Has “Safety” become nihilistic? 
(Text and interview by ARTSHARD)

Q: Looking at the structural distribution of your works installed at KWM Art Center, Wyoming Project, and the Bunker, where each project seems to occupy the top, middle and bottom respectively, what are your thoughts on the relationship among them? 

Zhang Ding: There is definitely a vision for placing the various layers of “Safe House” at the KMW Art Center, Wyoming Project, and the Bunker. In terms of the works 'assignment to different venues, what’s presented at KWM Art Center constitutes the relatively realistic component, with an illusory twist rooted in the very notion of realism; while the works at Wyoming Project releases a kind of dark humor; and at the Bunker, “safety” becomes something nihilistic. In fact, I’ve installed the works at these three venues according to what you referred to as a structural order, in other words, top, middle, and bottom. Or even from a literal sense, I’ve appropriated various hardware and facilities from the public squares in building these structures, and all of the works at these three venues are related to this component in one way or another. I treated the space at the KWM Art Center as an actual site that consists of three rhythms: the eyeball camera installed on public squares, audio, and lighting. The exhibition space was entirely dark except the one beam of light; the two pillars of speakers are commonly found on the sides of any public square, have been transplanted into space; and the sound at the exhibition space was a variation of a march that was translated into a nocturne composition. The works displayed at Wyoming Project may seem irrelevant to the previous venue, yet they took on the perspective of the "observer" behind the cameras on the public square at the KWM Art Center, hidden in a black metal box.  

Q: What does this three-part imply in terms of the conceptual differences on “safety”? 

Zhang Ding: All three parts are related to the system of security, while every part has its utilitarian value. Historically speaking, this hardware and facilities on public squares were formerly on site lighting devices, which have now assumed the dual functions of illumination and surveillance for security. Among the works in these three venues, many elements found in the public sphere have been magnified, which would be otherwise difficult for the viewer to make associations among them. The KWM Art Center and Wyoming Project focus on the external spheres, while the Bunker directs the viewer’s attention to his/her internal sense of safety, which becomes nihilistic when one comes to realize it’s unfound. For this reason, I set up the entire space engulfed in whiteness at the Bunker under this intense lighting. Once the viewers walk into it, there would be an immediate discomfort from its blinding environment. The sound one hears throughout the space is similar to what's heard in space, with the addition of the tonal piano, that imminently tunes the viewer in certain human sensibilities.

Q: Given the visual experience at the Bunker, one is reminded of a statement found in the exhibition intro, “Once we achieve the absolute seclusion, would we still need a sense of security?” How would you interpret this? 

Zhang Ding: Although the exhibition is entitled, “Safe House”, it's not my intention to purposefully magnify this very object, in fact, what I would actually hope to address is the subject of “safety”. “House” is only the vehicle through which the works could be executed. 

In plain language, as a visual artist, most of my works are inclined to generate an experience. For this project, I’ve presented three tiers of this notion: one, realistic; two, a combination of the figurative and abstract on the basis of reality; and three, in an entirely abstract sense. Speaking of the relationship between isolation and safety, if one is in an interrogation room, one is often in a nihilistic state, and would have lost the so-called ability to think. I think, as long as such reality does not happen to me, safety and surveillance would be irrelevant to me. However, once it occurs, then one has to think about it.

As with the understanding of safety, we can take The Force and the villains in “Star Wars” as an example, The Force symbolizes safety, while the villains the unsafe. But if we look at Jedi, once he lost The Force, he became fearful and insecure. On the contrary, once the force returned, there was nothing for him to fear. The Force is something fundamental for a person.  

When I am conceiving this project for these three venues, I imagined them as alternative “spaces” that differentiate from reality. And I have placed the works according to their respective existing limitations. And I hope others would perceive what I consider as the imagined “space”. For someone who frequents the Bunker often, he/she would realize the drastic difference from his/her previous experiences, that each section has been installed with six 6000K lights, so the lighting has wiped out the entire space. 

Q: Can you elaborate on your intention for creating this kind of dissonance?

Zhang Ding: I think this kind of blinding lights accompanied by the audio system would blend the viewer into this environment. I have accorded the five sections of the Bunker to the five tonal ranges: upon entering the first section, you would hear a relatively complete tonal range, and as you move forward into the space, the ranges would diminish until the sound becomes a white noise at the last section, meanwhile the layers of light remain constant. 

