这几天我跟薇都在为下个星期的burning man event兴奋不已。今天花了很多时间查看这个网址 www.burningman.com,有很多想法。Larry Harvey 是burning man的创始人,他的vision和creativity极大地影响了当前的美国艺术界。下面是他的一个访谈,讲到e时代的艺术和艺术家的生活。也让我思考了一下图像时代的写作。哲学与艺术常常是其他领域的先锋,各位朋友专注文字的同时,不要忽略对视觉艺术的欣赏和体验。
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BURNING MAN AND THE ART OF THE NINETIES
A conversation with Larry Harvey by Darryl Van Rhey
1997
Darryl Van Rhey: The system that has supported Art in America appears to have reached a crisis; patronage is disappearing, galleries are closing, even the NEA is under siege. Yet Burning Man has grown into a large-scale venue for new art. Why is this?
Larry Harvey: Well, I think you're right. The folks upstream have raised their dams. The old patronage system, like so many other hierarchies in American life, is breaking down. Artists are perennial have-nots. I don't think they can expect much in the future, but this may be a blessing in disguise.
DVR: Why?
LH: Because the old system doesn't work. Artists are trapped. Very little money goes directly to creators. Most grant funding goes to institutions. From there it trickles down in little dribs and drabs. This has the effect of isolating artists. For one thing, it isolates them from their audience. It's one thing to delight ordinary people with your work, quite another to "delight" a board of directors. Committees aren't creative and bureaucracies haven't a delightful bone in their bodies. Institutions, supposedly designed to disseminate art, often become the real clients. There are political tests, peer reviews, and the ever-present lust for institutional prestige. I'm not saying some deserving work doesn't get funded, but grants and gallery berths are always in short supply. And this, in turn, leads to a second form of isolation. Artists are competing for scarce resources and this isolates them from one another. Everyone is desperate for individual distinction — "Choose me! Choose me!" It creates a kind of mania. All over the South of Market district in San Francisco artists are waking up at 3 AM, covered with flop sweat, thinking, "Oh my God! What if I'm derivative?" This is not a creative climate. Collaboration is the soul of culture, but the system divides people.
DVR: What is the alternative?
LH: Populism; an art that is immediately available to large numbers of people. Nothing's going to trickle down. It's time for artists to spread out. We need a broader public.
DVR: What are the characteristics of populist art?
LH: It is immediate and involving. It's collaborative and it breaks down barriers between audience and art work. It's based upon participation — it's radically interactive — and it contemplates the facts of life. I'll give you an example. Last year Ray Cerino created a public shower for us in the desert. He called it "Water Woman". A stream of water spouted from between its legs. The piece itself was very elegant, but, beyond any question of form, it required an action. It was grounded in need. It was based on survival. People got naked — it was fun and it was funny. Another example is Pepe Ozan. Pepe's based in San Francisco and he leads a troupe of sculptors. During three successive years they have created large-scale towers — hollow columns, chimneys, really — which they craft from rebar, metal mesh and mud. Last year's lingam, as it's called, was three stories tall. Pepe's work is quite sensuous, very tactile, plastic, elaborately formed. Under any circumstances this would constitute a significant achievement. But to stop at the completed product is to miss the point. On Saturday night they filled the tower with firewood. It glowed like molten magma, spouted fireworks, and an elaborate operatic performance ensued. Moreover, more than five thousand people, many of them costumed or painted with mud, gathered around it to celebrate. The point I'm making is this: populist art, the kind of art we're creating, convenes society around itself. This goes far beyond the concept of an exhibition. We see thousands of people who normally wouldn't go near a gallery. And this is true for artists also. We give them a community in which to meet and work collaboratively with hundreds of other creators, and with a freedom and at a scale that they can find in no other place.
DVR: What can you tell me about the content of the art your project has generated?
LH: We dictate nothing to the individual creator. However, every year we create a theme. Last year our motif was Hell; the premise being that a supra-national conglomerate called "HELCO" was attempting to purchase the Project. It did a very brisk business in souls. We actually created a uniformed sales force that recruited customers. A sculptor, Al Honig, created a sucking device which extracted and processed people's souls, and we transferred this theme to the desert in the form of a huge walk-through installation that was spread out over a quarter mile. This included a four story complex — HELCO's world headquarters — which we eventually burned to the ground. HELCO sank into insolvency.
