缺失与意义     
艺术家范勃访谈

黄 笃

黄笃（以下简称：黄）： 这次您在艺琅国际的个展似乎完全不同于以往的展览形态，在以往的展览中，您更多关注的是后现代语境下媒介的扩张，既拼贴又混合，然而，这次展览您更倾向采用"并行"的方法，即把非视觉的东西（盲人阅读的东西）以视觉化呈现，意欲用"颠倒"的方法去建构新的艺术语言。为什么会产生这样的想法？
范勃（以下简称：范）：探索媒介的可能性，只是计划中我创作转向的第一阶段。通过这个阶段，我初步探明了后现代语境下语言、意义、场域之间的关联，带有较强的实验性质。而我真正关注的核心问题是心灵问题，这个问题需要通过长期艰苦的工作、持续性的阶段展览实践去逐渐接近答案。从表达的完整度来说，本次个展显然距离我的核心探索区域更近了。
在当代哲学领域，"知觉"是一个被重新发现并赋予极端重要性的概念。按照现象学的看法，知觉是思维的基础，又是思维的本体：有什么样的知觉，就有什么样的心灵。现代社会的本质是视觉社会，我们所习惯的一切，包括思维、概念、行动、结果，都是以视觉为基础的。对于一个视觉艺术家，我想在这个展览中提出这样一个概念：如果社会化的视觉对个体的人的心灵规训不存在了，那么人类感知的世界、人类心灵的世界会有怎样的可能性？
你提出的"并行"与"颠倒"概念我很喜欢。正常人的心灵存在着视觉施加的规训，盲人的心灵同样也存在着非视觉形式（触觉、听觉等）施加的规训，这是人类个体想融入正常社会系统所必须付出的代价；但这两种知觉系统永远平行不相交。我试着用你说的"颠倒"的方式，将这两种知觉系统打个结。让它们交织在一起，看看能否产生新的可能性？
 
黄：显然，您非常喜欢梅洛-庞蒂的观念"生命机体行为和其适应性环境同时被构建"。能否解释一下这一观念在您作品中是如何渗透和呈现的？
 
范：笛卡尔以来的理性主义把现代人带入心灵的孤独境地，"我思故我在"，似乎人的心灵是世界的发动机。这种观念折射在艺术创作中，就体现在预设概念左右作品形式，不管是主流架上绘画还是当代艺术，都存在这个问题。
我赞赏梅洛-庞蒂的存在主义思想，是因为梅洛-庞蒂延续了尼采"一切从身体出发"的反笛卡尔主义主张，提出"运动意向性"和"身体图式"（《知觉现象学》）的假设，为客观世界、物质身体、心灵思维三者之间关系做了更为恰当的解释。在梅洛-庞蒂看来，身体和世界是不可分离的，世界是我的身体投射的世界，而我的身体则是世界的一个视点，世界在我的身体中实现了它自己，我就是世界本身的表达，我与世界之间有一种原始的"共谋关系"。这就是"生命机体行为和其适应性环境同时被构建"的内在含义。这个见解让我更加坚定了探讨盲人和正常人知觉世界差异的信心。
在这套作品中，观众"身体的视点"--采用视知觉角度还是触觉角度去感知作品--是解读欣赏作品的关键。我不预设概念，我也不传达观点，我只是设定让两个世界互相纠结的场所。可能这就是你所说的梅洛-庞蒂观念的渗透吧。
 