Q: Usually when people are confronted with the subject of "safety", it is not common to deconstruct this notion into spatial, pictorial, psychological components, but with the works you have presented at these three venues, it’s as if our senses, vision or even speculation about the notions of “safety” have been carefully parsed. Would you consider this kind of sensibility a product of enhancing the awareness of safety? 

Zhang Ding: In the course of making these works, I start with an object and then let the deconstruction process begin. From the KWM Art Center to the Bunker, I’ve adopted relatively common objects. For example, the lights installed at the Bunker are in fact the low-frequency electrode-less lamps found on public squares, and these facts were verified when I did research for this project. During the systematic period of research for this project, I have also looked up some of the earliest notions of the “safe house”, including looking up films related to this subject. In our early phase of designing the work, I’ve even borrowed the color scheme on the logo of the National Security Organization, which includes all the colors that are related to safety, and I wanted to translate them into the visual system for this work. Then I realized, I shouldn’t adopt this approach, because it would easily fall into a kind of self-fulfilling practice, for which I would have only appropriated its visual language. But these works are not meant to reproduce reality, because reproduction often has a long way from your imagination.  

For the KMW Art Center, I planned it according to the notion of a public square. I looked up the music of certain marches, and then made variations of the original scores by adding on modular electronic music, and turned it into a nocturne. I called the place Black Square - a Prelude to Black Square, for which I am not emphasizing on the notion of the "safe house". The Bunker is the most practical space that fully fulfills its utilitarian purpose, for which I did not change the properties of the light. Once they were writ large, they resonated with the physical conditions of this unique space. 

Q: If we were to discuss the audio component of these works among these three venues, how were they produced? 

Zhang Ding: For the piece at the KMW Art Center, I had first collected a number of marches. I then used hardware modules to generate the electronic component in a relatively lower tonal range. The sound for the Bunker was a recording I made from playing three simple notes on the piano in my studio and then synthesized them electronically into an authentic worldly noise between a high and low frequencies range. In which, the piano offered the potential of easily offering the viewer a sentimental or even specific feeling that is replete of humanistic imaginations. 

Translator: Fiona Hexiao

“安全”变成了一种虚无主义的东西

艺术碎片对谈张鼎 Q=艺术碎片 

Q：从金杜艺术中心、怀俄明计划、掩体空间的空间结构来看，它们确实形成了上、中、下的梯形关系，对此关系你是如何考虑的？

张鼎：在金杜艺术中心、怀俄明计划、掩体空间三个空间共同呈现的展览“安全屋” ，是有一种在空间层次上的考虑。如果按照作品的结构来看：在金杜艺术中心的作品相对现实主义一点，在现实中又有虚幻的元素；而在怀俄明计划中的作品是有一些黑色幽默的感觉；再到掩体空间，“安全”就变成了一种虚无主义的东西。并且我确实按照这三个空间上、中、下依次的结构进行设置。其实直观来看，我挪用了通常我们在广场上看到的公共硬件设施的元素来做这个结构，三个空间中的作品都和这一元素相关。我把金杜艺术中心这个很现实的现场，分成了三个节奏：广场公共硬件设施上的眼球摄像头、声音以及灯。整个展览空间是黑色的，有一束光；之前在广场公共硬件设施两侧的两个柱体音响，被我放置在了空间的两侧；展场的声音是我将一个进行曲变奏做成了一个催眠曲。看似在怀俄明计划中的作品与这些元素不那么相关，但其作品犹如在金杜广场公共硬件设施上面的摄像头背后的那个“观看者”，暗藏在一个黑铁盒子里。

Q：那这三部分所引申出的涉及“安全”的观念有什么区别？

张鼎：这三部分都和安全系统有关，但又有实用价值。从广场公共硬件设施的历史来讲，它以前只是广场的照明系统，但现在它既变成了一个照明系统，又是一个安全的监控系统。在这三个空间的作品中，很多元素都被放大了，如果不放大的话，观众是很难去理解空间彼此之间的关系的。金杜艺术中心和怀俄明计划更像是一个外部的空间，掩体则想回到了一个自己内心的安全意识层面，是虚无的，找不到那个所谓的安全感。所以我把掩体空间做成了一个完全纯白的空间，而且是被强光聚焦的，当观众进入之后，会有一种白的不适应感。空间中的声音有点像是宇宙空间中的声音，又加入了一点点钢琴的音色，它能一下把你拉回到人的情感层面。

