REWIND / DECAY
倒轉 / 腐朽
2018 - 2022
A cyclical essay with charcoal from burnt wood, found at Luskentyre beach (Outer Hebrides, Scotland), being ‘processed’ in one art work REWIND, then returned to the islands in new form, another work WE WILL ALWAYS DECAY (…THEN REGENERATE). Gradually, it will be blurred by the breeze from human movement. A process about accumulating, transforming, decaying and vanishing, and other things after that.
In 2022, this project was developed into relief prints with the original burnt wood as board, showcased in "Never the Same Forest" Solo Exhibition, as a reflection of author's life in Taipei. Eventually, the burnt wood will disappear from numerously carving and printing, and turn into something else.
關於時間
關於過程
關於每一刻之後都會遇到的下一刻
以及它的下一刻
還有永不停止的再下一刻
REWIND
2018
行為 / 裝置
Performance/Installation, Collected Items
(W:100cm, H:40cm)
"UMWELT", Tent Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
This work is an experiment of regressing to different stages of burning and showing the accumulation of time. It was presented as a process for 10 days in Tent Gallery, Edinburgh. Each day, a part of the burnt wood was chipped off. On the last day of exhibition, the original texture of the wood was revealed completely, and charcoal was placed beside as a visible record of time. The charcoal from burnt wood was then used as the material of next work which was exhibited in An Lanntair, Stornoway (Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides).
We tend to not notice time passing by because we are too familiar with it. Therefore, instead of creating anything new, I intend to address people’s attention by ‘reducing’. By cutting off the charcoal from a burnt wood, I raise a question about how to feel the mass/direction/speed of time. Burning is a process that could not actually be reversed, it’s fast and fierce. However, through the process of rewind, we might be able to put things back to peaceful status.
我將小島海邊拾來的焦木帶回城市
一天一天削去焦黑的表層
試著將時間與燃燒倒轉
窺探其原本的樣貌
We Will Always Decay (...Then Regenerate)
2019
裝置
Installation, Collected Items (Charcoal from REWIND)
(W:60cm, H:30cm)
"Testimony from the Rocks", An Lanntair, Stornoway, UK
The work is the second part of this project. It is a text piece made by grounded charcoal and placed on the gallery floor. It is a sculpture keep moving and vanishing, it differs at every second just like the water in a river, or the blood in our vein. After a while, it was blurred by the breeze from human movement. Then a part of it was sent back to Edinburgh, a part of it was swept into the bin, and a part of it was already spread in the air and floated to somewhere far. The question attached to it is “Where does everything go eventually?” I couldn’t know, because there is no end for the elements on earth. The text may turn invisible, but the charcoal carries on and become something else. For nothing can ever truly disappears.
I thought about this present moment, the next moment, and the next moment after that which will never stop. So we grow, mellow, decay, and then regenerate into something seems to be brand new.
削下的碳屑磨成粉後成為一件新的作品 回到當初的島上展出
黑色粉末在地上隨著氣流飄散 繼續它的下一段旅程
即使變成塵土消失在眼中 也不會真正消逝
時間沒有終點 亦沒有起點
腐朽與分解永不停止
重組與新生亦如是
Rewind / Decay 2022
2022
凸版印刷 / 裝置
Relief Printing, Installation, Collected Items
Dimensions Variable
"Never the Same Forest", Gallery 80A, Taipei, Taiwan
I look at the wood in my hand again.
And break its state of archive with carving knife.
Make it into prints like a slice of time.
And intend to make another slice every time it’s exhibited.
So when I am old, the wood might turned into crumbs.
Nobody can remember the look of it anymore.
重新面對手上的木頭
在這個對它而言的異鄉 我以刻刀打破封存的狀態
並轉印到紙上 有如切片標本般的紀錄
以後的每一個異鄉 每一次展出
我將再刻去一層 同時也再印一層
或許到我老去時 這塊木頭會完全轉換成一堆粉屑
再也不以原本的樣貌存在
或許所謂原本的樣貌 本來就是先入為主的想像
Documentation Photos Credit: Tatsuro Mizutani (2022), Hsin Shyu.