墓誌銘─前置 湯皇珍 台中Z空間
I GO TRAVELING Ⅹ/An Epitaph-stage1
TANG HUANG-CHEN Solo
Performance installations. A performance brings forth installations. Installations for a certain performance. There’s no separation between the two—a document, an object, or an installation that is both of the two and taking place in turn, or simultaneously.
表演裝置-為表演而生裝置,裝置為了發生表演,我們無從區別這些介於兩者或同時是兩者的文件或物件的設置。同時安排並發生表演於其中。
Time 4.7~4.29 2012
Live Performance every Saturday (4.7, 4.14, 4.21, 4.28) at 19:30
Venue Zspace
No.2, Alley 3, Lane 71, Sec. 1, Wuquan W. Rd., Taichung City
Thursday and Friday 17:00~21:00
Saturday and Sunday 14:00~21:00
zspace.pixnet.net/blog
Epitaphs shock. They force one to face a situation that everyone is familiar yet refuses to talk about. We avoid it, beat around the bush, and avert our eyes. Not only the final cry freezes you up, the inadequacy of words even makes you speechless.
If one treats an epitaph as what it is—a fixed literary genre—it might seem quite practical. However, the reality invites questions. Why one particular sentence for the deceased? What’s the purpose of our comment? The epitaph hurts him not, but pains the living. It should be done when one’s alive, but there’s no epitaphs for the living. Is it that one could only speak one’s true mind after someone passes away?
We face a predicament. No single sentence could sum up the existence of a human being, which, if were consisted of countless fragments, would only be a fragmented existence. However, an epitaph has to be complete and concise, a unified signification; and it only allows so many words. A disparity present itself between the form and its subject. One might find an exemplary epitaph but could never be certain whether it precisely captures its subject.
We try to delay death, the only truth that beckons life. Epitaphs are a genre that aches one’s heart—words that speak our impotence of detaining death or the deceased. One could not finish it before death arrives; one could not carry on with it after death departs. Words are always incomplete, and death is always early.