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wen gum gum Solo Exhibition
2022
善的意志會狩獵 溫佳寧個展 @福利社 FreeS Art Space
21 May - 18 June
展覽論述
《善的意志會狩獵》的出現源自於溫佳寧使用自動翻譯器閱讀一篇文章的一天，容易慣性出錯的翻譯器意外地糾正了文字中的含義（彷彿出土）。在臺灣，葛斯·范桑的著名電影「Good Will Hunting」被翻譯為「心靈捕手」（中文電影名稱的字面意思是「靈魂的捕手」）。自動翻譯讓她意識到原文標題的字義是「善意的狩獵」，「狩獵」和「捕手」，兩個截然不同的主動動詞震動了她的大腦。 與我們每天閱讀的新聞中的「善意」不同，為了吸引註意力，新聞經常用小報或近乎誹謗性的語言來描述事件。 *（或許是媒體產業不可磨滅的本質之一），她並沒有清楚地辨別善惡的界限，而是保留了翻譯中可能出現的文本錯誤。
「以論述作為創作中的多重對話，受到眼前媒體中躁動的影像吸引，我拾起它們進行描繪，在行旅中又受到地上垃圾紙片的引誘，我停下忙碌的雙手，梳理這些同時使我慾望使我困擾的層疊的資訊。善意若能主動狩獵，相比受困於現實對於性別的惡意期待，我想透過創作作為一種善意的提醒，藉由那些性別模糊、使人困惑的畫中人物，將身體形象與性別邊界的不同想像，以一種踰越而輕鬆的攻擊性,投向主流價值的視野之中。」 -wen gum gum
Essay
The idea behind Good Will Hunting emerged on a day when Wen Gum Gum was reading an article through an automatic translator. While prone to habitual errors, the translator unexpectedly revealed a buried meaning—almost like an archaeological unearthing. In Taiwan, Gus Van Sant’s well-known film Good Will Hunting is translated as 心靈捕手 (“Soul Catcher” in literal Chinese). But through machine translation, Gum became aware of the original English title’s more literal meaning: “the hunting of goodwill.” The verbs “to hunt” and “to catch”—two entirely different active impulses—sent a jolt through her thinking.
Unlike the “goodwill” often portrayed in daily news—where sensational or borderline defamatory language is used to draw attention (perhaps an inescapable trait of the media industry)—Gum chooses not to draw rigid lines between good and evil. Instead, she preserves the mistranslations and semantic glitches that emerge in language, allowing them to open up alternate readings of meaning.
"My practice is a series of dialogues with discourse itself." Drawn to the restless images that flicker across contemporary media, I collect and depict them. On the road, even scraps of paper on the ground seem to call to me—I pause my busy hands to sift through these layered fragments of information that both ignite desire and provoke discomfort.
If goodwill could take on the active role of the hunter—rather than remain captive to reality’s malicious expectations around gender—then I wish for my art to serve as a gentle but insistent reminder. Through gender-ambiguous, intentionally confusing figures in my paintings, I attempt to project alternative visions of the body and the boundaries of gender—casting them into the field of mainstream perception with a kind of transgressive yet light-hearted aggression.
—wen gum gum