 8, 2017 attests to the violence’s catastrophic global dimension.
Considering this, we made a call to a group of theorists, artists, collectives, and curators (Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Octavio Zaya, Hellen Ascoli, Hsu Fang-Tze, Rían Lozano, Natalia Iguíñiz, Desperadas por el ritmo and Mónica Mayer) to think together about the importance of feminism and the still very present challenges of gender inequality in the art world. Together, their responses trace a map of radical stances. What follows makes most sense if all the individual texts are considered as a whole. We propose starting with the initial text, which formulates the questions that were envisaged as triggers, and then continuing with the polemic positions articulated in response.
This dossier is the second out of two instalments on Decolonization for the Buenos Aires's magazine ArteBA. The first instalment deals more specifically with decolonial issues. Find more at: https://www.academia.edu/35119379/Dossier_Descolonizaciones_Inciertas_Uncertain_Decolonizations
Both Singapore and Malaysia have policies making it difficult for one-time communist partisans li... more Both Singapore and Malaysia have policies making it difficult for one-time communist partisans living in exile to return home. The two films discussed in this article explore the lives of these political exiles through archival photos, montages of private correspondences, and clips of news reportage that link past and present perspectives. By creating a collective intimacy that draws viewers into the everyday lives of political exiles, the films animate their politicized silence, circumventing efforts to mute their voices.
Hsu, Fang-Tze. "Forgetting — A Form of Death Ever Present Within Life." Oblivion ─ Che-Wei Chen (... more Hsu, Fang-Tze. "Forgetting — A Form of Death Ever Present Within Life." Oblivion ─ Che-Wei Chen (exhibition catalogue). Taipei : Taipei Fine Art Museum , 2017. 28-32. Print.
In Chen solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, he seems to project a specific dialectical visual method located between the Yang-Shen-Yuan in the Chinese title of the exhibition, and the oblivion in its English title. Notes on Oblivion attempts to recount the 1934 founding of this first public chronic rehabilitation institution for psychiatric patients in Taiwan by the Japanese Colonial Government. Colonial control seems to possess the pseudo-consciousness of the hypocrisy of private property system in the juxtaposed dual channel videos, whether the cold detachment that patrols the empty architectural model, or the present day street scenes of metal-grated windows and iron fences. In Dual Portraits, Chen transformed media reports and public opinion about the so-called mental health patients in the media and the corporeal interpretation of the symptoms described in their diagnosis by combing through descriptions of so-called mental patients in discourses in print and media, while Body Not Mine physically interprets and enacts symptoms described in medical diagnosis. In the colonial modernity apparent in medical and health benefits in Taiwan, Chen’s image pedigree has transformed images into a method of deconstructing the progressive debate of text. A perceptive text constructed through sound and images carries the critiques of Kundera and Foucault as it confronts the structural violence of “societal death”, and directly regards “normality” as a most permeable clamp on the ordering of life.
「肖像擺：關乎明日往昔的揣想即興」， 《今藝術》， 292期 2017.01，頁110-11。
“On Portrait Portrait: A Specula... more 「肖像擺：關乎明日往昔的揣想即興」， 《今藝術》， 292期 2017.01，頁110-11。
“On Portrait Portrait: A Speculative Improvisation regarding the Future Past” ARTCO Monthly, no. 292 (Jan.2017): 110-11. Print.
「宣言(演繹)電影：奇拉．塔西米克 」， 《藝術觀點》， 69期 2017.01，頁52-5。
“Cinema of Manifesting: Kidlat Ta... more 「宣言(演繹)電影：奇拉．塔西米克 」， 《藝術觀點》， 69期 2017.01，頁52-5。
“Cinema of Manifesting: Kidlat Tahimik” Art Criticism Taiwan, no. 69 (Jan.2017): 52-5. Print.
