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Where is Willem?

collaboration with YungHan Juan

a notebook, the portrait pencils,

micro-stage, video, sound 30'28

2014

One night, we found seven notebooks about art history on a street in Amsterdam. Facing the unrecognizable figures and letters, we try to imagine what stories and memories that these notes might have: it will be a story to be recorded, a story to be abandoned. In the process of searching the owner of these notes, we invited 6 people who can read Dutch to describe their imaginary owner of notebooks according to thier experiences of reading it. At the same time, we are about to stand on a stage with the owner, constructing a space of itself, and looking for an other possibility of narrative and expression.

 

The notes with the handwriting of a strong character in Dutch and sensitive drawings seem to hint that the owner is a researcher of art history, which made us produce a sort of projection from an artist encountering an art work to a historian encountering a relic. Meanwhile, this process forces us to rethink about what is our object during the artistic operations. 

 

有一天晚上,我們在阿姆斯特丹的街頭撿到七本關於美術史的筆記,裡面盡是一些看不懂的的荷蘭文及圖像,我們試圖想像這七本筆記可能擁有的故事及記憶,並藉由網路著手尋找筆記本的主人Willem:一種關於故事被記錄的故事,關於故事被遺棄的故事。

 

在解讀圖文的過程裡,我們邀請六位能夠閱讀荷蘭文的人,請他們根據自己閱讀這本筆記的經驗,作為偵探的角色,描繪出想像中的筆記本主人,或許經由他們讀取到的訊息,能夠讓附在筆記本上的靈魂栩栩如生的呈現在眼前。同時我們也與筆記的主人合作,搭設起一個後設性的空間,一個迷你舞台,試圖敘述、詮釋假想的Willem世界。

 

筆記本內性格強烈的荷蘭文字跡和感性的插圖,似乎暗示著筆記本的主人是位美術史學者,我們想著藝術工作者面對藝術品時,跟史料工作者面對歷史文物時的情感投射,或許兩者之間有什麼矛盾的交集。在與偵探們一同辦案的過程中,我們思考著對於美術史學者來說,到底什麼是文物,同時也再一次的理解在創作的時候,到底甚麼才是我們琢磨的主體。

 

 

The report on NDSM

Participants met Willem in the openning of the exhibition.

參與者在開幕現場見到威廉。

 

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