流水落花

2023, Digital Writing

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本作品深受葉旭耀的作品流/言的影響。葉旭耀是我在創意媒體學院時的教授之一。在流/言中,他用電腦程式不斷地重構劉曉波的名言,我的最後陳述中的那句「我沒有敵人」。程式重複地將重構出的字句列印在螢幕上,一層接一層。慢慢地,其他字變成了全黑或全白的方格,只有人字不斷重複而突出顯眼。但最後,人也漸漸被不斷複寫的文字埋沒。

反覆書寫這一行為具有超強的衝擊力。它象徵著一種近乎偏執的執念,卻仍然給予觀眾足夠的空間去想像產生這種執念的原因——是因為不想忘記,或是出於某種強烈的感情。這正是我喜愛這種表現方式的原因。

在本作品中,我讓電腦程式不斷地抄寫波蘭詩人辛波絲卡(Wisława Szymborska)的一首詩,時代的孩子(Children of The Age),的節選。香港著名獨立樂隊My Little Airport在他們2021年的音樂會上朗讀了這首詩的部分,作為對經歷2019年的社會運動和2020年的世紀疫情後的香港新常態的回應。在無數次的重複後,機器也變得怠倦,書寫的內容漸漸地出現錯字和錯句。而最後它竟像失去了理智,開始胡亂地書寫。在這一個過程中,「政治的」三個字在文字堆中浮現,展示出文本的統計學特性,而後漸漸被埋葬在無序的字句中。

我將作品命名為流水落花。流水落花典出李後主的「流水落花歸去也,天上人間」。如果你對香港的流行文化比較熟知,可能會想到黃偉文的歌詞,以及賈勝楓的電影。流水落花是完全不同的一種取態,雖也懷念,但全無牽掛,與作品中電腦程式的行為形成強烈的反差。執著以致瘋狂,或是放下然後淡忘,或者是這個後XX時代最大的問題。

流水落花Floating Petals

2023, Digital Writing

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This work is inspired by Yip Yuk Yiu’s work False Words. Yip Yuk Yiu was my professor at the School of Creative Media. In that work, he created a computer program to continuously reconstruct Liu Xiaobo’s famous quote, “I have no enemies(我沒有敵人)”. The program repeatedly prints the result on a screen, layer by layer. Slowly, the other characters became fully colored blocks, and only the character 人(human) stood out to be recognizable. But in the end, it is still gradually buried by the words that are constantly printed on top of it.

The act of writing over and over on top of the text produces huge tension. It symbolizes an extreme obsession but still gives the audience plenty of room to imagine where the obsession comes from—whether it’s because someone doesn’t want to forget, or because of some strong emotions. That’s why I love this way of presentation.

In this work, I made the computer program to continuously transcribe part of the poem by Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, Children of the Age. The famous Hong Kong indie band My Little Airport read part of this poem at their 2021 concert as a response to the new normal in Hong Kong after the social movement in 2019 and the epidemic in 2020. After countless repetitions, the machine became tired, and typos and mistakes gradually appeared in the written content. In the end, it seemed to lose its mind totally and began to write nonsense. In the process, the word “political” emerges from the repeated letters, showing the quantitative characteristic of the text, then gradually gets buried under the random tokens.

I named the work 流水落花 Floating Petals. 流水落花(floating petals on flowing water) is a Chinese saying, first written by Li Yu, in his verse “流水落花歸去也,天上人間(Petals floating on streams, returning to their end. The past and now is like the haven and the earth)”. If you are familiar with Hong Kong pop culture, you may also think of Wyman Wong’s lyrics and Sing-Fung Ka’s movies. 流水落花 resembles the opposite of obsession, which forms a strong contrast with the behavior of the computer program in the work. To be obsessed and then insane, or to let go and then forget, is the biggest problem in this post-XX era.

