和平島故事 The Story of Hoping Island

和平島故事 The Story of Hoping Island

單頻道錄像裝置 single-channel video installation， 12'40"，2008

音樂製作：方彥翔

Music supervisor: Fang Yen Hsiang

The Story of Hoping Island was shot in a shipyard on Hoping Island in Keelung, which has 88 years of history. During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, it was the Japanese government's southernmost shipyard, and as such, it supported Imperial Japanese southward expansion. After the retrocession of Taiwan, the shipyard played a crucial role in Taiwan's economic takeoff. This shipyard represents a highly compressed, symbolic timeframe from WWII to now. The shipyard reflects how the locals identify themselves based on their specific local histories and how the national government encodes and directs history. To support this history, complicated traditions and myths are continually developed and developing. So Hsu Chia-Wei shot this shipyard, a real space, and responded to the shipyard's other historical side: the legend.

The whole scene of The Story of Hoping Island was shot in the shipyard in Hoping Island. The artist invited his grandmother, who had received Japanese education, to describe the situation in Japanese. Through the process of narratives, this place, usually with numerous workers, seems remote and deserted, caused by no people appearing in the video. In this work, the artist regarded this shipyard as a memory crystal to develop the narratives. Through the complexity of place and memory, this place becomes an effective instrument to reproduce memory.

In this video, an artist-created Creature—Ni-Ku, is the only element to connect to the narrative. It has weightless science-fictional characteristics: both the military detector and the luminary. The artist also put electronic music with shattered rhythms in the background. Through this tiny creature, this work responds to the grand era, as do the fictional narratives that respond to the political statement. It also permeates through history, memory and dream. Or we could say that history itself seems like a memory and dream to some extent. This work has many usages of "light", including the luminous Ni-Ku in the narratives, the sparkling gem-like light in the shipyard, the lighting at the end of the video, and the physics light from the projector in the space. In the illusory dimension, with its light-like non-material characteristic, this work transits the immense and massive history to a legend.

The Story of Hoping Island lies in the constantly overlapped process of history and dream, image space and physical space, reality and fiction. While national governments continuously constructed their own identification, this work becomes a weightless, fictional space and provides a breathing break.

作品《和平島故事》拍攝的地點是位在基隆和平島的造船廠，這座造船廠有88年的歷史，日據時代期間是日本政府國境內最南端的軍事造船廠，主要支持日本的南進政策，而日本政府撤退後，這座造船廠在台灣的經濟起飛中又佔有關鍵位置，於是它高度壓縮了從二次大戰至今的時空，同時也反映了地方及其認同如何根著於歷史，國族政府熱衷於將認同感跟植於國族來自何方，以及前往何處的歷史故事，為了支撐這些故事發展了繁複的傳統並不斷的創造神話，於是拍攝造船廠這真實的地點，同時也是回應這個歷史的另一個面向：傳說。

整個場景皆拍攝於和平島造船廠，藝術家邀請祖母以日文描述當時的情況（藝術家的祖母過去曾受日本教育），在敘事的過程中，沒有出現任何人的影像，猶如一個無人的造船廠（此造船廠平日有大量的工作人員），作品聚焦在將造船廠視為一個記憶的晶體，敘事的進展則在這個前提之下。透過地方與記憶糾結的複雜性，地方則成為了記憶再生產的有效工具。

藝術家在此透過創造虛構生物「泥琥」來做為影像內唯一串起敘事的元素，同時泥琥也具有一種輕盈質感的科幻特質：作為一種軍事用探測儀器與作為一個發光體。影片在音樂上則是使用了電子音樂的細碎節奏。作品透過這個微小的生物「泥琥」來回應一個大時代；透過一個虛幻的敘事來回應政治論述。也貫串歷史、記憶與夢境，或者說，歷史某種程度就如同記憶與夢境一般。作品中出現了許多「光」的運用，包括在敘事層次中，泥琥作為一個發光體；在影像層次中，造船廠如寶石般晶瑩剔透的燈光，以及影片最後一幕的閃電；在物理層次中，投影機的光線作為實際空間中的光。整個作品就如同「光」一般的非物質性，在虛幻的向度中，將龐大且沉重的歷史轉變成了一個傳說。

《和平島故事》這件作品處在不斷的翻轉歷史與夢境、影像空間與物理空間、真實與虛構的過程中。在不同的國族政府不斷的建構認同的時刻，《和平島故事》成為一個輕盈的、虛幻的空間，一個喘息的空間。

The Story of Hoping Island was presented in the Taipei Fine Art Museum in December 2008.

2008年12月於台北市立美術館展出的《和平島故事》一作