Rainbow Between Scylla and Charybdis

2022

这组作品始于我对国际组织“水下弹药国际对话”（International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions）的实践及其资料库中档案和数据的研究。这一基金会旨在推动各国政府、私营部门、社区组织和其他相关方在开放和透明的过程中讨论对水下弹药在科学、技术和政策层面的处置。

彩虹、抛物线、炮弹飞行轨迹。

男性欲望、征服、控制、埋藏。

武器沉入水中或埋进土里，都只是暂时地解决问题。而武器所对应的“消失”则是不可逆的——既包括武器本身的消失，也包括它们本来的对象，即人的消失。

当下，人们寻找、处理被掩埋或弃置的武器，实际上是“控制”的另一种状态。这些行为与人们在战争期间施放炸弹、战后埋藏炸弹，在性质上是一致的。施放炸弹，借助精确的方式和无序的结果，实现了先破坏、再控制战争对象的目的。而埋藏炸弹，则意味着对炸弹功能的暂时规避和主观遗忘，这是一种不负责任的控制。前人制造、投放、丢弃炸弹，后人搜寻、处理炸弹，过去和现在的这些“控制”，轮回于一代代人之间。战争不会停止，文明与文明、人与人之间的相互损耗也不会停止。企图靠战争来解决问题，都会陷入“Between Scylla and Charybdis”的困境。而贯穿托马斯·品钦（Thomas Pynchon）的小说《万有引力之虹》（Gravity’s Rainbow）里的“熵”，或许才是现实不可避免的归宿。

This project began with my research into the practice of the “International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions” (IDUM) and its archives and data repository. This foundation aims to facilitate discussions between governments, the private sector, community organisations and other interested parties on the scientific, technical and policy aspects of the disposal of underwater munitions in an open and transparent process.

Rainbow, parabola, trajectory of cannonball in flight.

Male desire, conquest, control, burial.

The search for and disposal of buried or abandoned weapons is, in effect, another state of 'control'. These actions are the same in nature as when people drop bombs during war and bury them afterwards. By dropping bombs, the aim of destroying and then controlling the object of war is achieved by means of precision and disorderly results. Burying the bomb, on the other hand, implies a temporary evasion and subjective forgetting of its function, a form of irresponsible control. These 'controls' of the past and present are reincarnated from generation to generation. Wars will not stop, nor will the mutual attrition among civilisations and human beings. Any attempt to solve the problem by war would be caught between Scylla and Charybdis. The entropy that runs through the anti-war novel Gravity's Rainbow is perhaps the inevitable end of reality.

引子

Intro

时候终于到了。在伦敦一个福尔摩斯式的夜晚，煤气的味道从一盏昏暗的街灯清晰地传入海盗鼻子里，面前的雾气中渐渐出现了一个巨大的、器官模样的东西。他屏息凝声，一步步小心翼翼地靠近去。那东西也开始向他滑过来，在鹅卵石上缓缓移动着，爬过的街面上留下了黏液般亮晶晶的尾迹，根本不是雾气造成的错觉。他们中间有一个临界点，海盗移动略快，抢先到了临界点上。紧接着，他又惊惧地踉跄后退，退回到临界点这边来——可是，那种东西看一眼就永远忘不了。那是个巨大的腺样增殖体，至少有圣保罗教堂那么大，而且一直在长。伦敦，也许整个英国，已岌岌可危了。
——《万有引力之虹》
At last, one proper Sherlock Holmes London evening, the unmistakable smell of gas came to Pirate from a dark street lamp, and out of the fog ahead materialized a giant, organlike form. Carefully, black-shod step by step, Pirate approached the thing. It began to slide forward to meet him, over the cobblestones slow as a snail, leaving behind some slime brightness of street-wake that could not have been from fog. In the space between them was a crossover point, which Pirate, being a bit faster, reached first. He reeled back, in horror, back past the point—but such recognitions are not reversible. *It was a giant Adenoid.* At least as big as St. Paul’s, and growing hour by hour. London, perhaps all England, was in mortal peril!
—— *Gravity's Rainbow*

荒诞的腺体

战后被丢弃于海洋中的化学武器不断泄露，导致大量海洋生物中毒、病变。我把一些鱼类身上的畸变器官融合成了这个庞大的怪物。

An Absurd Adenoid

The continuous leakage of chemical weapons discarded in the ocean after wars has led to the poisoning and mutation of a large number of marine organisms. I fused the deformed organs from some fish to form this massive monster.

