神靈的書寫 Spirit-writing

神靈的書寫 Spirit-writing

雙頻道錄像裝置 two-channel video installation，9'45"，2016
製片 Produce by： Le Fresnoy
聯合製片 Co-producer：尊彩藝術中心 Liang Gallery

Video installation Spirit-writing presents an unusual dialogue between artist Chia-Wei Hsu and the frog god Marshal Tie Jia who allegedly was born in a small pond more than 1,400 years ago in Jiangxi, China. It is said that his temple in the Wuyi Mountains was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, so he has since been taking shelter on Matsu Island. The local villagers communicate with Marshal Tie Jia through a unique divination chair ritual. The divination chair shakes violently under divine orders and proceeds to hit the altar table and write down commands decreed by the divine power during the ritual. Sometimes, legible words are written down, but there are also times when the writing needs to be deciphered through further gestures of pounding or making noises. The villagers use this ritual to help them make decisions on many things in life.

Marshal Tie-Jia was invited by Chia-Wei Hsu to come to a film studio, where the divination chair ritual was performed to ask the frog god about the original conditions of his temple in the Wuyi Mountains. Hsu also reported to the Marshal about the approach and concept behind this art project. The process was made into a documentary, with an animation presented at the same time. Motion capture technology was applied in the film studio to document the movements of the divination char, which was post-produced into a 3D animation. A 3D temple is also constructed according to the fragmented clues provided by Marshal Tia-Jia.

This two-channel video installation showcases the dialogue between the artist and the frog god, integrating contemporary art and folk belief, the digital world and the realm of the divine.

《神靈的書寫》錄像裝置呈現藝術家許家維與青蛙神鐵甲元帥之間的一段不尋常對話的過程。鐵甲元帥據說是在一千四百年以前，出生於中國江西省的小池塘。祂原本駐紮在中國武夷山上的寺廟，文化大革命毀了那座廟以後，馬祖成了祂的避難之地。馬祖村民以一種很特殊的扛乩儀式與鐵甲元帥溝通，在儀式的過程中，神轎會在神明的驅使下劇烈晃動，撞擊神桌並寫下神明的指示。有時元帥會寫下清晰可辨的文字，有時則必須依撞擊的動作或是聲響來判斷，村民生活中的許多事情都透過這個儀式來決定。

許家維邀請鐵甲元帥進入攝影棚，透過扛乩儀式向祂詢問有關武夷山上那座廟宇的原初樣貌，同時也向祂解釋這個藝術計畫的執行方式與概念。他將這個過程拍攝成一部紀錄片，而與紀錄片對稱展出的是一部動畫片，內容源自於攝影棚中針對神轎所進行的動態捕捉（motion capture），透過此技術，將神轎的動態轉化為3D動畫，並且依據元帥所描述的片斷線索，建構一個3D的廟宇場景。

這個雙頻道錄像裝置所呈現的是藝術家與神明、當代藝術與民俗信仰，以及數位世界與神性世界的對話過程。

白色四方桌 Marshal Tie Jia - White Square Table

白色四方桌 Marshal Tie Jia - White Square Table

裝置 Installation，2013

The mythical realm that Marshal Tie Jia has guided me into has allowed me to experience a journey of legends and politics, as these stories slowly take shape between the island and the pond. At last, as I returned once again to the temple in Chinbe Village, I brought with me a white square table, where I recounted my entire journey to the Marshal. The Marshal wrote a poem for me on the altar table, and it reads, “Guest(s) from afar do have feet; root searching from the mountain to the village. The character for sentiment is comprised of a heart, harmoniously dwelling in Chinbe, from generation to generation, with the good name of Chinbe pass down for years to come.” Honestly speaking, although I have met the Marshal several times and have researched quite a bit about him; still, his world remains mysterious and foreign to me. I am unsure if this poem was written specifically for me by the Marshal or is it dedicated to the increasing flow of tourists in town. To me, the poem is quite elusive; perhaps it comes from the Marshal’s own inner sentiments. I think the only way for me to imagine or decipher it is from the stories and fuzzy inconclusive memories I’ve collected along my journey.

