Regarding the meaning of ‘contemporaneity’ in contemporary art, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze pointed out in his philosophical writings 1968 and ’69 that pop art served the function of a kind of simulacrum (simulacre)—using excess images to dismantle and diminish the uniqueness of images. So-called simulacrum is not anything figurative or its replica but rather a ‘tact’ that distorts the relationship between these copies and their eidos. Representing the contemporary with the contemporary, then, is not anything concrete; it is the power to throw all reality into erewhon. Created by English novelist Samuel Butler in his novel ‘Erewhon’, this term inverts ‘now-here’ (here and now), aiming to highlight obscure singularities that are difficult to recognise in the now-here. Following this idea, if we want to find a way to dismantle reality, we should not reject but reverse it; thus, the contemporary does not deny reality but only leverages it.

​

As the name suggests, Geng Dayou’s solo exhibition Erewhon presents an upside-down reality. Taking on the history of art and philosophy, the mysticism of the East and the West and mythological metaphors, the artist executes an absurd, nihilistic treatment of digital materials as land art, space and architectural installations in a 250,000 square-metre virtual space of natural and art museum scenes. Geng acts as both curator and game designer, exploring the technical boundaries of the Spatial Web to construct a massive multiplayer online (MMO) theatrical environment for relational aesthetics in which the created simulacrum distorts the viewer’s perception of various clichés.

Deploying the digital-readymade, erewhon does not approach reality and the virtual as opposites; rather, it explores and plays with the boundary between them. In this virtual space of the near-infinite means of production, the artist applies creative restrictions according to the material properties in the real world and uses the inversions and limitations of this absurd creative idea to answer the question raised by the context of contemporaneity – that of how to create a new method to show this distorting reality, the erewhon.

​

对于何为当代艺术中的“当代性”，法国哲学家德勒兹在1968和1969年的哲学著作中都曾指出，波普艺术担当了一种拟像（simulacre）的功能——以过量的影像来瓦解影像的独一无二。所谓的拟像并非任何具象或其复制物，而是歪曲这些复制物和原型之间的“手法”。那么，“当代之为当代”并不是任何具体的东西，它正是把一切现实投入到“此处，无处“（erewhon）的力量。英国小说家塞缪尔·巴特勒（Samuel Bulter）在他的小说《埃瑞璜》（Erewhon）中把“now-here”（此时此地）颠倒为erewhon，其目的是为了彰显那些在“此时此地”中难以洞察的特异之物（singularities）。故此，假如人们要找到瓦解现实的“手法”，就并不该去排斥现实，而是颠倒现实，所以当代并不否定现实，当代只利用现实。

如其所名，本次艺术家耿大有的个展《此处，无处》中所呈现的是一个被颠倒的现实。他接由艺术史与哲学史、东西方神秘主义与神话隐喻，对数字材料进行荒诞的虚无主义处理，在二十五万平方米的虚拟场景中建构出大地艺术，空间与建筑装置, 并分别分布在自然场景与美术馆场景中。同时，艺术家也作为策展人与游戏设计者，通过探索现有空间互联网的技术边界，架构起一个允许多人在线的，剧场式的关系美学（relational aesthetic）发生地，这些观者将被所创作的拟像歪曲他们对事物各种陈词滥调的认知。

通过“数字现成物”，《此处，无处》无意把现实和虚拟（the virtual）对立起来，作品而是不断触碰现实和虚拟之间的界线。在对生产资料近乎无限的虚拟场景里，艺术家根据现实世界中的材料属性给予创作限制，利用这种荒诞的创作思路的倒置与限制，以回答“当代性”语境提出的问题——如何营造歪曲现实的，“此处，无处”的新手法？

​

Article: Zhang Jiarong

文：张嘉荣

Translation: Geng Dayou

翻译：耿大有