「音景聲影：電影的沖繩與失落的感覺連帶」， 《2016當代敘事影展》影展手冊， 轉載於《放映週報》，578期: https://goo.gl/WnpuEH
本文嘗試從「第二屆當代敘事影展」的主... more 「音景聲影：電影的沖繩與失落的感覺連帶」， 《2016當代敘事影展》影展手冊， 轉載於《放映週報》，578期: https://goo.gl/WnpuEH
本文嘗試從「第二屆當代敘事影展」的主題「島影・島歌」出發，以沖繩經驗為本，考掘影像再現與影像運動之中，沖繩作為當代生命共業帶來的重要資源︒本次「第五屆鳳甲國際錄像展—負地平線」與「島影・島歌」合作推介來自沖繩︑越南︑柬埔寨等地的影像作品，由衷期待透過聽覺記憶喚起的觀影經驗，能夠超克地域政治框架隔阻的生命連帶︒如同精通日本當代思想史的中國學者孫歌在新崎盛暉《沖繩現代史》的中譯版後記中，提到殖民經驗的沖繩與朝鮮半島的關聯：「瓦解了語言而盡可能地代以話語之外的『音響』…面對沖繩和韓國（尤其是濟州島）的歷史，我們必須處於『失語狀態』，才能聽到它的聲音，才能締造屬於它的話語︒」
「知識感覺解套草案 評述『失調的和諧：關於亞洲想像的批判性反思』」， 《今藝術》， 288期 2016.09，頁122-25。轉載於《立場新聞》: https://goo.gl/09WwUx
... more 「知識感覺解套草案 評述『失調的和諧：關於亞洲想像的批判性反思』」， 《今藝術》， 288期 2016.09，頁122-25。轉載於《立場新聞》: https://goo.gl/09WwUx
“Drafts for Intellectual Sensibility Relief: Critiquing ‘Discordant Harmony: Critical Reflections on the Imagination of Asia’” ARTCO Monthly, no. 288 (Spet.2016): 122-25. Print.
「死者的現下史學—試論冷戰島鏈的記憶政治與遺忘美學」， 《新美術》， 37期 2016.06，頁75-81。轉載於《數位荒原》: https://goo.gl/LtJa1S
“Histori... more 「死者的現下史學—試論冷戰島鏈的記憶政治與遺忘美學」， 《新美術》， 37期 2016.06，頁75-81。轉載於《數位荒原》: https://goo.gl/LtJa1S
“Historiography of Death: The Aesthetics of Oblivion and Memory Politics in Cold War Archipelago” New Arts (Journal of China Academy of Art), no. 37 (Jun.2016): 75-81. Print.
本文從柄谷行人和約翰．伯格的觀點出發，重新梳理「死者」與我們的關係，指出作為驅動檔案之目的而遭再現的死者，其所體現的正是驅使著柄谷與伯格不斷書寫的「內在緊密相連的歷史結構」此一強制感情驅力。為此，許芳慈特別回溯從「太平洋劇場」轉向「第一島鏈」的歷史軸承拓墣意象，並以萬仁的《超級大國民》和高山明的《陽光62》計畫為例，說明死者的「（被）遺忘」如何帶領我們走向當下的歷史意識。
「華玲：為歷史除魅的劇場」， 《藝術界》， 165期 2016.08，頁38-41。
“BALING: A Theater That Disenchants History” LEAP, no... more 「華玲：為歷史除魅的劇場」， 《藝術界》， 165期 2016.08，頁38-41。
“BALING: A Theater That Disenchants History” LEAP, no. 165 (Aug.2016): 38-41. Print.
To develop his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin drew the analogy of an “automaton,” a chess-playing device supposedly impossible for human chess players to beat. The vivid visual imagery produced by this puppet avatar represented the “perspective of history”: the approach with which people grasp (or unconsciously drift with) the historical realities of their society. The key to comprehending the nature of this automaton is not so much anatomizing its functional aspect as seeing this mirrorimage installation in its true colors and confronting head-on the humpbacked dwarf who actually manipulated the puppet. As established historical discourse can be called an automaton, so is the theatrical space of Baling. What greets the audience is the verbatim transcript of the Baling Talks, occupying two massive walls. Wanted posters for the arrest of Chin Peng are hung at different sizes with fishing threads from the ceiling, as if they were clouds drifting in the sky. Image recordings of the Baling Talks, produced by the Malayan Film Unit, under British colonial rule, are projected on a wall near the entrance. On the other side there is a map of the Malay Peninsula comprised of ten books on Chin Peng and the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). Finally, there is a briefing room arranged with several screen walls and an upright slide projector. By means of the actors’ corporeal performativity and the visual expressiveness of these installations, Baling attempts not only to dramatize this historical event, but also to uncover the humpbacked dwarf who actually incited the nationalist, linear writing of Malaysia’s history.
