This morning I spoke with Chen Paian again about that three-hour-long conversation from the other day, which in some sense felt like re-digesting what had been said. I originally thought we were discussing something more grand, such as how to establish a standardised workflow for artistic creation and follow it step by step, or how to secure a position for oneself within the entangled art market so that one’s work could be seen and recognised. But he actually brought the discussion back to something very simple, even somewhat boring: everyday life itself is a continuous process of acquiring dopamine and serotonin. Creating, working out, watching films—these activities already provide a certain level of satisfaction and do not need to be additionally assigned meaning. He believes that those grand achievements are of course important and do bring a strong sense of accomplishment, but living an ordinary life does not necessarily mean dullness. What seems like repetitive daily routines can in fact generate a stable form of happiness. Then he asked me what I usually rely on to get 樂子（pleasure / enjoyment）. I answered, as always, very honestly—perhaps a bit too bluntly: shopping, being a 韭菜（a willing subject of capitalism / exploited consumer） under capitalism, deriving a sense of identity and self-worth from consumerism; climbing; writing cynical and highly self-reflective texts, engaging in philosophical discussions with friends and ending up even more cynical yet somehow happier; listening to music; and also those interactions with men that carry a sense of probing. Being objectified by men is actually quite enjoyable, and of course being objectified by women as well. He replied, “耍騷賣賤（performative flirtation / self-sexualised display）is fun, shopping too, but I later realised that 95% of what I buy only increases cleaning costs, so now I only buy alcohol and funds.” He is a very straightforward person, at least in this regard more clear-headed than I am. Then we began a rather serious and somewhat philosophical, yet strange discussion about “耍騷賣賤”. I deliberately skipped those overused explanations such as childhood trauma or lack of love, which can be applied to almost anyone, and instead tried to understand what is actually happening within this act itself. In my view, “耍騷賣賤” is essentially a process of objectification, more precisely, a form of self-objectification. I actively collapse myself into a two-dimensional object that can be looked at, displaying those traits that most easily attract attention, and constantly adjusting according to the observer’s reaction to fit their preferences. They may approach me, or they may simply pass by, but in that moment what remains in their mind is not a complete “person”, but rather an out-of-focus image—a highly distilled, fully emotional and desire-laden image. They may remember my face, my hairstyle, my outfit or body, but “who I am” is not important; they are simply enjoying the pleasure that this momentary image provides. At the same time, what I perceive as “how they see me” is actually my imagination of how they imagine me. The entire process is deeply rooted in projection, and therefore I do not consider this experience to have any universality. Some might ask, doesn’t this make you want to be truly understood? Doesn’t being objectified feel tragic? But I think there is a distinction that needs to be clarified: being objectified and self-objectification are completely different states. When a person is objectified, they are passively placed under the gaze, with no control over the image they leave in others’ minds; within such a relationship, the one being looked at always occupies a subordinate position. Self-objectification, however, is to some extent a deliberate choice: within specific contexts and groups, one intentionally presents a compressed version of oneself, granting others the permission of “you may see me in this way”. This kind of “耍騷賣賤” is, to a certain extent, a way of pleasing oneself, using one’s own advantages to exchange for attention, and building self-esteem and identity from it. I allow myself to become two-dimensional at certain moments, but this does not mean I am only that two-dimensional self; rather, it is a strategic shift: first presenting a surface that can be quickly read, and then deciding whether there is a possibility of entering a more dimensional level. But in reality, most of the time, an image alone is already sufficient. In real life, it is actually difficult to expect others to truly understand us, just as we would not, without reason, attempt to understand another person. “耍騷賣賤” is built precisely on this premise—it utilises human instincts toward sex, beauty, and stimulation, and follows a simple logic: distance itself produces aesthetic appeal. We are always prone to projecting unrealistic yet overly idealised fantasies onto people we have only seen once, simply because they possessed a certain presence or attractiveness in a brief moment. What “耍騷賣賤” does is actively construct such a space for dreaming, an out-of-focus image, allowing the viewer to obtain everything they desire within that brief, blurred, and compressed visual moment. If I can actively compress myself into an image at certain moments, then this compression has already long existed within the larger structure of capitalist consumerism. We are living in an era where almost everything is required to become clear: images are increasingly sharp, narratives increasingly direct, and emotions are continuously distilled into units that can be quickly recognised and consumed. At the same time, everything is being turned into images and spectacles：life becomes visual frames, relationships become moments, and experiences are compressed into surfaces that can be viewed, scrolled through, and remembered. Under such conditions, “clarity” is no longer merely a visual issue, but rather a normative demand—you should be understood, you should be legible, you should be recognisable within the shortest time possible; anything too complex or not immediately digestible appears redundant. But the contradiction emerges precisely here: on one hand, we accelerate understanding, demanding everything to be readable and recognisable; on the other hand, we still expect images to retain depth and meaning. We want an image to be instantly readable, yet we are unwilling to give up the imagination of “depth”, but under such conditions, depth itself has already become difficult to sustain. Within such an environment, more and more images become blurred, out of focus, or intentionally remain in a state that cannot be fully recognised. But this blur is not necessarily a form of resistance; rather, it resembles a kind of compliance. As the production and consumption of images accelerate, and everything is compressed into quickly readable surfaces, whether extremely sharp or intentionally blurred, both serve the same mechanism. Neither can truly maintain objectivity, nor sustain what is called depth—they simply adopt different modes of presentation: sharp images attempt to preserve the illusion of “I can be accurately understood”, while blurred images abandon