+ words
Research diary#1, a crack in the heart 💔
研究日記#1 心的裂縫
2025.FEB
（往下滑有中文。）
Few years ago, I followed my cookies to track the traces of me as an avatar in the world wide web. I printed several long long papers and filled them in a physical space as a research presentation. During the evaluation, my prof told me, “I saw the stalker in you, like Sophie Calle.” I don’t know who she was back then.
As I get to understand my practice more, I find that I cannot do something that seems too far away from me — as if my detector of capturing the sensitivity, subtlety and poetics of life only function precisely within 5m radius from my skin. From time to time, showing my lining do make me feel ashamed and sometimes unbearable, worrying that these fragments of moments in life would be misread as the whole identity story. Whenever this suffocating wave of worrying about the judgmental others comes, I sometimes go check Sophie’s work or interview, getting inspired by how she balanced the weight of oversharing and privacy.
She said, “I choose a moment, but it is just a moment—I don’t tell what happened before or after. I have been with the same man for 20 years, and I have never written one line about him or shown one photo of him. For 20 years, no one has known how I really live my life.”
She said, “In any situation, I will take one very small moment that I feel will have something to say—that will be poetic, have depth or humor—but I do not tell the whole story of the scene.”
She makes up an image, an identity of Sophie Calle that is formed of cracks, clips, fragments of moments. These cracks — moments of failure— is thin as hair but deep as sea. She illuminated those subtlety in the deep. The overexposure shines mysteriously.
The way she captures the details, the unseen— almost paranoid— makes me feel touched. People talk a lot about her famous work The Hotel. In 1981, she took a job as maid in a hotel in Venice for three weeks. Entering every room she’d been tasked to clean, she looked through suitcase, read the diaries and rummaged through their trash. She photographed and wrote down all the detail and archived them forensically. With all these documents of living creatures spending time in a third place, she fantasized the portrait of whom these belongings belong to.
But I think of her Take Care of Yourself a lot recently. Her lover sent her an break-up email, at the end of the letter he said, take care of yourself. She couldn’t figure out what all these mean, what the emotions, the words unsaid behind the letter are. She amplified this “I don’t understand” and sent this letter to 107 professional women whose job were different but all about “interpretation”, asking them to analyze this letter. Lots of articles talk about how this work end up showing in Venice Biennale, how the documents were presented, etc. However, I always feel pity about how Sophie dealt with the presentation of these archives, it’s conventional, it’s very plain like a museum. I can't find the right english to describe my projection on her core— a melange of the creepy and maniac and obsession in a marvelous way— which i’m definitely obsessed with. Just like the initiatives of the work — “I don’t understand so I have to figure out anyway”— I think that’s what Art reveals in her.
Of course this work don’t come to me out of blue. Few days ago, my lover video called, telling me that he had no confidence in maintaining our romantic relationship anymore. The selfishness of protecting the self pampered with logical realistic consideration delivered through radio waves in a gentle voice and meticulous language, and then appeared a crack in my heart, and then songs of Faye Wong drifts through it in repeat for the rest of the days.
I can’t remember what he really said in that one hour call — maybe because I didn’t want to listen at all; and I don’t remember how gently and understandingly I responded — maybe that I don’t remember lies. But the moments when he went from first in silent to then cried like a baby will stay with me forever. I remember at that moment, tears stopped dripping down my sad face, I started to appreciate what in front of me. A crying man.
Whenever I cried these days, the image of this crying man floated in my sad ocean of mind. It was not until about two days after that I realized that as a material hamster, I forgot to record this beautiful decisive moment. I think if I have this mood for this realization, probably I do feel better, at least a bit. But then I got pissed again when I think of he hanging up the call with no hesitation after bye. My dear friend said, it’s your karma, girl, you always hang up the phone like you’re racing with time. Professional interpretation.
Countless of emotional arrows shoot out from this crack in my heart, only to be blocked by the barrier of an iPhone. As long as he refuses to pick it up, I can never wound him. In the end, these unread messages will be hammered into an unloving gun, turning back on me, leaving me battered and broken in my battlefield of love, on the floor of my apartment. And even if he does check them, with the shield of take-care-of-myself he learned from therapy, he would only glance at me with pity and simply reply — take care of yourself.
I feel you, Sophie, my dear artist girl friend.