「賽伯格做為介入歷史的意象: 六本木十字路2016— 我的身體，你的聲音」， 《今藝術》， 284期 2016.05，頁94-5。轉載於《數位荒原》: https://goo.gl/Oqy2e... more 「賽伯格做為介入歷史的意象: 六本木十字路2016— 我的身體，你的聲音」， 《今藝術》， 284期 2016.05，頁94-5。轉載於《數位荒原》: https://goo.gl/Oqy2e5
“Cyborg as an Imagery for Historical Intervention: Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice” ARTCO Monthly, no. 284 (May.2016): 94-5. Print.
「時延與未果: 沖繩的終戰現在進行式」， 《今藝術》， 280期 2016.01，頁88-91。
“Time-Lag and Incompletion: Okinawa’s End of Wa... more 「時延與未果: 沖繩的終戰現在進行式」， 《今藝術》， 280期 2016.01，頁88-91。
“Time-Lag and Incompletion: Okinawa’s End of War Present Progressive” ARTCO Monthly, no. 280 (Jan.2016): 88-91. Print.
面對70 年這個整數做為所謂時代里程碑的紀念意圖（註5），在沖繩以
藝術實踐體現之集體記憶運動，是證言的姿態，抑或是聲討歷史感知主
體的閃回？透過對照地閱讀沖繩縣立美術館的「太陽的畫布」與民間自
行發起的「胡差暴動計畫」，前者以美術館內典藏為基礎，聚焦在沖繩
戰後美術研究對於既有脈絡的分段基礎，配合檔案研究與訪談資料的
整理出版，透過「太陽的畫布」回溯沖繩第一個藝術村—「西森美術
村」（ニシムイ美術村）—在1948 年在所謂「終戰」後美軍佔領的情
況下創制的歷程，與其之於沖繩藝術史與大眾視覺文化的影響；「胡差
暴動計畫」則是以紀實攝影作品為主軸搭配紀實性影像的播放，在當年
胡差暴動主要發生民眾焚毀車輛的胡屋十字路街區的數個小型展覽空間
進行展出，觀眾一方面透過紀實攝影回顧1970 年復歸（註5）前，發生
於嘉手納空軍基地（Kadena Base）附近胡差市（今日沖繩市）的大規
模軍民暴動事件，另一方面也實際穿梭於這個歷史事件的現場。一個坐
落在美軍基地中的藝術村、一個對美國軍政府長期忽視人權霸行所激化
的無領袖群眾行動，兩個媒材與規模上截然不同的展覽活動，不約而同
地爬梳沖繩存活在第二次世界大戰與冷戰無縫接軌的國際政治結構中，
被制限於同質化歷史敘事的謬誤與暴力的夾縫內，藉著沖繩常民的精神
樣態，映照著創作者與影像生產踐行意義內的社會面向與政治意涵。
典藏‧今藝術ARTCO Monthly, Sep 2013
Conference Presentations by Fang-Tze Hsu
The communist insurgency might be one of the most strategically coded terms in the geopolitical r... more The communist insurgency might be one of the most strategically coded terms in the geopolitical rhetoric of the Cold War, especially in Southeast Asia. The surge in interest by documentary filmmakers starting to decipher this muted brutality in the national history is not abrupt. Recent examples include Rithy Panh’s Oscar-nominated work Missing Picture (2013) and Joshua Oppenheimer’s controversial production The Act of Killing (2012). The subject of the communist insurgency gets even more complicated when the rhetoric is adopted by the soft authoritarian regimes of Singapore and Malaysia in the name of nation-building. Somehow these fragmented memories urged filmmakers such as Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad and Singaporean director Tan Pin Pin to revisit those scattered and muffled narratives via filmmaking. By focusing on political exiles who were alleged to be members of communist groups, Amir Muhammad’s Apa Khabar Orang Kampung (English title: Village People Radio Show, 2007) and Tan Pin Pin’s To Singapore, With Love (2013) seem to depict those exiles particularly in their denial of citizenship by “a unitary State apparatus” from Gilles Deleuze’s perspective. The essay examines the issue of nomads iterated through the journeys of political refugees and reiterated by the mobility of the camera. In the meantime, the research takes a close look at the dialectical image created by the convergence of the past and the present in the still shots of the archival photos and the montages of private correspondences and clips of news reportage juxtaposed with haptic and optical visuality embodied by the long takes employed in portraying those interviewees. The essay suggests that rather than merely documenting, archiving, and recreating the past in the present, these two documentaries intend to produce a decoder in a collective intimacy of those exiles’ everyday life to disenchant the phantasm of the history of the communist insurgency.