網塋

網頁, web based, 2021

前往該作品的網頁

到推特上關注小小掘墓人(*自2023年開始由於Elon Musk收購推特後推出的新政策,它已經停止在推特上的活動,在未來它也許會遷移到Mastodon)

因特網作為如今人類社會必不可少的系統或部分之一,其實年輕得令人難以置信。第一個人人都能看見的網站建立於1991年,它也標誌著我們今日熟悉的互聯網的誕生。

所以,今年我們親愛的互聯網已經30歲了。中國的古話說三十而立,互聯網也進入了它的而立之年。

當然,互聯網的發展(發育?)比起人類來說要快得多了,截止到現在 (2021年5月17號下午6:31, UTC +8),一共有491,720,368個域名曾被註冊使用,而且這個數字每一毫秒都在增加。

網塋是一個嘗試尋找和定義互聯網的“記憶”的項目。如今,491,720,368個域名中只有251,223,483 是正在被使用的。這表明,有超過2億個域名,以及曾經掛靠在這些域名上的網站們,已經消失了。

2010年,Ulf Schleth上線了一個網站給大家來“埋葬”一些文件,這個網站叫 /death/null。這也是本項目直接的靈感來源。在/death/null上Ulf Schleth寫了這樣一段話:“it’s for digital romanticists, it’s about living and dead ideas and everything in between. (這個網站是為在數碼世界中找尋浪漫的人而建, 這個網站是關於生與死與所有生死之間的事物的。)”網塋背後的想法類似而略有不同,網塋嘗試探詢記憶與紀念的意義。在皮克斯的電影Coco中,當一個人不再被世人記起時,他/她就真正死去了。也許對於網站來說也是這樣。

一個小小的機器人,它的全部工作僅僅是尋找那些已經不再存在的網站,為它們挖一個墳,並且在推特上宣告它們的死亡。它晝夜不停地工作,但是建起一座墳墓需要花費它12個小時的時間,所以它一天也只能使兩個網站安息。於此同時,超過2億個網站已經逝去,而這個數字每分鐘也在增加。小小機器人的工作永無終結,但是它仍然一直在挖,一直在為每一個的網站樹碑,不論這個網站生前的規模有多小,不論這個網站生前註冊於何方 —— 我覺得這一場景異常地淒美詩意,而這也是這個項目所想要做的所有事情。

連結

ExpiredDomains.net

Time Travel

WayBack Machine

技術細節和開發日誌

Internet Graveyard

Web base, software system, 2021

To visit the graveyard

Follow the grave digging bot on Twitter (It has stopped being active on Twitter due to the new policy Elon Musk brought to Twitter, but it is still making graves. It might move to Mastodon in the future.)

The Internet, as one of the essential systems or things in human society today, is incredibly young. The first website that everyone can saw was created in 1991, which’s creation also marked the birth of the Internet we are so used to nowadays.

So, this year, this dear friend of ours turns 30. In Chinese culture, entering one’s 30s is called 而立, which means one has entered the golden age of their life and has obtained knowledge and skills for him/her/them to create his/her/their own values.

The Internet grew much faster than us human, as of now (17 May 2021, 6:31 pm UTC +8). There has been 491,720,368 registered domain, and this number keep going up every millisecond. 

Internet Graveyard is a project to try to define and keep “memory” of the Internet. Only 251,223,483 domains out of the 491,720,368 ones are active, which means about 50% of the domains, and the websites on them, are gone. 

In 2010, Ulf Schleth create a website for people to bury their files call /death/null. This is the direct inspiration for me to create this project. Schleth wrote on the about page of /death/null: “it’s for digital romanticists, it’s about living and dead ideas and everything in between.” The idea behind Internet Graveyard is similar, but not the same: Internet Graveyard is about memory and memento. In the Pixar film Coco, one becomes truly dead when no one in the world remembers him/she/they. Maybe it’s the same for a website. 

A little bot, creating graves to memorize those websites that no longer exist and announce their death on Twitter. It works days and nights, but making a grave takes 12 hours, so it can only make two graves a day. At the same time, there are 250 million sites that are already dead, and this number goes up every minute. The job is never gonna be finished, but the poor little bot still digging, making a grave for every dead site, no matter how small it was, where it was registered in and what language it used. —— I think this scenario is sadly romantic and poetic, and that’s exactly what I want to do in this project.

