Curious and explorative, the Mermer series delves into the everyday and mundane feeling so commonly experienced in our technological world, but enhanced by the pandemic: our direct facing and relationship with screens. While the total lack of colour and the black and white nature of the paintings emphasise the contrast between the projected light on our face and the imagined cut-out shadow left on our back, their two-dimensional representations echo the flatness of the screen itself. But more importantly, the paintings ask questions about the process of seeing and being seen, of what can be perceived or not, of who is watching. While initially based on the subtle and intuitive exploration of the artist’s emotions and perceptions when confronted with a screen, be it the one of a laptop, a computerised watch or a VR-set, the series slowly acquired its own narrative. Stemming from the artist’s focus on the idea that ‘communication between people depends on the understanding, story and background of each interlocutor’, the paintings question the difference between information and opinion, as well as the part that is played by our imagination in apprehending the world.
Jiachen Zeng, Stage, 2024, Oil on Canvas, 91.5 x 121.5 cm
With the oil painting ‘Stage’, Jiachen Zeng highlights the distinction between what we decide to present to the world through our screens, the images of ourselves that we construct, intentionally or not, and the part of ourselves we choose to keep literally ‘in the shadow’. We are ‘on stage’ and the roles that we play are multi-faceted, as we are together the actors and directors of our lives; the question is whether we are in control of those images, as social networks dictate the presentation of pure happiness and idealised relationships unstained by the more difficult and darker, yet normal aspects of individual and social life. The mixed-media ceramic ‘Together’ questions this meant togetherness that is supposed to be created by social networks and invites the viewer to take part in this decision, as the two figures can be separated and re-arranged freely. Therefore, the two characters might or might not face one another. They might be looking at an imaginary screen, being more interested in that technological interaction and the image that they project than in the possible, or engage in a more human exchange and communication that is within reach and touch. This question is further explored in the oil painting ‘Attention’ that seems to form the perfect companion to ‘Stage’, as the viewers are now invited to look at an audience watching a film or a theatre play, and thus wonder what the subject of their attention is. Like in ‘Together’, there is that possibility of human engagement, but do the characters in the painting, do we, when we are in a public space, succeed in establishing that contact?
Jiachen Zeng, Attention, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 91.5 x 121.5 cm
In the mixed-media ceramic ‘Pilgrimage’, Jiachen Zeng refers to another form of control, the one of educational practices as articulated by Michel Foucault in his seminal book of 1990, Disciplines and Knowledge. Like prisons and psychiatric asylums, he argues that educational institutions are complex technologies of disciplinary control where power and knowledge are closely interconnected; schools also are institutions of moral and social regulation that play a crucial role in the construction of social norms and the formatting of individuals. To take this philosophy further, one could state that specific models of individuals are reproduced like ‘memes’ and spread across society, a notion that seems at the conceptual and etymological centre of the series ‘Mermer’. Moreover, in the mixed-media ceramic ‘Support’, Jiachen Zeng draws a thought-provoking parallel between the physical light of a screen and religious devotion, or at least the ideas of belief and faith, in addition to referencing Renaissance painting with her use of chiaroscuro and the portrayal of saints under the projection of divine lighting. The mixed-media ceramic ‘Strange One’ is a case in point, as its viewers facing a cinema screen resemble a congregation assembled at an altar listening to a priest’s sermon. In this perspective, it could be argued that technological devices represent a new religion in which we place an innocent trust that fails to notice the wider economic agendas and stakes of gargantuesque multinational corporations.
Jiachen Zeng’s works remind me of Deleuze and Guattari’s collaborative writing in which they argue that there is no distinction between the individual and the collectivity, just social desire, which is always in movement, in the process of formation and deformation, as it is dependent upon the variety of situations in which individuals evolve; hence the expression ‘body without organs’ and ‘desiring machines’. I would say that this aspiration to be recognised socially is ironically exploited by the engineers who design the applications in the machines, such as motor engines and social networks, and maybe eventually in the future, by the machines themselves. While Deleuze and Guattari asserted that the body without organs is produced in a connective synthesis, and is neither an image of the body, nor a projection, this assertion was made at the end of the 1970s – early 1980s, a time that didn’t even know computers. I believe it now is, and it is precisely what is at stake in Jiachen Zeng’s ‘Floating’ series of oil paintings that describes this very image of a body, its projection, and the resulting process of dissociation. In fact, the series depicts this process in a progressive and meticulous manner, from ‘Floating Defining’ in which a body is precisely divided into two halves [its identity and its image]; ‘Floating Rupture’ which sees the division of these two halves; ‘Floating Together’ in which identity and projected image can co-habite; to finally ‘Floating Alone’ with only the projected image left.
