Moand.Epimorphism
2021.10.29(Fri.)~2021.12.04(Sat.)
No.28, Lane 770, Beian Road, Taipei 104, Taiwan
DOUBLE SQUARE GALLERY
沈柏丞 Shen Bo-Cheng
Monad–Epimorphism Text / Shen Bo-Cheng In an essay I wrote for artist Hsu Yunghsu in 2016, I first used the concept of Calabi–Yau manifold, a spatial concept closely related to string theory and the formation of universe, to describe and outline the form of Hsu's works. Although that purely visual depiction of shape illustrates the appearance of Hsu's art form to a certain extent, the essay remains relatively conservative in describing the difference between the concept of the artwork's interior space and the logic of its composition, whilst somehow in well-known vocabularies waxing lyrical about body, movement, and derivation to develop a piece of seemingly contemporary articulation. In essence, if Calabi–Yau manifold is used to portray the spatial form of Hsu's works, then the gaze on the works, as well as the viewing, thinking, and interpreting made on his process of creation have to, like the strange and even somewhat obscure term Calabi–Yau manifold, be very different from the so-called geometric, organic, fractal forms of pure geometry. This new way of reasoning aims to revisit the spatial relationship and its extended visual appearance through the perspective of topology. Meanwhile, it is both inevitable and necessary to reconstruct the previous interpretation of the artist's body and the artworks' sensibility. To be more precise, interpretation of the artworks must transcend the previous, usual use of linguistic and conceptual structures. A structure of interpretation, or point of view, that crosses form, spatiality, and process of artistic creation is undoubtedly in no way an attempt that can be successfully constructed at the first try. Why Calabi–Yau manifold? Why intuitively use this concept to describe the art form? Does there exist a new perspective and new interpretation of form for us to further investigate? These are the questions that have been lingering in my mind, not at every single moment, but definitely as an obsession. Monad–Epimorphism is not so much a curatorial practice as a recap of my thoughts on the relationship between form and creation over the last five years, attempting to answer these question. This project is an re-examination of the aspects unmentioned in my essay five years ago, and a quest for possibilities to develop a new set of interpretation, which is distinct from the conventional vocabularies, on Hsu's art practice. Beginning with the term Calabi–Yau manifold, Monad–Epimorphism re-establishes the way of thinking artwork's form on the conceptual ground of topological space. It sought to refer the basic unit in Hsu's artworks to the monad (French: la monade) in Leibniz's terminology in relation with the mathematical concept of epimorphism; while the entire artwork created by the artist's body movements is made reference to Bergson's concept of vital impulse (French: élan vital) and the duration (la durée). 1 By making the effort to analyze and interpret these artworks, Monad–Epimorphism aims to state that Hsu's works, very different from the purely shape-oriented works created in the past, map a geometrical space through its spatial perception. This space is transformed into a topological space, thus bringing in new evaluations and expressions on form. In addition, only by viewing from the perspective of topological space can the aesthetics discourse on form be opened up for new possibilities. 1. Monad: Leibniz and Bergson Upon gazing at Hsu's works, no one can ignore the spreading and proliferating quality in the artist's works. Almost like living beings, the small units inter-aggregate consecutively via unique connections in every direction to come into structures of large magnitude. Such biological attributes of growing and expanding makes “organic” and “biological” crucial terms to depict Hsu's works. For instance, as Ms. Sun Xiaotong describes, “…Nests of unnamed organisms, cracked eggshells alike…Basic units of the entire structure connect and support each other, leading to a stable and balanced totality, while still retaining their own individuality…” 2 What follows is an array of free verse in a modernist manner, describing movements of the artist's body, fingers, behavior, intuition, and so on. Professor Liao Jen-I puts it this way, “As Jackson Pollock's bodily movements in painting have been described with the term ‘action painting,' Hsu's physical movements and postures in ceramic creation can be described as ‘action art'…” 3 Undoubtedly, interpretations made by these distinguished art critics accurately and vividly depict the stylistic characteristics of the works, and at the same time, specifically and meticulously portrayed the state of the artist's body. It is precisely these accurate and meticulous analyses that lead me to the first question: Is there a new way of interpretation available, on the one hand, to incorporate the art critics' outstanding interpretations on works' nature and the artist's body, and on the other hand, to propose an unattempted perspective, as well an aesthetic articulation? Amid the fundamental unites which constitute the entire artwork and the artist's endless body movements, does there exist a self-evident structure of interpretation? Out of these self-questioning moments, I come up with the first proposition of the exhibition Monad–Epimorphism: Monad. Monad hereby is a