黄：在我看来，您的作品似乎是一种悖论，虽然以盲人的东西抗拒图像解读，但去视觉化的方式最终还是还原以视觉形式来呈现，只不过对有正常视觉的人而言造成了视觉阅读的障碍，仅仅呈现的是符号，也就是纯粹的视觉结构。这是否就是您要追求的和想要实现的语言的纯粹性？
范：你说的这点我比较认同。虽然我屏蔽了作品要传递的意义--意义是观众自行补充完成的；但作为艺术家，我仍然要对作品的语言和形式负责，我是通过形式来思考的。如何用最单纯有效的方式来呈现两个世界的内容？又如何将两个世界打个结？为此我耗费了大量的时间和精力来做减法。
1《世界?》，材料来源于现成品，通过数个盲人家庭的追踪调查，发现盲人关于个人日常生活的盲文纪录，诸如菜谱、歌词、地址、电话号码、信仰、诗歌等所用纸张来源于各种不同时间段的广告、杂志、图片、日常政治文本、房地产推销书等印刷品，印刷品本身的内容恰恰巧妙地反映了在地的城市化进程。而盲文本身同纸张所印刷的信息分属两个世界，两者之间没有任何关系，重要的是这两个世界在此交汇了。
   对于我个人来说，这种言外之像，像外之言，是我创作线索的近一步延伸，所不同的是，作者从其中巧妙的隐身了。展示方式是将这些扎满盲文的印刷现成品裸贴于6.25米长、2.85米高的一整面墙上盲人可触摸阅读印刷品上面的文字记录。有视觉能力与没有视觉能力的读者各自解读分数两个世界的信息，通过这个解读过程，两个世界再次分离。
2《切片》，在24张用盲文纪录梦境的纸张上进行书写与描绘，然后再反复涂抹与覆盖，形成涂鸦效果的手稿。通过对所绘信息的干扰，使观者陷入观看的困境。在描绘的过程中，水、色、笔力的作用使得纸上的盲文凸点不断的损失，盲文信息也会残缺不全，使得有视觉能力的人与盲人对作品的解读都有缺失。从而使在视觉上分属两个世界的群体在某种形而上的意义上取得了平等。
3《B2》，大展厅由三十二张盲文检讨书组成的线性长卷式展陈方式。形式上追求极简，与空间融为一体，从观看角度来说，正常人无法解读盲文，每张检讨书为100cmX60cm，维生素B2药片组成了放大后的盲文凸点，所以盲人即使触摸作品表面也无法解读其内容，作品本身产生了无法观看与解读的双重困境；从符号意义上来看每一份检讨书都来源于真实的盲文符号，用手及身体的解读方试在这里完全失效，每一个具体的检讨在这里成为了无意义的无解的盲书。
 
黄：在作品《B2》中，您用三十二张盲文检讨书组成的线性长卷式。每张检讨书为100cmX60cm，维生素B2药片组成了放大后的盲文凸点，变成了无意义的无解的盲书。那么，您为什么选用药片作为媒介？ 或者，以药片为媒介蕴涵了什么意义？
范：药的含义是有目的地调节动物的生理机能并规定有适应症或者功能与主治、用法与用量的物质。
我选择用药片做为放大了的盲文凸点的替代品，首先考虑的是作品尺度上的合适。药片于作品中是隐晦的、秘密的、被遮蔽的在场。如果非要阐述其意义的话，那么药片在做为艺术作品表达媒介的同时也提示了艺术本身是一种保持社会肌体健康的活性物质。尽管比重不大，但不可或缺。

