地平線系列介紹

易伊蓮於2003年10月

Yee I-Lann, October 2003

地平線

HORIZON

我熱愛開闊的沙漠，那種一望無際的遼闊空間，我的眼睛可以看到很遠很遠，沒有任何的樹木、建築或是一個山丘阻擋我的視線。我喜歡廣大的天空，彷彿我注視它愈久，它就會用宇宙無涯的知識與可能性擁抱我。我喜歡圓形的地球，地平線將我圍繞，並且將我註記在這裡；此刻，在這裡。我喜歡有自己的想法，這就是我處在宇宙中心的証明，每個事物都是起源於我，這是真實的，我可以看見，這是真的。

I love the open desert. I love having so much space. I love stretching my eyes to a distant distant point that’s not interrupted by a tree, a building or a hill. I love that huge sky that gets heavier and heavier the longer I look at it and it lightly embraces me with all the knowledge and possibility of the universe. I love the disc of the earth, the horizon that circles me, marks me and places me Here. At this point. Here. I love having perspective. I am the center of the universe and this is my proof, everything stems from me. I can see it, it is real; it is true.

當我移動一步，所有的東西都改變了，地平線跟著我移動，一下如影隨形一下又離我愈來愈遠，聚合又消散，彷彿要讓我窒息。地平線綿延不絕的線在調侃我、質疑我，我的所在與我的觀點於是改變了，我迷失了，在高原中央的不確定與疑惑阻斷了我，它不讓我思考，不讓我成為我想要的樣子。伴隨著地平線的天空禁閉了我的越逃，聚合又消散，它否定了自己的存在同時也否定了我的存在，我其實一無所有，這一切都是幻影，它不是真實的但是它仍然是真的。

And then I take a step and everything changes, the horizon moves with me stalking me yet running away with its continuous line; it’s joining and separating, suffocating me. It teases me, questions me, challenges me and always my here, my perspective, changes and I am lost uncertain confused at the center of this disc that wont let me think, that wont let me be. The sky in concert with the horizon seals my escape, joining and separating. It denies its own existence as it denies mine. I have no mine. It is all illusion, it is not real but it is still true.

易伊蓮(2003年，南澳)

Yee I-Lann (South Australia, 2003)

最近待在澳洲的日子裡我對地平線開始感到著迷，我發現我自己被無邊無際的環狀線包圍，它區分了我身處的紅色高原與上方的藍色天空，那邊有稀疏的灌木叢，一條筆直的公路將世界分成了兩半，我的妹妹「Ute｣與我。那就是所有。我在這個未知的空間裡，搖擺在極度興奮、自由與幽閉迷失、恐懼的情緒之中，我的眼光卻總是停在那個延伸的地平線上。

During my recent stay in Australia I became obsessed with the horizon line. I found myself surrounded by this circular continuous line that separated the red disc of earth I stood on from a cloudless blue sky above. There were a few shrubby bushes, the straight road that divided the world in half, my sister’s ‘Ute’ and me. That was it. Nothing. Yet everything. I would swing from feeling deliriously happy and free to feeling claustrophobic, lost and fearful of such space, of such unknown. And always my eye would stretch to that horizon line…

 

當我回到吉隆坡，在沙巴我習慣將我的視野侷限在很多東西裡，包括建築物、紀念碑與山峰。這些障礙物、精神的指標與隱喻象徵影響了我的觀點與遠景，我的眼界不再有機會伸展去瞭望地平線。我自己也漸漸的習慣被這些安全的事物緊緊的包覆，不再會有從世界邊緣墜落的危機，因為我被柵欄圍繞並且保護著。

Back home in Kuala Lumpur and in Sabah I had become used to having my vision restricted by all manner of ‘everything’ – a building, a monument, a mountain. The obstacles, physical and metaphoric, affected my perspective and influenced my vision, which rarely stretched to see the horizon. I had also become used to being cocooned in the safety of these obstacles, trapped. I would not get carried away and fall off the edge of the world I would be saved by fencing.

所以我拍攝了未知的地平線，嘗試要記錄並且了解它。地面在畫面中比起一般的相片，總是顯得比較接近，我後來才知道是因為我較為矮小的身高，地平線嘲弄了我。正因如此我了解到地平線要有指示標的物才會產生實際的意義。

So I took photographs of the Horizon, of the Unknown, to try and know it. The ground appeared closer in my photographs than in others I had seen then I realized this is because I am short and the horizon line teases. I realized the horizon only had significance when it had a referent.

我會用攝影將地平線陷入一種超現實的情境，影像便成了我的共犯。我將地平線置入我們的地上風景去看看它會告訴我們什麼，沒有差異的影像與標誌是文化與社會的流體，我會用我們的庸俗作品當成這條線的指示標的物，我會將碎片縫合、治療傷口並且將想像與象徵結合在一起。其他人會像他們所知道的一樣，成為這個幻象裡的共事者，與我一起開墾地平線並給予其意義。地平線的模型將會是容易被了解的現實，我們將一起把它鏈結起來使它靜止、築欄防衛、給予定義；因此我們可以用一些觀點將廣大無際的未知地用畫面呈現出來，給予註記，將它放置在一個為大家所知的地方。時空可能會錯置、不精確，所以我想讓它變的更為公有性、更民主與更加的容易使用。時空在未知中是結束而我們是不會脫離它的。

I would use photographs to surrender the horizon to the ‘hyper-real’; the image would become my accomplice. I would put a horizon back into our landscape and see what it would tell us. Culture and society are a flux of undifferentiated images and signs. I would celebrate our kitsch and make ‘referents’ for The Line. I would stitch fragments together, heal wounds, join the imaginary with the symbolic. Other people would become complicit in the simulacrum as they knew what I knew and we would together tame the horizon and give it meaning. The model of the horizon would be reality and easily read. We would together tie it down, keep it still, fence it, define it, so We could have some perspective over it and The Great Unknown would become screened, indexed, put in it’s place and Known to all. Time and space could be dislocated and it would have to be imprecise enough so as to be as communal as possible, democratized, user friendly. It would be death to the Unknown and we wouldn’t ‘fall off’. Ha!

但是地平線會獲勝，我將會是另一個用重複影像與排練舞台講述虛構故事的障礙角色，我將尋找一個我可以掌握、觀察的象徵，在那裡我的觀點是堅定的處在世界的中心，但是我知道我除了另一個圍欄之外什麼都找不到。地平線否定了它自己的存在也否定了我，它的雄辯循環邏輯在史詩歷史與無關緊要的瑣事之間不斷嘲弄著。那裡永遠都會有另一條地平線，一個新的思維角度，我相信我會繼續在這個遊戲之中，不會停歇。But the Horizon would win. I would be another obstacle playing my role telling my true fictitious stories with the duplicity of repeated images and rehearsed staging. I would’ve looked for a metaphor that I could hold, see, where my perspective was solidly in the middle of the world but I would find nothing but another fence. The horizon denies its own existence as it does mine; its rhetoric a circular logic that teases between the epic and the inconsequential. There would always be another horizon, a new perspective. I would’ve played straight into its game.