隨著鐵甲元帥引領我進入神話世界，我經歷了一段神話與政治的旅程，在島與池塘之間慢慢形塑成了這些故事。最後，我再次回到芹壁村的廟宇，帶了一張白色四方桌，重頭向元帥敘述了這整個旅程，這一次元帥在桌面上寫下了一首詩：「遠來貴客真有腳，武山尋根到溪村。情字半點心，同住石芹邊，祖孫代代傳，萬古芹流芳。」老實說，雖然我與元帥見了很多次面，也打探到了不少祂的事跡，但對於祂的世界我還是感到像團謎般非常陌生。我並不能確定元帥題的這首詩是寫給我，還是寫給逐年增加的觀光客，詩句讀來總覺得離我忽遠忽近，難不成是元帥在抒發自己的心情？我想，唯一能讓我想像的大概只有這趟旅程中，所收集到來自這些相遇者的故事與模糊不確鑿的記憶。

鐵甲元帥－小廟 Marshal Tie Jia - Temple

鐵甲元帥－小廟 Marshal Tie Jia - Temple

裝置 Installation，280 (H) × 240 (W) × 240 (L) cm，2012

At first, I had hoped to rebuild this disappeared temple directly on the island, but during the ritual of inquiry in your temple, you did not permit me to construct anything on the island. Acting in accordance with your direction, I chose to construct this temple in the studio. In order to do so, I asked an elderly man in the temple what the original temple on the island might have looked like. Still, he could no longer remember, so I could only imagine its scale based on the remains of its site on the island and its architectural style in consideration of the Chin-be Village where you reside. In the 1970s, the decline of the fisheries here caused a resident to migrate away, allowing the village to hide away from the ravages of modernism by preserving a series of traditional Eastern Min architectural structures. I carved the texture of the interior temple walls out of the marble and granite often found in this architecture, then painted it in greenish white and dark yellow among other colours. This is not only a fabricated set for filming but is also, at the same time, a real space, a materialisation of things imagined and remembered.

起初我希望能直接在島上重建這座已經消失的廟宇，但在那次廟裡的詢問儀式中，您不允許我在島上搭建任何東西，遵照您的指示，我選擇把這座廟宇搭建在工作室裡。為此我詢問了廟裡長者這座廟宇過去在島上可能的樣貌，他已回想不起，於是我便依據島上殘留的廟宇地基來想像它的大小，而廟裡的建築樣式則是參考您所居住的芹壁村。1970年後這裡的漁業蕭條使居民外移，村莊因此躲過現代化的破壞，保留了許多傳統的閩東建築，我依照這些建築裡常見的花崗岩與大理石來刻畫廟裡牆面的質感，並用青白、黃褐與磚紅等不同的顏色來繪製，這不僅是個拍攝用的虛構場景，同時也是個現實空間，是對於曾發生事物的想像與記憶的物質化。

鐵甲元帥－靖思村 Marshal Tie Jia - Jingsi Village

鐵甲元帥－靖思村 Marshal Tie Jia - Jingsi Village

單頻道錄像裝置 single-channel 4K ultra HD video，10'，2013
本作品為台北市立美術館的委託製作

Commissioned by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum

By drawing out unusual conversations between the frog god Marshal Tie Jia and the artist, this Marshal Tie Jia project is an attempt to map the creation and disappearance of myth, image, culture, and history from both the contemporary modernist context and a more ancient and mysterious perspective.

Marshal Tie Jia, who was born more than 1000 years ago in Jiangxi, China and lost his temple in the Wuyi Mountains during the Cultural Revolution, is currently exiled to Turtle Island, a tiny islet between Taiwan and China that came under the jurisdiction of the former after Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan. After an accidental encounter with Marshal Tie Jia, Chia-Wei Hsu decided to unfold the conjunction of modernity and myth. The first stage of this work, Marshal Tie Jia – Turtle Island is, depicting the island where Marshal Tie Jia currently resides in daylight, and Marshal Tie Jia - Jingsi Village is its second stage, presenting the pond where the frog god was born in the night and accompanied by both Nuo dance, an ancient exorcism ritual that shares the same roots as the frog beliefs.

This area is the birthplace of the frog beliefs and Nuo dance. After the cultural revolution, these beliefs were categorized into monsters or ghosts and were forbidden. The Nuo dance troupe was forced to disband, and the masks and costumes were burned by fire. Many scraped old embossments, and paint-covered walls can be found in the village. The power of modernity removed the ancient memory shortly in a few years. In the film, Chia-Wei Hsu represents the ancient exorcism ritual with local villagers based on the description recorded on an oracle bone scripture in Shang Dynasty.

As the difference between fact and fiction seems to disappear, and the modern nation-state’s appropriation of history and memory is revealed through discovering a living myth, Hsu creates narratives through image, text, and installation to untether the formation of cultural identity from its preceding attachments, which become critical elements of the structure of the new artistic myth of Marshal Tie Jia: the magical stories and political background ebb away, and the narrative becomes a means to transcribe an imagination of life.