this illusion and remain within a more direct realm of emotion and sensation. Blur exists because when details begin to loosen and the image can no longer be immediately recognised, we lose the ability to quickly understand and temporarily lose control over the image, forced to remain within a state of not knowing. This suspension is not about seeing clearly, but rather a delay—a continuously unfolding affective experience. The image may be blurred, but the emotion it conveys is often not; in fact, it may become even more concentrated. When we can no longer rely on details to identify “what this is”, viewing itself becomes a form of projection—we begin to fill in the missing parts with our own experiences. The less the image provides, the more the viewer invests. And so we return to a very direct question: is this image enough to make someone pause and take another look? Just like when I engage in “耍騷賣賤”: will you pause and look at me for a second longer? But if blur and clarity share the same logic, then the real question may not be whether the image is blurred, but whether there exists an image that can further refuse this logic itself. At this point, I believe Chen Paian’s work truly carries a certain counter-contemporary quality. He does not simply flatten everyday life, but further weakens the image’s capacity to carry meaning. His images do not rush to convey emotion, do not attempt to construct narrative, and even “atmosphere” itself is reduced to an almost blank state, leaving only seemingly neutral colour blocks and structures. Under such conditions, the image no longer provides an entry point for understanding, but instead pushes perception back onto the viewer—emotion and meaning are no longer given by the image, but are forced to emerge when facing this emptied surface. In a sense, he is not using images to convey meaning, but using images to de-signify the image itself. 中文： 今天早上我和陳拍岸又聊了一下前天那場長達三個小時的對話，某種程度上算是重新消化了一遍當時的內容。我原本以為我們在談的是一些比較宏大的東西，例如如何制定一個藝術創作的標準化流程並按部就班地完成，又或者是在那個盤根錯落的藝術市場之中如何為自己爭取一個位置，讓作品被看見、被認可。但他其實把話題帶回到一個很簡單、甚至可以說有點無聊的層面：日常生活本身就是在不斷獲取多巴胺和血清素的過程。創作、健身、看電影，這些事情本身就已經在提供某種程度的滿足感，而不需要被額外賦予意義。他認為那些宏大的成就當然重要，當然也會帶來強烈的成就感，但平凡地過日子並不代表沉悶，看似一日復一日地重複同樣的事情，其實也可以從中穩定地獲得快樂。 然後他反問我，我平時是靠什麼獲得樂子。我就一如既往地很誠實，甚至有點過於直白地回答了這個問題：購物，當資本主義的韭菜，從消費主義中獲得某種身份認同以及自我價值；攀岩；寫一些憤世嫉俗且高度自省的文章，和朋友進行哲學思辨，最後變得更加憤世嫉俗但卻又從中獲得快樂；聼音樂；還有就是和男人之間那些帶有試探意味的互動，被男人物化其實也挺開心，當然也可以被女人物化。他回我說，「耍騷賣賤是很有趣，購物也是，但我後來發現我買的95%的東西最後只是增加清潔成本，所以現在我只買酒和基金。」他是一個很實誠的人，至少在這一點上過得比我清醒。然後我們就開始對「耍騷賣賤」這件事情展開了一個其實還挺認真且富有哲學性的奇怪討論。 我刻意跳過了那些已經被說得太多的解釋，例如童年創傷、缺愛這些幾乎可以套用在任何人身上的敘述，而是試圖去理解這件事情本身在發生什麼。「耍騷賣賤」在我看來，本質上是一個物化的過程，更準確一點來說，是一種自我物化。我主動地將自己坍縮成為一個二維的、可以被觀看的對象，去展示那些最容易吸引注意的特質，並且隨時根據觀察者的反應進行微調，以貼合他們的喜好。他們可能會因此來搭訕，也可能只是路過，但在那一刻，我在他們心裡留下的並不是一個完整的「人」，而更像是一張失焦模糊的圖像，一張被高度提純、完全情緒化且帶有欲望的圖像。他們可能會記得我的臉、我的髮型、我的穿著或體態，但「我是誰」這件事情其實並不重要，他們只是在單純地享受那一瞬間這個畫面所帶來的愉悅。而同時，我所認為的「他們怎麼看我」，其實也是我在想像他們如何想像我，這整個過程本身就帶有很強的投射性，所以我並不認為這種經驗具有任何普遍性。 有人會問，那這樣難道不想被真正地理解嗎？不會覺得被物化是一件很可悲的事情嗎？但我覺得這裡有一個需要被釐清的區別：被物化與自我物化是完全不同的狀態。當一個人被物化時，他是被動地處於被凝視的位置，對於自己在他人腦海中留下什麼樣的形象並沒有控制權，在這種關係之中，被凝視者始終處於下位；而自我物化，某種程度上是一種主動的選擇，是在特定的場域與人群之中，刻意地呈現出一個被壓縮過的自己，給予他人一種「你可以這樣看我」的權力。這種「耍騷賣賤」某種程度上其實是在討好自己，利用自身的某些優勢去換取關注，並從中建立自尊與身份認同。我讓自己在某些時刻變成二維的，但這並不代表我只有那個二維的面向，而是一種策略性的切換：先讓人看到一個可以被快速閱讀的表面，再決定是否有機會進入一個更立體的層次。但現實是，多數時候，一個畫面其實就已經足夠了。 在現實生活中，我們其實很難要求別人真正地去理解自己，正如同我們也不會無緣無故地去理解另一個人。「耍騷賣賤」某種程度上正是建立在這個前提之上——它利用了人對性、美與刺激的本能，也遵循了一種很簡單的邏輯：距離本身會產生美感。我們總是很容易對那些只見過一面的人投射出不切實際卻又過於美好的想像，僅僅因為他們在某一瞬間具備了一點姿色或氣場。而「耍騷賣賤」所做的，其實就是主動地去建構這樣一個讓人做夢的空間、一張失焦的畫面，讓凝視者在這個短暫、失焦且被壓縮的畫面之中，獲得他們想要的一切。 如果說我可以在某些時刻主動地把自己壓縮成一張圖像，那麼這種壓縮，其實早就已經發生在更大的資本消費主義結構之中。我們正處在一個幾乎所有東西都被要求變得清晰的時代——影像越來越銳利，敘述越來越直接，情緒被不斷提純成可以被快速辨識與消費的單位。同時，一切又在被圖像化、被景觀化：生活被轉換成畫面，關係被轉換成瞬間，經驗被壓縮成一個可以被觀看、被滑過、被記住的表面。在這樣的條件之下，「清晰」不再只是視覺上的問題，而更像是一種默認的要求——你應該被理解，你應該是可讀的，你應該在最短的時間內被辨認出來，那些過於複雜、無法立即被消化的部分，反而顯得多餘。 但矛盾也正是在這裡生成的：我們一方面不斷加速理解，要求一切變得可讀、可辨識；另一方面卻又仍然期待圖像能夠保有深度與意義。我們希望一個畫面既能被瞬間讀懂，同時又不願放棄對「深度」的想像，但在這樣的條件之下，深度本身早已變得難以維持。 在這樣的環境裡，越來越多圖像開始變得模糊、失焦，甚至刻意地停留在一種無法被完全辨認的狀態之中。但這種模糊並不一定是一種對抗，反而更像是一種順應——當圖像被生產與消費的速度不斷加快，當一切都被壓縮成可以被快速閱讀的表面時，無論是極度清晰還是刻意模糊，其實都在服務同一套機制。它們同樣無法真正保有客觀性，也同樣難以維持所謂的深度，只是選擇了不同的呈現方式：清晰的圖像試圖維持一種「我可以被準確理解」的假象，而模糊的圖像則乾脆放棄這種假象，停留在一種更直接的情緒與感受之中。 模糊之所以成立，是因爲當細節開始鬆動，當畫面無法被立即辨認，我們失去了快速理解的能力，也暫時失去了對畫面的掌控，只能被迫停留在那種看不清的狀態之中。這種停留並不是為了看清，而更像是一種延遲，一種在不確定之中持續發生的感受。畫面可以是模糊的，但它所傳遞的情緒往往並不模糊，甚至在資訊被抽離之後變得更加集中。當我們無法再依賴細節去辨認「這是什麼」時，觀看本身其實已經轉變為一種投射，我們開始用自己的經驗去填補那些缺失的部分，畫面越少，觀者投入得反而越多。於是我們最終還是回到一個非常直接的問題：這個畫面夠不夠讓人停下來多看一眼，也正如我耍騷賣賤時所想的：你能不能停下來多看我一眼，是一樣的。 但如果說模糊與清晰其實共享同一套邏輯，那麼真正的問題或許不在於圖像變得模糊，而在於是否存在一種圖像，能夠進一步拒絕這套邏輯本身。 在這一點上，我認為陳拍岸的作品才真正帶有某種反時代的性質。他不只是將日常生活進行平面化處理，而是進一步削弱圖像本身承載意義的能力。他的畫面不急於傳達情緒，也不試圖建立敘事，甚至連「氛圍」本身都被壓低到近乎空白的狀態，只剩下一些看似中性的色塊與結構。在這樣的情況下，圖像不再提供理解的入口，而是將觀看推回到觀者自身——情緒與意義不再由畫面給出，而是在面對這種被抽空的表面時，被迫生成。某種程度上，他並不是在利用圖像去傳達什麼，而是在利用圖像去「去意義化」圖像本身。
Dog Filter What Happens to Memory After Simulation? Dog Filter is a philosophical art essay that takes Jack Warne’s practice as a starting point to explore the relationship between memory, technology and simulation. Beginning with the haziness of decade-old phone photographs and early digital filters, the essay considers how memory is formed through acts of looking, filling in and reconstruction. Drawing on the ideas of Henri Bergson, Frederic Bartlett, Daniel Kahneman and Jean Baudrillard, it asks whether technology can ever truly restore the past. The essay also introduces the concept of Memory Compatibility, describing the way technologically generated images can be accepted as real when they align with our existing emotional and narrative structures. Through Jack’s use of glitches, low resolution, rendering errors and failed simulation, the essay ultimately argues that technology has not transformed memory so much as made its underlying process visible: memory has always been shaped through selection, supplementation and continual reconstruction. Loading… When we look back at photographs from ten years ago, they always seem to carry a certain haziness. That haziness comes partly from the low resolution of the image itself, and partly from the traces that time has left on memory; or perhaps it emerges from a state in which the two have gradually begun to overlap. A blurred photograph, layered over a blurred memory, slowly seeps into the way we feel as we look at it. A photograph is like a fuse, drawing the mind back towards a moment that has long been forgotten. Scattered fragments begin to resurface. We look again and again, piecing them together, attempting to complete the images that have already gone missing. Until, at a certain moment, everything becomes clear, and we feel as though we remember once more. Yet what has actually become clearer: the past itself, or our understanding of it? Did those gradually completed details, coherent sequences and forms of logic used to fill the gaps ever truly exist? Or were they repeatedly rearranged and reorganised through each act of remembering, eventually becoming another story convincing enough to be believed? We tend to assume that photographs preserve the past, and so each act of looking appears to return us to a moment that has already ended. But if what a photograph preserves is never memory itself, and only the condition through which memory begins to operate again, then each