fundamental composition in interpreting Hsu's works. Apart from the fact that it matches the all-time descriptions on Hsu's work about their close affinity to living organism's nature of reproduction as set forth by various art critics, it can also be referred to the concept of monad proposed by Leibniz and the concept of vital impulse (French: élan vital) proposed by Bergson. This exhibition sought to construct a more rigorous context for analyzing the interaction between the artist's body and the materials used. Leibniz's and Bergson's philosophical concepts, despite showing earnest ambition to substitute the cold, inorganic cosmology with barely mathematical formulas left for interpretation, maybe better suited for actualizing their power in the field of creation, instead of cosmo. From this perspective, incorporating these concepts as a methodology to interpret, examine, and comprehend artistic creations, may open up a wider scope of vision and creativity. Viewing Hsu's works through the lens of monad, one can see that there always exists specific basic units, which are accumulatively reproducing, spreading, and duplicating until fully developed into an entire structure. This characteristic of constitution appears to echo the nature of monads: the first, indivisible elements of every composed thing. In addition, a basic unit in fact embraces the artist's actual sensation, perception, mental formation, and consciousness. There is some kinds of energy embedded in a basic unit that drive it to constantly expand and assemble. In certain extent, attributes of the small units in Hsu's works mirror the nature of monads that have the capacity of perception and apperception. Besides, once a monad exists, it is driven internally by desire to coordinate with other monads, so to achieve the state of sensation, which in turn drives the desire. Monads coordinate with each other and influence the presentation of sensation as an entire being. In brief, this perceptible state of time and space is actually a macro actualization of sensation composed by many singular entities. This notion preciously addresses the state of Hsu's oeuvre, by revealing the relationship between the simple substances created by Hsu and the entire artwork. To go one step further, the macro, physical state of monads can be excited, directed, diminished or increased, but the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause cannot influence it internally, thus monads are considered to have self-sufficiency. If we put this on Hsu's process of creating artworks, we then believe that while the basic units, monads alike, are continuously excited, directed, diminished or increased, the internal motion of the artist himself nonetheless is not diminishing. Hence, even its external, materialistic manifestation is excited, directed, diminished or increased, its internal, creative reality still remains unchanged. To sum up, the definition of monad provides us a more fundamental framework to deduce the relationship between the basic composition of Hsu's works and their final manifestation as a whole, and so forth to interpret Hsu's uniqueprocess of creation. If it is said that the simple substances of the artist's works are the monads which embody Hsu's aesthetic, creative perception and desire, then we too must figure out the origin of this monad, or to be exact, where does this monad come from? This question can perhaps be interpreted only in terms of vital impulse, an imagination or concept suggested by Bergson. From a certain viewpoint, vital impulse maybe regarded as an interpretation to replace the God of the Bible, in search of articulating a new source of energy for creation. It is worth noting that, from Bergson's perspective on ways of knowing, vital energy cannot be grasped scientifically by the way of analysis. He believe that the reality is only to be grasped by the way of intuition. Though intuition Bergson tries to deal with heterogeneous and qualitative issues. To grasp or interpret the cosmo constructed by the artist's works and the artist per se, Bergson's imaginative concept would be an effective approach to cut in. Assuming that monads have the capacity of perception and desire, then it means they also embody the artist's consciousness. From the philosopher's perspective, consciousness does not remain static, nor are they pieces of fragmented thoughts. It is in a sense that the present moving on to the future always includes also the unceasing past, while the future may also traces back to the past. As such, it is a continuously dynamic progress which leads to the formation of the duration (French: la durée). In short, vital impulse is an inevitable intuitive manifestation of Hsu's consciousness in a specific circumstance. It is a mutual process of multiplicity. This spirit of multiplicity guided the artist's body to create works intuitively, and hence, in an ever-changing and fluidic way, meld the materialistic world to a singular artwork. 