The significance of the Russo-Japanese War resurfaces in Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire... more The significance of the Russo-Japanese War resurfaces in Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire. The moment of psychological victory was shared by intellectuals living under the shadow of colonial empires from the West. It was also a moment when the correlation between the eagerness for modernity and the coloniality of power became more solid than ever. In the meantime, Lu Xun’s legendary slideshow incident seems to mirror the violent essence of modernity narrated by a shocking visual encounter. However, can the project of de-imperialization be achieved by reclaiming the perspective of seeing? The presentation aims to revisit the issue of visual modernity by engaging with Taiwanese artist Gao Chong-Li's video work My Mentor, Chen Ying-Zhen in order to unfold the entanglement of visual apparatus and the subject formation of Asia.
“On the Battlefield without Corpses: Situating Visual Modernity in the Light of Asianism from Gao Chong-Li’s My Mentor, Chen Ying-Zhen (2010),” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
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Papers by Fang-Tze Hsu
least 50% of its inhabitants. Not a day passes without at least one piece of news about violence against humans, usually against women. Every day women are tortured, raped, murdered; their bodies discarded like trash.
Since the early 2000s, “Ni una más”/“Ni una muerta más” has been the cry of activists in Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, demanding that this violence come to an end. Starting on June 3, 2015, when demonstrations broke out in major plazas across Argentina, that cry has been inverted as a way to refute the loss: “Ni una menos”–“Ni una mujer
menos.” The pace with which the #NiUnaMenos movement has gained momentum across the continent shows that no country is immune to the problem of femicide or to systemic gender-based violence. An international women’s strike with public demonstrations in fifty-four countries on March 8, 2017 attests to the violence’s catastrophic global dimension.
Considering this, we made a call to a group of theorists, artists, collectives, and curators (Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Octavio Zaya, Hellen Ascoli, Hsu Fang-Tze, Rían Lozano, Natalia Iguíñiz, Desperadas por el ritmo and Mónica Mayer) to think together about the importance of feminism and the still very present challenges of gender inequality in the art world. Together, their responses trace a map of radical stances. What follows makes most sense if all the individual texts are considered as a whole. We propose starting with the initial text, which formulates the questions that were envisaged as triggers, and then continuing with the polemic positions articulated in response.
This dossier is the second out of two instalments on Decolonization for the Buenos Aires's magazine ArteBA. The first instalment deals more specifically with decolonial issues. Find more at: https://www.academia.edu/35119379/Dossier_Descolonizaciones_Inciertas_Uncertain_Decolonizations
In Chen solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, he seems to project a specific dialectical visual method located between the Yang-Shen-Yuan in the Chinese title of the exhibition, and the oblivion in its English title. Notes on Oblivion attempts to recount the 1934 founding of this first public chronic rehabilitation institution for psychiatric patients in Taiwan by the Japanese Colonial Government. Colonial control seems to possess the pseudo-consciousness of the hypocrisy of private property system in the juxtaposed dual channel videos, whether the cold detachment that patrols the empty architectural model, or the present day street scenes of metal-grated windows and iron fences. In Dual Portraits, Chen transformed media reports and public opinion about the so-called mental health patients in the media and the corporeal interpretation of the symptoms described in their diagnosis by combing through descriptions of so-called mental patients in discourses in print and media, while Body Not Mine physically interprets and enacts symptoms described in medical diagnosis. In the colonial modernity apparent in medical and health benefits in Taiwan, Chen’s image pedigree has transformed images into a method of deconstructing the progressive debate of text. A perceptive text constructed through sound and images carries the critiques of Kundera and Foucault as it confronts the structural violence of “societal death”, and directly regards “normality” as a most permeable clamp on the ordering of life.
