展覽前言  
影像時刻：早期中國攝影視覺的發(fā)生

Preface
Photographic Moments: The Emergence of Photographic Visuality in China

自從攝影傳入中國，這一新的視覺與傳播媒介就構(gòu)成了近代中國視覺文化中的重要內(nèi)容。攝影不僅僅是一張張完成了的照片，而是這張照片得以生成的完整過程。“時刻”與“發(fā)生”這兩個用語都在強調(diào)作為事件、動作與時間的攝影。

Since its introduction to China, photography as a new visual and communicative medium has gained prominence in modern Chinese visual culture. Photography shall not be merely regarded as completed images, but the whole process through which the picture takes its form. The terms “moment” and “emergence” both emphasise photography as an event, action and time. 

“影像時刻”正是這一事件過程中的爆裂瞬間：一臺攝影機與一個拍攝對象相遇，目光、表情、人與機器碰撞、主體截取與凝固世界，而背后又是這一切得以可能的全部歷史條件，連帶著近代中國的社會文化語境、美學傳統(tǒng)、視覺慣例與其時各種老舊與新生的視覺媒介網(wǎng)絡(luò)。在這個過程中，一種可稱為是攝影視覺的感知機制慢慢培育出來，這是屬于攝影這一機械復(fù)制、自動再現(xiàn)媒介的獨特視覺形態(tài)，與既往人類全部圖像媒介的視覺經(jīng)驗不同，一種裝置式的、索引性的、程序化的視覺感知成為中國視覺現(xiàn)代性轉(zhuǎn)型的重要動力。

The ‘photographic moments’ are precisely the explosive instants in the process of this event: a camera encounters the photographed; gazes, expressions, and humans collide with the machine; the subject captures and freezes the world. Behind all these are the historical conditions that made them possible, together with the social and cultural context, aesthetic tradition, visual convention in modern China, as well as various old-fashioned and newly born visual media networks at that time. In this process, a perceptual mechanism that could be named ‘photographic visuality’ gradually developed. It is a unique visuality that exclusively belongs to photography as the medium of mechanical reproduction and automatical representation, distinguishing itself from all previous visual experiences evoked by media of image in history. As a result, an installation-like, indexical, and programmed visual perception becomes a crucial driving force for the transformation of Chinese visual modernity.

對這種攝影視覺的揭示，恰恰無法以單純的攝影媒介來完成，本次展覽在一種綜合性的媒介環(huán)境中展示攝影（而非照片），在新聞畫報、漫畫圖像、文學描述、繪畫、幻燈、電影等整體影像文化所提供的再現(xiàn)圖景、敘事語境、情感與欲望的網(wǎng)絡(luò)中，顯現(xiàn)出攝影在其時如何被觀念性地對待，如何發(fā)揮作用，如何作為全球性符號流通體系中的一員，形塑近代國人對世界和自身的理解。

The revelation of this photographic visuality cannot, however, solely depend on photography itself. In this light, the exhibition presents photography (including but not limited to photographs) in a comprehensive media environment. In the nexus of representational images, narrative contexts, emotion and desire provided by the whole image culture incorporating news pictorial, comics, literature, paintings, slide shows, films and other media, the exhibition aims to elaborate on how photography was conceptually perceived, functioned, and played a part in the global circulation system of signs, shaping Chinese people’s modern understanding of the world and themselves.

第一單元 世界圖像的時代

攝影的發(fā)明將人類帶入“世界圖像的時代”，這不僅是世界的圖像化，更是圖像化的世界的全球流通，攝影圖像完美遵循著資本主義商品批量復(fù)制的邏輯。不可見、不可移動的對象世界變成一張張薄薄的平面，人們可以輕易獲取。近代中國人在照片中觀看和理解世界。立體視鏡中精巧的大千世界，在貼近鏡頭的眼中，形成一種私密的身體化的觀看體驗。

Unit One
The Age of World Images

The invention of photography has brought humans into the ‘age of world images’, which not only refers to the pictorialisation of the world but also the global circulation of the pictorialised world. The photographic image perfectly conforms to the logic of mass reproduction of capitalist commodities. The invisible and immovable world of objects is transformed into thinnish plates that people can easily access. Modern Chinese people hence see and understand the world in photographs. The exquisite yet boundless world in the stereoscope creates an intimate and physical viewing experience in their eyes close to the lens.