While the lack of features in the faceless ‘Mermers’ could acknowledge the fact that gender, sexuality, class or age does not matter in a society that aspires to be equal for all, their ghostly presence could tell another story of anonymity and loss of identity. It is the richness of Jiachen Zeng’s work that allows us to ponder and it is her generous open-mind that leaves us with a range of possibilities, neither black, nor white.
藝術家曾佳辰（Jiachen Zeng）的「莫莫（Mermer）」系列充滿了好奇和探索欲，她深入探討了技術世界中一種日常的、尋常的感受 —— 但因疫情而得到了加強 —— 我們直接面對屏幕時以及與屏幕之間的關係。雖然這些缺乏色彩、黑白色調質感的繪畫強調了人物臉上的光線與想象中留在背上的剪裁陰影之間的對比，但它們的二維表現與屏幕本身的平坦性相呼應。但更重要的是，這些繪畫討論了關於觀看與被觀看的過程，什麼可被感知或不被感知，以及誰在觀看的問題。該系列最初是基於對藝術家在面對屏幕時情感與感知的一種微妙且直觀的探索，無論是筆記本電腦、計算機手錶還是VR設備，都逐漸地擁有了自己的敘事：源於藝術家對「人與人之間的交流取決於每個對話者的理解、故事和背景」的關注。這些畫作質疑信息和觀點之間的差異，以及我們的想象力在理解世界時所扮演的角色。
曾佳辰的油畫「舞台（Stage）」則強調了我們決定通過屏幕向世界所呈現的內容、我們有意或無意構建的自我形象以及我們選擇真正「隱藏在陰影中」的那部分自己。我們「在台上」所扮演的角色是多方面的，因為我們是自我生活中的演員和導演；問題是我們是否能夠控制這些圖像，因為社交網絡決定了對純粹幸福和理想化關係的呈現，而忽視個人和社會生活中更困難、更黑暗但在正常方面的影響。混合媒介陶瓷作品「一起（Together）」質疑了這種由社交網絡創造的注定的團結，邀請觀者參與決定，因為兩個人物可以被自由分開和重新排列。因此，這兩個人物角色可以是面對著彼此的也可以是不面對彼此的。他們可能看著一個想象中的屏幕，對技術的互動和他們形象的投射更感興趣，而不是在可能的情況下，參與更人性化的、觸手可及的交流和溝通。這個問題在油畫「關注（Attention）」中得到了進一步探討，它似乎與「舞台（Stage）」上形成了完美配對，因為觀眾現在被邀請觀看正在觀看電影/戲劇的觀眾，從而想象他們關注的主體又是什麼。就像在「一起（Together）」中一樣，存在著人類參與的可能性，但畫中的人物在公共空間時，是否能夠成功地建立這種聯繫？
在混合媒介陶瓷「朝聖（Pilgrimage）」中，藝術家提到了另一種控制的形式，正如福柯（Michel Foucault）在其1990年的開創性著作《紀律與知識》中闡述的教育實踐。就像監獄和精神病院一樣，他認為教育機構是複雜的紀律控制技術，其中權力和知識緊密相連；學校也是道德和社會監管機構，在構建社會規範和個人塑造方面發揮著至關重要的作用。為了進一步深化這一哲學，人們可以說，個人的特定模型像「模因（memes）」一樣被複製並在整個社會中傳播，這個概念也是「Mermer」的詞源中心。此外，在混合媒介陶瓷作品「支持（Support）」中，曾佳辰在屏幕的物理光和宗教敬拜（至少是信仰和信念的思想）之間建立了發人深省的相似之處。此外，還受文藝復興時期的繪畫參考影響，使用了明暗對比以及在神聖投影下描繪聖人的方式。混合媒介陶瓷「怪人（Strange One）」就是一個恰當的例子，因為面對電影屏幕的觀眾就像聚集在祭壇前聽牧師佈道的會眾。從這個角度來看，可以說，技術設備代表了一種新的宗教，我們在其中寄予了一種純真的信任，卻沒有注意到更廣泛的經濟議程和巨大的跨國公司的利害關係。
曾佳辰的作品讓我回想起德勒茲和瓜塔里合著中的觀點，他們認為個人和集體之間沒有區別，只有社會慾望在形成和變形的過程里一直處於運動之中。因為它取決於個體進化的各種情況，以此出現了「沒有器官的身體」和「慾望機器」的說法。我認為具有諷刺意味的是，這種被社會認可的願望被設計機器應用程序的工程師所利用，創造了如發動機和社交網絡，也許最終在未來將被機器本身所利用。雖然德勒茲和瓜塔里斷言，「沒有器官的身體」是在結締合成中產生的，既不是身體的圖像，也不是投影，但這種說法是在20世紀70年代末-80年代初提出的，一個甚至不知道計算機的時代。我相信現在是這樣的，而這正是曾佳辰的「漂浮（Floating）」組畫所要探討的問題，它描述了身體的形象、投射以及由此產生的解離過程。事實上，該系列以漸進而細緻的方式描繪了這一過程，從「漂浮定義（Floating Defining）」開始，身體被精確地分為兩半[身份和形象]；到「漂浮分裂（Floating Rupture）」將這兩半分開；再到「漂浮在一起（Floating Together）」，身份和投影的形象彼此共存；最後是「漂浮一人（Floating Alone）」，只剩下了投射的圖像。
雖然沒有露臉的「莫莫們（Mermers）」缺乏面部特徵，不過可以承認這樣一個事實：在一個渴望人人平等的社會中，性別、性取向、階級或年齡並不重要，但他們幽靈般的存在可以講述另外的關於匿名和身份缺失的故事。正是曾佳辰作品的豐富性讓我們思考，她用豁達開放的心態給我們留下了非黑非白的多種可能性。
