Motion Perpetual – The Early Works of Christopher Ku
The Interview with Christopher Ku
Q (Interviewer): The early 1990s was a turning point in your artistic style for you, could you tell us how the transition happened?
Ku: Thinking back to my second and third year as an undergraduate student at the Royal College of Art, I used to change my mind a lot whilst creating, so my paintings were always either repainted, edited, or redrawn. During the processes of modification, it often leads to an effect where the underlying image is shown through. It’s like a ‘typo’, you want to erase it and rewrite it again, yet you are unable to get rid of the existing traces. It was around 1985 when this problem with leftover images started appearing. At first, I thought this was not a side-effect that I wanted to keep, as it would affect the finish of the picture, so I didn’t purposefully [begin to] use superimposition in my creations.
And because I use, bitumen, to paint, it is more difficult to completely modify the original image. There were often shadow images within my painting, some galleries also questioned about this initially, but I didn't pay them much attention to it at the time. Speaking of bitumen, in the UK paint were very expensive back then, and my painting were very large, most of them were 7’ by 9’ (just small enough to fit into a van.) Seeing that I needed to use a lot of paint, I used anything at home that can be fashioned to paint, and using cheap bitumen, instead of dark brown or black paint, was something that happened to have saved me a lot of money in painting. I only found out later that bitumen was commonly used in classical paintings.
Q: How did the superimposition in your paintings affect the expression of your thoughts?
Ku: My early works didn’t have a fixed concept when I began to paint them, I only had a vague idea initially, but I tend to ‘think on the fly’ [as I paint]. Creating whilst only having a vague concept has the advantage that it allows me to start painting without having a pre-existing agenda. Whilst painting, I incorporate mistakes into my work. And during revisions, I can directly deal with the situation on the canvas, allowing me to edit as needed, based on the topic of what I have painted, and letting me think about questions at the same time.
Q: What kind of questions do you thinking about?
Ku: The questions I think about as I create don’t always relate to the paintings themselves directly, they could include the exploration of the metaphysical realm, or pondering the meaning of life, or maybe it’s questioning our history and institutions, or how to rationalise and accept the world, which expects us to not think and to only live for the sake of existence. I tend to reflect on these issues on the canvas [as I paint].
Around 1992, I decided to stop painting huge objects on the canvas, instead, my style started to leave the world of realism and entered a metaphysical creative style. At the time, I realised that many things and concepts cannot be understood through the real world, and so I started exploring psychology and life itself, through creation.
As a result, since the 1990s, the themes, images, and even the composition of my creations have undergone significant changes. When my creation officially ‘entered’ an experience of the spirituality, the shadow images that I once saw as a blemish instead brought a hazy sense of space [for my painting]. By using the optical illusion of overlapping images, and by using a thin coating to enhance the effect of transposition and superimposition, it creates an overlap of the real, and spiritual worlds. Symbols started to appear, because its function is like the formulative process of mathematical formulas, which is used to guide the viewer into the space in which I created, and it generates a stronger sense of exploration. The slender, fragmented, yet opaque symbols, are different from the large objects of my earlier works, the floating symbols help to reveal the images behind the screen through the crevices and creaks within the paintings, forming a stronger sense of space. The change in my painting style opened up for me, new dimensions and spaces, and this kind of visual experience of using overlapping images was not common at the time.
Q: The impact of modern science and technology on people has been far more profound than in any previous eras. The way we see now is largely influenced by second-hand images such as photos, videos, or online images. To what extent is your overlapping technique related to the culture produced by the New Digital Age?
Ku: Beginning from myself as a starting point, I try to understand time, space, and existence. This is different from using our experiences of systems, instruments, science or mathematics and others, to observe the essence of life itself. Images, photography, and videos provide observations that correspond to reality. As human cognition, emotion, and perception of reality itself are more and moreincreasingly, processed through a lens of digital information and programmes, these are systematically replacing the experience of human and nature. Should artificial intelligence replace Human’s perceptive ability to think and to discord on a spiritual level, humanity as a community in the future will be replaced by just streams of data.