鐵甲元帥創作計畫是由青蛙神鐵甲元帥和藝術家之間一段不尋常的對話所開展，以現代性的脈絡以及遠古神祕文本的雙重透視切入，彼此相互映照，譜繪出神話、影像、文化與歷史的消逝和形成。

鐵甲元帥在一千四百多年以前出生於中國江西，其駐於武夷山的廟宇在文化大革命的時期遭受毀壞，目前流落到在中國和台灣本島之間的龜島上。該島在蔣中正退守台灣以後，正式歸為台灣管轄。在一場意外的相遇後，許家維決定展現此現代性和神話的交錯節點，第一階段的作品《鐵甲元帥－龜島》是以日景捕捉其現居地的島嶼，而《鐵甲元帥－靖思村》則是第二階段的創作，以夜景描繪青蛙神出生地的池塘，並與青蛙神信仰同根源的驅魔儀式儺舞一起呈現。

此地區是中國青蛙信仰與儺舞儀式的發源地，但在文化大革命之後，這些信仰均被歸類為牛鬼蛇神而被禁止，戲班被迫解散，面具與戲服則被焚毀。村子裡到處可見的是被刮除的浮雕或是被油漆覆蓋的城牆，這些古老的記憶在短短的幾年就被現代化的力量所抹除。在影片中，藝術家參考了商朝的一塊甲骨文石版所描述的驅魔儀式，並與當地村民再次演繹了一場遠古的驅魔過程。

在挖掘這則現存神話的過程中，事實與虛構的差異顯得微小，而現代國家對於歷史與記憶的挪動支配結構則表露無疑。藝術家透過拍攝行動產生出新事件與新敘事，逐步解開文化認同背後所隱藏的結構，並成為作品《鐵甲元帥》這則新藝術神話的基石：神祕魔幻的故事與政治背景隨海潮褪去，敘事成為譯寫生命想像的憑介。

鐵甲元帥－龜島 Marshal Tie Jia - Turtle Island

鐵甲元帥－龜島 Marshal Tie Jia - Turtle Island 

單頻道錄像、攝影一幅、文件兩張 single-channel HD video (16:9), one photograph 120cm×80cm, two documents，6'35"，2012

Chia-Wei Hsu's video installation engages with the history of a tiny island off the coast of Matsu, which is situated in the Taiwan Strait. During the Qing Dynasty, the island was the site of a small temple. When Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan, the temple was dismantled and relocated to a larger neighbouring island, and a bunker was constructed in its place. At present, the bunker is a ruin and ownership of the island has been transferred again to the proprietors of the original temple. The island is also under the commandment of a local god called the " Marshal Tie Jia," a frog deity. This deity originated from a temple on Wu-Yi Mountain in China, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution when the deity migrated to Matsu.

In Hsu's work, the island is used as a stage. Employing the cinematographic device of the "green screen" - a generic background replaced in the post-production process with any other background image - Hsu places a fictional version of the original tiny temple on the island. Slowly, the camera zooms out and reveals that green screen on the island. This scenography forms the backdrop of a performance in which a local senior citizen sings a form of folk opera found only in the south of Fujian Province, recounting the experience of WWII. He is the last person capable of performing the opera, which has a long tradition and was known to be Marshal Tie Jia's favourite pastime but has now fallen into oblivion.

Next to the video is a letter written by Hsu installed on the wall. He asks Marshal Tie Jia for permission for his action, lays down his vision of contemporary art's historical agency, and documents the god's response.

許家維的錄像裝置新作所表陳的主軸環繞在一座小島，該島位於台灣海峽上的馬祖外海。此作涉及這島嶼的歷史。在清朝，這座島上有間小廟。當蔣介石撤退到台灣後，小廟被拆解遷移至鄰近一作更大的島嶼，其原址上則建造了一座碉堡。現在，碉堡荒廢頹圮，島嶼的所有權也再度被轉讓到原本的廟方手上。這座島嶼受當地一位青蛙神明「鐵甲元帥」管轄。祂原本駐紮在中國五夷山上的廟中。當文化大革命毀了那座廟後，祂就被流放到了馬祖。

在許家維的作品中，這座島嶼被當作是舞台。藝術家運用電影製作的「綠幕」技術（一種拍攝期間使用的替代背景，而後在後製過程中以其他背景合成取代），將虛擬的小廟重新放回島上，卻隨著攝影機緩緩地拉遠而揭露這蒙太奇手法，讓設置在島上的綠幕一目了然。如此的寫景手法構成了一項表演場景，其中，一位當地的老人唱著流傳於福建南方的民俗歌謠。據說，這是鐵甲元帥在閒暇之餘最喜歡聽的曲目，只是現在已經被眾人遺忘了，而這老人是碩果僅存的傳述者。

旁邊牆上則貼了一封許家維寫的信，陳述了他作為當代藝術的歷史代言人的願景，請鐵甲元帥應准他的行為，並展示神祇回應的攝影。