第二單元 目光與表情：攝影的靈韻

本雅明面對卡夫卡童年照中那雙無辜的大眼睛，將照片中人的面容稱為機械復(fù)制時代最后的靈韻（aura）。羅蘭·巴特也將照片中人或物發(fā)出的“小小幻影”稱為“攝影的幽靈” 。當中國人最初面對一架攝影機的時候，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了早期攝影的目光和表情，這種目光和表情從來沒有被認真對待過。在早期肖像照片中，攝影的陌生性仍在，那些低垂躲避的眼睛、迷惑不解的眼神、直面而探究的目光，直接穿透畫面，暴露攝影機器——這種新的人-物關(guān)系的存在，更彰顯出攝影的索引真實性（indexical realness）。這是為什么那些百余年前的小小幻影至今仍能吸引我們禁不住去探求他/她們是誰、為何在此、那活潑的生命去向了哪里的原因。

Unit Two
Gazes and Expressions: The Aura of Photography

Looking at the big innocent eyes of Franz Kafka in his childhood portrait, Walter Benjamin describes the face in the photograph as the last aura in the age of mechanical reproduction. Roland Barthes also terms the ‘eidolon’ radiated by people or objects in a photograph as a “Spectrum”. When the Chinese were first confronted with cameras, we find the gazes and expressions captured in early photography that never have been taken seriously. In early portrait photography, the defamiliarisation with photography can still be found in those downcast and evading eyes, confused and puzzled looks, and direct and inquisitive gazes, which penetrate the frame and expose the hidden camera—the presence of this new human-object relationship has further highlighted the indexical realness of photography. That is why those tiny “eidolons” of more than a century ago still attract us to quest who they are, why they are here, and where they have gone.

第三單元 作為文人表達的攝影

攝影很快成為文人雅士與知識階層進行書寫與表達的有力手段。在文人雅集活動中，合影留念取代了傳統(tǒng)的書畫創(chuàng)作，人們正是用傳統(tǒng)書畫意境理解雅集照片。而照片題詩贈予友人，作為題畫詩的新形態(tài)，積極參與了新興知識階層自我形象的塑造，無論是多情浪子蘇曼殊，還是“我以我血薦軒轅”的啟蒙者魯迅，照片都構(gòu)成了有著傳統(tǒng)文人與現(xiàn)代知識分子之混雜身份的人們在身體、情感與民族家國之間進行譬喻嫁接的通路。

Unit Three
Photography as an Expression of the Literati

Photography immediately became a powerful means for the literati and intellectuals to create and self-express. In their elegant gatherings, taking a group photograph as commemoration has replaced traditional painting and calligraphy practices, although these photographs of elegant gatherings were still perceived within the aesthetics of traditional painting and calligraphy. In the meantime, inscribing poems on photographs and presenting them to friends confirmed the new form of poems for pictures, allowing photographs to actively participate in constructing self-images of the emerging intellectual class. From Su Manshu, the amorous flaneur to Lu Xun, the enlightener who wrote, “I shall offer my blood up for Xuan Yuan, our progenitor”, photographs constituted a metaphorical and interrelated pathway between traditional literati and modern intellectuals in their bodies, emotions and national homeland.

第四單元 攝影與國民性話語
    
從晚清到“五四”運動，近代啟蒙知識分子的核心議題之一是國民性問題。魯迅在一張幻燈片中看到看客“麻木”的表情，進而批判國民劣根性，嘗試以筆喚醒沉睡的國民。攝影并非透明，拍攝對象與視角的選擇和擺置，都體現(xiàn)拍攝者隱匿的觀念。在近代西方殖民主義獵奇般的凝視下，西方攝影師鏡頭中的中國人凸顯著“愚昧”“落后”等負面狀態(tài)。而這一殖民視角又被攝影的科學屬性所加強，人們相信攝影不僅呈現(xiàn)外觀真實，更可以揭示事物內(nèi)在的本質(zhì)真實，近代中國人之性質(zhì)于是因此成為可見、可量化的因而也就是真實的無可辯駁的屬性——這當然是需要批判的，它實質(zhì)上反映著，以攝影圖像為代表的，近代中國話語權(quán)的衰弱。

