诺亚花园

朱青生

《诺亚花园》是对现代人类面临知识和信息的洪水淹没自身之时，自我拯救的试验。这次渡过洪水延续生存所乘坐的，不再是一叶方舟（Noah's Ark），而是一个花园。花园中没有人，而只有供给人的参与和关注的装置。花园中也没有洁净或不洁净的鸟兽，而只有图像和视觉标本。花园中满是植物和绿地。已经没有一只鸽子可以放飞到洪水之上带来陆地的消息，因为陆地被包裹在花园之中，在人类自己创造的知识与信息的滔滔洪水上渡过。它将驶向何处？不得而知。

所以，邓国源的《诺亚花园》具有一种特别的过渡性质。这种过渡是人类现代继续生存的实验。

会当第四次工业革命发生之时，普遍出现了一种根本的焦虑。一方面在虚拟现实的发展中，人们逐步地失去了肉身与真实的宇宙和物质世界之间的关联，慢慢变成在虚拟的感觉中营造自己的生活、想象和心情的一种异化的动物，这种情况正随着第四次工业革命普遍深入而日益严重。另一方面，当人们在现代化发生之初，亦即第一次工业化发生的时候，就已经意识到人自我被自己生产的产品（物）所异化，随即产生了反抗、批判的态度，并努力寻找出路。那么到了今天，这种异化不仅变得严重，而且已经到了直接危及到人的基本伦理和肉身生存（作为一个真实的自然人来生存）的关键时刻。第四次工业革命将知识更快地转变成技术，而技术又促进对知识的进一步精密而扩大的再生产，从而形成更大的知识和信息的海洋，其中洪水滔滔，个人日益渺小，精神涣散。这个方舟承载着这样一种对人的存在能否延续的追问：这一辈人是否会是人的最后的孓遗？未来的人类是否能够渡过知识的洪水继续作为一个人生存下去？作为一个真实的人生存下去？作为一个完整的人生存下去？这个作品的当代性就从这些实验和追问中生长出来。

在作品中，邓国源和很多有相同的担忧和意识的艺术家似乎选择了一条同样的道路，就是在一个工业生产出来的封闭空间中营造一块我们仅存的地方，以作为一个人的文化记忆。这种遥远的记忆是人在最初从猿进化到人的过程中所依赖的森林，而花园则是在蛮荒的丛林里用文明围合的家园。在对波斯人的古代语言考证中可以发现，什么叫“天堂”？“天堂”就是被围起来的环境，就是一个被人所围合的天地，在那里万物生长，人类曾经保持着与物质环境和真实世界之间的和谐关系，与所有的花草和禽兽亲近，在其中人性完整，五觉俱全，包含着自然的触觉、味觉、嗅觉、听觉和视觉，而天堂的所有的这一切特征，最终都把人作为一个与自然相通的凝聚和通道。因此，《诺亚花园》实际上是对人类失去天堂的追忆的又一次象征和再一次解释。

但是，邓国源和很多有相同的担忧和意识的艺术家似乎选择了一条不同的道路，就是在这个时代，当我们走进这个花园，发现四周的镜像被很多的灯照耀着。照耀在镜像中间幻化成一种反复的、无止境的映照，好像是在提醒我们，我们生存的处境是如何的艰难，又是如何的诡异，而这种艰难而诡异的生存被作品表现得与虚拟世界既有关系，好像是第四次工业革命的不可回避的结果，又脱离了关系，在其中我们真的遇到了树石，嗅到了香气，感受到了我们日常忽视然而却被精彩陈列的良辰美景。到底我们是应该拒绝这种亦真亦假的处境，还是应该去参与它？当人们置身于此中的时候，这样的一种问题就会生出截然不同的答案，每个人不得不回答，而每个人的回答又不知如何与他人交流、分享？深刻的当代艺术的追问和当代批判的意义就在作品中显示出来。当代艺术的批判已经不仅仅是批判现实社会的某个具体问题，而是批判整个人类所遭遇的更大的现实处境，因为里面蕴含着对生存的隐患，却又挣扎出一丝希望。这件作品，恰恰把希望放置在对隐患的反省中，灿烂又莫名其妙。

此时，《诺亚花园》虽然是一个花园，但它却是在知识造成的大洪水中的一叶更大的“方舟”。邓国源在《诺亚花园》中为人类渡过这次大洪水实验着各种可能性。这种未来创造的可能性，既是虚拟世界和人类希望的切口，也是为了寻找和创建在面对现代技术和现代知识的异化所造成的困境中返回到自然、返回到真实、返回到肉身、返回到人与人之间亲近而奇妙的关系的各种道路。当年在诺亚的方舟上放飞的第一只鸽子衔着橄榄枝回到诺亚的身边，而今天诺亚的花园里设置的似乎是放逐与回归的一来一回的通道，在工业革命和自我生存的十字路口，人在成为一种新人，这个人既不同于一个普通的生产者，也不同于一个对社会失落、怨艾、或无端激烈对抗又无所事事的幻想者，而是既有实践的能力，又有精密的计划，而且他们的理想永远在打开，经过《诺亚花园》的通路，他们自己进入精神的“天堂”。所以在《诺亚花园》里没有明确的观念意识，只有创造和实验，在其中不加控制和阻碍，从而使得通路宽阔，交错，并引发所有人可以在上面行走、思考。能够通过这条通道找到自我道路的人，或许就是艺术家，就可以成为对未来社会的新人。

