魁北克归来，时时想念的是Robert Lepage 的 Le Moulin a Image （The Image Mill)。 40分钟的片子，在古城旧港口的巨大建筑（据说从前是放粮的仓库）上投影，作为“庆祝”北美第一个殖民地的创建，距今400年。（40分钟的片长或许也有这个联系）。 从前看过Lepage的一个有关Frida的制作，对视觉大师影像的冲击力有所准备，却没有想到“400盛典庆祝”这么世俗商业的spectacle production可以有这样宏大回顾视觉文化近现代历史的能量。四个章节，水、陆、铁、空（气），涵盖了殖民的血腥历程，宗教的神性形象制造，二次大战及其他战争的摧残力，传媒技术对人类沟通的渗透，都不是太令人费解的东西，却奇妙地万花筒似地展现出来。几根巨大的柱形结构，时而成为鳞次栉比的楼房，时而成为无线电的调律格子，时而成为钢琴键盘，时而成为万千如一的机场大厅侧图，时而成为发达国家城市现今常见的涂鸦。莫可说，他在扬声器下也是一番享受，因为各种原创或取材的音乐配的天衣无缝，以至在几千人聚集的大概几里的港口空间里音质仍如用耳机听到的一般干净利落。 最让我感叹的可能是导演能纵观现代历史，批判地呈现视觉影像的生产（甚至他自己的这份也被批判了，有片尾很长的万人欢呼场面为证）。魁北克要独立，我们在蒙特利尔住的Bread and Breakfast 老板口上说着，街道上也有“Quebec, Un Nouveau Pays Pour Le Monde"这样的标语飘着，到了 Lepage这里却丝毫看不出什么民族情绪，有的却是对现代性和景观等人类自身的所作所为非常谨慎的思考。想起Sontag最后一本书里说的，景观之为景观，就是要让人们看到他们自己能干出什么样的事来，看到了，也许就会有了批评的距离，有了审视自身的可能性。 不知奥运会是否能提供这种可能？

(holy sh....two for germany already?..a really fast game so far...) anyway, what was i gonna blog about? oh yeah, the dance show: So you think you can dance? - or the dance version of the american idols... my first viewing last night. don't know if it has to do with my reading jacque ranciere at the moment, on the notion of spectators' emancipation..the show, with all its racializing, gendering tendencies, offers such (the germany goal keeper is amazing!...ah...gomes just scored) an aesthetically (read critical, ethical, etc.) meaningful experience that it is hard to critique it as a product of the self-repetitive cultural industry. or at least, it is one thing to understand its standardized features and another to see its political possibilities on the same ground as those traditionally identified as "high arts." here are some notes/questions: 1. the idea of judgment. how can one conceptualize the kinds of activities in the living room in front of this kind of judgment-based shows? how can we go beyond the passive/active dichotomy in thinking of the specatorship of this particular nature? 2. the participants are all paired up via gendered binaries...too obvious a target for poststructuralist-geminist critique.. 3. there is an obsession with the black and white dyad... guess we have to start questioning the pre-set categories (black:jazz, hiphop/krump,; white: waltz, foxtrot, contemporary; brown: salsa, argentine tango...) part of me also don't wanna go there, however. can't we argue that it is precisely at these moments of boundary crossing that these reified categories get reinscribed, or delegitimized...or both? (portugal is now engaged in 机关枪乱射...a mere continuation of the general mode of this game, unfortunately...） 4. the question of the economics...the show, as many others, conceals "class" so well that it is almost impossible to discern...we are unlikely to discover the social-historical origins of krumping, just as we are led to believe the youngsters in the show are all equally happy postmodern subjects of self expression... (feeling sorry for the Portuguese coach...) 5. the format is quite different from american idol in that it is more about saving sb than eliminating...what is the significance of that? it seems to require more reasoning on the part of the voters, at least... (a nice one for the portugal...4 minutes left!)

watching the france v italy game...second half already..looks like 法国没戏。于是写博。(oops, second goal for italy) as far as life goes, lots happened...great experience at the mlg meeting...csa conference in nyc...fpc in dc (what an experience!)...saw the musical theatre Monkey:Journey to the West at charleston (first time to the South, took a trip to Middleton Place, the great French-style plantation and pondered on the relation between power hierarchy and visual display)... can't even begin to recount what went thru my head... Monkey was fantastic...and i meant that literally. dumbed down, banal, hodgepodge for sure, yet crazy,fresh, lively...i remember being excited by the animated imageries, esp. the reference to "globalization" (wukong went around the globe, not "china" for his eternity pills)...and the erotika of the 盘丝洞 scene, beautifully choreographed...loved the swordplay as well....maybe i was just in the mood for spectacle and nothing more? or maybe given the musical-ization to which this kind of production limits itself, this one is hardly the worst possible? the music was very interesting...just when you think it's going completely cheesy, it tweaks into some sort of atonal resemblance mixed with peking-opera-ish elements... it was also fun to hear the behind-the-scene labor conditions...the acrobat troupes were the lowest rank, with no access to their own per diems...the singers and actors are individually contracted (but the kinds of the work they had to do, to my view, required so much less work, and certainly did not impress the audience as much). (italy is going crazy now)...

can't believe how long i have been ignoring this blog...where do i begin? just saw the classic Blow-Up...can a film be more meaning-ladden? finally saw ang lee's eat drink man woman...can confucian china's global fate be more aptly portrayed? saw the now academy-winning (for the song) irish film Once...can indie music be more simplistically affective? oh well...

Email me at fanyangus@gmail.com if you wanna hang out!