act of looking is not a return to the past, but another beginning. Roland Barthes describes the photograph as evidence of a moment that “has been”. It confirms that something once stood before the camera, yet it cannot restore the experience surrounding that moment. The photograph preserves a trace of existence rather than memory itself (Barthes, 1981). The photograph is therefore no longer simply a medium through which the past is viewed. It becomes more like a mirror. What it reflects is not the moment that once existed, but the way in which we, in the present, have come to understand that moment again. When we look at a photograph, we imagine that we are looking at the past; in fact, we are also watching memory take place. In my understanding, Jack’s practice revolves around an almost uncompromising proposition: we can never truly return to the past through photographs, or through any other form of simulation . For him, the image is not a route into memory, but an ongoing act of translation. Each time we look again, remember again or reconstruct again, what we approach is no longer the moment that once existed, but a version shaped collectively by time, technology and present consciousness. In other words, every act of retrieval also implies another act of rewriting. No Way Back Jack poses a distinctly twenty-first-century question: why, even as technology continues to advance, are we still unable to return to the past through any form of simulation? This question forms a displaced dialogue with Henri Bergson’s thinking on memory from more than a century ago. The two were not discussing the same thing, yet they arrive at the same dilemma from different directions. Jack questions technology; Bergson questions memory itself. Have we misunderstood memory from the beginning, imagining it as a static object stored somewhere in the mind, waiting to be fully retrieved? In Matter and Memory , Bergson proposes that memory is not the storage of the past, but the continual actualisation of the past in the present. Each act of remembering is not the extraction of an existing fact, but a process through which present perception, emotion and experience reselect and rearrange fragments scattered across the past, allowing them to acquire new relations and meanings in the present. In other words, the past is never a complete origin waiting to be discovered. It is continuously reorganised and reconstructed through every act of remembering. If Bergson’s understanding is accepted, Jack’s question undergoes a fundamental shift. The impossibility of simulation may not begin with technology at all, but with memory itself (Bergson, 1911). Technology fails to reproduce the past perfectly not because it remains insufficiently precise, but because there is no complete and fixed past waiting for either human beings or machines to retrieve it faithfully. What technology attempts to simulate is never a stable object, but a process that is itself continuously moving and being rewritten. The relationship between Jack and Bergson is therefore not one in which the former is proven by the latter, nor one in which Bergson merely supplies a theoretical foundation for Jack’s practice. Instead, they approach one another from opposite ends of the same problem, across different periods and contexts. Jack begins with the failure of simulation and moves towards memory, while Bergson begins with the nature of memory and explains why no form of simulation could ever truly reach it.What cannot be reproduced is not the past itself, but memory. Blanks If Bergson dismantles the idea of memory as a form of storage, Frederic Bartlett addresses how such memory operates in the actual process of recollection. Bergson tells us that the past is not a complete file stored in the mind, and that every act of remembering is a process through which the past takes on form again in the present. Yet this leaves another question unanswered: if we are not retrieving a complete memory, how do coherent sequences, specific details and clear images appear when we remember? Bartlett’s research on memory offers a more concrete answer. In Remembering , he understands memory as a process of reconstruction rather than reproduction. We do not preserve an experience in its entirety and later replay it without alteration. Instead, what remains is often no more than partial fragments, emotional contours and an overall impression. When remembering occurs again, present knowledge, language, cultural habits, emotional states and self-understanding all participate in rearranging these fragments and filling in their absences. Memory is therefore able to reappear in the form of a complete story not because every detail has been preserved, but because we actively establish an order for what remains incomplete. Missing parts are inferred and restored, confused sequences are rearranged, and emotions that resist explanation are placed within a narrative of cause and effect. The coherence of a memory does not necessarily come from the event itself, but from the order we impose upon it in the present. Just as a blurred photograph can evoke sounds, smells and events that do not appear within the image, the details that return to us may not all have existed in the original experience. They may instead have gradually attached themselves to it through later acts of remembering (Bartlett, 1932). Bergson and Bartlett are not repeating the same point. Bergson is concerned with the mode of existence of memory: how the past is actualised again in the present. Bartlett is concerned with the mechanism of reconstruction: how incomplete fragments are organised through existing cognitive structures into a story that can be understood and believed. The former breaks apart the idea that memory can be retrieved in its entirety; the latter explains why an experience that was never fully preserved can still become concrete, coherent and even unquestionably real within the mind (Bergson, 1911; Bartlett, 1932). Yet when an experience is reorganised through memory, it changes more than our understanding of the past. It also alters the way we understand who we are in the present. This is the problem revealed by Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between the Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self . The Experiencing Self is the self situated within an event, feeling it moment by moment. The Remembering Self , by contrast, appears after the event has ended. It selects particular fragments, constructs a narrative around the experience and forms an overall judgement of it. Both encounter the same life, but they do not necessarily preserve the same reality. An experience may contain a vast number of subtle, contradictory and even conflicting feelings. But when the Remembering Self looks back, this complexity is often reduced to a small number of decisive moments and a conclusion that can be narrated. What remains in memory is not how each moment was experienced, but how the experience was later organised into a story. That story determines not only how we understand the past, but also how we judge relationships, places, trauma and happiness, ultimately shaping