at Common Place, Beijing, China

A group exhibition with works by:

Linhan Yu http://yu-linhan.com/

You Gu https://gu-you.cc/

Zhé Wang https://zhewang.art/

Poster designed by:

Siyu Mao http://siyumao.com/

Text by:

Qilu Ma

(Graduate student of philosophy and art at Stonybrook University. Research area: philosophy of art, aesthetics, political philosophy, Neo-materialism.)

作者：马萁璐  

Text：Qilu Ma       

We/You are almost there! 就快要到（那里）了！这是我们常对别人和自己说得话，意在提醒或鼓励另一个对象，在抵达“那个”地方以后，我们或属于我们的行动，就会进入另一个区别于现在的状态。这一“那里”/there，作为目的地一样的存在，不仅暗示着现在与未来之间在场与缺席的区分(division)，也暗示着一种空间上的区分——我们当下所处的位置与目的地所处位置之间的区分。而Almost Human——快要是人了，差不多是人了，即将是人了，正是对既定的人与非人之间区分的回应，那快要、差不多、即将成为人之前的伪人（pseudo-human）、类人(quasi-human)、非人(non-human)等，是一种怎样的存在，它们/他们与人类的区分是如何成立且又使自身合法的？当游荡于真空宇宙之中的NASA宇航员，需要借助各类由技术支撑的非有机材料才能恢复在地球上的日常活动时，我们是否能说，他们依旧过着人类的生活？当部分人的体内需要被置入无机物并与其共生才能获得健康与美丽时，他们还能被称之为是自然人吗？不管回答如何，我们都无法规避的问题是：我们现有的对人与非人、有机物与无机物之间的区分，可靠吗？并且，这一决定着我们审美经验的区分，能被重构吗？
We/You are almost there! This is what we often tell ourselves or others in order to encourage or remind them that once we reach “there”, we or our actions will enter into a state different from the current one. But this“there”, as a destination, does not only imply the temporal division between future and present, it also implies a spatial division - the difference between our current position and that of our destination. Almost Human is a response to and an analysis of the divisions between the existence of those that are human and those pseudo, quasi, and non-human: how these divisions manifest and are justified. Can we truly say that NASA astronauts in space, who are almost entirely dependent on inorganics to sustain their continued biological existence, still live human lives? And what of those on Earth who likewise depend on inorganics such as pacemakers and prosthetics to go about their daily existences? No matter the answer, the question we cannot escape is: how reliable is our current assessment of the division between organics and inorganics, and indeed is it possible to reconstruct this division that determines our aesthetic experience? 

参展Almost Human的艺术家——于林汉、谷优和王哲，分别基于自身的思考模式和审美经验，各自以不同的形式和内容对上述“区分”做了探索和回应。而他们的艺术实践，并不以抵达某个“那里”/there作为导向来给出问题的答案，因为答案终究会关闭问题从而回避问题。相反，他们的回应更多是在揭开有关何之为人的问题本身，以及由此所展开的一系列更深层却又和我们现实生活密切相关话题。
The artists of Almost Human –Linhan Yu, You Gu, Zhé Wang, responded to this question of division according to their differing individual aesthetics and personal experiences. But their responses do not correspond with “there” as a destination, as destination implies an end that unavoidably precludes the disclosure of the question. On the contrary, their responses explore what it fundamentally means to be human, and build upon this base by examining this question from the deeper perspective of mundane life. 