DVR: So the work was satirical?
LH: Satirical and satanic; the best of both worlds. This year we will satirize the New Age. We plan to stage earth and fertility rites. My favorite so far is Cruel Mistress Gaia — Mother Earth meets Venus in leather. She'll be served by a court of very subservient vegetables. It will be funny, unnerving and weird, but, as with any good joke, we also have a very serious intention. We use our shows to create collective stories, myths which dramatize the life of our community. This year we'll be moving to a new site; land on the edge of a smaller playa. We're founding a new home, so some serious earth magic seems in order.
DVR: Can you elaborate on this concept of art as myth?
LH: Sure. It's part of giving art a greater social function. Quite obviously though, since we're not members of a pre-literate culture, we've had to look beyond received oral traditions for material. Our technique is to appropriate elements of mass culture, symbols that pervade popular consciousness. Our myths have a post-modern twist. It is a kind of guerrilla strategy. Pop culture and the media tend to parasitize authentic culture, transforming grass-roots art into commodities. We've simply reversed this process. We turn pop culture back into myth that expresses the life of an actual community. We appropriate the appropriators. It's a survival tactic for the Nineties.
DVR: We've been talking about the survival of culture, but how does Burning Man promote the survival of individual artists?
LH: Throughout it's entire history the Project has operated outside the system. We've struggled unfunded. We have learned to survive. What we've created is a forum where creators can connect and learn from our example and from one another. For one thing, we attract a huge public, thousands of participants. Remotely, through the media, this includes millions of people. We've been on CNN and we've been featured in the New York Times Magazine, the Village Voice — perhaps a hundred other periodicals. At our Web-site we've connected to 1,500 people a day and we're organizing a gallery on the Internet that will feature individual artists. I think this offers a way out, a way to escape the art ghetto — what Tom Wolfe called "Cultureburg"; a smallish self-regarding town of galleries, patrons, and art administrators. I believe that what we're doing is a model for the future; that it will spread by example and create new venues, a new kind of environment for work that includes a much larger public. The reason for our exponential growth is that we offer people something that they can find nowhere else. We're reclaiming the social function of art and that's a very powerful attractant. I want artists to come out and absorb the ethos and the style we've invented. After all, what have they really got to lose?
Larry Harvey is the founder and director of the Burning Man Project. Darryl Van Rhey is a journalist and long time observer of Burning Man.
- posted on 08/20/2005
美国裸浴派对燃烧激情
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TOM旅游 2005-05-12 08:34
这是一场为期七天的沙漠天体嘉年华,配合现场矗立的艺术品,参加的人展现对人体与艺术的真诚膜拜,而高潮戏则是最后一晚的‘燃烧’仪式。
当驶进了内华达州的沙漠地带,就是一望无垠的白色平地,据说以前是个湖,现在变成了干湖床,还可以在地面上发现亮晶晶的盐粒,在阳光下宛如散了一地的钻石。
抵达目的地后,开始看见全裸的、半裸的人体游来走去,有的还涂成艺术气息浓厚的彩绘,搞不清楚状况的人会疑心是看走眼,以为前方出现了沙漠特有的海市蜃楼现象呢。
但你没有眼花,也不是看到沙漠热气蒸腾倒影,这里就是在美国西岸脍炙人口的‘燃烧人’(Burning Man)节庆,一场欢庆身体自由、表达艺术与爱的年度大盛会。
人体野火营 起源于1986年
这是一场为期一周的户外嘉年华,特色就是参与的人,若非穿得稀少,就是完全没穿,应了我们那句古谚‘还诸天地’,每个人出生时既是赤裸裸,现在就把自己的原始身体还给大自然。
有意思的是,这些人并非固定的天体主义者,平常也不见得参加天体营聚会,但每年都有为数可观的这类人口,载欣载奔赶来参加这座沙漠上超大型的人体野火营,乐得把衣服剥光了,涂抹得花花草草,享受七0年代的嬉皮风。
‘燃烧人’最早系于1986年举行,由创办人哈维(Larry Harvey)在旧金山的贝克(Baker)海滩,用木头建造了一具巨大人形,然后引燃一把火,将木人烧成一团熊熊火焰,成为一种洗礼净化的仪式。
当时只是一小撮人的聚会,却渐渐发展成了今日来自世界(譬如有来自日本、中东)各地成千上万人的大集合,同时也把场地从加州湾区海滩转移到内华达州葛拉西(Gerlach)东北方的阿卡利(Alkali)沙漠区。因为规模大,‘燃烧人’活动已经发展出自己的‘黑岩石艺术基金会’(Black Rock Arts Foundation, 简称BRAF),负责到全美各处寻找艺术家,每年都邀请一批出色的代表者,将作品带来沙漠陈列。
高潮时刻便是到了最后一天,在众目睽睽下把最大型的艺术品烧掉。那时,参加者屏息围观火焰冲天,气氛庄重而狂喜,有点像我们屏东的王船祭,但是没那么宗教意味,若有,也只是对艺术与人体的真诚膜拜罢了。
把衣服剥光 穿梭在主题营帐间
这几年来,‘燃烧人’节庆已获得与会者相当的共识,咸认这是一场有点狂野的‘自我彰显’、‘自我信心’伸展台,助益人们远离制式生活的样板,在独特的活动经验中,解放禁锢的身心、不够强壮的自信。
这里的气氛很奇妙,每天都有人在互问:‘今天你打算穿什么?’而答案千篇一律是‘不穿’。
因为整座原始的沙漠与亲切的人群,还有那分飘在空中的浓郁艺术家风格,使得几乎人人都乐意一试天体是啥滋味?所以,许多人是在这里体验到生平第一次当着众人面前一丝不挂,多数都感觉妙不可言。
在落日夕照时分,看着一群男女,光裸着身子,在沙漠的枯树下,围着树干冲洗身子,吟唱嘻笑,有如一种古代的祭典仪式再现,景象十分独特。
每年活动会事先设定一项主题,好让艺术创作有一致投射的方向。去年的主题是师法日本古画的‘浮世绘’(The Floating World),重点摆在漂流的意象,因此有人制作了大型的画板,半边美人鱼斜躺在沙漠上,鱼尾神气活现上扬,宛如正在戏水潜泳,成为漠地有趣的奇观。
还有许多人将卡车、校车加以改装,成为十八世纪的大型帆船,大剌剌‘航行’在沙漠上,给人时空错置的恍惚感。
