Time of No Shadows

遠行的夢遊 / 張世倫


攝影者瞧了瞧，停下來，對了下相機裡的觀景框，
安靜地按下快門，然後離去。

照片裡的世界，充滿著某種寂靜的喧囂，
彷彿狂亂紛雜的千言萬語，卻只能發出一個意義不明的「啊」後，
旋即失聲噤語，徒留身形。
它們只得密謀串連、流轉輪迴，
就像搭乘火車時，一片片從旅人窗邊掠過的浮雲世事，
縱然深淺不一、五味雜陳，卻從不留步。
無頭的軀體、吉凶的面相、頹圮的假人、遺留的影像、形體的骨骸、離去的況味，
總之，盡是些遠行的姿態，在人們還沒摸清楚頭緒前，便稍縱即逝，難以回頭。

照片裡縱然充滿著各種視覺符號，
影像本體卻像是在開「紀實」一詞玩笑似地，
並未清楚指涉出任何特定具體的時間地點、時代風韻，或人情世故。
取而代之的，是一些些的戲蔑荒謬、一丁點低憂鬱懸疑，與濃稠無解的曖昧含混。
「記事感」薄弱的影像場景（縱使裡面充滿了各種含蓄影射的心理劇），
在此宛如重返夢境般地似曾相似（這些視覺符號我們多少都「讀」過），
正如某種潛意識裡似已烙印過無數回的「既視感」（Déjà vu）。
影像所意謂的時空情節與世事情結，卻像肉身「脫臼」（out-of-joint）般地無法定於一尊，
或者反過來說，過去、現在與未來，
竟也任觀者自行拼貼組裝、造景說情，
乃至離魂夢遊、纏繞四方。

羅蘭‧巴特（Roland Barthes）曾在一篇談論福樓拜（Gustave Flaubert）的短文裡，
提及小說家在寫作時，常刻意花大量篇幅，
描述與劇情發展無直接關連、更缺乏敘事必要性的瑣碎細節上（例如，一只掛在室內的「氣壓計」），
藉以營造出寫實主義（realism）的氛圍與幻象，
好強化故事本身的「真實效果」 。
以此觀之，做為「光的書寫」的攝影術，
似乎自始便身陷於「寫實」與「細節」的意義牢籠與意識型態裡，
攝影者按下快門的同時，
鏡頭彷彿便不由自主地執行著某種預設且不可逆的影像信條：
因為精確，加上瑣碎，從而真實 。

對「細節」的執迷與沈溺，也見諸於這系列如夢似影的攝影作品裡，
然而這些似真又假的人與獸，其實體與虛像在被攝影術所轉譯擷取後，
反倒產生了一種墊基於真實，卻又從現實中不斷逃逸偏差的衍異感，
一如某種不斷與現世對話，卻又不全然受其制約的潛意識，
就像班雅明（Walter Benjamin）曾提醒的，
在狀似科學理性的實證外表下，攝影術一如佛洛伊德（Sigmund Freud）的心理分析，
都有著夢境般的「無意識」（unconsciousness）特質，
紀錄著「當下」，刻印了「過去」，並孕育了「未來」 。

影像難免就像一場遠行旅途，搖晃且恍惚，精細卻朦朧，怪奇並乖張。

但在火車到站時，還請把我搖醒。




1.Barthes, Roland. "The Reality Effect." The Rustle of Language.
Trans. Richard Howard, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. pp. 141-148.
2.這種對瑣碎細節的重視，及其背後所預設的真實觀，或可參考美國紀實攝影家Walker Evans
於1930年代受農業安定局（Farm Security Administration）委託，
拍攝經濟大蕭條下貧困佃農生活的面貌時，大量拍攝了居家內部的靜物擺設等「細節」，
甚至不惜挪動若干陳設擺置。關於這段攝影史的批判性分析與爭議，
見Errol Morris, Believing is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography).
New York: The Penguin Press. 2011. pp. 123-185。



Time of No Shadow / Anselm Franke


As a photographer, writer, filmmaker, and teacher, Chang Chao-Tang has been
one of the chief chroniclers of Taiwanese society since the late 1950s.
The non-chronological sequence Time of No Shadows - a title alluding to an un-rememberable past
and a non-imaginable future—starts with a lesser-known picture from his “Headless” series.
The iconic picture “Headless Self-Portrait” depicts the photographer’s figure as a shadow with no head,
which is cut off by the wall on which the shadow is cast.
The work alludes to a loss of control, to histories of de-culturalization,
to a sense of absurdism under totalist power, and to history as subject-less process.
Comprising works dating from 1959 to 2004,
the sequence Time of No Shadows unfolds as a continuous inversion between spectators and scenes,
a continuous striving towards a missing, elusive, or hidden element,
exposing an ever-growing gap between signs and their referents.
The photographs thus point towards a rupture or even an abyss in reality.
In exploring this abyss, the photographs develop a different kind of
realism—a realism of experience on the margins of the social order,
opening the obtuse meaning which can only ever be remembered through the hidden,
implicit contents of gestures exposing themselves,
revealing a physical, sedimentary memory of collective expressions.
In the sequence we see several images of the human body waiting,
gazing in aspiration, or captured in movement, requently juxtaposed with figures of animals, real or reproduced.
It is through these animals, especially apes, that the thin and unstable surface of reality
breaks open and overflows with repressed or un-rememberable history and an excess of signs and meanings,
only to be hidden under veils or behind walls in the next picture.
The frequent images of fortune-tellers and their diagrams of human faces or hands through which
they “read” future and destiny are iconic of this relationship between the visible and invisible.
These images are not historical images in the sense that they document a past;
rather, what they capture is a scenography of an historical experience.

Chang Chao-Tang, born 1943 in Taiwan, lives and works in Taipei