the choices we make in the future (Kahneman, 2011). Kahneman therefore moves Bartlett’s question from the formation of memory to the formation of the self. If Bartlett explains how we use the present to fill the gaps of the past, Kahneman reveals how these filled, removed and reordered memories eventually return to constitute the self we believe ourselves to be. We do not simply possess memories; in a certain sense, we also live within the versions of memory that we have created. From this perspective, photographs and images are no longer merely media that point towards the past. When they trigger memory, they simultaneously intervene in the process through which memory is reconstructed. A photograph can strengthen certain fragments while allowing others to disappear. It can provide a visible centre for an indistinct experience, around which later narratives continue to grow. As each act of looking is repeated, the image contained within the photograph gradually merges with everything we have added beyond it, until it becomes difficult to distinguish what came from the original experience and what came from later imagination. A photograph is therefore both a trace left by the past and material through which the past is manufactured again in the present (Bartlett, 1932; Kahneman, 2011). Memory Compatibility We can begin with a more direct phenomenon: when we see an old photograph restored by AI, why does it often appear to be “more real”? This feeling arrives almost naturally. The image becomes clearer, colour is restored, and the people depicted seem closer to the way we imagine them. Everything produces the illusion that we are finally seeing what the past truly looked like. Yet this feeling of having moved “closer to reality” does not come from the restoration of history. It comes from a more subtle compatibility: the image happens to correspond with the way we have already imagined that past. From this perspective, what technology performs is not simply restoration, but generation. AI does not know what actually happened in the past. It can only use data and probability to infer a version that appears most likely to have existed. This version is convincing not because it is accurate, but because it is sufficiently plausible and sufficiently compatible with our existing expectations. Here, Baudrillard’s concept of simulation no longer concerns only the opposition between falsity and truth. It reveals a more ambiguous condition. What confronts us is not merely an illusion attempting to replace reality, but a generated result that corresponds closely with the internal structure of memory. It succeeds because it echoes the way in which we have already learned to understand the past. This returns us to memory itself. Bartlett argues that recollection is never a reproduction of the past, but a reconstruction shaped by present experience. Kahneman’s Remembering Self similarly forms a narratable self through the continual reorganisation of experience. In other words, human beings are already accustomed to understanding the past through acts of generation. When technology begins to operate in a similar way, it does not overturn memory. It enters into a logic that was already present within memory itself. What we believe is therefore no longer simply an event that once occurred, but a version that remains coherent and persuasive after repeated acts of reconstruction. Under these conditions, simulation is no longer simply a critique of technological authenticity. It raises a more fundamental question: when human beings and technology are both generating memory, can we still distinguish between what “happened” and what was “constructed”? Or have we always depended less upon the past itself than upon a narrative that can be understood and believed? (Bartlett, 1932; Baudrillard, 1994; Kahneman, 2011). I propose understanding this condition as Memory Compatibility. It does not mean that technology has successfully reproduced memory. Rather, it describes the degree to which technologically generated content remains compatible with the version of memory already formed within us. It does not need to correspond perfectly with history, nor does it need to reproduce every detail of what once occurred. It only needs to align sufficiently with the way we understand the past, with its emotional structure and narrative logic, in order to be accepted as “real”. Technology becomes convincing not because it reconstructs the past more accurately than human beings, but because it begins to operate in a way that closely resembles human memory. It also infers, supplements, orders and generates, reorganising scattered fragments into a coherent story. What changes is not the mechanism through which memory is generated, but the fact that this mechanism has, for the first time, been externalised and shared with technology. This externalisation also recalls Bernard Stiegler’s account of technical memory, in which technologies of inscription do not simply store human experience from the outside, but participate in the ways the past becomes available and intelligible in the present (Stiegler, 2009). Glitch: Jack’s Methodology If the previous discussion has attempted to answer the question of how memory is formed, Jack’s work is concerned with another problem: what role does technology play once it begins to participate in that process? In our conversations, Jack repeatedly returned to the same question: What happens to memory after simulation? (Warne, personal communication, 20 May 2026) What is interesting is that this question was not presented as a fixed theory. It was continually revised through the course of our conversations. He initially spoke of memory recall , later shifted towards simulation , and eventually began to consider how the failure of simulation might alter our perception of a particular moment. This continuous revision of language resembles the process of memory itself: there is no stable definition, only a provisional understanding that gradually emerges through repeated acts of approximation, correction and reorganisation. It is for this reason that I do not understand Jack’s work as demonstrating how technology simulates memory. Rather, it demonstrates how simulation fails (Warne, personal communication, 20 May 2026). Contemporary technology continually attempts to conceal the process of simulation . AI seeks to generate seamless images; restoration technologies encourage us to believe that missing parts once appeared exactly as they are now presented; algorithms continually strive to make generated results appear more natural and more real. Jack’s work, however, moves in the opposite direction. He preserves the fractures within these processes of generation: delay, low resolution, compression artefacts, rendering errors, scanning residues and signal noise. These elements are not simply a form of digital aesthetics, nor are they a formal fascination with the glitch . They constitute a philosophical position. If human memory is already founded upon reconstruction, what Jack preserves are the traces of this reconstruction that cannot be concealed. He does not attempt to make technology