本作模擬 1912 年桑德爾蘭博物館（Sunderland Museum）民眾活動館藏藏照。當時盲童進入美術館建⽴觸感圖鑑，其內容遍及原住民⽊船、骷顱、巨型⽣物、蟒蛇、瓷器與北極熊，以 罕有物件建構世界。《近古代臨摹》探究現場藝術的表演真實性，表演者於中興紙廠 14 號倉庫六柱側⽅，反覆長時間擦洗約三公尺長的仿死亡海⽣動物，在全然⿊暗中操作⾏動譜⽰，觀者進入控制情境（constructed situation）後，透過夜視鏡觀看。表演者為⽩化症弱視者、 兩雙胞胎女性、⼀名男性，以及鬼丘鬼鏟作者，共同建構擦洗死亡海象的⼯序。表演者不與觀者互動，於全然⿊暗中進⾏無⽤勞動。作品以視野狹⼩的點陣式成像夜視鏡遮蔽觀眾視線，以縮限⽅式,凝聚觀看的意味︔讓偏狹視野凸顯觀看的艱難。表演者被剝除即時讀取反饋的條件後，在無能識得⾃身表演與他者⾏動時，是否能進入更為混沌、不知邊際的狀態︖⽽參與者透過低科技視覺裝置，望遠時間，與⿊⾊漫延的周邊歷史事件互為滲透。
過往鬼丘鬼鏟發展與觀眾的競合技術，利⽤節奏、聲響、規則與暗⽰，指引、驅動或反抗與觀眾間的能量關係︔實驗不斷轉換的視角，讓觀者置身於龐⼤的電影定鏡頭內，近距離或可選擇性遠距離觀測表演者動作與全場調度。觀眾往往是⾏動的單元，⽽非純然的觀賞者，⾯ 臨⾼能量的表演奇觀。此作沿⽤《⽩⾊恐怖⽩⾊驚懼⽩⾊驚悚⼩說》、《⽴⿊吞浪者》的非寫實歷史重演（non-realistic historical reenactment）手法，模擬百年前無名群眾的博物館活動。 近古代之名呼應「每⼀秒已成古代」的時間觀，並以建築最⼩「事件流」作為此作的內在模型。
作品以定時定制的表演群雕（performative group sculpture）形式，讓本身成為可無限重解、 編排、消減與再現的組合物件︔表演為可在漫長時間中斷裂進入的全體，如同觀賞雕塑、畫 作⼀般，以最⼩的單位存有現實。作品以身體建構無名群眾⽂獻，雕塑史上⾃聖像雕刻進入群雕後，市民烈⼠、無名者等主題逐⼀浮現，無邊漫延的⿊⾊場域如同雕塑概念中的「負空 間」，凸顯再臨的身體。⼀如以往，鬼丘鬼鏟運⽤觀者與表演者建構集體身體記憶，現場── ⽤以複製遺失的身體檔案。透過⽩化症表演者之參與，明視表演者進入盲然視閾，前者置換為視覺優越主體，在此，強勢的身體成為歷史與他者的載具。
觀者進入由表演運動、成像裝置、聲響共構部署的異質時間，其⾃身的探索形塑出各別流動、 裂解、分岔、疊合與時⽽失敗的影像敘事，透過低劣畫素、閃爍的成像，觀者以身體體現意義延展後的擴延電影（extended cinema）。此外，為現場觀察者構建的龐然、嚴格的沈浸式密室狀態，再次透過 360° 紅外線環景監視錄影與短距閉路錄影，進⾏破壞。攝影師透過四維⽮量變速控制器，調整焦距、光圈，即時翻錄原紙廠架設的無間斷監錄畫⾯，存檔觀察者⾏經控制空間的分秒路徑。與此同時，原進⾏歷史重演活動的觀察者，成為新的匿名活動檔案。
時間與身體在⿊暗中膨脹。 我們，終究全然虛構。
Charting the Contours of Time is inspired by the archive images of an event designed for blind children at Sunderland Museum in 1912, which was an invitation for them to feel the museum collection through the sense of touch. The participants explored rare objects and artefacts, such as indigenous canoe, human skull, porcelain, giant animal, cobra and polar bear specimens, to construct an individual ‘view’ of the world. This work aims to investigate the authenticity of live art performance. Encircled by six pillars in Warehouse 14 of the Chung Hsing Paper Mill, performers repeatedly scrub a three-meter long, man-made marine animal, carrying out their actions in complete darkness. As audiences enter the constructed situation, they need to watch the performance with night-vision goggles. Apart from one albino performer with amblyopia, other performers include a female twin, a male and the creator of Ghost Mountain Ghost Shovel (GMGS).Collectively, they perform the scrubbing of a dead walrus. Throughout the performance, they do not interact with the audience, and only perform their futile labor in pitch-black darkness. The narrow raster image produced by the night-vision goggles partially hinders the audience’s vision, and in a way, makes their viewing more focused. The confined vision underscores the difficulty in viewing. When performers are deprived of the conditions for immediate visual feedback and become unaware of the expressions and their own actions and those of their fellow performers, can such status push for an even more chaotic and boundless performing? Additionally, through low-tech visual devices, the participants can telescope time, and interpenetrate the black circumambient universe and unknown historical event.
GMGS has been developing co-opetitive techniques to engage the audience, using rhythm, sound, instruction and implication to guide, drive or resist the energies and relations between performers and the audience. Through experimenting with continuously changing perspectives, the aim is to place the audience within an expansive yet fixed lens to closely or remotely observe the actions of performers and direct the entire performance. The audience is usually the unit based on which the actions are carried out, witnessing a high-energy spectacle in the performance rather than just being viewers. This work continues the concept of “non-realistic historical reenactment” employed in White Terror, White Horror, White Thriller and The Black Waves, and simulates a museum event attended by a nameless crowd a century ago. Echoing the concept of time that “every second is already in the past,” the work adopts an internal model of building the smallest “event stream.
Carefully following a set of formulated rules, the work adopts the form of performative group sculpture and resembles a combination of objects that allows endless deconstruction, arrangement, reduction and representation. The performance symbolizes an entirety that can break in the history of time and permit entry. Like viewing sculptures or paintings, it exists as the smallest unit. Using body, it constructs a document of a nameless crowd. In the history of sculpture, after the peak of religious sculpture passed and group sculpture appeared, motifs like martyr citizens and nameless people emerged. In the work, the boundless dark site is reminiscent of the “negative space” in sculpture, emphasizing the re-emerging body. As usual, GMGS utilizes both the audience and performers to construct collective memories of the body, reproducing the lost body through live art. Contrasting to the albino performer with impaired vision, the seeing performers cross a blind visual threshold. As the former gains visual advantage, the previously advantageous body of the latter becomes a vehicle of history and the other. Through the work, the audience enter a heterogeneous temporality comprised of performance, imaging device and sound, shaping their individual visual narrative that might be fluid, splitting, digressing, overlapping or sometimes failing.
Through low-resolution, flickering and occasionally dysfunctional imaging, the body of the audience embodies the extended cinema after meaning becomes extended. Moreover, the extensive, controlled situation that reminds of an immersive dark chamber constructed for the observers is deconstructed again via a 360-degree infrared ray surveillance recording system and the short-distance closed-circuit video recording. A cameraperson uses a 4D vector controller to adjust the focus length and aperture and videotapes the non-stop image feeds from the surveillance system originally existing in the paper mill, minutely recording the observers’ routes in the space. As a result, the observers that are reenacting the historical event become a new, unnamed document of the event.
Time and body dilate in the dark.
And we are all fictional.