I might fall in love with a stalker just like I love the stalker in me
—————
裂縫研究日記#1：心的裂縫 💔
我曾經做過一個小作品，跟蹤自己的cookie crumb 去看我在網路世界的分身蹤跡，打印成長長的紙條掛滿一個現實的空間。那時候老師說，我看到你心裡的跟蹤狂，就像Sophie Calle。
那時我並不知道她是誰。後來我發現自己無法做離自己太遠的東西，但將內衣展示給別人有時也讓我羞愧難以承受，也擔心這些細碎切片就被當成全貌，這時我就會去看看Sophie。看她如何在暴露和隱私中巧妙拿捏。
「我挑揀一個瞬間，僅僅就一個瞬間，我不去講其前或其後發生了什麼。我和一個男人在一起了20年，但我從來不曾寫過關於他的任何一句或展示任何一張他的相片。20年來，沒有人知道我真正的生活。」她說。
「在任何情況下，我只在那個倏忽瞬間讓我感到言說的衝動的時候才會選擇它，那瞬間是詩意的，是有深度的或是幽默的，但我絕不把瞬間外的故事說全。」她說。
她在製造一個由裂縫組成的關於Sophie Calle的形象。這些裂縫—-失敗的瞬間—細且深，她用自己照亮那些微乎其微的深處。這樣的曝光袒露神秘。
她近乎偏執地捕捉細枝末節讓我覺得親近。她有名的作品不外乎the hotel— 1981年，她在威尼斯的一間飯店裡打掃了三週，打掃時她攤開行李箱，翻開日記，翻弄垃圾桶，像法醫一樣用照片和文字記錄下打掃的每個房間的細節，並想像住在房間裡的這些物品的主人究竟是怎麼樣的。
而我最近總想起她的take care of yourself. 她的男友寄了一封電子郵件和她分手，信的結尾來了一句take care of yourself。她猜不透這封信到底什麼意思，信的背後是怎樣的情感，也不知道如何回應這封信的到來。她將這種「不理解」放大，將信寄給107位不同但也都關於「詮釋」的職業女性來分析這封信。許多報導都會說這個作品最後展示在威尼斯雙年展，最後的形式是如何如何，但我總覺得sophie對於這些archive的處理太過保守正經。其實可以狂氣一點，就像她因不理解而就是要搞懂的那個初衷一樣。我認為那才是她藝術的核心。
想起take care of yourself不是沒有原因，前陣子喜歡的人打了視訊電話和我說他沒有信心繼續維持我們的關係了。保護自己的自私以充滿邏輯的現實的考量包裹再用輕柔的語言透過電波傳來，我的心就裂了一道縫。此後幾天王菲的乘客就從裡面放出來，還是其實是聽進去？
後來我忘記那一個小時的電話他講了什麼（也許是我根本不想聽），也忘記自己如何gentle and understanding地回答（也許是不記得說過的謊），但我永遠記得他從沈默到哭泣的畫面，我記得那一刻我止住眼淚，悲傷的表面掩飾著靜靜欣賞的心。
每天我哭的時候也想起他哭的畫面，大概兩天後，我驚覺自己身為素材倉鼠怎麼可以忘記錄下那麼美麗又決定性的畫面。我想可以有扼腕沒有錄下來的心情，就算是好了一些吧。
我當然還是生氣他每次的電話都掛得那麼決絕。摯友說那是你的karma，你也總是掛得分秒必爭。
這個裂縫裡射出無數隻強烈情緒之箭，最後被手機通訊擋住。他只要不願意看我就永遠傷不到他，而最後這些未讀會被不在意的鐵釘釘成一支槍炮，朝我返來，遍體鱗傷，倒地不起。就算他看到了，以他從therapy學到的保護自己的情緒的盾牌，他也只會看我可憐地回我一句，take care of yourself。
那刻我感同你的身受，sophie, 我的藝術家女友。
我可能需要一個跟蹤狂愛人，愛我像我愛我心裡的跟蹤狂一樣。
Few years ago, I followed my cookies to track the traces of me as an avatar in the world wide web. I printed several long long papers and filled them in a physical space as a research presentation. During the evaluation, my prof told me, “I saw the stalker in you, like Sophie Calle.” I don’t know who she was back then.
As I get to understand my practice more, I find that I cannot do something that seems too far away from me — as if my detector of capturing the sensitivity, subtlety and poetics of life only function precisely within 5m radius from my skin. From time to time, showing my lining do make me feel ashamed and sometimes unbearable, worrying that these fragments of moments in life would be misread as the whole identity story. Whenever this suffocating wave of worrying about the judgmental others comes, I sometimes go check Sophie’s work or interview, getting inspired by how she balanced the weight of oversharing and privacy.
She said, “I choose a moment, but it is just a moment—I don’t tell what happened before or after. I have been with the same man for 20 years, and I have never written one line about him or shown one photo of him. For 20 years, no one has known how I really live my life.”
