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Image: Roman Duszek © 2003
Conference presentation Video
Keywords
Multimodality, literacy, representation, design, media affordances
Abstract
In this paper I wish to point to what I see as the central issues in the linked shifts in representation and dissemination: that is, from the constellation of mode of writing and medium of book / page, to the constellation of mode of image and medium of screen. In particular I will draw attention to consequent shifts in authority, in changes in forms of reading, shifts in shapes of knowledge and in forms of human engagement with the social and natural world.
Paper
Readers of this journal are experts in design. What I can offer is a particular take on certain issues in design from the perspective of (Social) Semiotics, and more specifically, from the perspective of multimodality, which deals with all the means we have for making meanings – the modes of representation - and considers their specific way of configuring the world. To make this concrete, here is a small example. Say I am designing a biology text-book. The subject matter is ‘plant-cells’. If I use words, I will have to say “Every cell has a nucleus”. If I use an image, I will need to place a large dot somewhere in the circle which indicates the cell to represent the nucleus (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Cell and nucleus
To reflect on this: in writing or speaking I have to use a sentence in which two entities – cell and nucleus – are related by a verb, have, indicating a possessive relation: the cell has something (much like: “I have a car, a house, two kids, etc”). I could use a different verb: “In every cell there is a nucleus”. The meaning is now quite different: about existence, there is and location, in. If I draw, I have to place a large dot representing the nucleus somewhere in a circle which represents the cell. Wherever I place it, someone looking at the image is entitled to assume that the nucleus actually is where I have placed it in the circle/cell – whether I intended to or not, or whether it actually belongs there or not. Each mode forces me into making certain kinds of commitments about meaning, intended or not. The choice of mode has profound effects on meaning, and textbook designers, for instance, need to be aware of such meaning effects of different modes.
Meanings are always disseminated through particular media: the medium of the book; or the medium of the CD-ROM, involving still and moving images, speech, writing, cartoon-like characters in comic strips, music, and so on. It might be the medium of the teacher’s body, involving speech, movement and gesture. All media offer specific possibilities to the designer, and to the reader/user in their reading and / or use.
The approach from Social Semiotics not only draws attention to the many kinds of meanings which are at issue in design, but the “social” in “Social Semiotics” draws attention to the fact that meanings always relate to specific societies and their cultures, and to the meanings of the members of those cultures. Semiotics takes the sign - a fusion of a form and a meaning – as its basic unit. In making signs we –embedded in our cultures - select forms in such a way that they expresses the meanings that we ‘have’ always ‘aptly’; hence signs always express, through their form, the meanings that the makers of signs have wished to make.
Take a simple example. I am in an American airport, looking for something to eat. I see a sign Bar and Grille, outlined in lurid red neon lights. Being hungry, I am attracted by “Grille”; I am aware that I am particularly drawn by the “e” on “Grille”. As a semiotician – even a hungry one – I wonder about this ”e”, in part because just the night before I have had a discussion with a colleague about how signs work. I order a brisket sandwich and think about this sign. What the “e” tells me is something about tradition and ‘Englishness’; it relates to many other signs I have seen where the “e” has had similar meanings, as in “Ye olde gifte shoppe”. And, even though I know it is a marketing gimmick, I want to be seduced by its meanings. Of course all the other parts of the sign also mean: the ‘Grill’ – with or without the “e” - speaks of barbeques, of the outdoors, of freshly cooked food. For the sauce I had the choice of mild, medium and make my day (- which I chose; and it did). “Bar” has its specific meanings for Americans reading the sign; and the lurid red neon sign of course ‘means’ to attract my attention, and maybe offer whatever promises ‘lurid red’, in the context of “Bar”, might hold.
All these are social meanings, specific to a particular culture. At the same time they are chosen, put together for their potential to mean, by the deliberate action of the designer. The sign - a complex message of words, of letters, of colour and font-types with all their cultural resonances - reflects the interests of its designer as much as the designer’s imagined sense of those who will see and read the sign. The sign is based on a specific rhetorical purpose, and intent to persuade with all means possible those who pass by and notice it.
Modes and their affordances: the materiality of modes
The kinds of meanings made by the letter “e”, by the word “Grille”, and by the colour “red” are different kinds of meanings. Not only do they mean different things, they mean differently. You can’t look up the meaning of “e”, nor the meaning of “lurid red”. What “e” does is not so much refer to some object, such as a Grill, or a Bar, but rather to evoke by cultural associations. It has a history of use in particular places (in ‘marketing speak’ for instance), and it is knowing its provenance that gives it its meaning. “e” puts me in the world of ‘Olde England’ with all its mythic associations. In one sense, colours work similarly: I have encountered the colour ‘red’ in many instances, as in “red light district”, as a colour of lipsticks: so in this context it is eroticized. Words have their histories, but they also refer; they name things (as nouns) or actions (as verbs) or attributes (as adjectives) or as relations of location (as prepositions), and so on.
One of the present tasks of a social semiotic approach to multimodality is to describe the potentials and limitations for meaning which inhere in different modes. For that, it is essential to consider the materiality of modes. Speech uses the material of (human) sound; writing uses the material of graphic substance. There are things you can do with sound that you cannot do with graphic substance, either easily or at all; not even imitate all that successfully graphically. The up and down of the voice, which produces the melody of (English) speech, makes many meanings, from straightforward questions to highly modulated ones: imagine saying, in a tone of incredulity, ”you did what?”; to many varying forms of emotion and affect. Even highly experienced writers find it impossible to reproduce these meanings in writing and need to take recourse to devices such as “… she said incredulously”. Maybe the major shift in the new landscape of communication in this respect lies in the increasing use of image, even in situations where previously writing would have been used. Consequently an urgent task is understanding the different affordances of writing and image.
In alphabetic cultures writing tends to start, in words, grammar and syntax, as the transcription of speech. It quickly develops its own structures and forms (syntax, punctuation, layout, for instance), so that written English is now very different to spoken English; yet writing does ‘lean on’ speech. Speech happens in time: one sound, one word, one sentence follows another. The ‘logic’ of temporal sequence is the major principle of ordering of languages such as English. Speech and writing are organized by the logic and the ordering principle of sequence in time. This underlies the syntax of English, which is enormously more complex than mere sequence, but is there nonetheless. If I have two simple sentences, such as:
The mists dissolved and the sun rose. It matters in what sequence I place them.
The sun rose and the mists dissolved is very different in meaning from
The mists dissolved and the sun rose.
The one tells us how weather works; the other puts us in the magical, mysterious world of Lord of the Rings maybe. Sequence implies causality: the sentence which comes first seems to be causally prior to that which comes after. But notice that that is so whether I want that meaning or not: I cannot but order them in some way. If I have two friends, Amanda and Josh, and they have jus got married, I might want to say either Amanda married Josh or Josh married Amanda; the two are different in causal terms – who was responsible for what. They are also different in terms of affective ‘proximity’: I may be closer to Amanda than to Josh, and so I place that person’s name first.
In speech as in writing we use words. Yet only that for which there is a word can be brought into communication: no word, no communication about it. In image, if there is something that we wish to depict, we can depict whatever we want. We don’t ask: ”Is there an appropriate image we can use?” Contrary to common sense assumptions about language, words are vague. You have no doubt fully understood the sentences about Josh and Amanda, yet you know very little about either of them: how tall Josh is, what age Amanda, what colour hair they have, and so on. If you saw a photo of them, or even a drawing, much of this would be clear. Words are (relatively) vague, often nearly empty of meanings; by contrast images are full, ‘plain’ with meaning. With image the placement of the depicted entities relative to one another in the image-space is the principle used for making meaning. Take the two images below, drawn by the then four year-old Georgia.
Figure 2a, 2b. Georgia at the side of her mother, and Georgia between her parents
The difference in meaning depends on the relation of the depicted entities to each other in the frame of the picture-space: the resultant difference in Georgia’s sense of herself and her family is an effect of these spatial relations. In drawing the materiality of sound is not available for making, to indicate just how ‘being’ Georgia’s parents seem to her, instead the affordance of space is used – making things taller or shorter, broader or thinner. In fact, Georgia was quite a bit taller than she drew herself here; and her father was quite a bit shorter than her mother. Size here shows the metaphoric use of vertical extension: Georgia sees her parents as affectively /psychically much taller than they actually were; and she makes her father seem as tall as her mother by ‘lifting him off the ground’ somewhat. That leaves aside the meanings of colour.
One further point needs to be mentioned here; it follows from the distinct ordering principles of the two modes. The written text – as indeed the spoken – forces the reader (and the listener) to stick to its order: the elements have to be read in the sequence in which they occur. That is not the case, or far less so, with the image text. Yes, the elements are there in certain spatial relations, but how the reader reconstitutes them is largely up to the reader. The order of the written text is fixed; the order of the image text is (relatively) open.
Media and their interrelation with modes
Modes and media exist in culturally and historically shaped ‘constellations’. The one that has dominated the alphabetic cultures of the ‘West’ over the last 300 years or so is that of mode of writing with medium of book and page. Writing as mode and book as medium have shaped western imagination, forms of knowledge, practices of reading; the technology of writing has shaped the book, and the technology of the book has shaped how writing has developed. The traditional book represented the work of the author, who had laboured to produce a text, which in its ordering represented a ‘body of knowledge’ or the shape of the world – whether fictional or actual. Chapters in the book were coherent and complete in themselves; paragraphs had their logic; and sentences derived their form and purpose from the organization of the paragraph and the larger text.
