the text and images below are posted from beijing, berlin, buenos aires, hong kong, los angeles, new york, sado island, shanghai, tokyo and zürich. there are a few of us, and this is the space in between.
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from the 三行實驗室 three lines laboratory

uncleBIG_taitai大伯的太太

参加了三個艺术家舉辦的“三行實驗室”工作坊，每一個參與者寫了一個三行詩給另外一個不一定認識的人，在磁帶上朗讀錄音。每一個人錄完之後，組織者收集了又按照人名重新發給每一個人寫給他的三行朗讀。發完組織者說“好，那我們今天就這樣結束啦，你要自己回家後找方法播放你的磁帶”。當然家裡沒有，不知道要等多久才能聽到這首詩就拿著這個神秘的小磁帶走。

工作坊之後去找我姑姐一起吃飯，她告訴了我大伯過世了。第二天她和其他阿伯去收拾大伯的屋，要準備把他30年一個人住的房子還給政府。他們回來之後給我一個老行李箱，裡面放了一些大伯的東西。其中有一個小AIWA放音機, 外殼壞了但是還能用。聽了你給我寫的三行詩，聽到在那三行之間我和你之間的距離，也許也就是這個地球上的每一個人與另外一個人的距離。


Posted by 丫 | reply »


les mains négatives


by marguerite duras

Posted by f | reply »


i wish i knew how it feels to be free

thank you to king689soulclassics

we wrote twice last year. growing smaller in our livelihood. making reparations, finding ourselves present, losing words of reflection for bullshit become routine. it’s an alienating experience to observe others speaking in endless strings of aphorism and cliché, like miraculously knowing the code for things that you did not care to know about. flooded gates . cinema and the sound of air conditioning . the ballad of the broken birdie records, that was forever.

you can describe things, but you cannot tell them.

she said we made it up to overcome change, that forever . because the passing arcs of the sun and moon were just too much. the drummer’s steady hands were deceiving, when it had only been about the joy and trauma of difference that really counted . “difference and deferral” . counting . rational concepts . and a one. and a one.

like a new way of seeing something.

two, three. counting and singing again, rushing into nines and ten. time was not the matter at hand, and i could only otherwise imagine some kind of spatial parameter (cigarette, balcony, distance from one apartment to another), but of course it’s less rational than that, our descriptions are as infinite as desire. we’ll be 靠谱 one day.

it sounds too prescribed, doesn’t it——sticking to the score——exactly what we didn’t want. so instead we became impulsive, 花心 flowery hearts, the wallow, those hands grabbing at your face, fear, the sort.   no……please ask me to write songs instead, wait for that moment of forever . two times a year at least.

Posted by 丫 | more »


the light of day – or, the most intense fiery sadness inside the palest of blue

the difficulty of writing. therefore words become physically written entities. are animated by the postures and movements of the hand. the word becomes image. is placed in perspective. the natural rhythms of speech and of reading contorted. a video on writing:

act 1:
the street is where it finally played out, no confining corners of a room, simply a street and a doorstep and a door. a door that remained closed. closed that night and all the nights after. closed for several years. there were a few words there on the street, an evening chill picking up, words uttered from mouths tightly locked into position, not once breaking out into smile, no more spontaneities. now i remember it was an iron. the last object that passed between us. an iron. your iron. my iron. no ironing board. the irony. an iron with no more spontaneities. all those years summed up into the exchange of a single iron. a pink iron.

act 2:
you entered the studio that day and it filled the room. eyes locked and we understood. a kind of understanding that was hard to come by in those days. “we paid people 50 kuai to cry”. leaving the party early i cycled to the apartment that night, shared by several, it was only you there, you and a dvd menu on loop, the same jingle over and over again, you kept emphasizing the word ‘taken’, ‘taken’, ‘taken’ – i guess it was the opposite of what i was getting – the other word that night ‘transgressive’ – you and bataille – he and whitman – i couldn’t do it – sorry bataille – sorry whitman – i couldn’t do it – so much for ‘transgression’ — whenever i revisit the room, you are both there, bataille and whitman, bataille, whitman and me and the king-size bed. the torrent of words finally gets me writing on afternoons alone in the house, just before the onset of twilight.

act 3:
a gallery space, half emptied out, i keep going back there, the mounted and framed photographs are placed on the floor, leaning against the wall, a few are supported by the pillar in the middle of the space, you try to get them to leave, to let them leave us behind, but there is simply no subtle way of doing it and you mutter at them clumsily, they leave, we are left, the afternoon sun is slowly disappearing, the lights are left off, we talk, walk around and shout, until we settle behind the reception counter, a chair and a wall for support, we can do this but we can’t do that, what do you want from me? don’t ask that of me! she tells me his knees were shaking all the way on subway ride back home, i was never shown shaking knees. now, i only ever meet you in that gallery space. we don’t exchange words just glances and parts of our bodies in a deafening silence, the afternoon sun perpetually setting.

act 4:
an early spring evening, i keep trying to leave: “i have a party,” “a party to go to,” “a housewarming party”, but something keeps me at your side all night, first we sit at the “less important people table” and are seated next to each other, after more guests stream in we are both upgraded to the “more important people table”, again placed next to one another. what luck! finally settling into a comfortable position we continue our conversation, your leg brushes against mine a few times, i recall her remark about “woody men”. and i can’t stop staring at the eyes. can’t stop. the whole night – no rooms here, but the chambers of eyes to revisit “an intense fiery sadness” i describe to her later “inside the palest of blue”.

.

Posted by a | reply »


immigrant’s on kawara

祝您…这龙年初十五 wishing you, on the fifteenth day of a new lunar year

Posted by 丫 | reply »


the last two photos taken before giving up on this camera

Posted by 丫 | reply »


the heart is also a muscle

six visas and ten airports later. your life an extended non-place, where did the summer go?

the fear of atrophy.

you return after almost three months and find someone had picked up all the chestnuts again and placed them one by one on the brick ledge in the courtyard, like that autumn four years ago (“are the questions answers?”). the closest you could now get to a feeling of home.

nostalgia.

you’ve been writing that letter that you never want to end. when that letter ends, everything ends.

Posted by f | reply »


sunday

walking around a new city on a sunday morning, thinking about cakes and the lives you will never live. getting lost. it’s raining and the sloping roof of the opera house makes you miss architecture. a scone with fruits and nuts, the king riding by.

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