Jiachen Zeng’s works at the exhibition ‘Bodily’
Text by Dr Caroline Perret
Translated by Yan Rui
The English version was first published on Art Hub Magazine, and the Chinese version was on ArtChina.
本文英文版首發於 Art Hub Magazine，中文版首發於藝術中國 ArtChina。
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Dr. Caroline Perret completed her PhD in Social Art History at the University of Leeds in 2008 with a dissertation titled “Dubuffet, Fautrier, and Paris under the Occupation and in its Aftermath: A Study in the Visual and Textual Ideology of Matter.” Following this, she worked as a Research Associate for the Group for War and Culture Studies at the University of Westminster, where she investigated the impact of war on cultural production in the historical, political, social, and cultural contexts of WWI, WWII, and beyond in Britain, France, and other regions. She is now an independent scholar and art critic, with a particular focus on modern and contemporary art, illustrated books, films, literature, and poetry.
卡羅琳·佩雷博士，於2008年從英國利茲大學完成社會藝術史博士學位，其研究主題為「杜布菲、福特里爾與佔領下及戰後的巴黎：物質的視覺與文本意識形態研究」，之後在威斯敏斯特大學的戰爭與文化研究項目組擔任副研究員，研究一戰二戰時期的英法及其他地區的歷史、政治、社會和文化背景下戰爭對文化生產的影響。她是一名獨立學者和藝術評論家，尤其聚焦於現當代藝術、圖書、電影、文學和詩歌。
Yan Rui, a graduate of Culture, Criticism, and Curation from Central Saint Martins, is an independent art critic and journalist based in Shanghai and London. She has been nominated for the International Art Criticism Award (ICCA 7). Her broad research interests lie at the intersection of contemporary art, humanities, and art education, with a focus on human and non-human ecosystems, semiotics and iconography, text construction in visual arts, and female identity and imagery.
言蕤，畢業於中央聖馬丁藝術學院文化、批評與策展專業，現居倫敦，是一名獨立藝術評論人、藝術記者、策展人，曾獲國際藝術評論獎ICCA 7提名。她的研究興趣廣泛，涉及當代藝術人文和教育交叉相關，重點關注人類與非人類生態系統、符號學和圖像學、視覺藝術的文本構建以及女性身份和形象等。
Jiachen Zeng, born in 1997 in Shenzhen, China, and currently based in London, is a mixed-media artist. She obtained her Master of Arts degree from the Sculpture Department at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2022, after completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. Her work focuses on “spiritual and physical boundaries,” as well as “the existing balanced ecologies of daily occurrences, including relationships, unforgettable memories, and fetishes surrounding specific objects.”
曾佳辰是一位跨媒介創作的藝術家，1997年出生於中國深圳，現居英國倫敦。她2022年從倫敦英國皇家藝術學院雕塑系碩士畢業，2019年在美國芝加哥藝術學院繪畫系完成純藝術學士學位。她對「精神與身體的邊界」，還有「日常事物現有的平衡生態，包括人際關係、難忘記憶，以及對特定物體的迷戀」尤其關注。