resemble memory more closely. Instead, he exposes the moment in which technology fails to become memory. Unfinished rendering, distorted imagery and fractured experiences of time do not simply remind us of technology’s immaturity; they remind us that memory itself is equally filled with gaps, interruptions and omissions. The failure within the work is therefore not a technical failure, but a deliberately preserved method. It refuses to allow viewers to imagine that they have truly returned to the past. Instead, it continually reminds us that what we are seeing is only a version that remains in the process of being generated. It is within these failures that simulation becomes visible for the first time. Returning to Memory Compatibility, Jack’s work reveals a further contradiction. We accept technologically generated versions of the past not because they are sufficiently real, but because they are sufficiently compatible with the memories we have already reconstructed. Jack, however, does not attempt to perfect that compatibility. Instead, he deliberately keeps it within a state of incomplete correspondence. Hito Steyerl understands the poor image through its degradation, circulation and loss of resolution. Jack’s use of low-resolution imagery shares this visible instability, but shifts its emphasis away from circulation and towards recollection: degradation becomes a way of exposing the distance between an image and the memory it appears to contain (Steyerl, 2009). The fractures that remain force us to recognise that the image before us is neither the past itself nor a version capable of fully replacing it. It is a continuously changing process generated collectively by memory, technology and the viewer. What Jack’s work truly simulates is not the past, but the human attempt to return to the past—and the inevitable failure of that attempt. If contemporary technology tries to erase the traces of simulation, Jack turns those traces into the work itself. If technology asks us to believe that it has finally reached reality, Jack continually reminds us that what deserves our attention may not be the past that has been reproduced, but the way we attempt to return to it again and again, inevitably recreating it with every return. Jack asks: What happens to memory after simulation? (Warne, personal communication, 20 May 2026) What we should be asking is not what happens to memory after simulation , but whether memory has always existed through some form of simulation —or whether memory itself is only an illusion continually sustained through reconstruction. Simulation has not changed memory. It has simply allowed us to see, for the first time, that memory has always been an ongoing process of selection, arrangement, supplementation and reconstruction. Technology did not create this process. It externalised it, allowing it to appear before us for the first time in a form that is clear, concrete and even visible. It is precisely because of this irreversible nature that memories and the past remain precious. They are like the wind: impossible to hold. We have never truly returned to ten years ago through a photograph. What has really happened is that ten years ago has continued to arrive in the present, each time we look again. References Bartlett, F.C. (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography . Translated by R. Howard. New York: Hill and Wang. Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra and Simulation . Translated by S.F. Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Bergson, H. (1911) Matter and Memory . Translated by N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer. New York: Macmillan. Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow . London: Allen Lane. Steyerl, H. (2009) ‘In Defense of the Poor Image’, e-flux journal , 10. Stiegler, B. (2009) Technics and Time, 2: Disorientation . Translated by S. Barker. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Primary Source Warne, J. (2026) WhatsApp conversation with the author, 20 May. Unpublished personal communication.
Millie-Sixu Chen (b. 2000, Xuzhou, China) completed her undergraduate studies in Advertising at Nanjing Normal University in 2021, before moving to London to pursue an MA in Communications at King’s College London, where she also began her artistic practice. Working primarily across sculpture/installation, and performance, her work engages with questions of identity, belonging, and political violence, often rooted in personal memory and lived experience. She is currently based in London. I. Do You Want to Tame Me? Placed alongside the CVs of her peers, Millie’s educational background feels almost anomalous. Having never received formal training in an art school, does it mean her path into the art world was always bound to diverge? Her artistic practice began with an elective course during her postgraduate studies. Discussions around decolonization, identity, and diaspora stirred something in her—memories from the time shortly after she arrived in London. These memories kept returning, pulling her back into reflection, gradually assembling themselves into her first work, Primary Education : a lecture delivered through collage. After moving to London, Millie-Sixu Chen found herself navigating the rituals and assumptions of Western dating culture. Time and again, she sensed that the men she dated—raised within Western cultural frameworks—regarded her as somehow “different from other Asian women.” She admits that she enjoys these moments. The remark is enough to make one wince. For a fleeting second, she appears like an idiot ensnared by the fantasy competition manufactured by patriarchy itself, as though these encounters serve as proof that she stands somehow above other women. Is this distinction what she is taking pleasure in? Fortunately, she goes on: “What I enjoy is the moment I realize how narrow-minded and stupid the man in front of me is.” Suddenly, the scene shifts. She re-emerges as the socially conscious artist, the kind who seems ready to wave a banner for equality and challenge entrenched structures of power. Yet the moment others attempt to pin that identity onto her, she rejects it. She insists that she has never consciously pursued such themes through her work. These issues appear not because she sought them out, but because they are woven into the fabric of her everyday life. Millie-Sixu Chen is not trying to advocate for a cause. She is simply responding to what surrounds her—or, more precisely, laying bare the portion of herself that those experiences have produced. Once she experienced the release of unrestrained expression, there was no turning back. A thought gradually took hold: she could not exist in this lifetime without being an artist. Her practice soon moved toward sculpture, installation, and performance. These forms brought a different kind of pleasure—one rooted in making, in material, in spatial relations. At the same time, they posed a very practical problem: unlike painting, her work is difficult to sell. For an artist attempting to enter the gallery system, this is no small obstacle. Was this choice of form an act of stubborn defiance—knowingly