She said, “In any situation, I will take one very small moment that I feel will have something to say—that will be poetic, have depth or humor—but I do not tell the whole story of the scene.”
She makes up an image, an identity of Sophie Calle that is formed of cracks, clips, fragments of moments. These cracks — moments of failure— is thin as hair but deep as sea. She illuminated those subtlety in the deep. The overexposure shines mysteriously.
The way she captures the details, the unseen— almost paranoid— makes me feel touched. People talk a lot about her famous work The Hotel. In 1981, she took a job as maid in a hotel in Venice for three weeks. Entering every room she’d been tasked to clean, she looked through suitcase, read the diaries and rummaged through their trash. She photographed and wrote down all the detail and archived them forensically. With all these documents of living creatures spending time in a third place, she fantasized the portrait of whom these belongings belong to.
But I think of her Take Care of Yourself a lot recently. Her lover sent her an break-up email, at the end of the letter he said, take care of yourself. She couldn’t figure out what all these mean, what the emotions, the words unsaid behind the letter are. She amplified this “I don’t understand” and sent this letter to 107 professional women whose job were different but all about “interpretation”, asking them to analyze this letter. Lots of articles talk about how this work end up showing in Venice Biennale, how the documents were presented, etc. However, I always feel pity about how Sophie dealt with the presentation of these archives, it’s conventional, it’s very plain like a museum. I can't find the right english to describe my projection on her core— a melange of the creepy and maniac and obsession in a marvelous way— which i’m definitely obsessed with. Just like the initiatives of the work — “I don’t understand so I have to figure out anyway”— I think that’s what Art reveals in her.
Of course this work don’t come to me out of blue. Few days ago, my lover video called, telling me that he had no confidence in maintaining our romantic relationship anymore. The selfishness of protecting the self pampered with logical realistic consideration delivered through radio waves in a gentle voice and meticulous language, and then appeared a crack in my heart, and then songs of Faye Wong drifts through it in repeat for the rest of the days.
I can’t remember what he really said in that one hour call — maybe because I didn’t want to listen at all; and I don’t remember how gently and understandingly I responded — maybe that I don’t remember lies. But the moments when he went from first in silent to then cried like a baby will stay with me forever. I remember at that moment, tears stopped dripping down my sad face, I started to appreciate what in front of me. A crying man.
Whenever I cried these days, the image of this crying man floated in my sad ocean of mind. It was not until about two days after that I realized that as a material hamster, I forgot to record this beautiful decisive moment. I think if I have this mood for this realization, probably I do feel better, at least a bit. But then I got pissed again when I think of he hanging up the call with no hesitation after bye. My dear friend said, it’s your karma, girl, you always hang up the phone like you’re racing with time. Professional interpretation.
Countless of emotional arrows shoot out from this crack in my heart, only to be blocked by the barrier of an iPhone. As long as he refuses to pick it up, I can never wound him. In the end, these unread messages will be hammered into an unloving gun, turning back on me, leaving me battered and broken in my battlefield of love, on the floor of my apartment. And even if he does check them, with the shield of take-care-of-myself he learned from therapy, he would only glance at me with pity and simply reply — take care of yourself.
I feel you, Sophie, my dear artist girl friend.