 黄： 整个展览仅有三组作品《世界?》、《切片》和《B2》组成，它们都与盲文相关，那么，这三组作品在整体上是一个什么结构关系以及逻辑联系？
范：就像我上面所说的，整个展览就是尝试将两个知觉系统打个结，看看背后的人类心灵世界有什么样新的可能性。那么这三组作品顺序渐进，呈现两个系统重新产生交集过程中从互不相属，到互相抵抗，最后到和谐新生状态，这三层逻辑关系就非常明显了。
《世界?》，"3"变为立方，表示"每一次心灵感知经验通过符号，都成为对同一个主题的不同表达"，即两个或多个世界交叉产生无数世界。常人感知到的是花花绿绿的视觉和印刷文字；而盲人感知到的是凸起的盲文；这两个世界同时存在，却毫不相关；把它作为第一个呈现的作品，为后面的"信息转化-重建"进行铺垫，也是希望它能作为一个线索，串联起以往的创作，即它暗喻了《言外像》"出生前"的样子。
《切片》，通过艺术家身体行为（涂鸦式绘画）的介入，视知觉世界已经不能被完整解读了；同样盲人的触觉世界也不完整了。视觉上所描绘的内容都是人体的不同器官（有的是病态的器官）以及相对应的各种检查波线、化验单数据、相关药物的英文名称、分子结构、化学方程式。英文文字内容主要是器官的功能、作用、同盲人的关系（听觉、嗅觉、味觉、触觉）。而作品中属于触觉的部分则是我之前采集到的一些盲人表述自己梦境的凸起的盲文。这两种知觉系统表述符号的交叉重叠，暗喻人性中种种倾向，思想、味道、声音、诗性、信仰、死亡、生存、希望、恐惧、幸福、敏感、诱惑、痛苦、贪婪、脆弱等等。这些符号信息的相互转换、消解，使在视觉上分属两个世界的群体在某种形而上的意义上取得了平等和对话的可能。因为此时光凭视觉，或光凭触觉是无法完整解读这件作品所传递的信息的。
《B2》呈现的是触觉世界和视觉世界在碰撞、弥散之后的均态分布，这是一种和谐相处的状态，这也可能是一个全新的知觉世界。命名为《B2》，来源于作品材料本身。如此命名的思考重点在于消除作品本来的身份元素-盲文凸起式的语言特点，避免不同的社会群体因为作品的"命名"而主动代入"盲人身份"，使作品承载过多的道德教义，让观众能直接进入"去图像化的观看和解读"阶段。不过对现在的正常人和盲人来说，这个世界都是无法被解读的，只能以审美的角度去感受。可能只有艺术，才有可能以这种方式将哲学所设想的世界呈现吧。
 
黄： 我很理解您的意图，让有视觉的人与盲人对作品的解读都有缺失，使在视觉上分属两个世界的群体在某种意义上取得了平等。这是不是一种过于理想化的视觉重现？
范：社会意义和道德意义上的平等，不是我这件作品的主题。上面我曾经说过，关注心灵问题才是我创作的主题。"子非鱼，安知鱼之乐？"，人的心灵如何感知对象？不同的人感知对象有什么差异？如果一下子回答不了这样的问题，那么退而求其次，我在社会系统中寻找感知方式差异最大的两类人--正常人和盲人--来做比较和呈现，探讨我们探讨心灵问题的可能性，这是我的创作目标。若要说到理想化，我想我设置了一个两者世界的交集，这便是最大的理想化；而对于社会系统中的两类人能否能取得平等，我觉得这好像不是艺术所能解决的问题。
 
黄： 我曾看到一位日本艺术家小泉明郎以盲人表演盲人的录像作品《视觉缺陷》（Defect in Vision），他从哲学和物理上探测"盲"性。场景设置在二战期间，是与历史赎罪相关以及涉及现实的叙事，即在过去的历史上演与现实状况的关系，即将发生的灾难征兆又与福岛核灾难相关。但您的作品似乎摒弃了任何叙事，更显理性，让作品理念回到视觉与非视觉的错位关系中。这是不是您追求的艺术本体的关键？
范：我是一个纯粹的视觉艺术家。做好视知觉领域内的工作、研究和创作，我乐此不疲。我无力讲述故事，那是文学家所擅长的；我也无力针砭时事，那个领域有知识分子和社会精英进行责任担当；最后我也不宣扬理性，因为对于一件作品，理性说不清楚的东西往往更重要。
 
黄：在这样的观念中，药片被转化成无法解读的无意义的意义，这似乎有点"主观表现的客观性"，也就是说，主观性的观念干预改变了客观物质的形态，也使其中的内涵和意义发生偏移。是这样吗！
范：使用药片作为承载这件作品的物质载体，实际上是一个小概率事件，带有一定的随机性。我之所以选择它，是因为它审美形态上的适合。至于其内涵和意义，尤其是将"药片"这个物质放入这样一个特定的语境和文化场域中去理解，我想留一点诗性的空缺感，让观众见仁见智，也许会更好吧。
 