In that world the reader’s task was to attempt to follow the pre-given ordering of the written text, embodying the authority of the author, working assiduously to reproduce the meaning which the author had intended for the reader. In that world, authors could confidently speak and act on behalf of the reader, as did the author of the example in Figure 3, The Boy Electrician: “The prime instinct of almost any boy is to make and to create… At seven he will wire the whole house with his telephone system made from empty tins connected with varying lengths of string. His older brother will improve on that by purchasing a crystal, a telephone receiver, and a few pieces of insulated copper wire…” (p 5)
Figure 3. Spread from “The Boy Electrician”
Certain texts – novels for instance – encourage the reader to engage in the semiotic work of imagination, following the given order of words on the line but filling the relatively ‘empty’ words with the reader’s meaning. Contemporary texts - whether information books of all kinds, web-pages, the screens of CD ROMs, and so on - in their increasingly often image-like textual organization, ask the reader to perform different semiotic work, namely to design the order of the text for themselves. Consequently two phenomena are now becoming noticeable, as in Figure 4, which had been present but never noticed before: the entry point of the ‘page’ and its reading path.
Figure 4. Home page of the University of London Institute of Education (www.ioe.ac.uk)
The page of The Boy Electrician has one entry point, at the top left of the page; it had long become naturalized and therefore was no longer visible. Nor was the reading path: it asked the reader to follow the lines, in the order in which the culture had determined. The page/screen in Figure 4 has, by contrast, about 13 entry points. The reader interest determines where he or she wishes to enter the page. The same applies to the ‘reading path’ which the reader (now usually called a ‘visitor’) wishes to construct: it too is determined by the reader’s interest.
For design this is a crucial factor, and a profound change. The designer of such ‘pages’ / sites is no longer the ‘author’ of an authoritative text, but is a provider of material arranged in relation to the assumed characteristics of the imagined audience. The power of the designer is to assemble materials which can become ‘information’ for the visitor, in arrangements which might correspond to the interests of the visitor. For the visitor however “Information is material which is selected by individuals to be transformed by them into knowledge to solve a problem in their life world” (Boeck, 2002)
Making texts and reading texts
In the conception outlined here, the processes of making texts and reading texts are both are processes of design; and both are in important sense inversions of the social and semiotic arrangements of the era of the dominance of the constellation of writing and book. It has now been overtaken by the new constellation of image and screen. The (at least mythically) dominant media are now those of the screen - whether of the Gameboy, the mobile telephone, the PC, or still the TV and video. The book and its page had been the site of writing and the logic of writing had shaped the order of the page and the book; the screen is the site of the image and the logic of the image is shaping the order and the arrangements of the screen.
Writing can appear on the screen; but when it does it is subordinated to the logic of the image; just as image could appear on the page, though subordinated to the logic of writing. The logic image will more and more shape the appearance and the uses of writing, a process which is already apparent in many instances of public communication. In the former arrangement, the figure of the author and the mode of writing dominated; in the new arrangements the designer and the mode of image dominate; the story-board is an apt metaphor for this change - image led, and very often the product of a design-team.
Design as choice in context
In the multimodal landscape of communication, choice and therefore design become central issues. If I have a number of ways of expressing and shaping my message, then the questions that confront me are: which mode is best, most apt, for the content / meaning I wish to communicate? Which mode most appeals to the audience whom I intend to address? Which mode most corresponds to my own interest at this point in shaping the message for communication? Which medium is preferred by my audience? Or by me? How am I positioning myself if I choose this medium or this mode rather than those others? All of these call for choices to be made, resting on my assessment of the environment in which communication takes place, in all its complexity, in its widest sense, in which a commodity – the smell of my shampoo, the packaging of the bag of flour, the shape of the bottle of soft-drink – are all ‘messages’ to interpret. The question of choice is illustrated by the contrast of say, Figure 3 with Figure 4, or of Figure 3 with Figure 5.
Figure 5. Visual geography-tectonics
The page in Figure 3 is the realization of choices – of stylistic choices in relation to writing, choices of font (though for any one publishing house there might not have been choice), the framings of the text through syntax (marked by punctuation) and in text (marked by paragraphing, for instance), and by layout in spacings, as well as the frame around the ‘densely printed page’ (Reading Images, 1996). However, these choices had nearly faded into invisibility through the two aspects of habituation and convention. By contrast, the page in Figure 5 shows a plethora of choices made and realized through the modes of writing, layout, colour, and image.
Design is a prospective enterprise. The question it asks is: “what, in this environment, with this kind of audience, with these resources that are available for implementing my design, given these social, economic, ‘political’ constraints, and with my interests now at this moment, is the best way of shaping that which I wish to make, whether as ‘message’ or as any object (of design)?” Here, briefly, are two examples, showing choices made and interests expressed. Figure 6 is the result of the request of the teacher of a class of six year-olds to “make me a drawing and write me a story of our trip to the British museum.”
Figure 6. Notes from a trip to the British Museum
The different ‘take’ on the representation of the day in writing and drawing is startling (all the images and stories showed this contrast): salient object-entities in spatial relation in the visually represented world, contrasted with salient events/actions in temporal relations. We might dismiss this as childish representation. Or we might say that these six-year olds are using the two modes of writing and image in line with their inherent affordances – the (transformed) recollection of the visually encountered world through the spatially organized mode; and the (transformed) recollection of the actionally experienced world through the temporally organized mode. If we take that approach we see that the children have made apt use of the affordances of each mode. The facts of the representational world are certainly moving in the same direction.
In the next example two modes co-exist in one integrated textual object, the question is the same one: what are the principles for the use the modes (the question of “principled use” can and needs to be asked of all my examples). At the end of four lessons on ‘plant cells’, the teacher had asked the 14 year old students, working in groups of four, to prepare a slide of the epidermis of an onion, look at it through a microscope, and then “write what you did” and “draw what you saw”.
Figure 7a, 7b. Eye-piece of the microscope, and Cells as a “brick wall”
The teacher had given two additional instructions: ”put your writing at the top of the page, and the drawing at the bottom”, and “use only black pencils in your drawing”. Apart from the different responses to this instruction (7 b used colour pencils) there is the startling difference in what each “saw” and what each wrote. One written text is a recount, the other a procedure. The recount, generically speaking, says: “this is what happened”; the procedure, generically speaking, says: “this is what ought to happen”. The drawings differ equally profoundly. One declares “this is what theory tells us is the case” (on a worksheet there had been a comment “what you should see is something like a brick wall; each cell is a brick”); the other declares “this is what I actually observed and recorded”. The first is the "truth" of theory; the second is the "truth" of the empirical, reliably recorded.
The question of design is in the center here. The matter at issue is of course ‘plant cells’; but maybe even more than that it is: ”what is it to be scientific?” In each case the answer is broadly the same (though differently realized modally): “to be scientific is to adhere to the "truth" of theory”. In Figure 7 a, the student lodges the "truth" of the facts of the empirical world in the drawing, and the "truth" of theory through the replicability of scientific practice in the written text. In Figure 7 b, the student lodges the "truth" of scientific theory in the drawing, and the "truth" of actual practice in the written. In each case event-like representation uses the mode of writing; and the representation of object-entities is lodged in drawing.
Design as a part of rhetoric of communication
The contemporary social world is marked by increasing fragmentation and individuation (Beck, 1986); in stark contrast to the world of the 19th and early 20th century, the world of stable structures and of individual integration and definition in those structures. Strong frames, and integration into strong frames had their analogues in communication through stable genres, and through stable modal ‘choices’. In periods of stability the question of effective communication is answered by the idea of convention and of competent action in relation to those conventions. In periods of fragmentation and individuation communication is fraught: each environment of communication asks that social and ‘political’ relations, tastes, needs and desires be newly assessed. The question of rhetoric – how to make my communication most effective in relation to this audience, here and now - has moved newly, urgently into the center. Rhetoric has become a major issue for design.
Bibliography Kress, G.R. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: RoutledgeFalmer
Kress, G.R. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design. London: Routledge
Kress, G.R. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Edward Arnold
Jewitt, C. and G.R. Kress (eds) (2003). Multimodal Literacie. New York: Peter Lang
Burn, A. and Parker, D. (2003). Analysing media texts. London: Continuum
Gunther Kress
Gunther Kress is professor of Education/English at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has a specific interest in the interrelations in contemporary texts of different modes of communication - writing, image, speech, music - and their effects on forms of learning and knowing. He is interested in the changes - and their effects and consequences - brought by the shift in the major media of communication from the page to the screen. Some of his recent publications are: Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design; Before Writing: rethinking the paths to literacy; (both published by Routledge); Multimodal teaching and learning: the rhetorics of the Science Classroom (Continuum); Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication (Edward Arnold); and Literacy in the New Media Age (Routledge).