I might fall in love with a stalker just like I love the stalker in me
—————
裂縫研究日記#1：心的裂縫 💔
我曾經做過一個小作品，跟蹤自己的cookie crumb 去看我在網路世界的分身蹤跡，打印成長長的紙條掛滿一個現實的空間。那時候老師說，我看到你心裡的跟蹤狂，就像Sophie Calle。
那時我並不知道她是誰。後來我發現自己無法做離自己太遠的東西，但將內衣展示給別人有時也讓我羞愧難以承受，也擔心這些細碎切片就被當成全貌，這時我就會去看看Sophie。看她如何在暴露和隱私中巧妙拿捏。
「我挑揀一個瞬間，僅僅就一個瞬間，我不去講其前或其後發生了什麼。我和一個男人在一起了20年，但我從來不曾寫過關於他的任何一句或展示任何一張他的相片。20年來，沒有人知道我真正的生活。」她說。
「在任何情況下，我只在那個倏忽瞬間讓我感到言說的衝動的時候才會選擇它，那瞬間是詩意的，是有深度的或是幽默的，但我絕不把瞬間外的故事說全。」她說。
她在製造一個由裂縫組成的關於Sophie Calle的形象。這些裂縫—-失敗的瞬間—細且深，她用自己照亮那些微乎其微的深處。這樣的曝光袒露神秘。
她近乎偏執地捕捉細枝末節讓我覺得親近。她有名的作品不外乎the hotel— 1981年，她在威尼斯的一間飯店裡打掃了三週，打掃時她攤開行李箱，翻開日記，翻弄垃圾桶，像法醫一樣用照片和文字記錄下打掃的每個房間的細節，並想像住在房間裡的這些物品的主人究竟是怎麼樣的。
而我最近總想起她的take care of yourself. 她的男友寄了一封電子郵件和她分手，信的結尾來了一句take care of yourself。她猜不透這封信到底什麼意思，信的背後是怎樣的情感，也不知道如何回應這封信的到來。她將這種「不理解」放大，將信寄給107位不同但也都關於「詮釋」的職業女性來分析這封信。許多報導都會說這個作品最後展示在威尼斯雙年展，最後的形式是如何如何，但我總覺得sophie對於這些archive的處理太過保守正經。其實可以狂氣一點，就像她因不理解而就是要搞懂的那個初衷一樣。我認為那才是她藝術的核心。
想起take care of yourself不是沒有原因，前陣子喜歡的人打了視訊電話和我說他沒有信心繼續維持我們的關係了。保護自己的自私以充滿邏輯的現實的考量包裹再用輕柔的語言透過電波傳來，我的心就裂了一道縫。此後幾天王菲的乘客就從裡面放出來，還是其實是聽進去？
後來我忘記那一個小時的電話他講了什麼（也許是我根本不想聽），也忘記自己如何gentle and understanding地回答（也許是不記得說過的謊），但我永遠記得他從沈默到哭泣的畫面，我記得那一刻我止住眼淚，悲傷的表面掩飾著靜靜欣賞的心。
每天我哭的時候也想起他哭的畫面，大概兩天後，我驚覺自己身為素材倉鼠怎麼可以忘記錄下那麼美麗又決定性的畫面。我想可以有扼腕沒有錄下來的心情，就算是好了一些吧。
我當然還是生氣他每次的電話都掛得那麼決絕。摯友說那是你的karma，你也總是掛得分秒必爭。
這個裂縫裡射出無數隻強烈情緒之箭，最後被手機通訊擋住。他只要不願意看我就永遠傷不到他，而最後這些未讀會被不在意的鐵釘釘成一支槍炮，朝我返來，遍體鱗傷，倒地不起。就算他看到了，以他從therapy學到的保護自己的情緒的盾牌，他也只會看我可憐地回我一句，take care of yourself。
那刻我感同你的身受，sophie, 我的藝術家女友。
我可能需要一個跟蹤狂愛人，愛我像我愛我心裡的跟蹤狂一樣。
On Memory
2024.SEP
I have been capturing such moments: where text and images refract and reflect among materiality, collaboratively assembling something akin to what can be called memory. Then are the names we all know: “history”, “culture”, “heritage”. The world is a multitude of orderless chaos forming a meaningful whole, and each individual and collective crystallizes their own order within it. We have always been processing memories— with some add-ons and judgements—called “experience”, “truth”, “evidence”. How memory works and function doesn’t really matter to me — though I am interested in — that’s the job of neuroscientists. What I care is how we remember things, or to say, re-memory.
I am obsessed with such moments: when a memory hits you all of a sudden, triggered by unforeseen little things. These moments of involuntary memory, which bring the past rushing back in vivid detail—much like the scent of the madeleine in Proust's In Search of Lost Time—might be likened to cracks in my mind. Through these cracks, I catch glimpses of the memories accumulated throughout my life, though I may never have the chance to visit them again.
Forgetting, the drive of creating memory.
Oh, how does the theme of Memory resonate with my practice? No artist’s work can get away from memory, even though it’s not themed as “memory”, they’re still haunting. I refused to play the game of definition.
I’ve been thinking how memory is fashioned by creation, and remembering and time are the hands to the clay.
From the beginning of this year, I have this idea of a video work incubating: something about memory, a video essay, or preferably a vlog using only the images, visual materials in my iPhone photo album. Those footages are not created for a strong purpose, not with an intention of “I am going to make a vlog”. Sometimes you even seldom revisit them because they were living in a mundane reality where the jinx of remembering cannot survive time. But you still made them, these pure images. For what? It was during pandemic, I was in school in the Netherlands and couldn’t go back to Taiwan for 2 years. Nights were for homesick, I survived on 100 GB of memory, scrolling through my album from bottom to the head, again and again.