walking into danger? Not quite. At the beginning, she simply didn’t know. Without art school training, without exposure to the myths and unspoken rules of the art world, she had no clear sense of what a “typical” artistic trajectory looked like. Only later, through exhibitions, encounters, and observation—through instinct, talent, and a degree of luck—did she begin to perceive these structures. At a moment when direction was still unclear, she tried, quite naturally, to replicate what seemed to work. She returned to framed works, producing Untitled Pleasure, a collage based on pornographic magazines from the 1980s. Visually, the work is undeniably accomplished. Millie exercises a precise control over colour and composition, while mobilising both the rebellious undertones embedded in pornographic imagery and its provocation of primal desire. The result is powerful without heaviness—sensuous, yet agile. At the same time, the work is unmistakably strategic. Collage is accessible and market-friendly; themes such as the gaze and body politics are already circulating within contemporary discourse. In this sense, Untitled Pleasure reads almost as a gesture of compliance—a calculated offering to the gallery system. The strategy worked. The piece brought her exhibitions and recognition. Yet she did not continue down that path. Instead, she returned to sculpture, installation, and performance. She cares for Untitled Pleasure as she does for her other works. But its underlying motivation is not sustainable. A practice driven by strategy alone, for her, quickly becomes empty. When presented with a hypothetical choice— between partially market-driven production with institutional success and visibility, or participation in major exhibitions while maintaining a modest life and artistic freedom—she leans toward the latter. When asked further: in such a position, would she engage more actively in political discourse, given the seductive power of voice and visibility? Her answer remains simple: “I think I would still just make work.” We cannot know how far she will go, nor what choices she will make in the face of real success. These responses belong only to the present moment—yet they already carry a certain vitality. She moves forward with something close to naïve courage, curious about everything, trying everything. Time and again, she approaches fully-formed systems of power—sometimes deliberately, sometimes not—appearing as though she might enter, only to turn away at the moment the door opens. One can almost hear her, standing just outside, asking quietly: Do you want to tame me? Whether this is a question or a provocation remains unclear. II. A Narrative Structure Represented by Patriarchy Millie’s engagement with the “male gaze” in Untitled Pleasure suggests a familiarity with the subject that is far from incidental. This is indeed the case. During her postgraduate studies, she had already developed a sustained interest in related questions and conducted in-depth research. In 2023, she turned her attention to representations of Algerian women during the French colonial period, examining how external, often violent interventions into a cultural context shaped the visual construction of the oppressed under overlapping systems of power. This research culminated in the curatorial project Not Written until Now: Women in the Algerian War of Independence, alongside the publication Algerian Women in Frames. Yet gendered power relations are neither her only nor her central concern. In the series I Tried But There’s No Door, Millie shifts toward the crises of contemporary life shaped by meritocracy and neoliberalism. The “key,” as a symbol, is often tied to the idea of a solution. But when a particular path is believed to be the solution, it transforms simultaneously into a chain. In I Tried But There’s No Door II, such chains intertwine and suspend in mid-air, forming a trap-like network. I Tried But There’s No Door I presents a door with five identical handles, loudly suggesting multiplicity. Yet the handles echo one another; the door remains singular. When they fail—and even when the door is dismantled—what remains is still a wall. The crisis of modern life lies in subtle structural control. Success is defined, pathways are narrowed, yet both are repackaged under the language of “diversity,” diluting their violence. Within neoliberal discourse, “diversity” no longer signifies radical difference resistant to appropriation. Instead, it becomes a resource—something to be extracted, managed, and contained within existing frameworks. This superficial inclusivity often produces depoliticisation. The limited space it opens creates the illusion of freedom, prompting individuals to exercise their “free will” in pursuit of prescribed success, willingly submitting to forms of exploitation disguised as self-realisation. Millie approaches this condition with a striking lightness. Without grand declarations, she articulates the quiet exhaustion of the individual within social machinery. The calm, almost ethereal quality of her work seems to emerge directly from her disposition: her starting point is never an abstract issue, but the articulation of personal experience—an experience that resonates with many others. From this perspective, an underlying thread begins to emerge across her works. What she consistently engages with is not a single topic, but a recurring narrative structure—one that she cannot entirely escape. This structure operates through stratification and regulation, positioning individuals within a hierarchy. People come to understand themselves through limited information and resources, while unconsciously accepting the boundaries imposed upon them. Power does not function solely through suppression; it is continuously reproduced through differential distribution. One is constrained within a larger system, yet simultaneously granted recognition within smaller tiers. Each level absorbs pressure and passes it downward. This “localised gain” encourages the maintenance of existing order, perpetuating norms almost unconsciously. Such narratives impose singular definitions of success and standardised paths of advancement. They compress complex lived experience into measurable metrics, while cunningly allowing conformity and resistance to share the same evaluative framework—thus reinforcing their own stability. At the same time, they exhibit a degree of flexibility. Limited mobility and variation create the impression that pathways remain open. As a result, structural critique is redirected into self-examination, and constraint becomes internalised as choice. While this may read as a carefully constructed theoretical system, in reality it resembles a constantly self-adjusting ecology. Capital, gender, state politics, and culture intersect within it, without a single centre of control. This is precisely where the sense of powerlessness originates: when one attempts to resist, what one faces is not an opponent, but an entire system operating beyond the scale of individual life. Millie, however, does not seem particularly invested in resistance as such. She simply continues to