During the millions of years of human evolution, generations after generations from birth to death, human beings have continuously passed on and innovated on the wisdom of their forebearers, and passing their experiences down, all the way until the current era of rapid technological advancement. Humans developed big data despite being inferior to artificial intelligence which we [have also] created, meanwhile, this development of artificial intelligence is replacing the causal relationship between the labour and the capital. This is bringing about changes in social phenomena, and the relationship between people and objects. The future development of human civilisation and the meaning and direction of our coexistence are thus, also affected; however, this causal effect has not yet seemed to reach the public cognition, who have yet to find this problematic relationship serious enough to debate the source of the issue, and to find a solution to resolve [the conflict].
Thought are not tools. Humans create products that help the development of civilisation and improving life as a result. The pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty in art during different eras has helped to improve our thinking and culture. This is not uncommon throughout history. Creation is the ‘cream of the crop’ of human culture, and when you base artistic creation from a societal state that is shaped by artificial intelligence, you will only twist what pushes human cultural development, into something that causes the doom of humankind.
The reason why the essence of art differs from high-tech products is that art, is created by the thought of human, and thought itself, is innate within human. Whereas the products of high technology cannot make itself more original than it already is.
The average person understands time, and space as separate things. Whilst the past, the present, and the future do not all occur at the same moment, they do exist in a continuum within the same space. The past ‘me’ is also the present ‘me’, and the present ‘me’ will become the future ‘me’. All experiences are interwoven into our thoughts. Although these experiences cannot happen at the same time, they do form our consciousness. The overlapping of images in the painting travels through our memory in the blink of an eye, and the resultant images within the multidimensional realm are combined, to form a new image in our mind, yet instead of an optical effect which could be seen within the span of a second, rather, it is creating a scenario which combines our memory and our movement of thought as the image is being taken in. Just as we focus on anything, what we focus on, is the sharpest, and clearest point, in that moment, everything else that is out of focus are blurred.