代际循环

这部分的素材来源于日本政府网站里的档案影像。日本科学家前往中国，与中国科学家一道寻找、销毁抗日战争战争时期埋在中国境内的武器。科学家上下摇动炸弹的动作，让我第一时间想起投弹的行为。上一代人把武器倾泻到他国的领土，新一代的人为他们解决这些遗留问题，而同时新的战争又在打响。投弹-检查的行为像一个圈，人们怎么也走不出去。

Intergenerational Cycles

The material for this section comes from archival images on the Japanese government website. Japanese scientists travel to China to work with Chinese scientists to find and destroy weapons buried in Chinese territory during the war of the Second Sino-Japanese War (War of Resistance). The movement of the scientist shaking the bomb up and down reminded me first of the act of dropping a bomb. One generation dumped weapons on the territory of another, and a new generation is working for them to solve these legacies, while at the same time a new war is being fought. The act of bomb-dropping-checking is like a circle that people can't get out of.

瞄准占领区的尝试

根据“海底弃置化学武器全球分布图”，我在宣纸上用针刺了世界地图某些区域的轮廓，然后用玩具水枪向化学武器所在的大致区域喷射墨汁。有时会射偏，需要调整位置并重新射击。由于是躺着射击，所以墨汁回反弹到身上。这些“地图”最后被揉成一团，像用完之后的卫生纸，被丢在展览空间的角落。

Attempts to Target the ZONE

Based on the 'Global Map of Chemical Weapons Abandoned at the Bottom of the Sea', I pricked the outline of certain areas of the world map with a needle on rice paper and then used a toy water gun to spray ink on the general area where the chemical weapons were located. Sometimes the shot would miss and I would have to adjust my position and re-shoot. As I was lying down, the ink bounced back to me. The 'maps' were eventually crumpled up into a ball and left in the corner of the exhibition space like used toilet paper.

邀请旅鼠娥秀拉观看她的同伴如何投海自尽

视频根据纪录片《白色荒野》（White Wilderness，1958）的片段而重置。

Invite Lemming Ursula to Watch Her Fellows Throw Themselves into the Sea

The video here is re-edited from footage in the documentary White Wilderness (1958).

我正在召回所有的士兵。我们将关闭所有的军工厂，我们将把所有的武器倒进海里。我讨厌战争。我讨厌早上一醒来就担心自己会死掉。

——《万有引力之虹》

I‘m sending all the soldiers home. We’ll close down the weapon factories, we’ll dump all the weapons in the sea. I’m sick of war. I’m sick of waking up every morning afraid I’m going to die.

—— Gravity’s Rainbow

抛物线

在海滩上，我扔出一个可口可乐瓶，然后把它捡起来。该动作循环了224次。这个数字对应于截至2017年全球水域中被遗弃的化学武器的地点数量。行为结束时，我打开瓶盖，可口可乐的液体与海浪融为一体。旁白内容来自《万有引力之虹》。它们是作者假托保罗·冯·兴登堡（Paul von Hindenburg）所说的话。我重复着这些句子，直到视频的最后。摄像：Jonathan Tang

Parabola

At the beach, I threw out a Coca-Cola bottle and picked it up. This action was cycled 224 times. This number corresponded to the number of locations of chemical weapons abandoned in global waters as of 2017. At the end of this act, I opened the cap and the Coca-Cola liquid merged with the waves. The voice-over also came from Gravity’s Rainbow. They were written by the author under the guise of Paul von Hindenburg's words. I repeated the sentences until the end of the video. Video shot by Jonathan Tang.