黄：您认为自己的作品在属性或类型上属于什么样的艺术形态？
范：我相信艺术的发生有其因果和缘分；但我不相信艺术甘心被现有的艺术形态所规定。从架上绘画一路走到今天，拼贴也好、影像装置也好、观念作品也好，从外部看也许我都是用了一些大家都能分类辨识的形态外壳；但对于我所进行的心灵探讨，我认为这些都是无关紧要的。心灵问题的复杂性远远超出了我们的想象。
 
黄：能否谈谈，在这一组作品之后，您将延着一个怎样的观念向前发展？
范：这是一个易于回答的问题，也是一个难于回答的问题。我在创作中对心灵的探索是不变的，但具体到作品中以何种表征出现、又会取得何种认识上的进展，这需要交托给冥冥之中未知的神秘力量。

The Deficiency and Its Meaning: Interview with Fan Bo
Huang Du

Huang Du (Huang in the following parts): Your solo exhibition this time in ARTASTE is completely different from your past ones, since you used to focus more on the expansion of medium featuring collage and mixture in the post-modern context. However, this time is more of a "parallel" structure, and to visualize the non-visualized (the blind's reading material), so as to construct a new art language by the way of "reversing". How did you develop that idea?

Fan Bo (Fan in the following parts): Exploring the possibility of medium is only the first phase of the turn of my artistic creation. And in this phase I primarily explored the relationships between language, meaning, and sphere in the post-modern context and it was done with a strong experimental nature. However, my real focus is the mind and it requires longstanding work, continuous practice and exhibitions of each stage to approach the answer. From the sense of completeness of expression, I could apparently move closer to the intended core exploration zone through the solo exhibition this time.

In the current philosophy sphere, perception is a concept of crucial significance that was rediscovered. According to phenomenology, perception is the base for thinking, and thinking itself. Perception shapes mind. Modern society is a visual society in nature. Everything we are accustomed to, including thinking, concept, action, and result, is based on visual perception. As a visual artist, I intended to propose the following concept in this exhibition: if the socialized visual perception has no more power on individual's mind, what are the other possibilities of a world that human beings' perceive?

I like the idea about "parallel" vs "reversing" you just mentioned. People's mind is trained by visual sense while the blind's mind is trained by other non-visual senses, such as hearing and touching. The training is the price human pay to integrate into the normal social system, however, the two perception systems never cross with each other. So I tried to apply the "reversing" way, as you put it, and bound these two systems, in order to see if there would be any new possibilities.
 
Huang: You obviously are fond of Merleau-Ponty's idea that the organic life and its environment are constructed simultaneously. Could you explain how this idea blended into and was demonstrated in your work?
 
Fan: Since Descartes, rationalism has brought human being to a lonely state of mind. "Cogito ergo sum." It seems that the mind is the generator of the world. When this idea is adopted in an artwork, preset concepts tend to manipulate the form of the work. This problem is popular in both paintings and contemporary arts.

I am fond of Merleau-Ponty's exisitentialism because he developed Nietzsche's idea that body is the primary, which is against Descartes's idea, and proposed the hypothesis on "motor intentionality" and "body schema", giving a more grounded explanation for the relationships among mind, body, and world. According to Merleau-Ponty, body and world cannot be separated because the world is my body's projection, and my body is a point of view of the world. The world realizes itself through my body and I am the world's expression myself. There is a primitive collusive relationship between me and the world. This is the meaning of the idea that the organic life and its environment are constructed simultaneously. This perception consolidated my belief in discussing the differences between blind people and normal people's perception world. In this series of works, the key to appreciating is the audience's "body's view", to use visual or haptic sense to perceive the work. I don't give any preset concept, and I don't send my views, either. All I do is to set a place where the two worlds tangle with each other. Maybe this is what you may call the penetration of Merleau-Ponty's idea.
 
Huang: From my point of view, your work actually goes against itself. Though they are the blind's possessions and resist being read as images, your non-visual approach eventually is demonstrated in a visual form. They only cause trouble and reading barrier to people with normal visual sense because only symbols, which are purely visual structures, are shown. Is this the purity of language that you are looking for and want to achieve?