speak—relentlessly, insistently—of what she has lived. III. A Sense of the Real In London, Millie works at a café while running an online vintage shop. These form the life that exists alongside her artistic practice—and she enjoys it. During her undergraduate years, she interned and worked at several major advertising agencies in Shanghai. At the time, the industry was still thriving. Projects carried substantial budgets and produced large-scale outcomes. Yet she struggled to find meaning in the work—at times even describing it as empty. This sense of emptiness has eased since she began making art and working in the hospitality. Compared to abstract metrics of success, she values direct responses from real people. She enjoys conversations with the audience, but even casual remarks from friends matter. At the café, brief exchanges with regular customers become moments of significance. Her first installation, I Look Back And I See You, already demonstrates this sensitivity. Childhood photographs are partially obscured by wooden slats, leaving only fragments visible. Memory appears as it often does—blurred, intermittent, with only certain moments sharply defined. Words cut from magazines, stripped of context, begin to suggest emotion anew. Metal wires pierce through this fragment of memory, twisting, entangling, and extending outward into the future. The material language functions as an emotional trigger that Millie sets for viewers who share a similar background with her.The combination of wooden slats and thread recalls everyday household objects once common in East Asia—objects that disappeared rapidly with economic transformation. Growing up at the tail end of this transition, Millie experienced their disappearance almost abruptly. Does such change leave behind a quiet anxiety—that nothing can truly be held onto? These memories settle into dispersed, complex emotional residues, resurfacing when familiar yet displaced elements appear. It is in such moments of disorientation that one is most vulnerable. Millie creates these moments—and captures them—opening a space for intimate exchange. For an artist who values establishing a connection with the world through direct experience, moving into performance is almost inevitable. Millie’s first performance work, A 2cm Wound, was created not long after I Look Back And I See You, and continues a similar logic. A dining knife repeatedly cuts into one leg of a chair. In fact, the damage the knife can inflict is vastly disproportionate to the hardness of the chair leg. With each cut, only the faintest scratch is left behind, appearing almost unchanged from before—until these nearly imperceptible marks accumulate into a wound two centimetres deep. Through this action, Millie draws a metaphor for the subtle and continuous erosion that modern life (or modernity itself) imposes on the individual. After the performance, the work remains as a sculpture. The chair, marked by a two-centimetre wound, can still be used, but the instability it carries will forever coexist with its existence. Millie’s reliance on lived sensation shapes her precision in expression. It is perhaps no coincidence that many artists move between art and hospitality work. What may seem like a necessity becomes, in practice, something more generative. As she describes it, working in hospitality adds texture to life and feeds directly back into her thinking and making. Handling materials, delivering outcomes, receiving immediate responses—these are efficient ways of feeling one’s own existence. Between abstraction and lived pressure, everyone, perhaps, needs some sense of the real. 陈思旭（Millie-Sixu Chen），2000年出生于中国徐州。2021年于南京师范大学广告学系完成本科学业后，前往伦敦国王学院攻读传播学硕士，并于同期开始创作。其作品形式多为雕塑/装置，及表演，过往创作所讨论的议题主要围绕从个人经历与记忆出发的身份、归属及政治性暴力展开。现居伦敦。 I. 你要驯化我吗？ 当她的简历与一众同辈艺术家放在一起时，陈思旭的教育背景令人耳目一新。从未接受过系统的艺术院校训练，是否意味着她步入艺术世界的路径注定有所不同？ 陈思旭的艺术实践始于研究生阶段的一节选修课。课上对于去殖民, 身份, 离散的讨论，唤起了她搬来伦敦之后的某些记忆，牵引着她反复思考已发生的一切，并逐渐拼凑成她的第一件作品“Primary Education”，一场以拼贴艺术为载体的演讲。 陈思旭来到伦敦之后开始接触西方的约会文化。她能够感受到那些在西方背景之下成长的约会对象觉得“她和其他亚洲女孩不一样”，她说她享受这些瞬间。这样的说法不免令人皱眉。在她说出这句话的那一刻，她看起来像一个被父权制所制造的虚幻竞赛所套牢的蠢货——她在用这些瞬间证明自己高其他女人一等吗？还好她接着说，“我享受意识到面前的男人有多狭隘和愚蠢的瞬间”。于是她又变成了那种肩负社会责任，为某些权力某些平等摇旗呐喊的艺术家。然而，当人们试图向她确认这一身份时，她却又否认这种自觉。她说自己没想过用作品追逐这些议题，只是它们确实发生在自己的生活里。陈思旭不过是在回应，或者更准确地说，袒露它们所塑造的那部分自我。 体会到肆意表达的快感后，陈思旭一发不可收拾地开始创作。一个念头在她心里逐渐清晰：此生我无法摈弃“艺术家”的身份而存在。此后，她的创作形式逐渐开始转向雕塑、装置与表演。此类创作形式一方面带来了更多“创造”的乐趣，也因能够遭的空间和环境发生更多关系而具备更强的表现力；另一方面，却实打实地带来了一个十分实际的问题——相比起绘画，陈思旭的作品“不好卖”，这对于想要进入画廊体系的艺术家而言会是重大的阻碍。 形式的选择是“明知山有虎”的倔强吗？不是的。起初的陈思旭对此毫无概念。从没有读过艺术学校，没有听过太多艺术界传说与潜规则，她对“惯常的艺术家成长路径”一无所知。直到她凭借靠着直觉、灵气、天赋，和一点好运参加了几场展览，结识了一些从业者，看到了其他艺术家如何生活，她才迟钝地这些结构的存在。在尚不知方向的阶段，她很自然地试图复制那些惯常的路径。 她回到装裱作品，创作了取材于1980年代色情杂志的拼贴作品“Untitled Pleasure”。 从视觉层面来看，“Untitled Pleasure”无疑是一件完成度极高的作品。陈思旭以极强的掌控力平衡了色彩与构成，同时调动了色情杂志基因中的反叛气质以及对于人类原始冲动的挑逗，带来有力却不沉重，深刻又灵动的感官体验。策略性的考量与创作的成功并行——拼贴形式是物美价廉的畅销款，搭配走俏的“凝视”与“身体政治”主题——“Untitled Pleasure”是陈思旭向画廊体系献上的谄媚姿态。 这一策略确实为陈思旭打开了局面。“Untitled Pleasure”为她收获了不少展览邀约和业内的正面评价，但这种路径并未被持续执行。在此之后，陈思旭重新开始专注在雕塑/装置和表演上。她当然像爱自己的其他作品一样爱着“Untitled Pleasure”，可这件作品的创作动机对陈思旭而言并不是可持续的，长期的策略性导向创作对她而言索然无味。 当被置于一个极端设问之中： 如果必须在“部分创作迎合市场，获得画廊支持与难以想象的名利”与“进入国际性重要展览，生活小康，创作自由”之间选择，她会更倾向于过哪种生活？陈思旭坦言可能后者于她更具吸引力。 再被追问：如果真的处于后者的位置，她会参加更多政治性活动，讨论自己在作品中讨论的议题吗？毕竟话语所象征的权力是如此迷人。还是仍然要专注创作？ 她说，还是创作吧，我觉得我还是会继续创作。 我们不知道她能走到哪一步，不知道在真的面对巨大的成功时她会做出怎样的选择，上述回应只是她当下的动作和感受，在此刻释放出强大的生命力。她带着近乎天真的勇气探索，对一切好奇，于是她尝试一切，一次次或有意识或无意识地走到那些完善的权力机器面前，似乎已经确定自己想要融入其中，又在大门向她打开的那一刻转身离开。其他人能听到在门外的她轻声问：你要驯化我吗？而无从得知她究竟是否正在挑衅。 II. 父权制所代表的一类叙事 陈思旭在“Untitled Pleasure”中所展露的对于“男性凝视”的处理，暗示着她对于相关素材的积累并非成于朝夕之间。事实也确实如此。早在硕士研究生阶段，陈思旭就已经对相关课题产生兴趣，并进行过系统研究。2023年，她将目光瞄准法属殖民时期的阿尔及利亚女性图像，剖析在当时外力暴力介入一个完整文化环境的情境下，双重权力压迫对被压迫者的塑造如何在图像中体现。该研究最终产出为策展项目“Not Written until Now: women in Algerian Independent War”，以及手册“ALGERIAN WOMEN IN FRAMES”。 文行至此出现的三件作品，件件不脱离两性间的权力关系纠缠。然而，这并非陈思旭创作的唯一主题，甚至并非核心主题。在“I Tried But There’s No Door”系列中，陈思旭以精准如手术刀的表达刻画了优绩主义乃至新自由主义创造的现代生活危机。 “钥匙”在作为象征时，常常与“解决办法”相关联。当某种解决路径被视为坚定的、唯一的信念，它便在同时转化成了能够紧紧捆绑人的锁链。“I Tried But There’s No Door II”就由若干把这样的链条组成。它们彼此交织，于半空中悬挂，交织成网状的陷进。“I Tried But There’s No Door I”带来一扇装有五个把手的门，大声宣告通向门后的途径从不单一。这些把手形态一致，如同彼此的回声；门依旧只有一扇。当人发现把手失效，甚至拆除整扇门之后，所面对的仍然是一堵墙。 现代生活的危机来自结构性的微妙控制。成功被定义，路径被收窄，却又以“多样性”的面貌被重新包装，从而削弱其暴力性。“多样性”作为新自由主义的惯用语时，不再等同于全然“相异性”，后者拒绝任何形式的经济利用，而前者被理解为一种资源，它可以且希望被充分榨取、只允许体制框架内的差异存在。表面的包容性往往起到去政治化的作用，这一点点“框架内的差异”所释放的空间，让身处体制之内的人误以为自己是自由的，让人行使自己的“自由意志”，为自己理想中的成功呕心沥血，心甘情愿接受披着“自我实现”外衣的压榨。陈思旭在讨论虚伪的多样性所带来的窒息感时，能够做到举重若轻地将个体在社会机器之中的无力感和盘托出。作品冷静、空灵的气质是从陈思旭的性格中流淌出来的，因为她创作的起点从不是有关某个情境的讨论，只是对于自我感受的复述，而她的感受正是无数个其他个体正在经历的挣扎。 从这一出发点，可以看到她作品之间隐约的内在线索。陈思旭一直以来所关注的，其实是一类她无法摆脱的、持续运作的叙事机制： 这类叙事通过分层与规范，将个体安置在不同位置。人在有限的信息与资源中理解自身处境，也在无形中接受结构所设定的边界。权力并非单向压制，而是在差异化的分配中被不断再生产：个体显然在更大的体系中受到限制，同时也在某些层级中获得局部的优势与认同。 每一级都在消化自己受到的压力，并向下一级释放。这种“局部获益”使人倾向于维护既有秩序，并在无意识中将规范向下延续。 这类叙事通常规定着单一化的成功标准与被规范化的上升路径。它一方面将复杂的生命经验压缩为可衡量、可比较的指标，另一方面狡猾地让“顺从”与“反抗”共用同一套评价体系，进一步巩固自身的牢固度。 当然，它也展示出某种弹性。有限的流动性与差异，使人感到通道仍然开放。于是，对根本逻辑的追问转化为对个体努力的检讨，也使权力的约束转化为一种被内化的选择，从而减弱其作为限制的可感知性。这一切都通过惯习与象征资本运作，够嵌入个体的欲望、判断与行动之中，使人们在追求自我实现的过程中，反复回到结构既定的轨道上。 尽管以上的文字描述了一套理论化的精密阴谋，但在事实上，这类叙事更像一个个不断自我修补的混乱生态系统。包括资本、性别、国家政治和文化在内的不同权力在这些叙事中交织，没有任何中心在设计或操控—。这是个体在此类叙事中感到无力的本源——当个体试图反抗，就会发现自己对面的是一整套超出个体尺度的体系，它高于人类有限生命的活动，不可能留下任何能够形成对抗的抓手。 对此，陈思旭似乎并不执着于对抗。她只管孜孜不倦，喋喋不休地讲述她所经历的一切。 III. 