“On Portrait Portrait: A Speculative Improvisation regarding the Future Past” ARTCO Monthly, no. 292 (Jan.2017): 110-11. Print.
“Cinema of Manifesting: Kidlat Tahimik” Art Criticism Taiwan, no. 69 (Jan.2017): 52-5. Print.
本文嘗試從「第二屆當代敘事影展」的主題「島影・島歌」出發，以沖繩經驗為本，考掘影像再現與影像運動之中，沖繩作為當代生命共業帶來的重要資源︒本次「第五屆鳳甲國際錄像展—負地平線」與「島影・島歌」合作推介來自沖繩︑越南︑柬埔寨等地的影像作品，由衷期待透過聽覺記憶喚起的觀影經驗，能夠超克地域政治框架隔阻的生命連帶︒如同精通日本當代思想史的中國學者孫歌在新崎盛暉《沖繩現代史》的中譯版後記中，提到殖民經驗的沖繩與朝鮮半島的關聯：「瓦解了語言而盡可能地代以話語之外的『音響』…面對沖繩和韓國（尤其是濟州島）的歷史，我們必須處於『失語狀態』，才能聽到它的聲音，才能締造屬於它的話語︒」
“Drafts for Intellectual Sensibility Relief: Critiquing ‘Discordant Harmony: Critical Reflections on the Imagination of Asia’” ARTCO Monthly, no. 288 (Spet.2016): 122-25. Print.
“Historiography of Death: The Aesthetics of Oblivion and Memory Politics in Cold War Archipelago” New Arts (Journal of China Academy of Art), no. 37 (Jun.2016): 75-81. Print.
本文從柄谷行人和約翰．伯格的觀點出發，重新梳理「死者」與我們的關係，指出作為驅動檔案之目的而遭再現的死者，其所體現的正是驅使著柄谷與伯格不斷書寫的「內在緊密相連的歷史結構」此一強制感情驅力。為此，許芳慈特別回溯從「太平洋劇場」轉向「第一島鏈」的歷史軸承拓墣意象，並以萬仁的《超級大國民》和高山明的《陽光62》計畫為例，說明死者的「（被）遺忘」如何帶領我們走向當下的歷史意識。
“BALING: A Theater That Disenchants History” LEAP, no. 165 (Aug.2016): 38-41. Print.
To develop his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin drew the analogy of an “automaton,” a chess-playing device supposedly impossible for human chess players to beat. The vivid visual imagery produced by this puppet avatar represented the “perspective of history”: the approach with which people grasp (or unconsciously drift with) the historical realities of their society. The key to comprehending the nature of this automaton is not so much anatomizing its functional aspect as seeing this mirrorimage installation in its true colors and confronting head-on the humpbacked dwarf who actually manipulated the puppet. As established historical discourse can be called an automaton, so is the theatrical space of Baling. What greets the audience is the verbatim transcript of the Baling Talks, occupying two massive walls. Wanted posters for the arrest of Chin Peng are hung at different sizes with fishing threads from the ceiling, as if they were clouds drifting in the sky. Image recordings of the Baling Talks, produced by the Malayan Film Unit, under British colonial rule, are projected on a wall near the entrance. On the other side there is a map of the Malay Peninsula comprised of ten books on Chin Peng and the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). Finally, there is a briefing room arranged with several screen walls and an upright slide projector. By means of the actors’ corporeal performativity and the visual expressiveness of these installations, Baling attempts not only to dramatize this historical event, but also to uncover the humpbacked dwarf who actually incited the nationalist, linear writing of Malaysia’s history.
“Cyborg as an Imagery for Historical Intervention: Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice” ARTCO Monthly, no. 284 (May.2016): 94-5. Print.
“Time-Lag and Incompletion: Okinawa’s End of War Present Progressive” ARTCO Monthly, no. 280 (Jan.2016): 88-91. Print.
