翁子健

「愛蝶灣6樓D室」是方琛宇這次展覽的題目，但也是他家的地址。這個雙重性的意味在於：作為一個普通的概念，地址是功能性及指示性的，但以這個地址命名一個在科隆發生的展覽，這個地址便不再有任何實用意義，因為作為題目它不是為了讓人去尋找這個具體的地點，對於觀看這次展覽的人來說，甚至這個地點是否存在也不要緊。這種雙重性正是方琛宇創作中的核心命題：那些既是完全私密的、又同時極盡人所共知的事。

這個地址當然也是一個提示，幫助我們去理解這個展覽：首先，它指向香港，全球金融中心，曾經的「世界工廠」的大腦，以貿易自由聞名，一個以效率和生產力作為最高評判標準的地方。這個務實的社會篤信時間就是金錢。在這兒成長的人自然而然地帶有一種道理的責任感：必須以「正確」的方式利用時間，而浪費時間就是一種反叛。從這個角度看，不妨將方琛宇的創作理解為一種對反生產力的研究，是對於那些令人罪疚和難受的不事生產的時刻之探討。他的追問是：難道我們的個人歷史不是由無數的這些「非歷史性時間」構成的嗎？這些時刻怎麼可能會毫無意義呢？

這個地址也指向《D室》，那是這次展覽上的一件作品，2015年在香港藝術中心第一次展出。當時，方利用了展覽的一個角落，將之改造，仿製成自己家中睡房。展覽期間，他邀請觀眾每人獨自在房間內等待10分鐘，房門鎖上，任何計時工具都不得帶上。觀眾知道他將會在房中等待10分鐘，但是房間裡沒有任何值得一看的東西，他們只能把注意力放在自己的頭腦內。他們的日程計劃，他們的體驗，好比是突然被中斷了一下，儘管他們是自願參與這件事的，但是他們也不得不停下來，面對這個中斷。這就是這個作品的核心命題：這個沒有理由的中斷，這10分鐘裡的發生的事情，它意味著什麼？在未來我們還會記得它嗎？

當下這次展覽的其他三件作品可被視為方的研究之考察素材。他以圖片及文字記錄了他在美術館實習值班時，在上課時，和在長途巴士上的心理活動。這些文字可能會有點像經典的意識流小說，尤其是卡謬的《局外人》，但是文學性不是方關心的問題。方要探討的是一種普遍的東西，而不是一些特殊的私人經驗。試想：在沉悶和分神時，我們是否都會在頭腦裡跟自己說話？我們都跟自己說了些什麼？這些話是偶然的嗎？它們為什麼會出現，為什麼會這樣出現？它們可能還會出現得毫無約束，不顧任何社會的基本禮儀和道德。與當下情境毫無關係的記憶畫面也會浮現，我們都不知道此事此地為什麼會想起這些事。方以自己的經驗，希望探討的正是這些我們自己跟自己的對話。

在來德國兩年之前，方在香港已是一位受到認可、有相當經驗的藝術家。對他而言，來德國讀書，最重要的肯定不是獲取新的資訊和方法，而是對一個陌生環境的體驗，一種距離感和冷漠感，因為孤獨正是方最感興趣的感受之一，他的創作也往往旨在處理及轉化孤獨，以達致對自我的更深刻的理解。從這個角度看，這次展覽的最後一件作品《午後》真可謂是一個美麗的比喻：《午後》是一本沒有文字，不記載任何知識和歷史的書，書中只有陽光的映照，隨著時間轉變形式。這大概象徵了方的藝術創作之要旨：自我對於時間和心靈的最為細緻的感受。

– 文章刊登於同名展覽場刊

Time, Furtive Glances and Banality: a discussion of Silas Fong’s early works

Anthony T. K. Yung

2010

“Stolen Times for Sale”

“Stolen Times for Sale” is a game of conceptual switcheroo. During the morning rush, Silas Fong pushed the hold button in the elevator of a Hong Kong high-rise apartment building. He filmed the fleeting six or seven seconds between the opening and closing of the doors. He then sold these dozens of six and seven second segments at a price determined by the number of people in the elevator, their expressions and their responses. Each segment is sold only once. The sold segment of video is replaced with a text on screen [Sold –  XX Seconds for $XX]. When sales are good, and “time” is sold out, all that remains of the work is a textual record of the length and sale price of each segment.

This work has attracted attention in so far as it purports to not only steal a fleeting moment, but then sell it. It asserts the power to challenge the absolutism of time. However, what the artist is selling is not to time, but images. On that morning, seconds of time are stolen from the elevator passengers (the artist’s put-upon neighbors), time that should not have been lost in this way and which can never be wrested back. What has been sold is simply the image of the process of that theft, and not the time itself. The result is that those blameless few seconds now belong to no one: neither to the artist, nor to the buyer.

