緩慢美學與速差政治重探蔡明亮「行者」系列及長時延表演的身體異議

The Aesthetics of Slowness and Politics of Speed Discrepancy: Revisiting Tsai Ming-Liang’s ‘Walker’ series and the Corporal Objections within Long Duration Performance

蔡明亮的「行者」系列無論在電影、劇場表演或當代視覺藝術中都具有指標性意義。不少論者都會聚焦在李康生那頗能突顯時間之政治性意涵的緩行身影，議論其身體性如何引發我們對於日常生活節奏的敏銳覺察，並提供一種足以抵抗當代「競速政體」（dromocracy）及其加速時間暴力的重要美學潛能。不過，當前圍繞「緩慢美學」或「緩慢電影」（aesthetics / cinema of slowness）的論述建構，尚存在若干理論空缺有待梳理；對於緩慢行動之政治性的強調，往往也難擺脫一種關於時間秩序的懷舊鄉愁，因而只是單純將「慢」與「快」對立起來的「緩慢倫理學」，並不足以對當代社會日益強勢的加速度政治及其生命治理技術，提出有力而具體的批判。本文以「行者」系列為起點，但將討論轉移至錄像裝置、身體藝術及表演藝術的思考脈絡，透過探討當代藝術同樣觸及長時延概念的作品案例，對緩慢美學的既有觀點進行適度的修正和改寫。在此，關鍵既不是重回90年代早已脫離現實且過時的「慢活」運動思潮，也不是想像人能夠擺脫各種當代技術介入力量，返回某種身體的「自然模式」；我們真正需要的，是藉由藝術行動引發一系列針對時間的耗費，以及日常性變革的深刻反思。簡言之，構築一種重新掌握時間主權的「速差政治」。

 

Tsai Ming-Liang’s ‘Walker’ series is of iconic significance in the fields of cinema, theatre, and contemporary art. Many scholars focus on the political implications of Lee kang-Shang’s slow-moving body and argue that not only could this corporality lead us to a more insightful awareness of the pace of our everyday life, but also that it has an aesthetic potential that can resist contemporary ‘dromocracy’ and the agression of speedy temporality. However, there are some theoretical gaps in the arguments for this ‘aesthetics of slowness’(or cinema of slowness), and more detail and clarification are needed. IF the political implication of slowness is often reduced to nostalgia for the order of the past, and the value of slowness is simply the opposite of speed in this aesthetics, then it is nothing more than an ‘ethics of slowness.’ In the face of the politics of acceleration and its increasingly dominant technologies of biopolitical governmental control, the aesthetics of slowness will not offer any significant criticism. This paper takes the "Walker" series as a starting point, but shifts discussion to the context of video installation, body art and theatrical performance, while constructing a new version of the aesthetics of slowness by exploring examples of contemporary art that also engage with the concept of long duration. What is at stake here, however, is not a restatement of the outmoded and unrealistic Downshifting or Slow Movement in the 90s, nor a ‘return to nature’ which ignores the technological advances of our time. What we need here is a sort of art activism that can give rise to profound reflection on the transformation of everyday life and the passing of time. In short, what is needed is a “politics of different speeds” in order to reclaim our sovereignty over time.