营地区也会设计各种‘主题营帐’,让人们穿梭其间,仿佛在赶民间艺术的市集,一个营逛过一个营,擦身之际互相热情招呼,弥漫着一股和平共容的大同世界气势。
人们习惯将现场称作‘村落’或‘市镇’,把帐棚与帐棚间的通道叫做‘路’或‘街’,市中心则循例都是那具最大型的木头人形矗立之处,当作全村人的精神指标。
烈火烧艺品 身心灵从此上瘾
去年的木人站立在一座白色灯塔上,头顶离地面七十尺,更显得巍峨壮观。最后一晚,当它在烈火中升华成一具光明、庄严的浴火凤凰,许多人静静地流泪,感受到不可言喻的撼动。
除了‘官方代表’的木人形之外,去年最引人注目的就是一座叫做‘欢乐宫’(The Temple of Joy)的木造庙寺。材料都是创作者自他一位从事‘木头马桶坐垫’的朋友那儿,把裁切剩下的废料加以利用,而成了巧夺天工的三层浮屠。
在荒凉的沙漠中,目睹这一座精巧华丽的木造庙宇,实在令人叹为观止。当然,最后它也是在大火中被‘送佛上西天’了。
每年活动期间都会有一场命名为‘批判的奶头’(Critical Tits )之游行,由女性骑着单车壮盛地通过市区。每个女性则花尽心思把胸部当画布,涂绘出各形各色的花样,以庆祝女人的自觉。当游行队伍通过时,真是‘前波推后浪’,‘峰峰相连到天边’呢。
参加过的人很多都像上了瘾,年年必定怀着乡愁似的,回到这座心灵与身体的故乡休憩。有人就比喻说,当你脱光光的肉体一旦沾上了这里的风沙,那可就一辈子也清除不掉那些沙子了,它们会成为你生命与身体的一部份。他们一再宣称,离开‘燃烧人’之后,你看待世界的观点也将从此不再一样了。
●租辆露营车 多带矿泉水
‘燃烧人’活动期间,都是在每年九月,大约是美国劳动节前的那个星期。详细情形请看活动的网站‘www.burningman.com’
如果你计画前往,可以考虑从旧金山、雷诺、拉斯维加斯出发,在当地租用露营车,可以为你解决不少‘方便’。记着,要多携带矿泉水。
- posted on 08/20/2005
世界真奇妙
沙漠天體嘉年華 藝術燃燒吧
這是一場為期七天的沙漠天體嘉年華,這裡就是在美國西岸膾炙人口的「燃燒人」(Burning Man)節慶,一場歡慶身體自由、表達藝術與愛的年度大盛會。
人體野火營 起源於1986年
這是一場為期一周的戶外嘉年華,特色就是參與的人,若非穿得稀少,就是完全沒穿,應了我們那句古諺「還諸天地」,每個人出生時既是赤裸裸,現在就把自己的原始身體還給大自然。
有意思的是,這些人並非固定的天體主義者,平常也不見得參加天體營聚會,但每年都有為數可觀的這類人口,載欣載奔趕來參加這座沙漠上超大型的人體野火營,樂得把衣服剝光了,塗抹得花花草草,享受七0年代的嬉皮風。
「燃燒人」最早係於1986年舉行,由創辦人哈維(Larry Harvey)在舊金山的貝克(Baker)海灘,用木頭建造了一具巨大人形,然後引燃一把火,將木人燒成一團熊熊火焰,成為一種洗禮淨化的儀式。
高潮時刻便是到了最後一天,在眾目睽睽下把最大型的藝術品燒掉。那時,參加者屏息圍觀火焰沖天,氣氛莊重而狂喜,有點像我們屏東的王船祭,但是沒那麼宗教意味,若有,也只是對藝術與人體的真漳ぐ萘T了。
把衣服剝光 穿梭在主題營帳間
這幾年來,「燃燒人」節慶已獲得與會者相當的共識,咸認這是一場有點狂野的「自我彰顯」、「自我信心」伸展台,助益人們遠離制式生活的樣板,在獨特的活動經驗中,解放禁錮的身心、不夠強壯的自信。
這裡的氣氛很奇妙,每天都有人在互問:「今天你打算穿什麼?」而答案千篇一律是「不穿」。
每年活動會事先設定一項主題,好讓藝術創作有一致投射的方向。去年的主題是師法日本古畫的「浮世繪」(The Floating World),重點擺在漂流的意象,因此有人製作了大型的畫板,半邊美人魚斜躺在沙漠上,魚尾神氣活現上揚,宛如正在戲水潛泳,成為漠地有趣的奇觀。 還有許多人將卡車、校車加以改裝,成為十八世紀的大型帆船,大剌剌「航行」在沙漠上,給人時空錯置的恍惚感。
●租輛露營車 多帶礦泉水
「燃燒人」活動期間,都是在每年九月,大約是美國勞動節前的那個星期。 如果你計畫前往,可以考慮從舊金山、雷諾、拉斯維加斯出發,在當地租用露營車,可以為你解決不少「方便」。記著,要多攜帶礦泉水。
- posted on 08/20/2005
薇前两个月参加了附近的一个复古协会的活动。这个协会的成员爱好17前的欧陆风情。他们穿戴那时的衣服、说那时的用词,并拥有各个等级的贵族头衔等等。薇想在大陆办一个chapter,很好的idea。
www.sca.org
The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 18 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which may feature tournaments, arts exhibits, classes, workshops, dancing, feasts, and more. Our "royalty" hold courts at which they recognize and honor members for their contributions to the group.
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