面對70 年這個整數做為所謂時代里程碑的紀念意圖（註5），在沖繩以
藝術實踐體現之集體記憶運動，是證言的姿態，抑或是聲討歷史感知主
體的閃回？透過對照地閱讀沖繩縣立美術館的「太陽的畫布」與民間自
行發起的「胡差暴動計畫」，前者以美術館內典藏為基礎，聚焦在沖繩
戰後美術研究對於既有脈絡的分段基礎，配合檔案研究與訪談資料的
整理出版，透過「太陽的畫布」回溯沖繩第一個藝術村—「西森美術
村」（ニシムイ美術村）—在1948 年在所謂「終戰」後美軍佔領的情
況下創制的歷程，與其之於沖繩藝術史與大眾視覺文化的影響；「胡差
暴動計畫」則是以紀實攝影作品為主軸搭配紀實性影像的播放，在當年
胡差暴動主要發生民眾焚毀車輛的胡屋十字路街區的數個小型展覽空間
進行展出，觀眾一方面透過紀實攝影回顧1970 年復歸（註5）前，發生
於嘉手納空軍基地（Kadena Base）附近胡差市（今日沖繩市）的大規
模軍民暴動事件，另一方面也實際穿梭於這個歷史事件的現場。一個坐
落在美軍基地中的藝術村、一個對美國軍政府長期忽視人權霸行所激化
的無領袖群眾行動，兩個媒材與規模上截然不同的展覽活動，不約而同
地爬梳沖繩存活在第二次世界大戰與冷戰無縫接軌的國際政治結構中，
被制限於同質化歷史敘事的謬誤與暴力的夾縫內，藉著沖繩常民的精神
樣態，映照著創作者與影像生產踐行意義內的社會面向與政治意涵。
Conference Presentations by Fang-Tze Hsu
“On the Battlefield without Corpses: Situating Visual Modernity in the Light of Asianism from Gao Chong-Li’s My Mentor, Chen Ying-Zhen (2010),” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
least 50% of its inhabitants. Not a day passes without at least one piece of news about violence against humans, usually against women. Every day women are tortured, raped, murdered; their bodies discarded like trash.
Since the early 2000s, “Ni una más”/“Ni una muerta más” has been the cry of activists in Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, demanding that this violence come to an end. Starting on June 3, 2015, when demonstrations broke out in major plazas across Argentina, that cry has been inverted as a way to refute the loss: “Ni una menos”–“Ni una mujer
menos.” The pace with which the #NiUnaMenos movement has gained momentum across the continent shows that no country is immune to the problem of femicide or to systemic gender-based violence. An international women’s strike with public demonstrations in fifty-four countries on March 8, 2017 attests to the violence’s catastrophic global dimension.
Considering this, we made a call to a group of theorists, artists, collectives, and curators (Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Octavio Zaya, Hellen Ascoli, Hsu Fang-Tze, Rían Lozano, Natalia Iguíñiz, Desperadas por el ritmo and Mónica Mayer) to think together about the importance of feminism and the still very present challenges of gender inequality in the art world. Together, their responses trace a map of radical stances. What follows makes most sense if all the individual texts are considered as a whole. We propose starting with the initial text, which formulates the questions that were envisaged as triggers, and then continuing with the polemic positions articulated in response.
This dossier is the second out of two instalments on Decolonization for the Buenos Aires's magazine ArteBA. The first instalment deals more specifically with decolonial issues. Find more at: https://www.academia.edu/35119379/Dossier_Descolonizaciones_Inciertas_Uncertain_Decolonizations
In Chen solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, he seems to project a specific dialectical visual method located between the Yang-Shen-Yuan in the Chinese title of the exhibition, and the oblivion in its English title. Notes on Oblivion attempts to recount the 1934 founding of this first public chronic rehabilitation institution for psychiatric patients in Taiwan by the Japanese Colonial Government. Colonial control seems to possess the pseudo-consciousness of the hypocrisy of private property system in the juxtaposed dual channel videos, whether the cold detachment that patrols the empty architectural model, or the present day street scenes of metal-grated windows and iron fences. In Dual Portraits, Chen transformed media reports and public opinion about the so-called mental health patients in the media and the corporeal interpretation of the symptoms described in their diagnosis by combing through descriptions of so-called mental patients in discourses in print and media, while Body Not Mine physically interprets and enacts symptoms described in medical diagnosis. In the colonial modernity apparent in medical and health benefits in Taiwan, Chen’s image pedigree has transformed images into a method of deconstructing the progressive debate of text. A perceptive text constructed through sound and images carries the critiques of Kundera and Foucault as it confronts the structural violence of “societal death”, and directly regards “normality” as a most permeable clamp on the ordering of life.