Fan: I quite agree with you on this point. Although I shield the meaning of the work meant to convey, since that part is for the audience to complete. However, as an artist, I am still responsible for the language and form of my work. I think through the form. Then how can I demonstrate the content of two worlds in the purest and most efficient way? How should I bring them together? It took me a lot of time and efforts to do the clarification.

1 The World?. The materials are ready-made articles. During the tracking investigations on several blind people's households, we found that they recorded their daily life, recipes, lyrics, addresses, phone numbers, religions and poems in Braille on papers which were advertisements, magazines, pictures, political texts, property pamphlets from different times. The prints themselves showing the process of urbanization in the local area, and the Braille on them, however, belong to the other world and has nothing to do with them. But the important thing is that the two worlds meet each other here.

For me, the image beyond the language and the language beyond the image are the stretching part of my creation track, but the creator is delicately invisible. Presenting the print-outs full of Braille on the wall of 6.25 meters in width and 2.85 meters in height, audience with and without visual sense can read two separated worlds of information respectively. And the two worlds are separated again through the interpretation process.

2. Slices. I wrote and painted on 24 pieces of paper with dreams written on in Braille, and produced the scrawled drafts after scribbling repeatedly on it. The disruption of the information on the paper caused difficulties for the audience. And the effects of water, colours, and the force of the strokes would wear the dots of Braille out gradually so that the messages carried by Braille were also incomplete. By making the information incomplete for both the blind and people with normal visual sense, the two groups divided by visual sense are equal to a certain extent.

3 B2. The exhibition hall demonstrated 32 letters of repentance in Braille in the handscroll form. The minimal form allows the work integrate into the space. Normal people cannot understand Braille only by watching. However, neither do the blind because each of the letter is the size of 100cm x 60cm and the Braille were magnified and composed by B2 vitamin tablets. The work created double dilemma of uninterpretable. From the sense of symbol, the content of each letter of repentance is genuine, but the interpreting by hands or body cannot work anymore, and the letters become meaningless.

Huang: In B2, you used 32 letters of repentance and arranged them in the handscroll form. Each letter is the size of 100cmX60cm, and the vitamin B2 tablets represent the magnified raised dots in Braille, however, meaningless. Why did you choose tablets as the medium? What's the point of it?

Fan: Medication is a drug or other substance used to adjust physiology and has its indication, functions and effects and dosage.
I chose tablets as the substitute of magnified raised dots firstly for the reason of the suitable size. The tablets in the work are obscure, secret and shielded. If the meaning has to be explained, I would say that when the tablets are serving as a medium in an artwork, they are also suggesting that art itself is an active material that keeps the society healthy, though taking a small proportion but indispensable.

Huang: The exhibition consisted of only three series of your work, The World?, Slices, and B2, which are all about Braille. What is the structural and logical relationship link them three as a whole?

Fan: I have mentioned that the exhibition was trying to bind the two sense systems and see what are the new possibilities lie in human's inside world. These three series of works gradually present the crossing process of the two systems, from irrelevant, to resisting against each other, and to the final state of new-born harmony. The progressive relationship here is obvious.

The World?. "3" here represents cube, and means that "through symbol, each perception experience of mind can be another expression of a common theme." In other words, when two or multiple worlds cross, countless worlds emerge. In this case, normal people see the colorful printed words while the blind feel the raised dots. The two worlds co-exist, though irrelevant to each other. As the first presented work, it set a steppingstone for the following process of "information transfer-rebuild". Also, it may, hopefully, relate to former works. For example, it suggested the yet-to-be-born Image beyond Language.