对世界的实感 现在的陈思旭在伦敦场的一家咖啡店打工，同时经营着自己的线上古着店。这些构成了她创作之外的生活，她说自己很享受这样的状态。 本科阶段，陈思旭曾在上海几家大广告公司实习和工作。彼时广告业还不像现在这样萧条。她跟进的项目拿着甲方大笔的预算，产出声势浩荡。但当时的陈思旭对这份工作的意义没有太大的感受，甚至夸张地说，她认为自己做的事让自己感到虚无。 这样的感受在陈思旭开始做艺术家、开始打工之后大大缓解。相比起过去由庞大且成功的数据构成的反馈，她更在意来自具体他人的回应。她说自己享受和观众交流，就算是有时候听听朋友怎么说也会让自己感觉很好。在咖啡店打工的日子里最高兴的时候就是和自己的常客聊上两句。陈思旭看重自己亲身与世界建立联系的过程，她需要对这个世界的实感。 她同样擅长描述她的感受。陈思旭所创作的第一件装置作品，“I Look Back And I See You”，就已足够印证这一点。儿时的相片被木条遮挡，仅留下个别窗口使照片可见，剩下的部分则若即若离，影影绰绰。如人们调动回忆时眼前所见总是模糊，只有某一两刻的画面分外清晰。从杂志上剪下的文字被去掉了上下文，无中生有地提示着那一刻的感受。金属丝穿过这段记忆，纠结，缠绕，然后向外生长，四面八方地深深刺入此后的人生。装裱这一切的相框沉甸甸的，样式极为精致优雅，却不属于当下的时代——不论你怎样虔诚且呕心沥血地珍惜那段时光，它也只会无法阻遏地渐渐远离此刻你所站立的地方。 由金属丝连结木条是陈思旭为与她来自相似背景的观众设置的情感触发器。等细等长的木条、竹条，用棉线或是麻绳缠绕连结，所制成的窗帘、餐垫、凉席等家居生活用品是属于特定年代的东亚记忆。陈思旭的童年时期，是这些物件广泛流行的尾声。伴随2001年中国加入世界贸易组织，改革开放进入新阶段，中国民众的物质生活水平以难以预料的速度提高，这些耐用实惠的老物件被甩在时代身后。陈思旭在这样的背景下成长，周遭变化之快，仅是日常生活中的信息就足矣令人自顾不暇，那些令她感到熟悉的物件消失得彻底又猝不及防。这样的事实是否在不知不觉中为这代人的生命植入了不安的底色：我难道真的什么都不能留住？这段时期所带来的记忆最终沉淀为繁多复杂的感受四散在这代人的内心深处，在看到这样熟悉又错位的元素时重新浮现。人在恍惚时总是最脆弱。陈思旭制造这样的脆弱时刻，然后抓住它们，在这几个瞬间里完成和观众私密的对话。 对于热爱通过亲身体验与世界建立联系的艺术家而言，开始创作行为艺术作品再不过情理之中。陈思旭的第一件行为艺术作品“A 2cm Wound”，创作于“I Look Back And I See You”不久之后，延续了相似的逻辑。一把餐刀不间断地切割椅子的其中一条腿，其实餐刀所能造成的伤害与椅子腿的硬度悬殊，每次落刀，椅子上只留下极浅的划痕，看起来和之前似乎并无二致，直到这样微不可查的伤害反复叠加成两厘米的伤痕。陈思旭以这一行为比喻现代生活（或现代性问题）对个体微妙而持续的侵蚀。表演结束之后的作品作为一件雕塑静静伫立。这把被带着两厘米伤痕的椅子仍然能正常使用，只不过使用时的晃动将永远与其本身的存在共存。 陈思旭依赖切身感受这个世界所带来的反馈，这一份执着也塑造着她描述感受时精准的表现力。艺术家或艺术从业者进入款待业工作的情况从来不在少数，乍一听确实像是为生计的无奈之举。但有趣的是，许多在这两个世界之间穿梭的朋友们都深深地热爱和享受着在款待业工作的时刻。如陈思旭说，在款待业工作的体验为生活增加了乐趣，也切实地反哺着自己的思考和创作。她亲手触摸生产的工具和材料，把成果送到顾客手中，即时得到反馈。很难否认，这是一种极高效的感受存在的方式。在形而上和现实压力之间，所有人都需要一点对于世界的实感。
Overview "side hustle" Launch Event—Live Exhibition "Bikini" Featuring Jack Warne, Millie Chen, Pai'an Chen "side hustle" Launch Event - Live Exhibition "Bikini" Date: 14th of June Location: The Horse Hospital Time: 5:30pm to 10pm Event Scheduel: 5:30pm Doors Open 6:00pm Introduction 6:45pm Live Performance by Millie Chen 8:00pm - 10:00pm Live Performance by Jack Warne Exhibition Intro: Bikini Most of us have never witnessed a nuclear explosion firsthand. We have never stood beneath the rising mushroom cloud, truly experiencing its blinding light, unbearable heat, violent shockwaves, and the silence that follows. Yet the image of the mushroom cloud remains strangely familiar to us. Despite never having lived through such an event, we often believe we already understand it. We fear it, yet cannot deny the sublime spectacle of its form unfolding across the sky. Through films, animation, news broadcasts, novels, video games, and countless reproduced images, we continuously learn how to imagine, recognise, and remember the mushroom cloud. Over time, it has ceased to exist merely as a historical event and has instead become a form of collective memory constructed through contemporary technologies and media infrastructures. Our memory of the mushroom cloud is itself a mediated memory — one produced through the endless circulation of images and narratives. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted a series of nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. In the same year that the first post-war nuclear tests were carried out there, French designer Louis Réard introduced the modern bikini swimsuit and named it after the atoll. He believed that the radically revealing garment would generate a social shock comparable to that of a nuclear explosion. The connection is almost absurd. A word now associated with sunshine, beaches, tourism, leisure, and desire originates from a history of military violence, colonial occupation, environmental devastation, and nuclear contamination. It is precisely through this absurdity that the striking affinity between the bikini and the mushroom cloud emerges. They share a common origin, yet have been reproduced into images, symbols, and cultural signifiers that now point toward entirely different realities. It is from this absurdity that side hustle practice extracts its conceptual framework — both as the theme of this event and as an experiment in curatorial methodology, cultural production, and forms of connection. We are interested in the multiple possibilities concealed behind established meanings, and in the unexpected commonalities that emerge between seemingly unrelated signs. Through alternative forms of translation and interpretation, we seek to establish new modes of perception between artworks, emotions, and lived realities. This project is also a test: a test of our own capacity to work alongside artists; a test of whether more intimate and emotionally resonant relationships between artists and audiences remain possible; and a test of whether a small, non-institutional cultural collective can still construct its own cultural context through humour, vulnerability, research, and experimentation. Returning to the exhibition itself, Bikini does not attempt to resolve these contradictions. Rather, it uses the bikini as a point of entry into a constellation of questions surrounding images, memory, bodies, and technology. The artists presented here are concerned with how images are continually reconstructed through contemporary media; how memory is reshaped through processes of reproduction; and how experiences we have never directly lived through can nonetheless enter our consciousness more deeply than many events we have actually experienced. Within this framework, the works of Jack Warne, Chen Paian, and Millie Chen do not treat memory as a stable record, but as a fragile and mutable condition—one continuously rewritten by emotion, technology, and systems of representation. Jack Warne's practice navigates the unstable territory between memory and technological mediation. Through moving image, sound, industrial forms of image-making, and augmented reality, he repeatedly asks: if technology increasingly remembers on our behalf, does memory itself gradually become a form of simulation? Within his work, glitches, compression artefacts, rendering failures, and visual residues cease to be technical errors and instead become the very structure through which emotion is experienced. Millie Chen's practice focuses on the ways bodies carry emotion, labour, migration, and intergenerational trauma. Working across performance, installation, and the transformation of everyday materials, she reveals the fragile boundary between intimacy and alienation. Her works often emerge from personal experience, family structures, care labour, and bodily politics, transforming subtle, quiet, and almost invisible emotional traces into spaces charged with psychological weight and tension. Chen Paian's works often resemble memories that have been unconsciously reproduced—fragments of déjà vu, recollections detached from their origins, or images assembled through processes of forgetting. Everything appears strangely familiar, yet narrative certainty remains absent. Drawing from advertising, photography, and contemporary image culture, he constructs spaces that viewers feel they recognise but struggle to fully locate. In the age of artificial intelligence, these images acquire an uncanny quality: they seem less like worlds experienced by humans than worlds already processed, interpreted, and reconstructed by systems of representation.