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漂洋上海 陳期 藝術有什麼用
2010年5月13日
今年五十三歲的蔡國強，以他獨特的火藥草圖和裝置藝術，成為國際當代藝術圈認知度最高的中國藝術家之一，他的作品在各大拍賣行屢屢拍出天價，用最庸俗的說法，是名成利就了，所以我並沒有預期他是這樣平實的人。看起來比實際年輕，穿風褸、卡其褲，一臉陽光笑容。
他介紹自己的創作經歷，提及一個火藥爆破習作，他坐在一塊空地上，醫學儀器監測着他的心跳和腦電波，他保持着平靜，如腳下的大地一樣沉穩，然後，他預先裝置好的火藥爆炸，儀器顯示，他的心跳腦電波和大地同一頻率震動。他在這時候回歸大地，和自然成為一體。
有時他要收起自己，做很自我的創作，有時他又希望展示自己給很多人看，所以他策劃一些大型活動。他說自己就是這樣時內時外，忽左忽右，亦中亦西。
一方面他會為自己有所成就，並可以幫助他人而高興，一方面他又覺得成就這東西很虛。一般人早上起來知道自己那一天會做什麼，但他就漫無目的。在他演說時，他的助手兼傳譯把他作品的拍賣價七千萬元說成是七十萬，他笑說，少一兩個零會覺得比較安全。
說到批評政府，會場突然斷電，米高風嘎然靜默，全場人都在調笑會場裏是不是有監聽。器材修復，他不忘幽一默，說這不過是技術故障，有時候我們也要負起責任，不能一味責怪政府。
我並不認為他這樣的觀點模稜兩可，態度騎牆，我反而樂見一個藝術家這樣充滿人性，在庸俗世界中遊刃有餘，一點沒顯得曲高和寡。
這可能和他個人在不同文化中的生活經歷有關，蔡國強出生在福建，在上海學舞台設計，一九八六年去了日本，開始了他的爆破藝術習作，一九九五年移居紐約。
蔡國強說，藝術可以表達自己的感情，也可啟發他人，我還覺得，藝術之偉大在於可以令人思想更深刻，而胸懷更開闊。
「蔡國強：農民達芬奇」要表現在集體意願和集體行為以外的這些農民個體的創造力。集體和個人，看似矛盾，其實也並非相生相剋。
世博已經開幕了，你一定看到不少混亂場面，然後尖刻地批判，以中國的國民素質，這是意料中事。你可能覺得世博會只是另一個國際笑話，不值得看。
但是你也可以想想，像蔡國強這樣的個體，作品中宣洩着傳統藝術和社會制度的壓抑，搞個農民創作展覽看似和世博唱反調，卻又獲邀策劃亞太高峰會和奧運等官方活動。
你可以並且應該繼續批判，因為這樣的批判在推動着某種進步，很有必要。但置身在這個社會中，我又不由得感到一點安慰，上海有世博，同時也有「農民達芬奇」，包容性正在逐漸擴大，這就是改變，而且看似方向正確。就算你不來看世博，至少也值得來看看這種改變。
今年五十三歲的蔡國強，以他獨特的火藥草圖和裝置藝術，成為國際當代藝術圈認知度最高的中國藝術家之一，他的作品在各大拍賣行屢屢拍出天價，用最庸俗的說法，是名成利就了，所以我並沒有預期他是這樣平實的人。看起來比實際年輕，穿風褸、卡其褲，一臉陽光笑容。
他介紹自己的創作經歷，提及一個火藥爆破習作，他坐在一塊空地上，醫學儀器監測着他的心跳和腦電波，他保持着平靜，如腳下的大地一樣沉穩，然後，他預先裝置好的火藥爆炸，儀器顯示，他的心跳腦電波和大地同一頻率震動。他在這時候回歸大地，和自然成為一體。
有時他要收起自己，做很自我的創作，有時他又希望展示自己給很多人看，所以他策劃一些大型活動。他說自己就是這樣時內時外，忽左忽右，亦中亦西。
一方面他會為自己有所成就，並可以幫助他人而高興，一方面他又覺得成就這東西很虛。一般人早上起來知道自己那一天會做什麼，但他就漫無目的。在他演說時，他的助手兼傳譯把他作品的拍賣價七千萬元說成是七十萬，他笑說，少一兩個零會覺得比較安全。
說到批評政府，會場突然斷電，米高風嘎然靜默，全場人都在調笑會場裏是不是有監聽。器材修復，他不忘幽一默，說這不過是技術故障，有時候我們也要負起責任，不能一味責怪政府。
我並不認為他這樣的觀點模稜兩可，態度騎牆，我反而樂見一個藝術家這樣充滿人性，在庸俗世界中遊刃有餘，一點沒顯得曲高和寡。
這可能和他個人在不同文化中的生活經歷有關，蔡國強出生在福建，在上海學舞台設計，一九八六年去了日本，開始了他的爆破藝術習作，一九九五年移居紐約。
蔡國強說，藝術可以表達自己的感情，也可啟發他人，我還覺得，藝術之偉大在於可以令人思想更深刻，而胸懷更開闊。
「蔡國強：農民達芬奇」要表現在集體意願和集體行為以外的這些農民個體的創造力。集體和個人，看似矛盾，其實也並非相生相剋。
世博已經開幕了，你一定看到不少混亂場面，然後尖刻地批判，以中國的國民素質，這是意料中事。你可能覺得世博會只是另一個國際笑話，不值得看。
但是你也可以想想，像蔡國強這樣的個體，作品中宣洩着傳統藝術和社會制度的壓抑，搞個農民創作展覽看似和世博唱反調，卻又獲邀策劃亞太高峰會和奧運等官方活動。
你可以並且應該繼續批判，因為這樣的批判在推動着某種進步，很有必要。但置身在這個社會中，我又不由得感到一點安慰，上海有世博，同時也有「農民達芬奇」，包容性正在逐漸擴大，這就是改變，而且看似方向正確。就算你不來看世博，至少也值得來看看這種改變。
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Why artists are turning to video as a medium
Jonathan Brooks-Jones explores a burgeoning art form
Artes Mundi is a biennial competition that showcases the work of emerging artists from around the world. It celebrates art that discusses the human condition and/or the human form. Within that broader area of interest each individual competition, or ‘cycle’, has a central theme that links the artworks. Two new selectors are enlisted each time, who determine each cycle’s theme. This year, its fourth, the selectors are curators Viktor Misiano from Russia and Levent Çalikoğlu from Turkey. Both have a keen interest in political art, and a belief in its capacity to encourage debate. This year, the theme is migration and social mobility, although many others permeate the works, such as globalisation, and the fall of communism.
From over 500 nominations, Misiano and Çalikoğlu short-listed eight artists. A new panel of independent judges from around the world is selected each year, made up of artists, art historians, critics, theorists and curators. The winner of the £40,000 prize will be announced on the 19 May. It is the largest arts prize in the UK and is dedicated to providing a platform for emerging artists.
While there are paintings, drawings and photographic works, it is video art that has the most gallery space. This has drawn a mixed reaction from the public, many of whom complain that there is ‘too much video’.
This might have been expected, but it does seem a little odd that people aren’t excited about the chance to experience what is to many a new art form. In fact it’s not even that new. Video art has existed in the contemporary form since the 1960s, and in other forms even longer. However, the Welsh audience is rarely exposed to it, as there is a lack of modern art galleries in Wales. Video art can be difficult to interpret for one who is not acquainted with it, so I will here try to explain some of the central ideas explored in video art, and why artists are turning to video as a medium.
A common objection is that the artist could have or should have made a movie instead. It is true that artists could make movies instead, but why should they? It is not the sole right of movie-makers in Hollywood and such places to use the medium of film, and it has always been a part of artistic creation to take advantage of new technologies and ways of working. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of video art is its capacity to deconstruct our experience and understanding of moving images on a screen, making us think about how we view television and movies.
Most people are well acquainted with the protocol of visiting the cinema. You sit in your seat, watch the film and keep quiet until the end, when you are once again allowed to talk and move around. While you are entitled to leave whenever you like, there is a tendency to sit it out to the end and ‘get your moneys worth’. Video art, on the other hand, grants the viewer much more freedom.
Bulgarian Ergin Çavuşoğlu is one of the short-listed artists whose work deconstructs our understanding of video and film. He takes up the theme of migration and boundaries in two pieces, Voyage of No Return and Liminal Crossing. The former uses five screens, which are separated, placed at different heights with one placed on the floor, facing up and angled slightly towards the viewer. The central screen features the dialogue and beneath it is the fifth screen, with Welsh subtitles projected onto it.
This film is about migration and questions surrounding identification with a particular place, and seeing it as ‘home’. Voyage of No Return was filmed on location on Oban, an island historically used as a pit-stop when travelling on to the Hebrides, or back to mainland Scotland. Migration is therefore a key part of the island’s history and character. Here, the method of splitting the film onto different screens is used to establish locality, and to try and capture the atmosphere of Oban. This fragmentation of the screens encourages the viewer to interact with the work, perhaps walking up close to a screen and blocking the shaft of light, causing a silhouette, thus in some way becoming a part of the piece. In previous exhibitions he has projected the film directly onto the floor, so the audience can literally walk through it.
One of the interesting aspects in his other piece, Liminal Crossing, is the use of sound. In this film, a group pushes a piano across the Captain Andreevo border between Bulgaria and Turkey. The video is projected onto two screens, which face each other at a 45 – 90 degree angle, with a gap where the two edges meet. The only sound to be heard is that of the wheels turning as the piano is pushed along. This, coupled with the absence of human voices chatting, points to the sombre and somewhat lonely atmosphere. This use of diagetic sound adds realism, and in turn, tension to the piece. This contrasts with his use of a musical score in Voyage of No Return.
For me, the most interesting aspect of the soundtrack is his use of reflections. The purpose of the gap between the two screens is to encourage the viewer to walk behind the screens where only the soundtrack is perceptible. If we venture deep enough into the empty space, we hear the sound as it hits the back wall and reflect back to our ears. This amounts to a rather strange and unique sensation, one rarely experienced outside an acousmatic music event.
Here, Çavuşoğlu is at once deconstructing our understanding of video and film (which really is a post-modern pass-time), and also reforming an idea that has been in circulation since the impressionists, that of light and its reflective qualities.
In all art, light must first of all play a physical, and perhaps rather obvious role, in that it enables us to see the works in the first place. This is true in painting and other forms of art, but its role is extended in video art. Light must first hit the subject, reflect into the artist’s eye and the lens of the camera. Light is then shone through the film in order to project the image onto the screen. From there it is reflected into the eyes of the audience. As with the impressionists, the importance of light has taken on a role of conceptual importance, in which the art comes to discuss light.
For example, Per Speculum by Albanian artist Adrian Paci, draws our attention to the importance of light. In the final, wide-angle shot, a group of children sit in amongst the branches of a tree and use the broken pieces of a mirror to reflect the sunlight back to the camera. This draws our attention to the distance travelled by light, especially in video art. Paci also draws our attention to the projector, a unique feature of video art. He does this by using a particularly old-fashioned and noisy one (however, against the artist’s intentions, for health and safety reasons it had to be sealed in a metal box, thus trapping much of its sound).
The importance of light and the projector may also be seen in Çavuşoğlu’s choice of where to mount the plaque with his name and title of the work (Voyage…). It is placed on the wall onto which the projectors are mounted. This suggests that the projector, and the role it performs, is of equal importance to the installation as a whole.
For many, video and film seems too commercial, because we are so used to it being used for commercial purposes such as adverts, television, movies and music videos. While some of these may be termed ‘artistic’, video art’s focus is directed exclusively on the artistic capacity of video.