The connection between time and space is an instinct outside of our consciousness, but the overlapping spaces reproduced by imagination, and memory could describe in more details, the vastness of life, and the universe, than what could be seen with the naked eye. Looking outwards, [what we see,] is a physical, and material world, and the inner mechanism, and the thought of human beings are like the ‘crystallisation’ of all things within that universe.
In the end, we must be able to forgo our [inner] ‘selves’ before we can grasp things and concepts beyond our ego. The vastness of life, and of the universe are not to be comprehended within our daily lives. There will be paradoxes, but only once you have understood, will your spirit transcend.
《動念·谷敏昭早期作品展》藝術家訪談
Q：90年代初對你來說是一個藝術風格的轉捩點，可否講述一下轉變是如何發生？
A：回想起這是我在藝術學院修讀本科我第二、第三年，由於我很常在創作的過程中改變主意，畫作常被我重覆塗抹、刪改、重畫，在不斷修改畫作的過程中，畫面經常透出底層圖像的效果，這好比錯別字，想擦掉重寫，卻擦不掉既有的痕跡，這是約在1985年開始出現這殘影的問題，初時這不是我想保留的效果，因為這會影響畫面完成度，故此我並未有刻意使用重影的效果創作。
而因為我使用瀝青作畫，因而更難徹底修改原先的圖象。畫作出現疊影，也有畫廊曾對此表示質疑，但當時我並未有多加理會。提到瀝青，當時英國顏料昂貴，而我的畫作的尺幅很大，絕大部份畫作有7 x 9呎大（這剛好能夠進入貨車），因而需要用上許多顏料，家中有適合的剩餘物都會被我用以作畫，而採用價格便宜的瀝青取代深棕色、黑色，正好為我節省不少創作成本，我亦在後來才得知這是古典畫常用到的顏料。
Q：畫作上的透疊效果對你思想表達有何作用？
A：早期作品非有固定概念去畫，開始時只有較模糊的概念，但我傾向在畫面上進行思索。模糊的影像處理有一好處，這讓我在開始作畫時無需帶有預設固有觀念，在作畫過程中容許意外發生，在不斷修改的過程中，我可以直接應對畫面上的狀況，因應題材所需在創作時同步思考問題。
Q：思考甚麼樣的問題？
A：我在創作時思考的問題或許與畫面無直接關係，議題可涉及形而上領域的探索，對生命意義的追尋、或是對歷史和制度的質問，或是如何理解和接受世界要我們不需思考，只需存活。我傾向畫面上反思這些問題。
直到1992年，我開始棄用過往龐大體積的物像於畫面中，取而代之，我的風格離開實物世界而進入形而上的創作模式，其時我意識到，很多事理並不能透過現實世界理解，因而透過創作進入對精神性和對生命的探索。
以致於90年代起，我創作的主題、意象，甚至構圖都隨之出現顯著的變化。當我的創作正式進入一種靈性體驗，當初被我視為瑕疵的殘影問題，反而帶來朦朧的空間感。我把重疊影象帶來的視錯覺加以利用，以透薄的塗層加強透疊和重影的效果，把現實和靈性空間的重疊。開始有符號的出現，是因為它的作用恰似數學公式的形成過程，用以帶領觀者進入我創造的空間，產生更強烈的探索意識。而纖幼、零碎而輕巧的符號有別於先前的龐大物象，飄浮的符號更有助於縫隙間透出畫面後方的影像，形成更強的空間感。繪畫風格的轉變為我打開新的領域和空間，這種透疊的視覺經驗在當時的發展並不常見。
Q：近代科學和科技儀器對人的影響遠比過往任何一個時代來得深遠，我們當代的觀看經驗很大程度上受二手影像如照片、錄像、或網絡圖像所影響，而你畫作中透疊的視覺效果和現今信息時代所產生的文化有多大聯繫？
A：我從自身為出發點，嘗試理解時間、空間及存在，有別於從制度、儀器、科學、數學等經驗去觀照生命本質，影像、攝影、錄像提供對應於現實的觀照，由於人類的認知、情感、感觀的本體缺席在梳理過程中被訊息和程式代入，進而系統化地取代人與自然的體驗。人類的感知能力從思維、辯証和精神層面上倘若被程式化之人工智能取而代之，人類未來發展之共同體隨之將被數據所取代。
人類在數百萬年的演變過程中，世世代代從出生到死亡，不斷更新前人的智慧和把經驗承傳，延續至當今科技發展迅速的年代，人以次於人工智能狀態下過度發展大數據智能，人工智能的發展取代勞動與資本階級互動之因果關係，這種改變帶來社會現象及人與物的關係變遷，在當今人類未來發展以及共存之意義及方向也因而被影響，這因果關係似乎未在大眾認知中嚴肅地去找出問題根源和解決方法。
思想不是工具，人類創造有助文明發展的產物，讓生活得以改善，藝術對真、善、美的追求在不同時代有助提升人類思想文化，這在歷史中屢見不鮮。創作是人類文化之昇華，而將被人工智能塑形之社會狀態化為藝術創作，只會讓人類文化發展的推動淪為人類厄運之制成品。
藝術本質與高科技產品之所以不同，是因為藝術是由人類思想創造出來的，而思想是與生俱來，但高科技產品之產出無法更新其自身的原創性。
一般人把時間和空間理解為不同的事物。過去、現在、未來雖非在同一刻發生，但它們卻處於同一空間而延續，過去的我是現在的我，而現在的我將成為未來的我，一切經驗在相互交織而成為思想。經驗無法在同一刻發生，但卻形成我們的意識，畫作中重疊的意象在一秒的記憶中穿梭，所產生的意景在多元空間中聯合想像而成的圖像，並非一秒間所見的視覺效果，而是結合記憶及思想動念的情景。如同我們專注凝視任何一件事物，我們看到的焦點是最清晰的一點，但在同一秒，其他在焦點以外的事物是模糊不清的。
時間與空間的連接是我們意識之外的本能，但經想像及記憶重現的重疊空間更能仔細描述生命及宇宙的龐大，而非肉眼所見之物。對外觀望的是一個物理和物質的世界，人的內在機制和思想則是宇宙萬物的結晶。
最後要做到沒有自我才可做到領悟自我以外的事物，生命和宇宙的龐大不是日常中可領悟的，矛盾會有的，但當理解後精神才會昇華。
CHRISTOPHER KU