使熟悉的事物变得陌生，是此次展览抵达主题Almost Human的途径之一，由此引出我们对来自社会的规训(discipline)的感受与反思。有趣的是，作品以一种无声却笃定的姿态，用身体作为陌生感的媒介，对20世纪初由俄国形式主义所提出的“陌生化”这一文学范畴内的美学概念做了后人类世式的回应。在这里，我们的身体——具体到日常的动作、器官以及身体的微观组成部分，都成了陌生感或感到陌生这一事件的载体。当对自以为熟悉的身体感到陌生时，我们似乎不得不去提问：是什么让我们与自己的身体产生了距离？而由提问所引起的反思，也不可回避地指向社会规训：当这一规训如磨具一般塑造人们的身体、思维、乃至审美经验时，人们愿意挣脱这身体之外的磨具吗？这一提问，又引向存在于每个人内心的法西斯——对控制的渴望。挣脱控制代表着不确定性和危险，对失控的抵抗和恐惧，是否构成了何以为人呢？
To turn the normal into the unfamiliar is one of the goals of Almost Human. Through this, we are able to grasp the sense of and maybe reflect on the discipline imposed on us by society. The interesting part is the artwork, using the body as an unfamiliar medium, makes a silent yet formidable rebuttal to the transhumanist aspects of early 20th century Russian Formalism. Here, our bodies, from the most mundane movements of our limbs to our organs, to even the fundamental tissues formed by microscopic elements, all possess facets of the unfamiliar. Confronted with the unfamiliarity of our own bodies, we cannot help but ask: what has caused this disconnect within ourselves? The reflection brought about by this question inextricably points towards the societal disciplines imposed upon us. But when these disciplines mold our bodies, thoughts, and even aesthetic experiences, are people even willing to consider possibilities that lie beyond the confines of the mold? This question affects the fascist living within everyone, the desire to control. To escape the control implies indeterminacy and danger, therefore, does the resistance and fear to the uncontrollable can constitute what human beings are? 

以身体为媒介的陌生感引出了艺术家们对潜在的技术问题的讨论：当技术作为人类的体外化延展(exosomatisation)时，与技术共生的人类如何直面人/非人，有机物/无机物的区分？宇航员的3D眼球是对海德格尔技术定义的回应——技术是那让人们对变化免疫的东西。为眼睛佩戴上特殊的保护罩，宇航员的眼球便可在太空中免受脑髓液局部堆积带来的压迫眼球的危险，从而能轻松自如的在无引力的空间内活动眼球。这一由“技术—人”共生带来的人对环境变化的免疫——维持人及其身体功能在不同环境中的持续性和不可变性，又一次把我们抛入了基于赛博格（cyborg）的有关边界(border)问题展开：与原始社会相比，只有与技术共存才能维持生命的现代人类，与非人、无机物的界限在哪里？而这一界限又是如何被划定的？还是从一开始起，人类就已经是“技术—人类”了——人类早与无机物划不清界限？
The body as a medium brings about the artistic debate regarding technology: as technology exsomatisizes humanity, how do we come to grips with the divisions between human and non-human, organic and inorganic? The response to Heidegger’s definition of technology lies within an astronaut’s spherical eyeball - technology is that which allows humanity to be immune to change. Astronaut eye protection can assist against the pressures of cranial fluid and allow the effortless activity of the eyeball in a zero-gravity environment with minimal side effects. The immunity brought upon by the melding of man and machine, the inevitable functionality of bodily organs in the face of a changing environment again raises the question of borders based on the concept of cyborgs: in the context of primitive man, where do we draw the lines between techno-reliant modern humanity, non-humans, and inorganics? Are we even able to draw these lines, or is it the premise, the dualistic assertion of man and machine that was wrong, to begin with? 