Links

ExpiredDomains.net

Time Travel

WayBack Machine

Technical details and development logs

怪力亂神

網頁, 2020

English page

請:在新分頁中打開 並瀏覽本作

基於《山海經》和《博物誌》的自動生成文字。

《山海經》和《博物誌》是我小時候最先讀到的書之二。當時的我著迷於書中的那些奇特而有趣的故事。那時我很害怕刑天,因為我以為他“以乳為目,以臍為口,操干戚以舞”是真實的。

我畫的刑天

自科舉後的中國而至現在,像《山海經》和《博物誌》這樣的書總是被歸為無用的閒書一類,因為他們描寫乃是怪物和幻想而不是嚴肅的道理和有用的技術,不合孔夫子“不語怪力亂神”之道。但是在我的童年裡,它們確是我的快樂源泉之二。

它們游離在主流之外,並且發現價值,進而可以嘲笑主流的迂腐。它們無邊的想像力,也透出一種今不如昔之感。

算法的結果頗為喜人,對我來說這是一個熟悉而又新穎的東西。 我很高興看到《博物誌》中的鮫人和《山海經》裡的相柳出現在同一個故事中。 對於那些還沒有讀過這兩本書的人,我希望這也是一個有趣的經歷。 我希望生成的故事能夠激發他們的想像力,帶領他們進入一個陌生但豐富多彩的世界。

出版於ELC4

怪力亂神 New Myth

Web based, 2020

中文網頁

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Generated text according to 山海經 and 博物誌.

山海經 (ShanHanJing, The Book Of Mountains and Seas) and 博物誌 (BoWuZhi, The Encyclopaedia of Strange Things) are ancient Chinese books that describe myths and mountain, people, strange things in myths. They are also two of the first books that I read as a little boy that deeply impress me with all the stories that appear to be super cool and novel to a little kid. At that time I would be scared because I thought 刑天 (a character in 山海經, he kept fighting after his head is cut off and used his nipples as eyes and his navel as mouth (to yell)) is real.

My drawing of 刑天

For a long time in China, and I would say even now, the books like those two are described as books that are useless, because they write about monsters and non-realistic things, but not “serious” theories or “useful” techniques, which is contrary to Confucius’ words (“子不語怪力亂神”). But in my childhood and even now, they give me joyful experience.

They wonder outside the mainstream, finding value in the outside to tease at the pedantic mainstream. They ,also, in a way, represent the unlimited imagination, which I think is lack in today.

As a reader of these two books, I am surprised to see the outcome of the algorithm, it’s something familiar, yet new. It’s happy to see 鮫人 (they are half fish half human, their tear will become pearl) from 博物誌 and 相柳 ( he has 9 heads and a dark-green snake body) in 山海經 appear in a same story. I also want to give a interesting experience for those who have not read the books yet. I hope the generated stories can inspire their imagination, lead them into a strange but colourful world.

Published in ELC4

Use Rita library; text from 中國哲學書電子化計劃 https://ctext.org and 中華古詩文古書籍網 https://www.arteducation.com.tw; pictures from 新浪 sina.com; a sound from free sound.org; more details in code comment

傻仔廚房

網頁, 2020

一個食譜生成器。注意,本人不會為因你嘗試食用根據此生成器生成的食譜製作的食物後發生的任何事情負責。

In Liz’s 麗姿酒吧

In Liz’s 是一個實驗,嘗試結合最常見的兩種digital writing的技巧:超文字 (使用  Twine2) 和 context-free grammar (使用 RiTa)。

通過講述一個為這個新的文體而設計的故事,這個作品嘗試探索結合兩種不同體驗的可能性。

請自由探索故事中的世界,更多的描述將會在故事結束時呈現。

點解這裡在新分頁中打開它。

Leung Man Tao: “Naai Gong” or “Gang Du”

2021, webpage/software

中文版網頁

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Below is a embedded version of the work, might need a few seconds to load.

