Almost Unmeant : GUO Cheng

近乎无意
2020
个展，魔金石空间

展览“近乎无意”囊括了艺术家郭城近年的代表性作品，以及最新创作。在郭城的雕塑与装置作品中，技术始终充当着基本原理的角色，更确切地说，它只是对程序或规律的演绎。在此过程中，技术逻辑被最大程度地简化，人类介入与物质生命之间的更迭以一种朴素的方式显现。这使得科学不再是抽象的原理，而是一种可感知的现实。郭城将技术原理、物质性、自然关系的本质袒露在观者的视野里，所凸显的是对技术决定论和技术价值的质疑。

人工与自然常常相互对立，这里存在的是一种以人类为中心的主体观看方式。在郭城的创作中，自然以物质化、隐喻、伪造的方式出现。我们无法去清晰地界定其中的人与非人，它所提供的是一种试图超越人类纪的视角。混凝土包裹工业原件的系列作品，被郭城命名为《琥珀》。它们并不如琥珀或化石一样是大自然的造物，显然是艺术家制造。新事物产生的两种方式，与“琥珀”在语义和方法上形成了互文，它所指向的问题是我们应该如何看待偶然。无论混凝土的内部是在散发热能，还是在静待时间的风化、侵蚀，从整体论的视角而言，人的能动与自然界的造物早已不可分割。在《临时的小器具》和《抽象神谕生成器》里，辐射粒子的撞击使器具产生了动作。这些漂浮在大气中的粒子时时刻刻包裹着这个星球，我们无法感知、无法预知，但同时也在忽略其存在。它所传递的是偶然与必然之间的悖论。

郭城在创作中将事物的随机转化为一种如实的物质自发性。通过基本规律与技术设定将人的意志与物的属性进行连结，同时在过程中将主动权让渡给物质本身以及观看对象。他或是在自然物的形态中保留人工痕迹，或是以技术手段来伪造自然。这里所隐含的是：什么主导着真与伪、我们如何去界定人工与自然。这是一种对我们如何去看待物质生命的主体视角的诘问。当人的操控、物的本质、自然的法则不再泾渭分明，才能够实现横向的、去人类中心化的观看。

Almost Unmeant
2020
Solo show, Magician Space

The exhibition Almost Unmeant comprises of artist Guo Zheng's most representative works from recent years and the latest. Among his sculptures and installations, the technology always plays the role of basic principle. More precisely, it’s a deduction of the program or rules. In this process, the logic behind the technology has been mostly simplified. The overlap between human intervention and the material life manifests in an austere way. This makes science no longer an abstract principle, but a perceptible reality. By exposing the nature of the technical tenets, materiality, and natural relationships' essence to the viewer, Guo Cheng highlights the skepticism on technological determinism and its values.

Artificiality and nature are often opposed to each other, which is an anthropocentric way of viewing the subject. In Guo Cheng's practice, nature manifests in materialized, metaphorical, and falsified manners. It is impossible to clearly define what is human and what is not, and what it offers is an attempt to look beyond the Anthropocene. The series of concrete-encased industrial parts, which Guo Cheng entitled, Amber, is not the natural creations of amber or fossils, but clearly, made by the artist. The two ways in which new things come into being are semantically and methodologically intertwined with the word ‘amber’, which points to how we should consider fortuity. Regardless of whether the concrete is emitting heat from within or waiting for time to disintegrate and erode, the human agency has long been inseparable from the creation of the natural world from a holistic point of view. In The (temporary) Gadget series and The Abstract Oracle Generator, radiating particles' impact causes the actions of apparatus. These particles floating in the atmosphere envelop the planet at all times, imperceptible and unpredictable, at the same time, whose existence is often ignored. What it conveys is a paradox between fortuity and necessity.

In his practice, Guo Cheng transforms the randomness of things into an actual material spontaneity. Through fundamental laws and technical setups, he connects the human will to objects' properties, ceding agency to the material itself and the viewer in the process. He either preserves artificial traces in the form of natural objects or falsifies nature by technical means. What is implicit here is the question of what governs truth and falsehood, and how do we define the artificial and the natural. It is a subjective interrogation of how we perceive the material life. Only when human manipulation, the nature of things, and nature's laws are no longer distinct can we achieve a transversal, de-anthropocentric view.