三人对区分（或边界）问题的深入思考，将艺术创造带往了对恐惧的追问。恐惧作为感觉是否构成人/非人，有机物/无机物的区分和归类呢？似乎，智慧人类和动物总是以不同的方式对待恐惧：动物将恐惧转化为逃生的化学动力由此保证其生命的延续，而人类却擅长压制恐惧，把恐惧囚禁于无意识，从而阻止恐惧的外化。此外，人类还享受恐惧，能从恐惧中获得快感。在美学中，哲学家们把看似由威胁生命而带来的恐惧之感称之为崇高，从感受经验来看，人类倾向于以主动的方式审美地享受一切可朽的危险和自我毁灭。而这种因恐惧带来的美，在博克的崇高概念里，是一种不可呈现之物（特指不可被视觉化的存在）。这种对恐惧的审美化被凝固于以墓碑为形式的作品之中。墓碑——在场者与缺席者——当下与未来之间的共时存在，意在影射那游离于我们认知能力之外的不可呈现之物。由此，墓碑实现了对这一威胁生命的恐惧的悬置。而这一悬置如火焰般激烈地煽动着对所有既定的有关区分—归类—分配上的质疑。
The artists’ questioning of these borders and divisions eventually lead to a reflection on fear. Does fear as an emotion create these boundaries between the human and non-human, organic and inorganic? For it would seem that man and animal have different methods of treating and reacting to fearful stimuli: while the animal would transform a fearful chemical stimulus into physical action, but man’s response is to suppress his fear, banish it into his subconscious where it cannot be externalized. This aside, humanity enjoys fear and relishes in its stimulus. In aesthetics, philosophers’ term those experiences that threatens survival and incite fear as sublime. From sensual experience, human aesthetic tends towards an active enjoyment of danger and self-destruction, yet this type of self-destructive aesthetic, in Burke’s perspective, is inevitably of an ephemeral quality and unperceptible to the eye. This aestheticization of fear can be seen in the concept of the monument, for monuments bridge the gap between the past and the present, and act as manifestations of the unpresentable. It is through this that monuments are able to suspend that fear of imminent danger, but this very act of suspension is what has agitated the questioning of the established system of divisions. 

这次展览也从认知科学的领域——语言（包括技术平台上的语言），来讨论认知能力与感觉能力、智慧与直觉的区分，从而导向对人/非人，有机物/无机物的区分的探索。与人相反，动植物常被排除在认知能力之外，无机物更是被排除在感觉能力之外。就连神经科学的研究也表明，负责认知的神经系统与负责感知的神经系统对应着笛卡尔身心二元论中身体和心灵的相互独立，仅在极少数的情况下存在和谐共存的可能（且这种可能还尚未被实证科学把握成规律）——应证了精神分析中人内心的永恒匮乏。但这种匮乏，难道不能理解为认知与感觉之间的张力吗？正是这一张力，这一次次理性与感性之间的和解失败，才让人跳出理性的枷锁，以感性来定义自己，如尼采的酒神；甚至，将感性与理性通通抛弃，用物性(thing-ness)来重新思考自己的存在，人类的存在。
This art exhibition also takes from cognitive science’s understanding of language to discuss intelligence versus emotion, consciousness versus instinct, human versus non-human, organic versus inorganic and explores the divisions between each. Unlike humans, plants and animals are often said to exist outside of sapience, and inorganics moreso, outside of emotion even. Even neuroscience recognizes that the cognition system and sense perception are separate and independent from one another, fulfilling the paradigm of Descartes’ mind-body duality and that only in the fewest of marginal cases are there exceptions to this norm that are espoused to be neurotypical by current empirical standards. Yet within this gap between mind and body, there is also a tension, given form by countless failed merging of rationality and emotion. It is this tension that allows humans to escape the prison of rationalism and use their emotions and feelings to redefine themselves, like the Nietzschean Dionysus, and opening up the possibility of abandoning both halves of the duality to reinvent humanity’s existence from a single concept of thing-ness.

与其说是思辨式的嬉戏，Almost Human更偏向于一种疯人式的追问。在展示的作品中，艺术家总是如撕开伤口般一步步撕开各种有关人/非人、有机物/无机物的界点。好比外科医生，用手术刀切开任何一个可疑的点；只是这次，外科医生是艺术家自己，而被切开的身体也是他们自己的身体。正是这种由自我内心出发的对有关人的问题的真切感受与思考，带来了多元化却又非常复杂的审美体验。通过这场追问，最终有没有可能，“人/人类”，其实只不过是一个名字而已？
Instead of a playful intellectuality, Almost Human exhibits a type of insane questioning, both introspectively and retrospectively. In the work, the artists continually attempt to rupture the divisions between human and non-human, organics and inorganics, like surgeons wielding scalpels with the intent of excising any and all suspicious elements, only this time, the artists wield the scalpels and they themselves are the subject of the excision. It is through this intimate skepticism of ourselves and the values and definitions that we hold that this work is able to bring about new, complex dimensions of aesthetic experience. Ultimately, through this work, we are finally able to ask ourselves the question: in the end, is the concept of humanity merely a name?