Ouroboros 銜尾蛇
Title: Ouroboros
Year: 2024
Medium: Performance
Duration:20 mins
Location: Matsugashita Miyabiyu Hot Spring
In ancient China and South America, humans used knot-tying as a record-keeping system similar to digital coding in between language and writing. Humans preserved a rich non-verbal history through the structure, quantity, materials, and arrangement of knots. The inspiration for this piece is the thousands of khipu found in the Inca Empire's archaeological sites. I will use ropes and body, within the chaos and rebirth of geothermal and tidal forces, to weave and unravel a dimension of time and space with the audience on-site. The knots created will ultimately serve as evidence for future archaeology.
The repetitive physical labor involved in knot-tying, and the resulting knots, continually generate the dispersion and regeneration of symbolic meanings as they transform and expand. Similarly, abstract concepts, such as faith, blessings, and wishes observed in religious practices, often need to manifest on observable, perceivable, and tangible material bases to enter reality, referred to as "witnessing" and "evidence." My work aims to provide a phenomenological experience that transcends linguistic dialectics and returns to the viewer's sensory experience.
Cultural heritage and retrospection are built on material history. Technological advancements constantly evolve the methods of preserving archives and memories. In these expanded new dimensions, people continually update their ways of participation. Do sacred moments still exist in virtual, innovative experiences, and even the inconceivable future? I attempt to create a path through the vast ocean of archives, using bodily sensory imagination and inter-person relationships, to connect the past and future. Perhaps by returning to, expanding, and internalizing the physical body, we can grasp some evidence of the present.
Sound design: Jonathan Grover
Videographers: Pei-Ju Lin, Tsai-Hsun Peng, Inhan Choi
Editor: Nebula Creatived LLC.
All rights reserved. 2024 Hui-Ying Tsai
(script)
Story 1: Fairy Bow (unrestrained body)
When I was about 5 or 6, I loved wearing dresses. I liked to play prince and princess getting married and walking in a castle. My girl friend had short hair and would always play the handsome prince, and I was the beautiful long-hair princess.
Yeah, Rrapunzel.
It was fashionable at the time that the dress had two waist straps to tie a bow on the back to create a flattering silhouette, like a sophisticated girl. The bow always made me think of a well-wrapped gift, I thought the idea of wrapping a person is silly.
I don't care much about the bow, and I prefer to feel my body unrestrained, so I untied it as soon as I got to school. I imagine the two straps are the extension of my body, like the wings of a fairy, the tentacles of an octopus, or the superpower rainbow that can shoot to places beyond my knowledge.
I spin and spin as if I were flying! I made all the girls join me, and we couldn't stop laughing until we all fell to the ground.
I had so much fun!
Story 2: Cutting Hair (castration)
I have always loved my black long hair, especially my grandmother often talked about how dark my hair was, I thought that meant it was beautiful. I never wanted to cut my hair short as a kid.
My mom tried many ways to persuade me to get a haircut, including telling me that I looked like a ghost in classical folklore.
It finally got to me one night, I was startled by my reflection on the glass door and agreed to the haircut the next day. I was around 12.
Anyway, I had to cut my hair short to go to middle school sooner or later. Long hair is a violation of the dress code. We were only allowed to have an unflattering, sad, and plain hairstyle to this length.
My mother had been pushing me to cut my hair short for years way before middle school started. It was out of the widespread fear of violence toward females with long hair or ponytail.
Some perverts would follow women with long hair home in the dark alley and disfigure their faces or cut their throats. I wouldn’t blame my mother.
Why?
Why is my hair hated?
Why is it dangerous and so wrong?
All the proper girls should secretly learn the tricks of accidental seductivity.
But I am a different kind of animal
I DESPISE SHAME!!
Story 3: Memory at the Sea (sexuality discovery)
Oh, yes, the purple seashell.
My grandparents lived on the small island of Penghu, I used to spend the summer there, and my favorite thing is beachcombing for seashells.
One day when I was lost in the treasure from the ocean, a purple shell was gifted to me by a boy. I was looking at this mesmerizing seashell and I wasn't just looking.
A very strange thing happened, all my senses suddenly became vivid like never before!
The sound of the waves, the seabird, the salt in the air that I can taste, the sand between my toes, the breeze on my skin,...the heat from the sun, and the heat..was not just from the sun.
My eyes followed the seashell and climbed onto his arm, I saw the backlited golden tiny soft hairs covering his skin with many droplets in between.
I can't tell if it is the ocean or his sweat.
This is not about that boy, nor a romance,
But it was a very important moment in my life.
It was the moment I became my own person, and discovered sexuality.
Oh!
Nature was oppressed as if I would never find out myself.
I got it between the land and the water.
The POWER of my body, this hair, my skin, the legs, and everything in between.