Part of video art’s power comes from the fact that we are so used to seeing video and film in other forms. This means that when we are asked to look at video as an artistic form, and it contains images we are not expecting, the effect is automatically, at first, surreal. Imagine tuning into the Chris Moyles show and hearing the music of Arnold Schoenberg! Hearing music without a tonal centre is likely to be a new and unsettling experience for the average Radio 1 listener in any case, but it is doubly surprising because that is the last place one would expect to hear atonal music. Similarly, we are so used to the kind of content normally contained on video, that when we see something more artistic and adventurous than, say, Coronation Street or Big Brother, it tends to shock. This gives video art added depth of impact.
As Çavuşoğlu demonstrates with his experimental approach, one thing video art does is reference other forms, styles and techniques. In a sense this makes them ‘antique’. The new, reformed use of an old style can bring us a new awareness of it. Previously we just took it for granted and didn’t normally think about where it had come from, it simply exists. When something is presented to us again, and we are asked to look at it afresh, we tend to understand it differently.
While some artists dispense with the use of a narrative plot, others make use of a reformed narrative style in order to get their point across. Israeli artist, Yael Bartana, makes use of narrative form in her piece Wall and Tower, which is, in my opinion, one of the strongest pieces at this year’s Artes Mundi. This piece, which is the second in a trilogy, raises questions about nationalism and Zionism by depicting the construction of a kibbutz (which has a striking resemblance to a concentration camp) in what used to be the Warsaw ghetto. The film opens with a speech written and delivered by (real-life left-wing activist and campaigner) Slawomir Sierakowski, calling all Jews to return to Poland.
This piece is one of the most thorough and comprehensive works in the exhibition, in which each part bears the weight of the whole. The enlistment of a real-life political activist, the use of propaganda film styles, through to the printing and supplication of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland’s manifesto, as well as instructions on how to build a wall and tower like the one in the film. The artist’s instructions are to ‘take and distribute’, adding yet another layer to an already complex piece. It is also interesting because the movement did not exist before the first film had been made, and Bartana apparently did not even intend to start the movement by creating this artwork. She was merely trying to “ask questions, not tell people what to think”. A likely story! In any case, those questions are being raised, about nationalism, Zionism, the situation in Israel and Palestine, and also Poland (an interesting blog about the Polish reaction to this piece can be read here).
This film makes use of cinematic, documentary, and propaganda film techniques. It is a highly effecting piece, due to the polished acting and musical soundtrack, featuring the triumphant sounding Polish national anthem. The use of cinematic formulae probably makes it easier to digest for the uninitiated, while the content remains highly engaging and requires the viewer to keep watching in order to see where it is going. This is also an example, by the way, of a film that probably should be seen all the way through in order to fully appreciate the meaning, which is not immediately given to the viewer on a plate, but is slowly teased out as the events unfold.
Another idea at work in video art is the performative aspect. Considering a piece of video as a performance raises the question of which part, exactly, does the art consist in – is it the subject? The film of the subject? The (temporary) projection of the film? Which part is valuable? Is it the film itself, or the moment at which it is projected onto a screen? Is the screening to be considered a ‘performance’?
Video art differs from other forms of art because paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings etc. are physically there, mounted on the wall, or placed on a stand or otherwise. Of course, a projected video is in some way ‘physically’ there, but in a different way, it is, rather, the projection of something which has happened before that has been captured on film, and is not actually happening any more. Note the difference between this and a play or performance art piece, which are viewed as they happen.
Artists have always been interested in the elements that are unique to a particular form of art. For example, sculpture has the greatest capacity for three-dimensional work. However, it is also interesting that some painters have taken their work in a three-dimensional direction. Expressionist painter Frank Auerbach layers oil paints onto the canvas in thick measure (‘impasto’), thus creating works that have a three-dimensional quality. This links in with the earlier point about the practice of reforming other styles, which much modern art is concerned with.
So, for artists making video, the materials that are unique to them are movement and time. No other art form has the capacity to explore those materials in quite the same way. Performance art, of course, features movement, and is often referred to as ‘time-based art’. However, video has a greater control over these materials, as video can be sped up or slowed down to any degree. An interesting example in which this is done is the film See you later / Au Revoir, by Michael Snow, in which a 30 second interaction is slowed down to last twelve minutes. Video art has a somewhat stronger hold over the manipulation of time as a material than performance art. However, performance artists have a stronger hold on the performative aspect, which video art sometimes tries to incorporate, as touched on above.
Finally, something must be said about the political nature of much of the work at this year’s Artes Mundi. It was suggested during one of the lunchtime tours, that the serious political nature of many of the pieces makes it difficult for those who are new to video art to get the most out of them. The fact that it overwhelms some may be taken to show that video is worthy of political art, in that it has the capacity to convey the seriousness and magnitude of social and political problems, themselves often overwhelming.
The crucial point to make here is that for political art to be successful in raising awareness and encouraging debate, it must refuse to offer any resolution. If a work of art has a political impetus, and that political issue remains unresolved, the film must end without having supplied resolution. If a film supplies resolution, it makes it far easier for the viewer to walk away and forget all about it.
Many of the pieces at the Artes Mundi resist the supplication of resolution. In particular, Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-jen’s work features the staunchest resistance to resolution, and is unlikely to leave the viewer’s conscience for some time once it has been absorbed. His films entitled Empire’s Borders 1 & 2, feature women from Taiwan telling the stories of how their husbands have been detained for no good reason whilst traveling to in and out of Taiwan. There is no resolution, because the men are still detained, and their wives have no idea when they will see them again. Bartana’s work also resists the supplication of resolution, partly due to the fact that the final part of the trilogy is yet to have been made. It will be interesting to see how the final installment turns out.
In conclusion, we have seen that there are a great number of ideas at work in this burgeoning art form. We can see that it is valid, not least because it has often been thoroughly worked and reworked at all stages from conception to production to screening. Avant-garde film is almost always designed to confront the viewer, who is often forced to concentrate and think about what it is they’re viewing.
It is also important to remember that as it is a new form, there is an element of experimentation to video art. This can cause problems, such as the overflow of sound between pieces in close proximity to one another. The worst case of this at the Artes Mundi is that the soundtrack from Wall and Tower can be heard when one is watching Chieh-jen’s other piece, Factory, which is meant to be a silent film. However, I would say that while this is unfortunate, it is perhaps to be expected, as the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff was never designed to exhibit video works, and was not purpose built to prevent such overspill. It is also indicative of something larger and more exciting happening in the world of art, the growth of something that feels like a new form.
The public’s unfavourable reaction may be put down to a general reluctance to appreciate something new and crucially, unfamiliar. In a world where we are bombarded with the eternal sameness of mainstream art, music, theatre and film it can be difficult for people to accept something more or less unprecedented in their cultural experience. It requires more ‘cultural capital’, to use Bourdieu’s phrase, than dominant mainstream culture provides us. However, the galleries were busy on many of the occasions that I visited. This is down to the good work of the Artes Mundi association, which no-doubt encourages interest in the avant-garde.
Indeed, as a burgeoning art form video is conceptually and aesthetically rich. It provides the artist with unique opportunities to experiment with a vast array of elements: screen, soundtrack, projector, content, style, and others. While it may require a little more effort to unravel the meaning of a piece, it can be a highly rewarding and unique experience, one that is likely to become easier the more often we’re exposed to it. It is helpful, therefore, that Artes Mundi employs a team of ‘live guides’ who have met the artists and discussed the pieces with them. They act as the link between the artist and the public that is all-too-often missing from modern art galleries. They provide a valuable insight into the meaning and history behind the works.
Bookmark and Share
Tags: Artes Mundi, cinema, Deconstruction, Ergin Cavusoglu, Impressionism, Migration and Social Mobility, performance art, Video art, Yael Bartana
Jonathan Brooks-Jones is an intern with the IWA
Artes Mundi is a biennial competition that showcases the work of emerging artists from around the world. It celebrates art that discusses the human condition and/or the human form. Within that broader area of interest each individual competition, or ‘cycle’, has a central theme that links the artworks. Two new selectors are enlisted each time, who determine each cycle’s theme. This year, its fourth, the selectors are curators Viktor Misiano from Russia and Levent Çalikoğlu from Turkey. Both have a keen interest in political art, and a belief in its capacity to encourage debate. This year, the theme is migration and social mobility, although many others permeate the works, such as globalisation, and the fall of communism.
From over 500 nominations, Misiano and Çalikoğlu short-listed eight artists. A new panel of independent judges from around the world is selected each year, made up of artists, art historians, critics, theorists and curators. The winner of the £40,000 prize will be announced on the 19 May. It is the largest arts prize in the UK and is dedicated to providing a platform for emerging artists.
While there are paintings, drawings and photographic works, it is video art that has the most gallery space. This has drawn a mixed reaction from the public, many of whom complain that there is ‘too much video’.
This might have been expected, but it does seem a little odd that people aren’t excited about the chance to experience what is to many a new art form. In fact it’s not even that new. Video art has existed in the contemporary form since the 1960s, and in other forms even longer. However, the Welsh audience is rarely exposed to it, as there is a lack of modern art galleries in Wales. Video art can be difficult to interpret for one who is not acquainted with it, so I will here try to explain some of the central ideas explored in video art, and why artists are turning to video as a medium.
A common objection is that the artist could have or should have made a movie instead. It is true that artists could make movies instead, but why should they? It is not the sole right of movie-makers in Hollywood and such places to use the medium of film, and it has always been a part of artistic creation to take advantage of new technologies and ways of working. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of video art is its capacity to deconstruct our experience and understanding of moving images on a screen, making us think about how we view television and movies.
Most people are well acquainted with the protocol of visiting the cinema. You sit in your seat, watch the film and keep quiet until the end, when you are once again allowed to talk and move around. While you are entitled to leave whenever you like, there is a tendency to sit it out to the end and ‘get your moneys worth’. Video art, on the other hand, grants the viewer much more freedom.
