【在线电影院】野火：普罗米修斯之罪？

火是真理，是启蒙之光。火是激情，是革命之力。

普罗米修斯盗火给人间不仅解放了人类的智识，并带来了社会的进步。连马克思都说，他就是普罗米修斯。既然如此，普罗米修斯此举又何以违反了宙斯的意志和神界的天条，从而被宙斯钉缚在山顶呢？因为它也会将灾难带给人类，并可能将摧毁人类的福祉。

这是一个围绕“火”的主题放映，选择的七部当代影像或行为录像都多少跟“火”有关。王思顺的《真理》将采自一场火灾的一束火种从北京独自驾车先后带到了上海和巴黎。这是一次充满未知的旅程，沿途燃烧同样未知的对象；这也是一次冒险的征服之旅，它裹挟着人类野蛮和入侵的欲望；李明《不可自抑的情绪》与其说是对于童年时期强迫症的回忆，不如说是一种梦魇般真实的镜像；这样一种个体的焦虑到了陈晓云的《火—3000公斤》这里，则变成了集体暴力的宣泄，“一群兴奋的青年将成捆的书投入一堆熊熊燃烧的大火。在狂欢的气氛中没有政治的正确性，只有发泄的美感和幻觉的灰烬”。按艺术家的话说，这是“一种有关青春期的政治，一种关于反叛的燃烧，一种拒绝的态度，一种革命的暴力基因下的审美和释放”；“灰烬”也是阿彼察邦影片的主题，且同样传递着一种幻灭感。“黑暗是如此明亮，我们哭了，并在沉默中喊叫。我们一次又一次醒来”，革命性的蒙太奇语言与末尾的焰火融为一体，其辩证逻辑将爱、快乐和记忆的毁灭尽情挥洒在一片绚烂的焰火和灰烬之中；基于“张扣扣复仇案”这一叙事底本，王拓的《烟火》在文本、真实与虚构之间的多层嵌套中制造了一个影像的漩涡；刘窗《无题（节日）》中的无名者像幽灵一样漫步在街头，他手中的火既是欢庆的仪式，亦是哀悼的挽歌，也可能是一场不动声色的街头革命；最后一部是六年前何云昌在比利时布鲁塞尔国家美术馆行为现场的录像，艺术家以仪式化的“自焚”意图重新唤起宗教或悲剧式的个人英雄主义，以及对现实世界的绝望、悲愤和重生的期冀。

七部不同时期的作品之间并不存在一个明确的逻辑关系，各自所传递的观念也是相去甚远。然而，当我们将其组织在一起的时候，意外地发现，似乎都带有一种命运的不可知感，和一种末世将临的悲情。这里的寓意自不待言，它所观照或映射的正是今天这样一个野火四起、动荡不安的极端年代。

鲁明军

2019年11月18日

Fire is truth. It is the light of enlightenment. Fire is passion. It is the strength of revolution.

When Prometheus stole fire for humanity, he not only liberated human intelligence, he brought social progress as well. Even Karl Marx called himself Prometheus. That being the case, how did the actions of Prometheus violate the will of Zeus and the laws of the gods, leading Zeus to bind him to a mountaintop? Because it would bring disaster to humanity, and perhaps even destroy humanity’s welfare.

This is a film screening revolving around the theme of “fire.” The seven contemporary films or performance videos selected for this screening are all connected to “fire” in some way. In Wang Sishun's Truth, the artist took a flame from a disaster, and personally drove it from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Paris. This was a journey full of the unknown, one in which likewise unknown objects were burned along the way. This was a dangerous journey of conquest, one wrapped up in human barbarity and invasiveness. Li Ming's Uncontainable Emotions is not so much a recollection of childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder as it is a reflection of a nightmarish reality. In Chen Xiaoyun's Fire—3000KG, this kind of individual anxiety transforms into a collective violent catharsis: “A group of excited youths throw bundled books into a blazing bonfire. In the frenzied atmosphere, there is no political correctness, only the beauty of catharsis and the embers of illusion.” In the artist’s works, this is a “politics of youth, a burning of rebellion, an attitude of refusal, an aesthetic and release with genes of revolutionary violence.” Ashes is the title of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film, and also a conveyor of a sense of disillusionment. “The darkness was so bright we wept and shouted in silence. And we woke up again, and again.” The revolutionary montage speech fuses together with the lingering flames, the dialectic logic thoroughly sprinkling the destruction of love, joy and memory over brilliantly burning flames and embers. Atop the narrative foundation of the “Zhang Koukou vengeance saga,” Wang Tuo's Smoke and Fire produces a cinematic vortex in the embedded and overlapping layers of text, truth and fiction. The nameless figure in Liu Chuang’s Untitlted (The Festival) wanders the streets like a ghost. The flame in his hands is at once a joyous festival and a mournful elegy. It may also be a nonchalant revolution. The final film is a video of a performance He Yunchang carried out six years ago at The Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, in which the artist engages in a ritualized “self-immolation” aimed at reawakening a religious or tragic individual heroicism, as well as hopelessness, indignation and hope for rebirth of the world.

There is no clear logical connection between these seven artworks from different periods, and the concepts they convey are also quite disparate. But when we arrange them together, we are surprised to discover that all seem to be marked by a sense of the unknowability of destiny, and a pessimism about the impending end of an era. The allegorical meaning here goes without saying. What it illuminates or reflects is precisely this extreme era of ever-present wildfire and turmoil.

Lu Mingjun

November 18,2019