In the case of Slices, the participation of the artist's actions (the graffiti drawing) make it impossible to fully interpret the visual target anymore while the haptic target for the blind is incomplete. The visual contents include different human organs (some are even pathological), and correspondingly, the wave lines, figures on inspection sheets, (English) name, molecular structure and chemical equation of the medicine. The English contents are mainly about the functions of the organs and their relations with the blind (hearing, smelling, tasting and touching). The haptic part in the work is Braille describing the blind's dreams I collected beforehand. The crossing and overlapping of the expression symbols from two sense systems suggest multiple characters in humanity, such as thoughts, flavor, voice, poetry, religion, death, living, hope, fear, happiness, sensitivity, temptation, agony, greed, vulnerability, etc. The offset and transfer between these symbols and their meanings make it possible that the two groups divided by vision are equal and open to conversation, at a certain metaphysical level, due to the fact that either seeing or touching alone cannot lead to the complete interpretation of this work.

B2 manifests an even distribution of the haptic and visual worlds after clashing and dispersing. It is a harmony state and possibly, a brand new sense world as well. The title of B2 came from the material, and the point of it is to erase the original identity of the work-the raised dots of Braille, so that other social groups would directly enter the stage of "devisualised observation and interpretation" instead of putting themselves into the blind's shoes because of the title and load the work with too much moral meanings. However, for now, the world remains uninterpretable for both normal people and the blind, and we can only enjoy it from the aesthetic perspective. Maybe only art can present the world proposed by philosophy.
 
Huang: I understand your intention, which is to let both normal people and the blind's interpretation of the work miss some part, so that the two groups divided by visual sense are equal to some extent. However, is this visual-reproduction too ideal?

Fan: Equality in the sense of social and moral level is not the theme of my work. I said that the focus on mind is the theme of my creation. "You are not the fish, and how do you understand his happiness?" How do human minds perceive an object and what's the difference between different people's perception? I could not answer these questions at one blow so I stepped back and looked for the two groups of people in the society, who have the least in common in the way of perceiving, normal ones and the blind. I compared and presented them, in order to explore the possibilities of discussing the issues of mind. This is the aim of my creation. As for being ideal, I guess I set a crossing point between these two groups and this is the most ideal scenario. As for the question that if these two groups of people are equal in the society, I don't think this is a question that can be solved by art.
 
Huang: I have seen a Japanese artist Meiro Koizumi's video work Defect in Vision, in which the blind were playing the role of blind people. He tested blindness from the perspective of both philosophy and physics. The scene was set in the WW2, and was about redemption and history-involved narrative. The story was set in the history but about current reality. The omen of forthcoming disaster also related to Fukushima catastrophe. However, your works seem to abandon narration completely and are more rational, bringing back the idea to the mismatched relation between visual and non-visual parts. Is this the key to art itself that you are pursuing for?

Fan: I am completely a visual artist. I can never get tired doing my work, research and creation in my area. I am not a story-teller, which is litterateur's job; and I don't comment on the society since we have intellectuals and social elites to take the responsibilities. And I don't advocate rationality, because for a piece of work, things that cannot be explained by rationality are usually more important.
 
Huang: The tablets are representing the meaning that cannot be interpreted, it seems to me that the objectiveness is subjectively expressed. In other word, the subjective idea intervenes the objective articles' form so that the connotation and denotation both shift. Is that true?

Fan: Using tablets as the carrier of this work was actually by chance. I chose tablets due to its suitable shape. As for the meaning, especially the meaning of putting "tablets" into a specific context and culture sphere, I would like to leave some poetic space to it and let the audience have their own answers.

Huang: What form or type of art do you think your works belong to?

Fan: I believe that the generation of art has its reasons, results and fate. But I don't believe that art would be willingly disciplined by the current art forms. From paintings in the history to today, there have been collages, video installations and conceptual works. For the appearance part, I probably used some forms that can be recognized or distinguished. However, for the inside part, the exploration of mind, I think the forms are irrelevant. The complexity of mind is far beyond our imagination.

Huang: Could you talk about what idea you will stick to in the future after this series of works?

Fan: This is a both easy and difficult question. My exploration into mind will never change, however, the way the idea is presented or the progress I make will depend on the unknown power.
 
Translated by: HU Tianxiu