Bulgarian Ergin Çavuşoğlu is one of the short-listed artists whose work deconstructs our understanding of video and film. He takes up the theme of migration and boundaries in two pieces, Voyage of No Return and Liminal Crossing. The former uses five screens, which are separated, placed at different heights with one placed on the floor, facing up and angled slightly towards the viewer. The central screen features the dialogue and beneath it is the fifth screen, with Welsh subtitles projected onto it.
This film is about migration and questions surrounding identification with a particular place, and seeing it as ‘home’. Voyage of No Return was filmed on location on Oban, an island historically used as a pit-stop when travelling on to the Hebrides, or back to mainland Scotland. Migration is therefore a key part of the island’s history and character. Here, the method of splitting the film onto different screens is used to establish locality, and to try and capture the atmosphere of Oban. This fragmentation of the screens encourages the viewer to interact with the work, perhaps walking up close to a screen and blocking the shaft of light, causing a silhouette, thus in some way becoming a part of the piece. In previous exhibitions he has projected the film directly onto the floor, so the audience can literally walk through it.
One of the interesting aspects in his other piece, Liminal Crossing, is the use of sound. In this film, a group pushes a piano across the Captain Andreevo border between Bulgaria and Turkey. The video is projected onto two screens, which face each other at a 45 – 90 degree angle, with a gap where the two edges meet. The only sound to be heard is that of the wheels turning as the piano is pushed along. This, coupled with the absence of human voices chatting, points to the sombre and somewhat lonely atmosphere. This use of diagetic sound adds realism, and in turn, tension to the piece. This contrasts with his use of a musical score in Voyage of No Return.
For me, the most interesting aspect of the soundtrack is his use of reflections. The purpose of the gap between the two screens is to encourage the viewer to walk behind the screens where only the soundtrack is perceptible. If we venture deep enough into the empty space, we hear the sound as it hits the back wall and reflect back to our ears. This amounts to a rather strange and unique sensation, one rarely experienced outside an acousmatic music event.
Here, Çavuşoğlu is at once deconstructing our understanding of video and film (which really is a post-modern pass-time), and also reforming an idea that has been in circulation since the impressionists, that of light and its reflective qualities.
In all art, light must first of all play a physical, and perhaps rather obvious role, in that it enables us to see the works in the first place. This is true in painting and other forms of art, but its role is extended in video art. Light must first hit the subject, reflect into the artist’s eye and the lens of the camera. Light is then shone through the film in order to project the image onto the screen. From there it is reflected into the eyes of the audience. As with the impressionists, the importance of light has taken on a role of conceptual importance, in which the art comes to discuss light.
For example, Per Speculum by Albanian artist Adrian Paci, draws our attention to the importance of light. In the final, wide-angle shot, a group of children sit in amongst the branches of a tree and use the broken pieces of a mirror to reflect the sunlight back to the camera. This draws our attention to the distance travelled by light, especially in video art. Paci also draws our attention to the projector, a unique feature of video art. He does this by using a particularly old-fashioned and noisy one (however, against the artist’s intentions, for health and safety reasons it had to be sealed in a metal box, thus trapping much of its sound).
The importance of light and the projector may also be seen in Çavuşoğlu’s choice of where to mount the plaque with his name and title of the work (Voyage…). It is placed on the wall onto which the projectors are mounted. This suggests that the projector, and the role it performs, is of equal importance to the installation as a whole.
For many, video and film seems too commercial, because we are so used to it being used for commercial purposes such as adverts, television, movies and music videos. While some of these may be termed ‘artistic’, video art’s focus is directed exclusively on the artistic capacity of video.
Part of video art’s power comes from the fact that we are so used to seeing video and film in other forms. This means that when we are asked to look at video as an artistic form, and it contains images we are not expecting, the effect is automatically, at first, surreal. Imagine tuning into the Chris Moyles show and hearing the music of Arnold Schoenberg! Hearing music without a tonal centre is likely to be a new and unsettling experience for the average Radio 1 listener in any case, but it is doubly surprising because that is the last place one would expect to hear atonal music. Similarly, we are so used to the kind of content normally contained on video, that when we see something more artistic and adventurous than, say, Coronation Street or Big Brother, it tends to shock. This gives video art added depth of impact.
As Çavuşoğlu demonstrates with his experimental approach, one thing video art does is reference other forms, styles and techniques. In a sense this makes them ‘antique’. The new, reformed use of an old style can bring us a new awareness of it. Previously we just took it for granted and didn’t normally think about where it had come from, it simply exists. When something is presented to us again, and we are asked to look at it afresh, we tend to understand it differently.
While some artists dispense with the use of a narrative plot, others make use of a reformed narrative style in order to get their point across. Israeli artist, Yael Bartana, makes use of narrative form in her piece Wall and Tower, which is, in my opinion, one of the strongest pieces at this year’s Artes Mundi. This piece, which is the second in a trilogy, raises questions about nationalism and Zionism by depicting the construction of a kibbutz (which has a striking resemblance to a concentration camp) in what used to be the Warsaw ghetto. The film opens with a speech written and delivered by (real-life left-wing activist and campaigner) Slawomir Sierakowski, calling all Jews to return to Poland.
This piece is one of the most thorough and comprehensive works in the exhibition, in which each part bears the weight of the whole. The enlistment of a real-life political activist, the use of propaganda film styles, through to the printing and supplication of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland’s manifesto, as well as instructions on how to build a wall and tower like the one in the film. The artist’s instructions are to ‘take and distribute’, adding yet another layer to an already complex piece. It is also interesting because the movement did not exist before the first film had been made, and Bartana apparently did not even intend to start the movement by creating this artwork. She was merely trying to “ask questions, not tell people what to think”. A likely story! In any case, those questions are being raised, about nationalism, Zionism, the situation in Israel and Palestine, and also Poland (an interesting blog about the Polish reaction to this piece can be read here).
This film makes use of cinematic, documentary, and propaganda film techniques. It is a highly effecting piece, due to the polished acting and musical soundtrack, featuring the triumphant sounding Polish national anthem. The use of cinematic formulae probably makes it easier to digest for the uninitiated, while the content remains highly engaging and requires the viewer to keep watching in order to see where it is going. This is also an example, by the way, of a film that probably should be seen all the way through in order to fully appreciate the meaning, which is not immediately given to the viewer on a plate, but is slowly teased out as the events unfold.
Another idea at work in video art is the performative aspect. Considering a piece of video as a performance raises the question of which part, exactly, does the art consist in – is it the subject? The film of the subject? The (temporary) projection of the film? Which part is valuable? Is it the film itself, or the moment at which it is projected onto a screen? Is the screening to be considered a ‘performance’?
Video art differs from other forms of art because paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings etc. are physically there, mounted on the wall, or placed on a stand or otherwise. Of course, a projected video is in some way ‘physically’ there, but in a different way, it is, rather, the projection of something which has happened before that has been captured on film, and is not actually happening any more. Note the difference between this and a play or performance art piece, which are viewed as they happen.
Artists have always been interested in the elements that are unique to a particular form of art. For example, sculpture has the greatest capacity for three-dimensional work. However, it is also interesting that some painters have taken their work in a three-dimensional direction. Expressionist painter Frank Auerbach layers oil paints onto the canvas in thick measure (‘impasto’), thus creating works that have a three-dimensional quality. This links in with the earlier point about the practice of reforming other styles, which much modern art is concerned with.
So, for artists making video, the materials that are unique to them are movement and time. No other art form has the capacity to explore those materials in quite the same way. Performance art, of course, features movement, and is often referred to as ‘time-based art’. However, video has a greater control over these materials, as video can be sped up or slowed down to any degree. An interesting example in which this is done is the film See you later / Au Revoir, by Michael Snow, in which a 30 second interaction is slowed down to last twelve minutes. Video art has a somewhat stronger hold over the manipulation of time as a material than performance art. However, performance artists have a stronger hold on the performative aspect, which video art sometimes tries to incorporate, as touched on above.
Finally, something must be said about the political nature of much of the work at this year’s Artes Mundi. It was suggested during one of the lunchtime tours, that the serious political nature of many of the pieces makes it difficult for those who are new to video art to get the most out of them. The fact that it overwhelms some may be taken to show that video is worthy of political art, in that it has the capacity to convey the seriousness and magnitude of social and political problems, themselves often overwhelming.
The crucial point to make here is that for political art to be successful in raising awareness and encouraging debate, it must refuse to offer any resolution. If a work of art has a political impetus, and that political issue remains unresolved, the film must end without having supplied resolution. If a film supplies resolution, it makes it far easier for the viewer to walk away and forget all about it.
Many of the pieces at the Artes Mundi resist the supplication of resolution. In particular, Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-jen’s work features the staunchest resistance to resolution, and is unlikely to leave the viewer’s conscience for some time once it has been absorbed. His films entitled Empire’s Borders 1 & 2, feature women from Taiwan telling the stories of how their husbands have been detained for no good reason whilst traveling to in and out of Taiwan. There is no resolution, because the men are still detained, and their wives have no idea when they will see them again. Bartana’s work also resists the supplication of resolution, partly due to the fact that the final part of the trilogy is yet to have been made. It will be interesting to see how the final installment turns out.
In conclusion, we have seen that there are a great number of ideas at work in this burgeoning art form. We can see that it is valid, not least because it has often been thoroughly worked and reworked at all stages from conception to production to screening. Avant-garde film is almost always designed to confront the viewer, who is often forced to concentrate and think about what it is they’re viewing.
It is also important to remember that as it is a new form, there is an element of experimentation to video art. This can cause problems, such as the overflow of sound between pieces in close proximity to one another. The worst case of this at the Artes Mundi is that the soundtrack from Wall and Tower can be heard when one is watching Chieh-jen’s other piece, Factory, which is meant to be a silent film. However, I would say that while this is unfortunate, it is perhaps to be expected, as the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff was never designed to exhibit video works, and was not purpose built to prevent such overspill. It is also indicative of something larger and more exciting happening in the world of art, the growth of something that feels like a new form.