名稱：銜尾蛇
年代：2024
媒材：表演
長度：20分鐘
地點：日本式根島松下溫泉
遠古的中國與南美洲，語言發展與文字之間，曾有類似數位編碼的結繩系統，透過繩結的結構、數量、材料、編排，保存下豐富的非文字史。印加帝國考古發現上千的khipu即為本作品的靈感原型。物件的記憶和我的身體政治記憶，交織於地熱與海潮的混屯與新生中，編織聚散出一個時空維度。最後產出的繩結將做為未來考古的證物，成為新的過去。
身體勞動的記憶，與所產出的繩結載體，在後續詮釋與擴張的過程中，不斷產生符號意義的逸散與新生。如同宗教實踐中的信仰、祝福、願望等抽象的概念，常要依附在可觀、可知、可觸的物質基礎上進入現實，即所謂「見證」與「證物」。我的作品提供在現象上超越語言的辯證，回到觀者自身的感官經驗。
文化的傳承與追溯，建構在物質史之上。隨著技術進步，檔案與記憶的保存⽅式不斷改變。在擴充的新維度中，人也不斷更新其參與方式。在虛擬、新創的經驗，我試圖在檔案海洋中，透過身體感性的想像、與關係的建⽴，一步步從過去通往未來。也許藉由肉體的復返、擴張、與內化，能抓住一點當下存在的證據。
同時我帶著絕對的主體性，講述了女性的身體在個人與政治社會間拉扯成長的經歷。身體除了承載個人生物的動能，亦是無法獨立於政治的符號，人的身體不只是自己的身體。
（文本翻譯）
故事1：仙女蝴蝶結（不受束縛的身體）
五六歲時，我喜歡穿洋裝。我喜歡玩王子和公主結婚、一起走進城堡的遊戲。
我的女生朋友剪著短髮，總是扮演英俊的王子，而我則是長頭髮的美麗公主。
對，就是長髮公主。
當時流行的洋裝有兩條腰帶，可以在背後綁上蝴蝶結，塑造出迷人的輪廓，像個成熟的女孩。
蝴蝶結總讓我想到包裝精美的禮物，我覺得包裹一個人的想法很傻氣。
我不太在乎蝴蝶結，比較喜歡我的身體不受束縛，所以一到學校我就把它解開。
我想像那兩條腰帶是我身體的延伸，
像仙女的翅膀，章魚的觸手，或是超能的彩虹可以到達超過我想像的地方。
我轉啊轉，彷彿在飛！我讓所有女孩都加入我，我們笑得停不下來，直到一起跌在地上。
我玩得好開心！
故事2：剪髮（閹割）
我一直都愛我的黑色長髮，特別是我外婆經常說我的頭髮有多黑，我覺得那是美麗的意思。
我從小就不想把頭髮剪短。
我母親試了很多方法說服我剪頭髮，包括告訴我我看起來像民間故事中的鬼。
終於有天晚上，我被玻璃門上自己的倒影嚇到，於是同意第二天剪頭髮。那時我大約12歲。
反正，我遲早得剪短頭髮才能上中學。
長髮違反了服裝儀容規定，它太干擾了，會影響課業表現。
我們只被允許留一種不討喜、悲傷而樸素的髮型。很醜。
那不是我母親要我剪短髮的唯一原因，當時社會上瀰漫著對長髮或馬尾女生的暴力。
一些變態會在暗巷裡跟著長髮的女性回家，毀容或割喉。我不會怪我母親。
為什麼？
為什麼我的頭髮會被厭惡？
為什麼它這麼危險、這麼錯誤？
所有的女孩從小開始就學著如何表現得體，
我們要漂亮但不能太招搖，我們要優雅又不能無趣，
之中有些人偷偷地學會不經意地誘惑技巧。
哈哈哈哈哈! 但我是隻不同種的動物。
我鄙視羞恥！
故事3：海邊的記憶（性意識覺醒）
哦，對了，那個紫色的海螺。
我的祖父母住在澎湖島上，我在那裡度暑假最喜歡的就是在海灘上撿貝殼。
有一天，當我沉浸在海洋的寶藏中時，一個男孩送給我一個紫色的貝殼。
我看著那顆迷人的貝殼，我不僅是在看它。
一件非常奇怪的事發生了，我的所有感官突然變得前所未有的生動！
海浪的聲音、飛在高空中的海鳥、我能嚐到的空氣中的鹽、腳趾間的沙子、皮膚上的微風……太陽的熱度，那熱度不僅僅來自太陽。
我的眼睛跟著那個海螺，爬上了他的手臂，我看到背光下金色柔軟的細毛覆蓋著他的皮膚，還有許多水滴。
我無法判斷那是海水還是他的汗水。
喔，不要誤會了!
這不是關於那個男孩，也不是個浪漫的故事，
但那是我生命中一個非常重要的時刻。
那是我成為自己的瞬間，我發現了性。
自然被壓抑，彷彿我永遠無法自己發現它。
總之我還是發現了。
在陸地和水之間，就像在這裡。
哦！
我身體的力量，我的頭髮，我的皮膚，這雙腿，和介於它們之間的一切。