邓国源正带领未来的一群人走进这一次过渡。

Noah’s Garden

LaoZhu

Noah’s Garden is an experiment, intended to examine if modern people can save themselves after being inundated with the flood of knowledge and information. However, we are traversing this flood with Noah’s Garden, not Noah's Ark. There is no one in the garden, only an installation with which people can engage. There are no clean or unclean birds or beasts in the garden; there are only images and visual specimens. The garden is filled with plants and grasses, and there is no dove to fly across the flood bringing news of the land, because the land is enveloped in the garden. We are traversing the flood of knowledge and information that humanity has created. Where are we going? We don’t know.

Deng Guoyuan’s Noah’s Garden has a unique transitional quality; it is an experiment in the continuing existence of humanity in modern times.  

A fundamental anxiety has emerged with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. With the development of virtual reality, people have gradually lost the connection between human body and the universe, as well as that between the human body and the material world. Human beings have slowly become alienated animals that create their own lives, fantasies, and moods in a state of fabricated emotion. This situation becomes even more serious with the progress of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. When modernization and the First Industrial Revolution were taking place, people realized that they had been alienated from the products they were making, which immediately fostered an antagonistic, critical attitude and the desire to find an outlet. This alienation is even more intense today. It directly threatens our basic ethics and physical existence (existence as a true natural person). The Fourth Industrial Revolution has transformed knowledge into technology at a faster speed. And technology has facilitated the precise and extended reproduction of knowledge, thereby forming a larger sea of knowledge and information. As the flood spreads, humans become insignificant and their spirits wither. Thus, the presence of the Ark questions whether humans can continue to exist. Is this the last generation of human beings? In the future, will we be able to traverse the flood of knowledge and continue to live as people? As real people? As complete individuals? These experiments and inquiries are what make this work contemporary.

In the work, Deng Guoyuan and many artists with similar worries and ideas seem to have chosen the same path, which is to create a place within an industrially-produced, closed space that functions as one’s cultural memory. This distant memory comes from the forests on which humanity relied, where apes evolved into humans. The garden has become a home that man defines through civilization, a space different from the jungle. When we look to ancient Persians, we discover what paradise is. Originally, “paradise” meant an enclosed environment, a universe walled off by man. In this walled space, animals flourished and humanity retained a harmonious relationship with the material environment and the real world, staying close with flowers and plants, birds and beasts. Here, human nature, with the five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight, is complete; with these traits of paradise, humans have become the concentration of and the vehicle for connections with nature. Thus, Noah’s Garden is actually another symbol and another explanation of human beings’ recollection of the paradise that it has lost.

However, Deng Guoyuan has actually chosen a path different from many artists with similar worries and ideas; when we walk into the garden, we will discover that the mirror images on all sides are illuminated by numerous lights. In the mirrors, the lights magically become a source of endlessly repeated brilliance, reminding us of how difficult and strange our lives are. In this work, these difficult and strange lives are shown to be related to a virtual world, which seems to be the unavoidable result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the loosening of relationships. In this work, these difficult and strange lives are shown to be related to a virtual world, which seems to be the unavoidable result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Should we reject this real yet illusory scene, or should we participate in it? When people are placed within the garden, this question could produce entirely different answers; everyone has to face the question, but no one knows how to communicate that answer or to share it with others. Profound inquiries of contemporary art and the meaning of contemporary art criticism are presented in this work.    Criticisms presented by contemporary art are not merely the criticisms of specific issues within our society; they are the criticisms of the real situations in which all of humanity finds itself. These criticisms address the emergencies of our present, while beholding a glimmer of hope. This work places hope alongside reflections of contemporary emergencies. The result is full of brilliance yet baffling.

Although Noah’s Garden is a garden, it represents an even larger Ark floating on the flood of knowledge. In Noah’s Garden, Deng Guoyuan experiments with various possibilities for humans crossing this massive flood, and the possibilities created in the future are entrances to fictitious worlds and human hope. When we confront the predicaments created by the alienation of modern technologies and modern knowledge, we seek out and create paths that could return us to nature, to truth, to the physical body, and to the intimate and marvelous relationships between people. In the original story, the dove holding an olive branch in its mouth returned to Noah and the Ark, and today, Noah’s garden creates a path for both banishment and return. At the intersection of the Industrial Revolution and individual existence, we are becoming new people. These new people are different from ordinary producers or dreamers who idle away their time in loss, resentment, or intense resistance to society; since they have practical skills and a precise plan, their ideals are always expanding. In following the path indicated by Noah’s Garden, these people enter into a spiritual “paradise.” In Noah’s Garden, there is no explicit concept; there is only creativity and experimentation that is no longer controlled or hindered. It makes the paths wide and intersecting, giving everyone a place to walk and think. The people who can find their way to these paths may be artists, who may become the new people of a future society.

Deng Guoyuan is leading a group of people to make this transition.