The public’s unfavourable reaction may be put down to a general reluctance to appreciate something new and crucially, unfamiliar. In a world where we are bombarded with the eternal sameness of mainstream art, music, theatre and film it can be difficult for people to accept something more or less unprecedented in their cultural experience. It requires more ‘cultural capital’, to use Bourdieu’s phrase, than dominant mainstream culture provides us. However, the galleries were busy on many of the occasions that I visited. This is down to the good work of the Artes Mundi association, which no-doubt encourages interest in the avant-garde.
Indeed, as a burgeoning art form video is conceptually and aesthetically rich. It provides the artist with unique opportunities to experiment with a vast array of elements: screen, soundtrack, projector, content, style, and others. While it may require a little more effort to unravel the meaning of a piece, it can be a highly rewarding and unique experience, one that is likely to become easier the more often we’re exposed to it. It is helpful, therefore, that Artes Mundi employs a team of ‘live guides’ who have met the artists and discussed the pieces with them. They act as the link between the artist and the public that is all-too-often missing from modern art galleries. They provide a valuable insight into the meaning and history behind the works.
Bookmark and Share
Tags: Artes Mundi, cinema, Deconstruction, Ergin Cavusoglu, Impressionism, Migration and Social Mobility, performance art, Video art, Yael Bartana
Jonathan Brooks-Jones is an intern with the IWA
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
本地文化遊記
本地文化遊記（一）：Fotanian 2008
週一, 2008-01-28 12:07 — Self
上星期參觀了兩個不同藝術活動，一是深港雙城雙年展於中區警署群舉辦的“再織城市“，另一為伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃--“Fotanian 2008“。感覺很不同，第一當然因為兩者為不同類形的活動，第二因為參觀的目的不同。因著不同的參觀目的，對於兩個活動，我產生了不同的體會。今次我希望集中講述對伙炭的感受。
整個火炭藝術村開放計劃中，有七幢工業大廈內的工作室參加展覽。工作室主要分佈於華聯及華樂兩幢工業大廈，而其他工作室則零散地分佈於其餘五幢大廈，主要只有一至兩間工作室在其他工業大廈裡開放。開放計劃在一月的第二及第三個週末及週日舉行，每天開放時間為下午二時至晚上八時。
繼續被邊緣化的工作室
其間大會會安排導賞團帶領參觀者參觀。但大部份人都是“自由行“，如果參觀者只抱著“行逛“的心態去參觀，當然能夠一天六小時內完成整個參觀，但問題是，參觀者中的確有很多人仔細觀賞作品，而他們用六小時（包括休息時間）只能完成於一至兩幢工業大廈內的參觀。而大部份人亦會選擇由華聯、華樂兩幢開始 “掃 “下去，最終導致其他工業大廈內的藝術工作室被邊緣化。我（持著仔細觀察的態度）在第一天用了三小時，也只能完成參觀大半幢華聯工業大廈的工作室，因為太累之故，決定要截返歸家。對，開放計劃開放整整四天，如果一天看不完，不可以第二天再看嗎？可以的，我相信總有人採取這種方法，但問題在於香港人的時間未必這般充裕: 今天能夠濟出時間，明天未必可以; 故此，這邊緣化問題亦會持續。
主辦機構應與參展團體共同商討解決這種持續的邊緣化的問題。因為不能夠移動藝術租戶的緣故，主辦機構可巧慮投放更多資源或尋找贊助，鼓勵大眾參觀被邊緣化的工業大廈；例如設計儲印章計劃，鼓勵參觀人士盡量完成整個展覽，然後以小小的大會紀念品送給參觀人士。所有方法都有其不足之處，雖然此舉可能會改變了他們的參觀目的，但這方法不排除人們為了拿紀念品而可能會越行越有興趣，忘記了本身為了拿紀念品的目的，而認真的參觀起來。
藝術繼續無界
另外，我發覺這次開放日中有些得意的現象：工作室的背景音樂。在參觀過程中，不難發現藝術家喜歡播一些柔和的音樂：由輕民謠至爵士，甚至藍調和輕板的靈魂都是他們的選擇。這很合理，如果行蘇豪區的畫廊，他們大致上都是播這類型音樂，令整個氣氛除了變得悠閒舒暢外，亦不禁增強那種說不出的高雅；感覺很 high class。如果蘇豪區是法國社會學大師Pierre Bourdieu 所認為--文化活動和品味生活因為人民的等級產生階層化的呈現，那麼整體上的火炭藝術村則為抹掉這種階層意識的粉刷；低下街層的地理位置，彈性高的說話聲調，沒有裝煌的藝術室，及歡迎各方人仕的包容量，配上蘇豪區所用的音樂，實在是一種mix and match。把難明的高雅文化帶到普羅大眾裡。有些工作室更走前衛路線，它們播放的是K 場，的士高所選的remixes。一邊參觀一邊有超remixed版（節奏快而激）Celine Dion的”All By My Self”，另有一番感覺。
多樣化的工作空間
其中一幢工業大廈的頂層的工作室為一位較知名的藝術家的藝術室。不知是有意或無意，該名藝術家的地點位於叉燒工場旁邊。一門之隔，分別是頂香卻油膩的叉燒工場及格調一流的工作室，就像到了雲咸街的畫樓般的工作室。筆者不是要貶低叉燒工場，但它確實不經意地反襯出該工作室的高尚。
DSC_0227.jpg
比較陰暗的樓層盡頭有一間別樹一格的工作室
再下幾層，有法籍本地藝術家的工作室。同樣，其工作室都是裝修得很美麗，優雅；這是因為該工作室是被買下的，故值得花錢把其裝修一下。在那個展覽中，我見到在法國人眼中的中國，雖然眼光是奇異的，卻奇妙得真實。發展中的中國及新舊交替的中國文化，雖然對我們來說是很熟悉，熟悉得不太察覺，但就是由外國人那種奇異的眼光表達出來，重新被察覺出來。
再下再下，就是一大班年輕藝術家，走出學校，到這裡建造新天地的一群。他們很有活力，他們的作品亦很有力量，題材大膽但不失感情。我訪問了一位陳姓的女年輕藝術家，她的最新作品其中一樣為人般高大的毛織衛生巾。據陳小姐透露，她希望透過衛生巾作為一種容器，去看生命，而該作品其實是她的衛生巾作品的第三部，之前已在學校做過陶製和青銅製的衛生巾。她認為以往的作品質感上（texture）比較硬，而感覺上亦比較冷。製作這第三部作品則一反以往的作品的特點，質為軟，感為暖，所表達的是作者對母愛的珍重。雖然題材敏感，卻流露濃厚的感情，更啟發不斷的思考性。年青一輩的藝術家雖未必有年長一輩的經驗及知名度，卻冒著失敗的機會，願意作破傳統的嘗試，可見年青藝術家有著等待被發掘的勇氣，難能可貴。
DSC_0277.jpg
陳小姐與她的衛生巾作品
P.S.: 我不知道下年會否再有這個開放日，如果有的話，到時我會反轉參觀的次序，由下面向上走：P
週一, 2008-01-28 12:07 — Self
上星期參觀了兩個不同藝術活動，一是深港雙城雙年展於中區警署群舉辦的“再織城市“，另一為伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃--“Fotanian 2008“。感覺很不同，第一當然因為兩者為不同類形的活動，第二因為參觀的目的不同。因著不同的參觀目的，對於兩個活動，我產生了不同的體會。今次我希望集中講述對伙炭的感受。
整個火炭藝術村開放計劃中，有七幢工業大廈內的工作室參加展覽。工作室主要分佈於華聯及華樂兩幢工業大廈，而其他工作室則零散地分佈於其餘五幢大廈，主要只有一至兩間工作室在其他工業大廈裡開放。開放計劃在一月的第二及第三個週末及週日舉行，每天開放時間為下午二時至晚上八時。
繼續被邊緣化的工作室
