Reviews & Articles

圖片說明Captions:

1. 陳沁昕的裝置作品《Entanglement》（纏結），2018年（圖片由藝術家提供） Detail of Tap Chan’s Entanglement installation, 2018 (image courtesy of the artist)

2. 磅巷的樓梯，大雨時像瀑布一樣，2018年8月20日（攝影：約翰百德）Pound Lane’s flooded waterfall-like staircases, 20 August 2018 (photograph : John Batten)





(Please scroll down for English version)

炎夏的幾個晚上，基於我嫌棄冷氣，特意抖出簡單的床鋪，拿到上環家中的天台享受夜空，靜看頭上瞬間萬變的浮雲。第二天，我會被鳥語或清早的潮濕霧氣喚醒，後者偶爾會化身雨霧，令我不得不倉皇返回室內。其他看到我家天台的住戶，一定會覺得我穿著普通但仍衣半蔽體地在家中露宿的畫面相當奇怪。旁觀者會較喜歡在清早看到身手矯健的年輕人在練瑜伽，但我也可能被原諒，說到底，我那沉睡的身體，怎說也勝過上環嘈雜的天台燒烤聚會，它們一般都由傍晚開始，最初是禮貌地小聲對話，到了半時演變成喧鬧的交談，到清晨再聽到不成調的歌聲。

要形容我的天台，最佳的用語或許會是「令人感到安慰」。我在這裡可遠眺卜公花園的盎然綠意，又不會被中環的燈光炫目。這是香港一個特別寧靜的小區；我所住的街道是「倔頭路」，沒有車輛經過，單位背後的「樓梯街」更只供行人使用。天台晚上的空氣，特別是經常兩面流動的清風，是享受炎夏晚上的最佳地點。即使香港八月的炎熱與潮濕會迫使你開動，我卻不怎喜歡冷氣。

近日，社會上興起了一股本能式的反應熱潮，大呼減少使用塑膠飲管，但其實對環境傷害更大，令全球暖化與碳排放加劇的元凶，包括冷氣，人們卻沒有減少使用，更幾乎不經思索地便會使用。冷氣更是周而復始的禍害：我們越覺得熱，所用的冷氣便越多，結果室外氣溫也相應升高，我們會覺得更熱……

居港的首七年，我家沒有冷氣。那時候，氣候變化仍是聞所未聞的概念，我也不是為了人人的利他原因才沒有使用冷氣。簡單說，我只是決定忍受炎夏的熱力，是種個人的執著，要「受苦」而不要「屈服」於需要冷氣。

弗洛伊德也許能提出更深入的潛意識解說，但我自幼接受教會教育，每星期參加區內的主日學，成長階段顯然讓我習染了很多基督徒的罪惡感。那是唯一可以解釋我為什麼通常會取難捨易的原因。因此，我在天台睡覺。儘管系統性的改變需要由改變個人習慣做起，我並不是嘗試透過一己之力，少用一部冷氣機來拯救地球。不，我是與生俱來的認為自己不應該享受太舒服的生活，而坐言起行會令我成為更好的人。說到底，我的罪惡感告訴我任何個人犧牲都可帶來為社會作出供獻的後果！

不得不承認，我家與中環這個世界上其中一個最大的金融中心只有不足一公里之遙，能夠在晚上，在自己家中與戶外的夜空接觸，是令人大感滿足的事情。一天晚上，日間的濕度越升越高，清早的行雷閃電是大雨滂沱的前奏。雖然情況極少發生，但在我上環單位後面，連接堅道和荷李活道的其中一條「樓梯街」磅巷，有時會回歸原來的本貌，成為由山頂下行的水道。全年大部份時間，地下渠道通常都可排走大部份雨水，然而，在真正傾盤大雨、渠道無法承受的時候，水浸便會出現……而磅巷便成為一條急湍的小溪，而樓梯則變成一道道小瀑布……我馬上往樓下拍下磅巷水浸的照片。

那星期較早時，我在中環一家餐廳看到陳沁昕的美麗裝置作品《Entanglement》（纏結）。作品靈感源自兩部史丹利．寇比力克的電影（《大開眼戒》和《2001太空漫遊》）。陳氏在裝置中以尼龍繩來營造瀑布的觀感，在餐廳燈光反射下，讓賓客「感到他們遊走在虛與實之間」，情景有點似曾相識。

