How does one take action on the things still yet to come? We are of a time faced with a predicament as to how to use our current degree of experience (gained from the past) to imagine a complete vision of the future.

What is called a predicament is at once potentiality. The period of potential will be of this kind: any thing will operate within a singular mode of action, while at the same time it will possess an entirely separate mode in which it is capable of operating, a mode which would also include its inaction. Simultaneously, that same thing, not only would it possess the aforementioned two capacities for operation, but it will also mutually depend on other things to not conflict with each other. Or we could also say, any thing or any event always chooses to connect with openness. Preserving it as either of or not of its wholeness of body, but regardless of whether or not it is unanimous, it prompts a contradiction in authenticity within the body itself. It changes the manner of approach to the thing, namely that its possibility can only be seized by either some case of inevitability or some case of coincidence, and thus proclaims the thing to be in and of itself a complete community.

In Stéphane Mallarmé’s “A Throw of the Dice” we see a precise description of this time, combining the token of chance and the token of certainty as All Thought expresses a Throw of the Dice. This period offers a reason to imagine the future.

Rehearsal:

This period and what appears to be adapted work can be understood as a kind of rehearsal. Rehearsal is a type of limitless opening, it is not a method, nor is it some unexpected pleasant surprise one waits for. Rehearsal, from the moment it begins, declares enemies of that which resist it – improvisation and randomness. Rehearsal is an action of the potential, the possible, the perseverant, and this kind of possibility simultaneously contains within it a unanimous impossibility. Just as if I were to toss a dice, it is possible it will land in a certain position, but how will I know whether or not that will happen? At the same time, rehearsal reveals a new form of work not controlled by a set of pragmatics regardless of capability and structure, perhaps that turned into some kind of method that is now named, (e.g. conceptual artist, cross-disciplinary artist, experimental artist), and always lies somehow between a kind of chemistry lab and traditional craftsman workshop; at once constricted by the elements, material, ratio, measurements, proportion, distribution, and density, all while not interrupting the process of revision and adjustment. This work leads to continuous diversions – in which both “normal” time and the determination of objects under “regular” circumstances of time are lost. It is precisely this kind of work that derives a new kind of posture, one that breaks away from the inertia of the past. This kind of fracture causes the forfeiture of naming the working process, a void of naming. This kind of work employs other ways of presenting itself: quality, time, parameter, and form.

Form:

Rehearsal is also an action of true form resisting explanation. Rehearsal creates a condition at the moment just before a thing becomes unstable, causing a kind of action to “transcend itself” so that it may sustain and continue to go on within a specific process of work to preserve the generation and movement of chance and certainty. The thing operates with limitless capacity for work for an unrestricted duration of time; it possesses a type of form – a form of time -- that causes the thing, while maintaining its own properties, to simultaneously produce an “overflow,” The thing possesses its own plurality and transcends the duplication of itself and its original value. Its form is in how it operates for itself, to transform into a thing that can be clearly seen. This form thus guarantees the “concrete reality” of that thing. Formalization thus becomes a false explanation for the sole manner of existence. And thus form is just the production of a single thought, it does not necessitate “other” intellectual content for interpretation in order to become itself.

Universality:

It must furnish an anonymous and complete commonality for everyone. (Alain Badiou), this kind of universality preserves its power of singularity from beginning to end, and it is exactly this kind of formalization of power that causes it to possess such universality. It is universality that allows art to preserve its distinguishability and connectedness. A universal form that leaves no remnant behind becomes something that can “exist” as a formal elucidation of itself, its goal is to not be carried into the current state of politics, as it is unable to take on a name in such a climate. In fact, it will always be declared within that climate as a kind of “exception,” eliminated from the regularity of order and relegated to the outside. At the same time we should recognize contemporary art is not a form of “Humanism”, it should avoid being hijacked by the new romanticism (suffused with political socialization). Contemporary art is not a humanitarian box of First Aid either. This role has been falsified and forged, there is no aid in genuine humanism, just a universal sense of equality; and this kind of equality is transparent, falsely explanatory, as well as surpassing humanity.

Removal of Particularities:

Universality retains an alertness to every kind of particularity in order to eliminate the remnants of it from the description of all things, it is a false transparency that suffers from the residual particularity within explanations, and indeed genuine transparency rejects any form of such suture. Particularity is a result of endless incidental conditions (e.g. place, nationality, religion, culture), it is incapable of possessing universality, the exchange of such conditions is how it is confined. Only in mutuality within explanation can a significance from unification arise and be unilaterally integrated into every sphere of distribution, becoming a form of distribution itself. This extant of boundlessness disappears into the supply and demand of entertainment news, political events and public opinion. Particularity is merely a governance of style and landscape.

Limitations:

The work of an artist is to every day face the challenge of the “environment” – something that as of yesterday, he had never before encountered, and yet it is impossible to predict what tomorrow will bring, it is the greatest inhibiting factor to an artist’s imagination of the future (unexpected)

landscape, creating real limitations for thought and action. (And only in reflecting on the concept of thought does it precisely explain how the loss of a reference “environment” limits one’s own capacity to handle the task of processing information, and in the state of total limitlessness the object of thought is thus lost), with regards to any limitation I no longer pretend to know, nor continue to try and draw up a blueprint to serve as a hypothesis for what the future may bring. This “environment” accords the artist to touch all the barriers and boundaries throughout one’s own mode of operation. I am incapable of imagining work removed beyond this “toil of false limitations” and I have no way of understanding what work with “singular freedom” really is? Is that frightening?

Wang Jianwei March 5, 2014