其間大會會安排導賞團帶領參觀者參觀。但大部份人都是“自由行“，如果參觀者只抱著“行逛“的心態去參觀，當然能夠一天六小時內完成整個參觀，但問題是，參觀者中的確有很多人仔細觀賞作品，而他們用六小時（包括休息時間）只能完成於一至兩幢工業大廈內的參觀。而大部份人亦會選擇由華聯、華樂兩幢開始 “掃 “下去，最終導致其他工業大廈內的藝術工作室被邊緣化。我（持著仔細觀察的態度）在第一天用了三小時，也只能完成參觀大半幢華聯工業大廈的工作室，因為太累之故，決定要截返歸家。對，開放計劃開放整整四天，如果一天看不完，不可以第二天再看嗎？可以的，我相信總有人採取這種方法，但問題在於香港人的時間未必這般充裕: 今天能夠濟出時間，明天未必可以; 故此，這邊緣化問題亦會持續。
主辦機構應與參展團體共同商討解決這種持續的邊緣化的問題。因為不能夠移動藝術租戶的緣故，主辦機構可巧慮投放更多資源或尋找贊助，鼓勵大眾參觀被邊緣化的工業大廈；例如設計儲印章計劃，鼓勵參觀人士盡量完成整個展覽，然後以小小的大會紀念品送給參觀人士。所有方法都有其不足之處，雖然此舉可能會改變了他們的參觀目的，但這方法不排除人們為了拿紀念品而可能會越行越有興趣，忘記了本身為了拿紀念品的目的，而認真的參觀起來。
藝術繼續無界
另外，我發覺這次開放日中有些得意的現象：工作室的背景音樂。在參觀過程中，不難發現藝術家喜歡播一些柔和的音樂：由輕民謠至爵士，甚至藍調和輕板的靈魂都是他們的選擇。這很合理，如果行蘇豪區的畫廊，他們大致上都是播這類型音樂，令整個氣氛除了變得悠閒舒暢外，亦不禁增強那種說不出的高雅；感覺很 high class。如果蘇豪區是法國社會學大師Pierre Bourdieu 所認為--文化活動和品味生活因為人民的等級產生階層化的呈現，那麼整體上的火炭藝術村則為抹掉這種階層意識的粉刷；低下街層的地理位置，彈性高的說話聲調，沒有裝煌的藝術室，及歡迎各方人仕的包容量，配上蘇豪區所用的音樂，實在是一種mix and match。把難明的高雅文化帶到普羅大眾裡。有些工作室更走前衛路線，它們播放的是K 場，的士高所選的remixes。一邊參觀一邊有超remixed版（節奏快而激）Celine Dion的”All By My Self”，另有一番感覺。
多樣化的工作空間
其中一幢工業大廈的頂層的工作室為一位較知名的藝術家的藝術室。不知是有意或無意，該名藝術家的地點位於叉燒工場旁邊。一門之隔，分別是頂香卻油膩的叉燒工場及格調一流的工作室，就像到了雲咸街的畫樓般的工作室。筆者不是要貶低叉燒工場，但它確實不經意地反襯出該工作室的高尚。
DSC_0227.jpg
比較陰暗的樓層盡頭有一間別樹一格的工作室
再下幾層，有法籍本地藝術家的工作室。同樣，其工作室都是裝修得很美麗，優雅；這是因為該工作室是被買下的，故值得花錢把其裝修一下。在那個展覽中，我見到在法國人眼中的中國，雖然眼光是奇異的，卻奇妙得真實。發展中的中國及新舊交替的中國文化，雖然對我們來說是很熟悉，熟悉得不太察覺，但就是由外國人那種奇異的眼光表達出來，重新被察覺出來。
再下再下，就是一大班年輕藝術家，走出學校，到這裡建造新天地的一群。他們很有活力，他們的作品亦很有力量，題材大膽但不失感情。我訪問了一位陳姓的女年輕藝術家，她的最新作品其中一樣為人般高大的毛織衛生巾。據陳小姐透露，她希望透過衛生巾作為一種容器，去看生命，而該作品其實是她的衛生巾作品的第三部，之前已在學校做過陶製和青銅製的衛生巾。她認為以往的作品質感上（texture）比較硬，而感覺上亦比較冷。製作這第三部作品則一反以往的作品的特點，質為軟，感為暖，所表達的是作者對母愛的珍重。雖然題材敏感，卻流露濃厚的感情，更啟發不斷的思考性。年青一輩的藝術家雖未必有年長一輩的經驗及知名度，卻冒著失敗的機會，願意作破傳統的嘗試，可見年青藝術家有著等待被發掘的勇氣，難能可貴。
DSC_0277.jpg
陳小姐與她的衛生巾作品
P.S.: 我不知道下年會否再有這個開放日，如果有的話，到時我會反轉參觀的次序，由下面向上走：P
工廈加租 藝術家工作室 In or Out？
2008/01/04
RE: 香港經濟日報 C05 專題 By 蕭曉華 2008-01-10
沙士前後、地產市道最低迷期間，得一批清貧藝術家進駐，因工業北移而日漸沒落的火炭工廠區，才不致於完全被人遺忘。
藝術家工作室數目增加，漸漸形成規模，藝術家自發組織的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，亦成為一年一度藝壇大事。
近期，地產市道再度熾熱起來，火炭工業區的業主亦乘勢大幅加租。
面臨重新洗牌的火炭工廈，將來還有沒有藝術家立錐之地？
據土地註冊處最新資料顯示，07 年首 7 個月共有 4,290 份買賣合約，比 06 年同期的 3,687 份增加16.4%，數字亦高於 96 年至 03 年每年總數。這些數字反映工廈市場持續交投理想，中原集團副主席黎明楷分析：「住宅和商廈投資市況熱烈，投資氣氛良好，帶動工廈的需求、價格上升。」
藝術租客
位處新界的火炭工廠區，因較偏遠，周邊亦暫未有完善的社區設備，仍屬全港最平的工廈物業。不過，其租金和賣價一樣要加。
近半年，該區工廈租金和賣價的升幅分別約為 15% 和 20%，「賣價升幅較大，顯示市場樂觀。最明顯的是，不少業主為大廈翻新，把大堂都裝修成商廈般靚，以吸引投資者。」中原地產新界工商舖助理營業董事張志傑說。
工業北移，工廈使用者亦隨之轉型。該區近年成為物流（即平價倉）、電子和化工業的工業陣地。叫人估不到的，是近年藝術家的進駐。
記者自稱藝術家到附近的地產舖問價，發現經紀對藝術家租客的要求瞭如指掌，「你係一個人用，定同其他藝術家夾租？13 呎高樓底、較平的華聯單位比較適合，可惜無盤。11、12 呎樓底的地方有無興趣？」
「臭味相投」
「過去幾年，我們每月租金平均約 $4,300，今年業主突然提出加價到 $7,500，最後還價至 $6,300 。」藝術家周俊輝和關尚智說。與火炭差不多同時期出現藝術家工作室的觀塘工廈，亦面對加租問題，租金約由 $4,000 加至 $5,000。一比較，今年火炭工廈租金的加幅實在令人咋舌。
周俊輝和關尚智屬近年藝術圈冒起得較快的一群，自 04 年開始，他們與另一位中大藝術系同學遷入火炭華聯工業大廈，夾租一個面積約 1,200 平方呎的單位（「615 工作室」），進行油畫、裝置及概念藝術創作。
因樓齡高，華聯簡陋殘舊、黑黑沉沉，不時傳來燒臘和腸粉魚蛋的氣味。
「這裏是全區樓價最平之處，亦有不少從事食品加工的租戶。它不能轉型為工貿大廈，因商業租客不接受這種環境。」中原的張志傑解釋。
工廈地方「污糟邋遢、無厘貴格」，卻合晒藝術家合尺，「它地方大、樓底高、租金平。」受訪者不約而同地說。03 年沙士爆發，樓市下滑，造就這班初出道、「清貧型」租客「趁低吸納」的關鍵時刻。
當年，一個千多呎的單位，租金約為三四千元，賣價亦不超過 30 萬元（今年已升至 70 多萬元）。
「當時我剛畢業，藝術前景還很模糊，如果沒有這地方讓藝術家堅持理想，或許有人早已放棄創作。」關尚智說。如今華聯已聚集約 26 個工作室，其他工廈則有約 8 個。
「大家沒有夾定聚在一起，工作室分散不同位置，偶然碰面才傾偈。」周俊輝每日留在工作室的時間頗多，因他的作品多為 2 米乘 3 米以上的巨畫，作畫需時，「中午肚餓，便到工廈內的茶餐廳吃 23
蚊一客的經濟午餐，好方便。」
另一租客「水獺工作室」的藝術家黃慧妍則說：「隔籬家俬廠位先生好好人，有時鐵閘壞，會幫我修理。」
遷出，搬入
業主大幅加租，周俊輝和關尚智如何打算？兩人考慮各有不同。
周俊輝部署作「個人發展」，最近他以 79 萬元購入華聯一個 1,200 平方呎的單位。「發展到今日，作品逐漸走進藝術市場，收入有一定保障。我考慮到長期支付租金的錢，日後也夠買一個單位。曾留意不同區的工廈，始終認為火炭的價錢、環境較合適。」
關尚智則準備在租約期滿後遷出火炭，另覓新址。從事概念藝術的他表示，他的創作不一定要用上大空間。他在即將於本周六開幕的本年度「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」中展示的作品，只是一張寫「3 年內不賣作品」的 A4 紙。另外，亦由於他的創作動機不是賣作品，買家亦不多，所以他不想承擔昂貴租金。
港台節目《四維賣藝》主持人羅文樂，是華聯的前租客，對於逐漸形成的火炭藝術區即將面臨商業挑戰，有這樣的評論：「藝術有很多面向，有些較能迎合藝術市場，有些因較具爭議性或搗蛋，未必有買家。火炭加租某程度上是 taste dictating，篩走某類藝術家，影響該區多元的藝術發展。」
黃慧妍對加租表現得逆來順受，「可找多幾個租客夾租」，她使用的千多呎工作室，現由 7 人分租。
不過，這批最初「發展」火炭的藝術家，無論未來決定去或留，過去幾年他們在這區營造的藝術氣氛和建立起的形象，已慢慢發揮作用，吸引其他藝術單位遷入。
本地著名畫廊漢雅軒，兩年前亦於華聯購入單位。職員 Loretta 說：「本想用這地方與藝術家交流，所以入來湊熱鬧。」現單位用作存畫的貨倉。
兩個月前，比利時人 Sara Van Ingelgom 亦在華聯開設畫廊 Blue Lotus Gallery，單位的裝修非常優雅舒適。「我對火炭一見鍾情。相對在中環設畫廊，在這裏策劃展覽的彈性較大，因沒有太大的資金壓力，亦不必引入迎合市場的主流藝術。」
藝術影響樓價？
07 年至今，火炭約有 5 個藝術工作室遷出，6 個搬入。「搬入的多為經濟能力較高的藝術單位，專業與非專業的都有，亦有建築與設計界人士。」藝評人梁展峰說。
看來加租使這區出現了一場小型的洗牌效應。連續舉辦了幾年的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，參觀人數逐年上升，由初期的千多人到去年增至近萬人，藝術或藝術家的進駐對該區的人氣實有正面作用，但又有沒有能力影響這區的地產價格？