我很可能在看著磅巷的瀑布！


參考資料:
https://tap-chan.com/Entanglement

原文刊於《明報周刊》，2018年9月1日



August Waterfalls

by John Batten


On some nights during this summer heat, I have dragged-out simple bedding to sleep on my Sheung Wan rooftop to purposely, and in disdain of air-conditioning, enjoy the night-time sky and watch the fast-moving, ever-changing overhead clouds. I am woken by the birds or the early morning drench of humidity that occasionally turns to a cloudburst of rain, at which I scurry inside. It must be an odd sight for residents in overlooking flats to see my camped-out, modest-but-still-semi-clothed body. Any early morning onlooker would prefer someone lithe and younger going through their yoga routine, but I might be forgiven as anything - even my sleeping blob of a body - is better than a noisy Sheung Wan rooftop BBQ gathering that starts as polite early night conversation, degrades around-midnight to boisterous talking and disintegrates into early morning atonal singing.

My rooftop is…the best way to describe it would be…comforting: views overlooking the greenery of Blake Garden and towards, but not in the glare of, the lights of Central. It is an unusually special and quiet part of Hong Kong; my street is a dead-end and there is no through-traffic and the steep ‘ladder streets’ behind my flat are only for pedestrians. The rooftop’s night-air, especially with its usual cross-breeze, is a perfect place to spend a summer night. Even when Hong Kong’s August heat and humidity can drive you to turning it on, I don’t like air-conditioning.

Recently, there has been a knee-jerk reaction to curbing our use of plastic straws, but the big environmental offenders responsible for global warming and increasing carbon dioxide emissions, including air-conditioning, continue to be used unabated, almost unthinkingly. Air-conditioning especially is a circular menace: the hotter we feel, the more we use air-conditioning, that in turn raises the outdoor ambient temperature, and the hotter we feel….

I did not have air-conditioning for my first seven years of living in Hong Kong. Climate change was unheard of then, and it was not for altruistic reasons that I did not use air-conditioning. Simply, I was determined to endure the summer heat, it was a personal stubbornness to ‘suffer’ and not ‘succumb’ to needing air-conditioning.

Sigmund Freud possibly has a deeper, sub-conscious reason, but having a Christian school education and attending the local Sunday School in my early years clearly infected me with lots of Protestant guilt. That is the only explanation for wanting, when offered either an easy or more difficult path, I often choose to take the difficult. Thus, I am sleeping on my roof. I’m not trying to save the world by being one less person using air-conditioning, although systemic change does require changes in individual behaviour. No, it is ingrained that I should not have a too-easy life and that I will be a better person by taking that action. Ultimately, any personal sacrifice has the outcome, my guilt tells me, of also making a social contribution!

I must admit it is satisfying to be in touch with the outdoor night-time sky while living within a kilometre of Central Hong Kong, one of the world’s great financial centres. The other night, the day’s humidity increasingly rose and the early morning lightning and thunder was a prelude to a huge downpour of rain. It rarely happens, but Pound Lane in Sheung Wan, one of the ''ladder streets'' linking Caine Road with Hollywood Road and just behind my flat, sometimes suddenly returns to its origins as a water-course running down from The Peak. Throughout the year underground drains usually carry most of this water, however on really, really heavy downpours the drains can''t cope and flooding occurs...and Pound Lane becomes a swollen stream and the staircases become cascading waterfalls....I went downstairs to photograph Pound Lane in flood.

Earlier that week I had seen Tap Chan’s beautiful Entanglement installation in a Central restaurant. Inspired by two of Stanley Kubrick’s movies (Eyes Wide Shut and 2001: A Space Odyssey), Chan creates impressions and reflections of light within the restaurant to allow visitors “to feel that they are mingling in real and unreal situations.” The scene was almost déjà vu, for one part of her installation uses strips of polyester wrapping-string to create an impression of a waterfall.

It could easily be Pound Land waterfalls I was looking at.



Link for further info:
https://tap-chan.com/Entanglement

This article was originally published in Ming Pao Weekly on 1 Sep 2018 and translated by Aulina Chan.