2. Epimorphism: The Duration and Topological Space Looking at the shape of Hsu's works at large, one may portray its spatial structure with terms like holes, aggregating, interior/exterior, stacking, boundary, connectivity, unceasing, compact, and many more, which are not uncommon in depicting Hsu's works. These descriptions lead to my second question about the form of Hsu's works: Is there a new way of interpretation that on the one hand responds to the attributes of their forms, and on the other hand transcends the over-conception of the spatial form? At the same time, can it strictly respond to the mathematical statement and treatment of dimension and space, while remaining a logical and sel f-referential structure? The major reason of emphasizing mathematics here is that, according to the Western history of plastic arts, the origin of shape is rooted in the evolution and development from the perspective of geometry. Whether it is classical geometry, golden ratio from ancient Greece, perspective and vanishing point resulting from projective geometry, sphere and curved geometry, Baroque, or the interaction between special relativity (space-time) and avantgarde art, it can be said that the development of plastic arts' form and its historical transition always include the historical evolution of mathematical space and its trajectory of thoughts. 4 Form is the most fundamental concept. Only in the dimension of physical space can form reside in meaning and spirit. In this connection, it is critical to look into the artworks in front of us, and explore the mathematical sense of spatial attributes and visions embodied in them. This method helps profoundly reveal and unfold possibilities to enrich our language in understanding art forms, and as well, the form related theories in the discipline of artistic creation. It is precisely the spatial thinking in mathematics, a fact of basic composition hidden deep in the magnificent history of plastic arts, that forces us to think whether there, in the discipline of artistic creation after modernism, exists a kind of concept which provides a new or alternative spatial thinking than the space-time continuum in special relativity? 5 One may notice from the history of mathematics that, in the field of spatial thinking, ever since the space-time continuum is proposed in special relativity, only three other theses which make significant visual differences from the understanding of space-time continuum have been proposed: Topology, Fractal and Chaos. It should be noted that the latter two geometries both have topological features, demonstrating a great variation in comparison with the prior, typical geometry. Taking this into account, rather than the geometric shapes directly tackled by fractal geometry and the nonlinear systems examined through chaos theory, what topology 6 dealing with is perhaps the innermost nature of forms, such as the interior, interior point, exterior, exterior point, boundary, boundary point, adherent point, and so on. Instead of form, topology concerns more about the relationship that creates space. Revealing this relationship allows us to look into the intrinsic quality of Hsu's works in a more accurate, more profound manner: The basic nodes antagonize, join, and depart, forming a network of relationship which constitute the entire shape. To briefly paraphrase, Hsu's creation is a series of spatial interactions composed of numerous elements (basic units), rather than barely an expression of three dimensional shapes. It is precisely in these diversified spatial expressions – continuous, compact and connected – that Hsu presents such a sophisticated and poetic series of condensed spatial configuration as his oeuvre. Such a delicate and plural spatial configuration is the epimorphism of sensibility built by the artist's hands. If Hsu's works are regarded as sets of dialectical relationship between space and sensibility, we then must question about the correspondence between monad and epimorphism. In mathematical terms, it refers to the mapping between structures, or say, Morphism. Morphism, in the discipline of mathematics, indicates a kind of mapping which preserves the state between two mathematical structures. Let A and B be two nonempty sets: If any element x in A, according to a certain rule f, always has a one and only corresponding element y in B, then corresponding rule f is regarded as a mapping from A to B. Therefore, if the art pieces are perceived as objects in a topological space, whereas the unique congregation of Hsu's works as a whole is a complete category of topological spaces, it is then considered as a result of simple substances being a sequence of morphism in the duration. Starting from the relationship between monad and the artist's body as well as his intuition, Hsu's process of creation then enters a continuous state in duration, and hence in the duration his consciousness constantly map the monad into one set of relation after another, leading to its extraordinary epimorphism. Stand facing the diverse, divergent spatial configuration constructed by Hsu, one seemingly witness the artist distilling his life philosophy and ideation into materials which grasp every essence he encountered in his life: mountain, ocean, earth, air, or even history, society, culture, affects, among others. Overflowing from the artist's soul and body, they interactively drift into a series of condensed spatial configuration, one after another, seamlessly stacked yet lively poetic. Conclusion Gazing at the artist's work along paths of light, viewers are likely to be overwhelmed by its “sublime”. It is not only about his Sisyphean struggle in endless days and nights, but also how the interior and exterior of spatial configurations condense, connect, and aggregate until they interwoven into a breathtaking ambience beyond words. As if driven by a cosmic configuration analogous to Caleb–Yau manifold, the ballad rumbles on.