This is a work related to the social movement in Hong Kong in 2019. It is also about the subtle effects brought by the fact that there is different spoken languages and writing script of Chinese, especially in the context of Hong Kong and Mainland China.

The source text is written by Leung Man Tao (梁文道). A writer and critic who is active in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He was attacked by some people online from both Hong Kong and Mainland China for his neutral stand in the social movement in 2019. He’s the only public figure I know that received attacks from both regions, and after reading posts from the attackers, I noticed that, although the people who attacked him from Hong Kong and Mainland have very different ‘political stands’, behind the stands, they have very similar logics and ways of thinking. This work, to some degree, tries to show, explore, and raise questions about these similarities.

I collected Leung’s essays published in 2019 (the ones in traditional Chinese are published in Hong Kong, and the ones in simplified Chinese are published in Mainland China), tokenized the essays into sequences of words with a customized Chinese tokenizer (which is based on CC-CEDICT dictionary) and put them into a simple Markov model to generate new paragraphs.

Most of Leung’s articles in 2019 are about serious topics like politics, culture, and art, but after going through the Markov model, the generated text appears to be, somehow, meaningless, absurd, confusing, and ridiculous. I like this contrast because it somehow reminds me of the fact that the Internet (which is also the space where the attacks happened) is deconstructing discussions. That is not necessarily a good thing or necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on how we react. With the deconstruction, can we jump out of the existing perceptions and stereotypes? And after deconstructing, can we find a way back to the original question and settle down on an answer?

Reflect on one essay in the input of Leung about Cantonese, and the fact that in recent years Cantonese has been given a kind of political meaning. I wrote an algorithm to randomly choose two words in the text, replace one of them with a word that sounds similar to it in Mandarin (in simplified Chinese), and do the same to the other but with Cantonese (and traditional Chinese), then repeat the process every few seconds. Due to historical reasons Mandarin, simplified Chinese, and Mainland China are closely bound together, and so are Cantonese, traditional Chinese, and Hong Kong, although there is a population in Mainland China that speak Cantonese and write in simplified script and vice versa in Hong Kong. This impression, or stereotype, of spoken languages and writing scripts, creates boundaries for people to discuss and understand. 

The algorithm makes the text change slightly over time. After a while, because of the replacements, the text becomes more and more senseless in terms of the literal meaning of the characters, but since the replaced words share the same or a similar pronunciation with the original ones, the visitors can still guess what words were in the places before and then get a fuzzy idea of the unreplaced text.

What happened to the text is a metaphor for what happened to Leung (and others) in real life: people quote, then ‘interpret’ and twist, what he (and they) wrote/said to support their opinions on him (and them), then A’s twisted quotation is quoted by B, and B’s by C… The meaning of the words in their quotation goes further and further away from the original one. Thus, it is harder and harder for people to get to the original idea of the text. 

It is also a metaphor for the more and more divided society. With algorithms on social media and the instigation from some individuals and groups, the space for neutral opinions is lost. You are either part of us or the enemy. There is no place in between, and there is nothing in common between “us” and the enemy. Thus, the possibility of discussion and negotiation is gone. Only hate and attack are left.

Pronunciation data collected from open Cantonese dictionary, CC-Canto database and CC-CEDICT database, pre-processed by me.

ScreenShots (Click on the picture to view the original resolution version)

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In Liz’s

2021, game/digital literature

In Liz’s is an experiment to combine two common techniques used in digital writing: hypertext (via  Twine2) and context-free grammar (via RiTa).

The work tries to explore the possibility of merging two kinds of experiences brought by these two techniques in one story.

Please feel free to explore it below first, more descriptions will be shown when you finish the story.

Click here to open it in a new tab.

I really recommend you to play the game and experience the story. Here is just a screenshot of (one of) the beginning paragraph(s) to give you an idea of how it looks like (in case that the embedded content above is not working).

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