At this point we have already perceived that the conceptual switcheroo involves the concepts of “time” and “image.”

“Sale” is the work’s other central concept. Because images are reproducible, buyers and collectors of video art have been hesitant to enter the market. But in “Stolen Times for Sale,” the videos are only being sold in the name of “time.” The sale of the video makes effective use of the sense of absolute singularity that is associated with time, and is, in this way, seemingly effective at taking the measure and establishing the value of video art.

Thus, the structure of the work is established in the following way: wildly pushing elevator buttons is a favorite mischief of children in Hong Kong, and dull moments spent waiting for and riding in elevators–time spent in impatience–are also an unavoidable experience of Hong Kong life. Silas Fong turns these authentic experiences into an artistic subject, a game of logic, and uses the conceptual obfuscation of the artwork to package apparently reasonable products.

“Following strangers”

People continue to advocate for privacy, and privacy protections have been enshrined into law. At the same time, we can not wait to engage in performances of the self and to violate each other’s privacy. Facebook has easily surpassed Google as the world’s most popular website. Compared to Facebook, Google is but a serious, just and trustworthy librarian! When people log into Facebook, do they sense that they have now been placed beneath an infinite series of eyes? “Friends” on Facebook are uninterruptedly connected. Friends always have friends, and these “friends of friends” fall far outside the limits of our imaginations. They can be someone who you will never meet in your life, or they can be someone who is greatly offense to you. The eyes of “friends of friends” are the eyes of the big other, the eyes of the world. Deeds and images that you might rather not have made public can be posted at any time to Facebook by people who know you (not “friends,” but people who merely “know” you). The degree to which your precious privacy has been unveiled to the world will be unknown to you, let alone within your power to stop.

What is frightening about Facebook is that even if you do not participate, you can not avoid it. It’s primary driver is something that everyone shares in common: an objectless curiosity, a kind of voyeuristic tendency, a continually growing and insatiable desire, one that exists, in particular, in the virtual world of the internet.

Silas Fong’s work “Following Strangers” is a self-made, web-based platform, where he gathers account information of interest to him from users of Facebook and other social media platforms, and where he cites his reason for his interest in this person, his impressions of him/her and his reason and motivation for wanting to add them.   Here, the artist is taking on the role of voyeur and surveiler/follower, and, at the same time, attempts to explore the background motivations for surveilling/pursuing/following these people. In this inverted social media platform, the focus is not on whether the photos and information from these strangers is truly interesting, but rather the disclosure of the psychic motivation of surveilling/pursuing/following strangers. For the most part, these so-called “motivations” are dull and banal, and reveal, to a greater or lesser extent, that in social media space, forming “real” relationships with strangers is beside the point, and what is most important is that when taking a furtive glance into the world of strangers, our curiosity is being continually nurtured.

Staring, being stared at, and the disappeared starer
The work “In some seconds” is the artist’s documentation of the roadside scenery that passes over the course of a bus route. Throughout the recording, passersby cast their curious glances towards the lens. While in “Waiting,” the artist takes surreptitious pictures of the expressions of people waiting in Times Square. The installation of “In some seconds” is highly designed: it reproduces the visual experience of riding on a bus, which has no difficulty in attracting the viewer’s formalistic interest. The latter, we can easily place the latter within the urban documentary photography tradition of Walker Evans and Helen Levitt.

In fact, both works have developed around a topic of continuous interest for the artist. Everyday strangers appear in “In some seconds.” Their visages, expressions and gazes are videographic documentation of a transient moment in the rush of daily life. “Stolen Times for Sale” is concerned with fundamentally the same topic. “Stolen Times for Sale” forcibly interrupts people’s elevator journey to attract their gaze. When viewing, “In some seconds,” we can not be sure what it is exactly that is attracting the bystander’s gaze. Fascinatingly, when we view the work, we substitute ourselves for the subject of the staring, and imagine the self through the gazes and expressions of those strangers. In other words, other people are mirrors.

When compared to “In some seconds,” “Waiting” is far less grand in terms of subject and skill. The people waiting at Times Square in Causeway Bay are everyday people, strangers. They are unoccupied. Because their pictures have no particular significance as social documentary, these people can function as pure aesthetic objects. And because these were taken surreptitiously, the gazer disappears, and again we walk into this paradox: is the focus of this work on the aesthetics of the object or is it the subjective feeling of pleasure produced from voyeurism? Here, Silas Fong is in the process of simplifying the form and conceptual structure of his work, attempting to utilize an exceedingly banal attitude to represent the banality of people.

[Translated from Chinese by Jesse Robert Coffino.]