I always stopped at the videos of my nephew. In those videos, he was still one year old. He in real life is no longer him in the videos: he grows so fast like the pumpkin for Halloween, and got a little sister, and probably didn’t even remember who his auntie was. I create an identity for him. He should not be just a sign of nephew, he should be a ever-growing persona even in my memory regardless distance and time. There’s two realities living in the concept of my nephew. To remember is to create. Remembering is the extension of perception beyond time and space, the yearn to recapture.
To create is to remember. But the storyline is so vague, as the spaces in-between memories are wide and I couldn’t make up my mind that with which attitude to deal with them. Alongside the contemplation aka. hesitation on aesthetic, It’s still stranded. However, the restless worker side of the artist mind doesn’t allow me to lie fallow. I anyway started a little practice. I printed out some photos randomly with intention I can’t pinpoint, each 5cm in width, and sticked them on a A5 notebook, two photos per page. When I’ve got nothing to do, I will take out this notebook, and stare at one of the photos, remembering, and write down everything I can. This revision is rediscovering, seeing what time has brewed for life. Am I looking for or verifying what Barthes said “Punctum”? I still don’t know.
Not long after that, I came across Walter Benjamin’s essay on Excavation and Memory.
“Language has unmistakably made plain that memory is not an instrument for exploring the past, but rather a medium. It is the medium of that which is experienced, just as the earth is the medium in which ancient cities lie buried. He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging.” I realize that, yes, me —she who seeks to approach her and her ancestors buried past,— has always been working as a woman digging in my practice.
What matters for an artist is never the memory itself, but how one investigate, deal with, connect between the experiences. Personal and collective memory and history are important, but it’s too easy to be important in a traditional art-history analysis. If what artists do is a reflection of personal history, then art becomes a competition of resources of personal fate.
Maybe what I do is always seeking, not the answer, not an arrival, but that “all of a sudden”, that encountering. What did bury the memory? What’s the social architecture it appears to me? How do I read them? How do I re-memorize them?
Language, matter, thing as image before I can touch
2023. NOV
Language, matter, thing as image before I can touch, together I call it world.
“The text does not comment more on the images than the images illustrate the text, vice versa. These are two series of sequences that naturally intersect and signal to each other, but attempting to confront them in a comparative manner would be futile. Therefore, we should approach them in a disorderly, plain, and reduplicated fashion…” Chris Marker wrote this in the beginning of his book Le Dépays.
They are the same thing since the beginning: before the invention of writing systems, ancestors drew in the cave, capturing other species, rituals and maybe little things like “I adore you.” Later on, the descendants who use hieroglyph may have the grip on this truth better. And now a phrase like “Chris Marker” can trigger a series of linguistic and visual modes of meaning-making, associating, while a portrait of him alone may lead to some questioning. However, when they are side by side, nothing but a dry fact left.
Critical thinking should be paralyzed here. No starting point nor an end, no grid nor route, no weight nor order, diffuse images and texts. I believe that we are immersing in this eternal uncertain paradox, inadvertently weaving connections, engaging in the infinite recursions of meanings embedded in language and looking, and composing our own polyphonic chants. The focus is neither on the understanding of the text or the image, but landing on the dynamic tension in between, usually appear as air in white. This is the ground for my work.
Make sense but also stop making sense
2023.NOV
Make sense but also stop making sense. Use five senses against an order.
“Orderless”/“chaos” is a quality I’m obsessed with, as within it the space full of possibilities and inclusiveness is thus created. This might arises from my fear of making mistakes which maybe the human nature or the highlight of my Leo ego or some childhood trauma. The progress of technology is essentially a reduction in fault tolerance. The machines, devices surround us inevitably shaped our attitude as we using it. And somehow the fault tolerance of society is following the development of technology as “science” is the new faith.
One thing that I can be sure of is that I am better at making mistakes than a machine, and I should be proud of it. I approach the state of orderless by “misunderstanding” and re-enchantment. It’s a patriarchal correctness that I am asked to understand. It’s a not-male narrative that I am living in. It’s an imperialistic tongue that I am speaking. It’s a ruler’s answer that I’m command to accept. Therefore, I see misunderstanding as a way to crack the system, to… “Actually, you know what, me trying to justifying the orderless and misunderstanding is already a failure…”
“One day I was sleeping, I closed my eyes, but I saw grandma licking my face in my eyes.”, Maruko told me for the first time about something happened during her sleep after she learned how to speak. I didn’t want to tell her that is called a dream, though I did for the sake of the other. “You live in my eyes” sounds like a more accurate truth. Maybe a grandma’s double self did want to move her tongue like a frog and just lick. Who said one can only have one single self?
Let’s make a space for gibberish and savage, which I believe that pointing to “poetic”, like they said hysteria shows the truth.