「成個火炭工廠區有過千個單位，藝術租戶只有數十個，不足以構成影響。」在該區營商的廠家Charles Drapers 說。
「藝術家死了，作品才值錢。以藝術帶動或以支持藝術來影響樓價，方式似乎太迂迴。」中原的黎明楷說。
「藝術家租客從事創作，並非進行商業活動。除非有從商的展覽製作單位遷入，推動經濟效益。」梁展峰說。
不過，藝術帶來的人氣始終屬「利好因素」。「今年在華聯放出的單位好少，估計是業主看到這『藝術潛力』，暫不放盤。」中原的張志傑說。
「像『615 工作室』這類單位已成為品牌，自然成為業主加租目標。」Charles Drapers 說。
「曾有地產舖張貼『適合藝術家使用』的招租廣告，不排除了解市況的地產經紀，會刻意向藝術租客調高價錢。」梁展峰說。他認為，火炭工廠區是自然而生的藝術社區，遭遇市場壓力亦屬正常。但他擔心，若刻意將該區炒作成如紐約或倫敦等 loft 時尚社區，只會趕走藝術家，「大部分藝術家都無可能在樓價高昂兼被規管的旅遊熱點裏生存。」
商業支持藝術
一年一度的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，將於 1 月 12 日起連續兩個周末舉行，今年共有 34 個工作室參與，屆時藝術家會開放平日創作的「私竇」，與大眾分享自己的創作成果。
此開放計劃，一直是新晉藝術家展示作品的難得平台。上年起，計劃獲得即將在該區有樓盤落成的信和集團的宣傳贊助，參觀人數倍增。藝術與商業的互動關係，實在難以簡單計得清。
「開放日由每個工作室自費參與，確保營運與創作自主，亦沒有任何金錢資助。不過，商業機構在宣傳上的支持，如燈箱廣告、大量單張，擴闊了以往只有小圈子的觀眾層面。」梁展峰說。但他認為，開放日觀眾多，與藝術質素沒有必然關係，同時藝術家的荷包亦不會進帳，「有興趣的買家不算多，反而失竊事件增多。」
Posted by jaspar at 11:29 PM
RE: 香港經濟日報 C05 專題 By 蕭曉華 2008-01-10
沙士前後、地產市道最低迷期間，得一批清貧藝術家進駐，因工業北移而日漸沒落的火炭工廠區，才不致於完全被人遺忘。
藝術家工作室數目增加，漸漸形成規模，藝術家自發組織的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，亦成為一年一度藝壇大事。
近期，地產市道再度熾熱起來，火炭工業區的業主亦乘勢大幅加租。
面臨重新洗牌的火炭工廈，將來還有沒有藝術家立錐之地？
據土地註冊處最新資料顯示，07 年首 7 個月共有 4,290 份買賣合約，比 06 年同期的 3,687 份增加16.4%，數字亦高於 96 年至 03 年每年總數。這些數字反映工廈市場持續交投理想，中原集團副主席黎明楷分析：「住宅和商廈投資市況熱烈，投資氣氛良好，帶動工廈的需求、價格上升。」
藝術租客
位處新界的火炭工廠區，因較偏遠，周邊亦暫未有完善的社區設備，仍屬全港最平的工廈物業。不過，其租金和賣價一樣要加。
近半年，該區工廈租金和賣價的升幅分別約為 15% 和 20%，「賣價升幅較大，顯示市場樂觀。最明顯的是，不少業主為大廈翻新，把大堂都裝修成商廈般靚，以吸引投資者。」中原地產新界工商舖助理營業董事張志傑說。
工業北移，工廈使用者亦隨之轉型。該區近年成為物流（即平價倉）、電子和化工業的工業陣地。叫人估不到的，是近年藝術家的進駐。
記者自稱藝術家到附近的地產舖問價，發現經紀對藝術家租客的要求瞭如指掌，「你係一個人用，定同其他藝術家夾租？13 呎高樓底、較平的華聯單位比較適合，可惜無盤。11、12 呎樓底的地方有無興趣？」
「臭味相投」
「過去幾年，我們每月租金平均約 $4,300，今年業主突然提出加價到 $7,500，最後還價至 $6,300 。」藝術家周俊輝和關尚智說。與火炭差不多同時期出現藝術家工作室的觀塘工廈，亦面對加租問題，租金約由 $4,000 加至 $5,000。一比較，今年火炭工廈租金的加幅實在令人咋舌。
周俊輝和關尚智屬近年藝術圈冒起得較快的一群，自 04 年開始，他們與另一位中大藝術系同學遷入火炭華聯工業大廈，夾租一個面積約 1,200 平方呎的單位（「615 工作室」），進行油畫、裝置及概念藝術創作。
因樓齡高，華聯簡陋殘舊、黑黑沉沉，不時傳來燒臘和腸粉魚蛋的氣味。
「這裏是全區樓價最平之處，亦有不少從事食品加工的租戶。它不能轉型為工貿大廈，因商業租客不接受這種環境。」中原的張志傑解釋。
工廈地方「污糟邋遢、無厘貴格」，卻合晒藝術家合尺，「它地方大、樓底高、租金平。」受訪者不約而同地說。03 年沙士爆發，樓市下滑，造就這班初出道、「清貧型」租客「趁低吸納」的關鍵時刻。
當年，一個千多呎的單位，租金約為三四千元，賣價亦不超過 30 萬元（今年已升至 70 多萬元）。
「當時我剛畢業，藝術前景還很模糊，如果沒有這地方讓藝術家堅持理想，或許有人早已放棄創作。」關尚智說。如今華聯已聚集約 26 個工作室，其他工廈則有約 8 個。
「大家沒有夾定聚在一起，工作室分散不同位置，偶然碰面才傾偈。」周俊輝每日留在工作室的時間頗多，因他的作品多為 2 米乘 3 米以上的巨畫，作畫需時，「中午肚餓，便到工廈內的茶餐廳吃 23
蚊一客的經濟午餐，好方便。」
另一租客「水獺工作室」的藝術家黃慧妍則說：「隔籬家俬廠位先生好好人，有時鐵閘壞，會幫我修理。」
遷出，搬入
業主大幅加租，周俊輝和關尚智如何打算？兩人考慮各有不同。
周俊輝部署作「個人發展」，最近他以 79 萬元購入華聯一個 1,200 平方呎的單位。「發展到今日，作品逐漸走進藝術市場，收入有一定保障。我考慮到長期支付租金的錢，日後也夠買一個單位。曾留意不同區的工廈，始終認為火炭的價錢、環境較合適。」
關尚智則準備在租約期滿後遷出火炭，另覓新址。從事概念藝術的他表示，他的創作不一定要用上大空間。他在即將於本周六開幕的本年度「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」中展示的作品，只是一張寫「3 年內不賣作品」的 A4 紙。另外，亦由於他的創作動機不是賣作品，買家亦不多，所以他不想承擔昂貴租金。
港台節目《四維賣藝》主持人羅文樂，是華聯的前租客，對於逐漸形成的火炭藝術區即將面臨商業挑戰，有這樣的評論：「藝術有很多面向，有些較能迎合藝術市場，有些因較具爭議性或搗蛋，未必有買家。火炭加租某程度上是 taste dictating，篩走某類藝術家，影響該區多元的藝術發展。」
黃慧妍對加租表現得逆來順受，「可找多幾個租客夾租」，她使用的千多呎工作室，現由 7 人分租。
不過，這批最初「發展」火炭的藝術家，無論未來決定去或留，過去幾年他們在這區營造的藝術氣氛和建立起的形象，已慢慢發揮作用，吸引其他藝術單位遷入。
本地著名畫廊漢雅軒，兩年前亦於華聯購入單位。職員 Loretta 說：「本想用這地方與藝術家交流，所以入來湊熱鬧。」現單位用作存畫的貨倉。
兩個月前，比利時人 Sara Van Ingelgom 亦在華聯開設畫廊 Blue Lotus Gallery，單位的裝修非常優雅舒適。「我對火炭一見鍾情。相對在中環設畫廊，在這裏策劃展覽的彈性較大，因沒有太大的資金壓力，亦不必引入迎合市場的主流藝術。」
藝術影響樓價？
07 年至今，火炭約有 5 個藝術工作室遷出，6 個搬入。「搬入的多為經濟能力較高的藝術單位，專業與非專業的都有，亦有建築與設計界人士。」藝評人梁展峰說。
看來加租使這區出現了一場小型的洗牌效應。連續舉辦了幾年的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，參觀人數逐年上升，由初期的千多人到去年增至近萬人，藝術或藝術家的進駐對該區的人氣實有正面作用，但又有沒有能力影響這區的地產價格？
「成個火炭工廠區有過千個單位，藝術租戶只有數十個，不足以構成影響。」在該區營商的廠家Charles Drapers 說。
「藝術家死了，作品才值錢。以藝術帶動或以支持藝術來影響樓價，方式似乎太迂迴。」中原的黎明楷說。
「藝術家租客從事創作，並非進行商業活動。除非有從商的展覽製作單位遷入，推動經濟效益。」梁展峰說。
不過，藝術帶來的人氣始終屬「利好因素」。「今年在華聯放出的單位好少，估計是業主看到這『藝術潛力』，暫不放盤。」中原的張志傑說。
「像『615 工作室』這類單位已成為品牌，自然成為業主加租目標。」Charles Drapers 說。
「曾有地產舖張貼『適合藝術家使用』的招租廣告，不排除了解市況的地產經紀，會刻意向藝術租客調高價錢。」梁展峰說。他認為，火炭工廠區是自然而生的藝術社區，遭遇市場壓力亦屬正常。但他擔心，若刻意將該區炒作成如紐約或倫敦等 loft 時尚社區，只會趕走藝術家，「大部分藝術家都無可能在樓價高昂兼被規管的旅遊熱點裏生存。」
商業支持藝術
一年一度的「伙炭藝術工作室開放計劃」，將於 1 月 12 日起連續兩個周末舉行，今年共有 34 個工作室參與，屆時藝術家會開放平日創作的「私竇」，與大眾分享自己的創作成果。
此開放計劃，一直是新晉藝術家展示作品的難得平台。上年起，計劃獲得即將在該區有樓盤落成的信和集團的宣傳贊助，參觀人數倍增。藝術與商業的互動關係，實在難以簡單計得清。
「開放日由每個工作室自費參與，確保營運與創作自主，亦沒有任何金錢資助。不過，商業機構在宣傳上的支持，如燈箱廣告、大量單張，擴闊了以往只有小圈子的觀眾層面。」梁展峰說。但他認為，開放日觀眾多，與藝術質素沒有必然關係，同時藝術家的荷包亦不會進帳，「有興趣的買家不算多，反而失竊事件增多。」
Posted by jaspar at 11:29 PM
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