Unit Four
Photography and the Discourse of National Character

From the late Qing Dynasty to the May Fourth Movement, the issue of Chinese national character has always remained a central theme for enlightening intellectuals. Lu Xun once discovered the “numb” expressions of the spectators in a beheading image, which led him to criticise the cultural weakness and flaws inherent in the nation and attempt to use writing to wake up his fellow countrymen. Photography is far from transparent or neutral. The selection and manipulation of objects and perspectives in the shooting process always manifest the implicit conceptions of the photographer. Under the gaze of modern western colonialism seeking monstrousness of the Others, Chinese people in the lens of western photographers were portrayed as ‘benighted’ and ‘uncultured’. Worse still, such a colonialist bias was so enhanced by photography’s scientific attribute that people believed that the technology could not only represent the external realness but also reveal the internal essence of the photographed. In this way, the weakness and flaws in modern Chinese people’s national characters became visible, quantifiable, and thus factual and indisputable—this history and such ideas, for sure, deserve critical interrogations. They are substantial embodiments of modern China’s lack of right to speak when photographic images were employed as a representative language. 

第五單元 攝影與其他視覺媒介

攝影是獨立的區(qū)別于既有全部視覺媒介的藝術(shù)這一觀念，并不適用于早期攝影的歷史。相反，攝影與包括印刷、繪畫、幻燈、電影等在內(nèi)的各種媒介相互影響、交融、結(jié)合，共同作用于接受者，構(gòu)成近代中國豐富復(fù)雜的視覺文化。

Unit Five
Photography and Miscellaneous Visual Media

The concept that photography is an independent art form distinctive from all established visual media does not apply to its early history. On the contrary, photography interacted, intermingled, and combined with various media, including printing, painting, slides, and film. Together, they created a synthesised experience for the audience, constituting a rich and comprehensive visual culture in modern China.

策展人

唐宏峰| Tang Hongfeng

策展助理

楊云鬯| Yang Yunchang

湖南益陽人，1990年生于廣東，北京大學藝術(shù)學院博雅博士后，兼任倫敦大學學院（UCL）人類學系榮譽研究員、期刊Photography and Culture編輯。他在2020年獲得倫敦大學學院人類學與視覺文化的博士學位，曾求學于倫敦大學亞非學院、加州大學伯克利分校和中山大學，研究領(lǐng)域包括藝術(shù)人類學、視覺人類學、中國現(xiàn)當代視覺文化，目前致力于探索中國攝影史上的“業(yè)余主義”及中國當代藝術(shù)的“民族志轉(zhuǎn)向”。

鄭紫涵 | Zheng Zihan

湖南長沙人，現(xiàn)為謝子龍影像藝術(shù)館學術(shù)助理，專注館藏影像研究及相關(guān)圖像理論。先后于湖南師范大學中文系和倫敦大學亞非學院東亞系取得文學學士及碩士學位，探索文學與圖像話語之間的共鳴與轉(zhuǎn)化。

李輝 | Li Hui

河北石家莊人，先后于北京電影學院、北京大學藝術(shù)學院取得藝術(shù)學學士和藝術(shù)碩士學位，現(xiàn)于倫敦大學國王學院攻讀博士學位，研究領(lǐng)域包括電影理論、電影史和視覺文化研究。他也在探索具有學術(shù)研究性質(zhì)的非虛構(gòu)影像實踐，制有視頻論文《現(xiàn)代瘟疫小史》。

羅玥沁 | Luo Yueqin

湖南湘西人，現(xiàn)為北京大學藝術(shù)學院博士研究生。聚焦于攝影理論、攝影史、媒介批評與視覺文化研究，關(guān)注當代攝影中的機會與自動、游牧與流動，以及歷史性圖像的敘述問題。