“On Portrait Portrait: A Speculative Improvisation regarding the Future Past” ARTCO Monthly, no. 292 (Jan.2017): 110-11. Print.
“Cinema of Manifesting: Kidlat Tahimik” Art Criticism Taiwan, no. 69 (Jan.2017): 52-5. Print.
本文嘗試從「第二屆當代敘事影展」的主題「島影・島歌」出發，以沖繩經驗為本，考掘影像再現與影像運動之中，沖繩作為當代生命共業帶來的重要資源︒本次「第五屆鳳甲國際錄像展—負地平線」與「島影・島歌」合作推介來自沖繩︑越南︑柬埔寨等地的影像作品，由衷期待透過聽覺記憶喚起的觀影經驗，能夠超克地域政治框架隔阻的生命連帶︒如同精通日本當代思想史的中國學者孫歌在新崎盛暉《沖繩現代史》的中譯版後記中，提到殖民經驗的沖繩與朝鮮半島的關聯：「瓦解了語言而盡可能地代以話語之外的『音響』…面對沖繩和韓國（尤其是濟州島）的歷史，我們必須處於『失語狀態』，才能聽到它的聲音，才能締造屬於它的話語︒」
“Drafts for Intellectual Sensibility Relief: Critiquing ‘Discordant Harmony: Critical Reflections on the Imagination of Asia’” ARTCO Monthly, no. 288 (Spet.2016): 122-25. Print.
“Historiography of Death: The Aesthetics of Oblivion and Memory Politics in Cold War Archipelago” New Arts (Journal of China Academy of Art), no. 37 (Jun.2016): 75-81. Print.
本文從柄谷行人和約翰．伯格的觀點出發，重新梳理「死者」與我們的關係，指出作為驅動檔案之目的而遭再現的死者，其所體現的正是驅使著柄谷與伯格不斷書寫的「內在緊密相連的歷史結構」此一強制感情驅力。為此，許芳慈特別回溯從「太平洋劇場」轉向「第一島鏈」的歷史軸承拓墣意象，並以萬仁的《超級大國民》和高山明的《陽光62》計畫為例，說明死者的「（被）遺忘」如何帶領我們走向當下的歷史意識。
“BALING: A Theater That Disenchants History” LEAP, no. 165 (Aug.2016): 38-41. Print.
To develop his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin drew the analogy of an “automaton,” a chess-playing device supposedly impossible for human chess players to beat. The vivid visual imagery produced by this puppet avatar represented the “perspective of history”: the approach with which people grasp (or unconsciously drift with) the historical realities of their society. The key to comprehending the nature of this automaton is not so much anatomizing its functional aspect as seeing this mirrorimage installation in its true colors and confronting head-on the humpbacked dwarf who actually manipulated the puppet. As established historical discourse can be called an automaton, so is the theatrical space of Baling. What greets the audience is the verbatim transcript of the Baling Talks, occupying two massive walls. Wanted posters for the arrest of Chin Peng are hung at different sizes with fishing threads from the ceiling, as if they were clouds drifting in the sky. Image recordings of the Baling Talks, produced by the Malayan Film Unit, under British colonial rule, are projected on a wall near the entrance. On the other side there is a map of the Malay Peninsula comprised of ten books on Chin Peng and the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). Finally, there is a briefing room arranged with several screen walls and an upright slide projector. By means of the actors’ corporeal performativity and the visual expressiveness of these installations, Baling attempts not only to dramatize this historical event, but also to uncover the humpbacked dwarf who actually incited the nationalist, linear writing of Malaysia’s history.
“Cyborg as an Imagery for Historical Intervention: Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice” ARTCO Monthly, no. 284 (May.2016): 94-5. Print.
“Time-Lag and Incompletion: Okinawa’s End of War Present Progressive” ARTCO Monthly, no. 280 (Jan.2016): 88-91. Print.
