65 submitted works: from pure seeing to documentary
// Ocular: about vision (seeing)
// Oracular: prophetic, speaking of the future; delivering opinions in cryptic phrases
What is artistic creativity? What kind of makers can we (afford to) be? Issue #1 of D-Normal/V-Essay, Ocular Oracular, gathered through our open call a rich assemblage of voices, a manifestation of a contemporary landscape of creativity by serendipity, not by planning. Works came from different parts of the world -- Argentina, Europe, USA, UK, Korea and more, including digital nomads and those working between cities…, all sharing the same spirit of pushing boundaries. With the 70+ successfully uploaded works still running fresh in the jurors’ mind, we find the artist/maker/creator a combination of some or most of the following in dialogue…
// 甲骨文是漢字的書體名稱，是約三千四百多年前商朝的人刻在龜甲和獸骨上的文字。已收集的甲骨文單字有四千多個，其中一千多字可以釋讀，但是有許多字的筆劃和偏旁尚未完全定型。這就是這期錄像文章取名為《聲影甲骨文》的取向，強調「甲骨文」的引伸義 （由字的「本義」或「基本義」向相近相似的意義推演延伸至產生的新意義）-- 於我們來說，就是繼續從未完全定型的聲、影物理素材和可擴展的論述定義向外、向周邊創造新作業。
《平地數碼》錄像文章的第一期，現命名「聲影甲骨文」，透過公開上載收集了超過70個議題作品，令我們大開眼界，感到何謂創作、誰是創作者，另有展開擴大的新天地。作品來自世界各地，香港之外，由南美北美、歐洲各地，以至亞洲區的鄰舍，更有不少「數碼遊牧」或多國駐場的創作者，都旨在志在推開已成規的邊界。不同的創作者形象湧現，百花齊放，又或一個創作人在變身，多重身份，多重角色，在同一個錄像文章裡冒現：
*the suffering prophet 苦難的先知
*the hypnotist 催眠者
*the absorbed gamer inside a labyrinth 自建迷宮忘我嬉戲在其中的小子
*the ventriloquist 腹語系
*the alchemist 變金術研究者
*the activist and the advocate 倡議行動者
*the well-read social critic 讀萬卷書、精通網路傳播的評論者
*the curious adventurer 充滿好奇的冒險探險旅人
*the magician 魔術師
*the speaking sleepwalker 夢遊者
A big feast of ideas: propositions, confessions, speculations, performing one’s subjectivities, minimal documentation... of varied existential concerns, social and physical phenomena, shared by all contemporary citizens. In response to the submissions and the concern articulated, we have come up with a tentative grouping to frame our follow-up conversations, just for this issue:
不少的作品明顯肯定破格的文本，影、音、聲、畫、語言和文字的運用，私語將就家國論述，人高於物、自然服膺於人類文明，過去延伸至未來，無形世界於科技強化、延伸感官的呈現，都可以倒置或重新釐定，皆因創作和實驗的世界容許想像力和假設性的思考活動而不須背負「絕對真理」和終極的客觀的重擔。聲塊象塊不一定是意象，更是在物理層面被延展、拉闊、再創造的影像物。創作者可用的素材不再侷限於拍攝出來的錄像片段，而是隨手可用的，只有你想像得到，也有數碼工具可以處理。眾多的議題，琳琳種種，打破了錄像文章的界別分類：
<Virtual Presence> 虛擬的存在
Is the “virtual” an illusion or is it a form of potentiality? Is virtual presence merely technologically enabled? Is what you read necessarily what I write? What new forms of value does datafication lead to?
<Performing consciousness> 展演的「我」現在進行式 | p. 5－6
Just as space is to be narrated, our being can only be understood as it unfolds in time in action. Dynamic self.
<Hong Kong> 我城香港
Thinking about/of/from within/away from/outside Hong Kong… How many ways can Hong Kong be tackled? What is Hong Kong and what is foreign?
<News from around the world> 各地來鴻
Election. Hi-speed train. Loss of land rights. solidarity. Eco-diversity. The politics that dictates the life span of an art site…
<Tentacular Thinking> 多觸思考
Cross-disciplinary and multi-species. Queer values… Algae. Masks. Covid-19, Dinosaurs. Origins and extinction… “What happens when human exceptionalism and bounded individualism become unthinkable in the best sciences, whether natural or social?“ (Donna Haraway)
自然與我。我與土地。經濟與自然。自身與消費。物與思維。
We begin to wonder: what would our zine table of content look like in our next issues?
下幾期的《平地數碼》將會匯集的會是甚麼？下期主題會是甚麼？萬分的期待著。
Of the seven proposed categories in the open call, the least attempted was [7] – video essays that explain how algorithm works. We look forward to more attempts in the upcoming rounds. We are also amazed at the number of entries that bill themselves dealing with [1] – object lives / object-logue.
我們期望 [7] “打開編碼演算的黑盒” 會得到更多的關注，對當下新肺炎的日常體會更豐盈。喜見 [1] ”東西自白“ 有不少來稿。盼望更多不經常創作的朋友們參與，把你的專業專長與我們分享，用你的文法，你的語調，你的態度。
NOTES
[1] https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373780-003
[2] http://compendium.kosawese.net/term/anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/#:~:text=Haraway%20also%20argues%20that%20a,refers%20to%20processes%20of%20reworlding.
REFERENCE:
Haraway, Donna J. 2016. “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene“(chapter 2) . Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Haraway, Donna J. 2014. Video lecture: “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Making String Figures with Biologies, Arts, Activisms” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHwZA9NGWg0 , 30 October 2014.