Q：从掩体空间的视觉感受，能联想到展览介绍中的一句话，“如果我们能够达到一种绝对的封闭，那谁又需要什么安全感呢？”对此你是怎么理解的？

张鼎：虽然展览写了“安全屋”这个标题，但我并没有想去刻意地放大它，其实我更想谈的是“安全”这个问题。“屋”只是指向最后作品所要落实到的形态。

如果庸俗一点讲，我是一个特别视觉型的艺术家，大多作品偏向很强的感受性。我这次表达了三个层面：第一，是现实的层面；第二，是在现实之后产生的具象和抽象的结合；第三，是完全把它抽象化。说到封闭和安全的关系，如果在一个审讯室里面，人的状态就是一种很虚无的情形，他已经丧失了所谓的思考。我觉得，当所有的现实没有落到我身上的时候，安全以及那个监控和我是没有关系的，但有一天这件事发生在我身上时，你才会去思考它。

对于安全的理解，我们可以拿《星球大战》中原力和邪恶的关系来举个例子，原力就是安全的，邪恶的东西就是不安全的。如果你看《星球大战》中的绝地武士，他丧失原力后就会非常恐惧，没有安全感，当他的原力开始增加的时候，对他来说一切的东西就不会恐惧了。原力是一个人比较根本的东西。

我在使用这三个空间时，我会把它们想象成另外一种“空间”，它区别于现实。我只是把作品按照这三个空间现有的局限性结构去放置，我觉得别人应该看到的是我所认为的那个想象“空间”。如果人们经常去掩体空间的话，会觉得这一次的反差会很大，每个分隔的空间中有六盏大灯，6000K的正白光把整个空间做白。

Q：那你能不能聊聊制造这种反差性的用意？

张鼎：我觉得这种白色的光，加上声音，能把进入的观众融化在一起。掩体空间有五个空间，分别对应的是五个声部：在一进掩体的第一个空间，你会听到一个相对完整的声部，逐渐往其他空间走，其声部会不断递减，直到第五个空间完全变成白色噪音，而光的层次不会变。

Q：通常人们面对“安全”这个问题时，并不会把它分解成空间、图像、心理等多个层次去想，但透过你这三个空间的作品，仿佛把我们对“安全”的感觉、观看，甚至是猜测分离开来了，那你认为这种心理是不是大家在不断强化安全意识时所存在的心理？

张鼎：我在做这些作品时，就是先拿到一个物，然后开始解构它。从金杜艺术中心到掩体空间，我都用了比较实际的东西，掩体中的灯就是实际意义上广场公共硬件设施上面低频无极灯，这些都是我在做资料时查过的。我在做这些研究性的工作时，还查了一些最早和安全屋有关系的概念，包括去找一些和安全屋有关的电影，先去系统性的了解。甚至我们在做最初的设计时，也把各国安全机构的Logo的色系拿了出来，还包括中国与安全相关的色系，把几个色系变成关于我创作的整套视觉系统。然而，我发现这个事情不能这么去做，这样容易变得没有了自我语言，而只是借用了现实的语言。但这些作品并不是在复制现实，复制会和你想象中的东西离的很远。

金杜艺术中心，我是按照一个广场的概念去做的。我想找一些进行曲，去变奏解构它们，再加上用硬件模块做的电子声音，去做一首催眠曲。我把广场叫做黑方块——黑色方块序曲，我并没有强调“安全屋”这个概念。掩体是在功能上最现实主义的作品，是真正现实中功能性的运用，我没用改变灯的属性。当它被放大以后，又应对了掩体那样一个特殊的空间。

Q：如果具体谈到这几部分作品中的声音时，它们是如何制作合成的？

张鼎：在金杜艺术中心的作品，先采集了一部分我所需要的进行曲的声音，再用硬件模块生成另外一部分电子声音，相对比较偏低音区；掩体空间中声音是我自己在工作室中弹了三个非常简单的钢琴旋律，它是在硬件模块生成的电子声音的整个高频和低频的噪音之间产生的一个特别纯粹的人间的声音，钢琴还是很容易给你带来一个很情绪性的、场景性的感觉，充满了人性的声音。

翻译：贺 潇

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