面對70 年這個整數做為所謂時代里程碑的紀念意圖（註5），在沖繩以
藝術實踐體現之集體記憶運動，是證言的姿態，抑或是聲討歷史感知主
體的閃回？透過對照地閱讀沖繩縣立美術館的「太陽的畫布」與民間自
行發起的「胡差暴動計畫」，前者以美術館內典藏為基礎，聚焦在沖繩
戰後美術研究對於既有脈絡的分段基礎，配合檔案研究與訪談資料的
整理出版，透過「太陽的畫布」回溯沖繩第一個藝術村—「西森美術
村」（ニシムイ美術村）—在1948 年在所謂「終戰」後美軍佔領的情
況下創制的歷程，與其之於沖繩藝術史與大眾視覺文化的影響；「胡差
暴動計畫」則是以紀實攝影作品為主軸搭配紀實性影像的播放，在當年
胡差暴動主要發生民眾焚毀車輛的胡屋十字路街區的數個小型展覽空間
進行展出，觀眾一方面透過紀實攝影回顧1970 年復歸（註5）前，發生
於嘉手納空軍基地（Kadena Base）附近胡差市（今日沖繩市）的大規
模軍民暴動事件，另一方面也實際穿梭於這個歷史事件的現場。一個坐
落在美軍基地中的藝術村、一個對美國軍政府長期忽視人權霸行所激化
的無領袖群眾行動，兩個媒材與規模上截然不同的展覽活動，不約而同
地爬梳沖繩存活在第二次世界大戰與冷戰無縫接軌的國際政治結構中，
被制限於同質化歷史敘事的謬誤與暴力的夾縫內，藉著沖繩常民的精神
樣態，映照著創作者與影像生產踐行意義內的社會面向與政治意涵。
“On the Battlefield without Corpses: Situating Visual Modernity in the Light of Asianism from Gao Chong-Li’s My Mentor, Chen Ying-Zhen (2010),” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
This is a reflexive essay of the author, HSU Fang-Tze, on the curatorial journey of the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition. She scrutinizes the writings of Ling-Ching Chiang, Jun-Jieh Wang, Huang-Chen Tang, and Chi-Ming Lin, traces back to the 1970s when the term lu-ying yi-shu (video art) had already been used in the Taiwanese art writings, and consequently deduces the difference between lu-ying yi-shu and lu-xiang yi-shu (which also means video art). She subsequently connects the above-mentioned to the context concerning the first Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition co-curated by Yung-Hsien Chen and Sean C.S. Hu in 2005. She further suggests that Negative Horizon, the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition extends its frame beyond the instrumentalist sense of video art, and mentions how the participating artists and filmmakers attend to this medium and its extended engagement with social memory, and also manifests how to takes video’s role as a discursive site. (written in both English and Chinese)
Cinema and history are both sites of temporality conceived in a present and constantly coming into being through the phase of making and receiving, in which the correlations between past and present are intensified through aesthetic mediation and affective responses. Hence, by focusing on audiovisiogenic effect as a meaning making mechanism of artist film and video, I scrutinize a Cold War that speaks through its vernaculars, pronounces in its ongoing historical present, and is proclaimed through a shared endeavor between artistic practitioners to redeem narratives of their own pasts. By examining the Cold War through the acousmêtre – the sensorial structure dialectically constituted by the interplay between the (in)audible and the (in)visible – this thesis begins with a series of straightforward questions about the artistic choice of form in relation to the act of contestation regarding artist subjectivity. I consider their artistic practices, especially their engagement with a time-based medium, as a technicity of memory and ask, why did these artists decide to approach their immediate present through the past? How does the locomotion of their art animate a historical event in an audiovisual situation? What does it mean to make sense of a national history from a personal memory? What is the political significance of the unconventional audiovisuality deployed in their moving image work? To situate these research questions at the nexus between the (in)audible and the (in)visible, between present and past, between individual recollection and grand narrative of history is to argue that the decolonizing aesthetics manifested by Kidlat Tahimik from the Philippines, Go Takamine from Okinawa, and Chung-Li Kao from Taiwan with regard to the postwar condition in their respective locales expose the resonances of the Cold War by thinking with acousmêtre.