The Emperor Decomposed Long Ago, Only the Scent of the Nanmu Tree Remains

As of today, “Monuments” is comprised of eight cement blocks; no telling if there may yet be a ninth one. Conceptualized in the year 2000, the project was initially inspired by my interest in archaeological studies. I have always been intrigued by the vertical faces of archaeological digs; I am particularly drawn to the layers of the earth and geographical diagrams depicting its strata and structure.

In the 1980' s the city of Xiamen became a “Special Economic Zone” and a series of large-scale development promptly followed, leading to mountains being blown open and carved by machinery. Overnight, the mountains were ruthlessly hacked down to half their original size, revealing their innards, and in some places, over one hundred feet of vertical face was exposed. From the top, one could see that the cliff face was rich with artifacts and fragments of earthenware that lay embedded in its layers. Originally, this place was a coastal people's cenotaph , which, later one, when burial by cremation became popular, became the burial grounds of ceramic urns. Modernization, in its unremitting march ahead carelessly churns up these deeply buried artifacts and leaving them exposed for us to see.

With a history as ancient as China 's, where are there not secrets that lie within the folds of the earth? To uncover and preserve an entire culture's past is the conceit of archeology. To let it lie and be forgotten is a rhetorical offering of those faced with too much to uncover.

What we have always had, and what is necessary today, is a balanced approach. When I was conducting studies at the Banpo archeological site, I excavated an urn in which someone from the past had stuffed a deceased child into and then completely embedded within the thick earthen walls of his home. There is no anger or disgust, to exist but to remain unseen thus wholly forgotten, to become a part of the wall's dark memory – this is a balanced approach.

During the New Year's Festival of 1998, I began digging an archaeological pit at Yaojiayuan in the eastern Beijing suburb of Yaojiayuan. At that time I was still a disciple of video art and wanted to bury several small television sets at different levels into the earth. All the televisions would show a video of flocks of crows in flight. But the northern ground had frozen solid, so even after several days of effort, I had only managed to dig down about one foot. Needless to say, my plan did not completely succeed. Today, I am still interested in excavating, the difference is instead of digging down, Monuments is a piling up of space, time and memory.

The eight blocks of cement as part of “Monuments” are all precisely rectangular, their faces stained by traces of dripping cement, which spilled over as I poured new layers to cover the inscriptions below. Viewers may consider this series an expression of admiration for Louis Kahn, or a gesture of regard for Donald Judd.

In the first piece, each layer is inscribed with revolutionary slogans from past dynasties – with the revolutionary call primarily circulating around economic issues. Successive dynasties flourished and declined, but for both the individual and the community in an agricultural society, allocation of land was the foremost concern. During the rise of a revolution, the fervor of each slogan excited the revolutionaries followers to support him to be the next ruler, so alluring was the campaign for equality. The sweeping response signified the carrying out heaven's mandate, thus the propaganda succeeded in ushering in a new monarch. Provided it presented a set of reformed system for land distribution, a new dynasty would welcome several decades of profitable reign and a thriving generation. Eventually, after a century or two passed, control of the land would fall back into the hands of the wealthy, leaving a population with no place to harvest and not enough to eat. Once again, someone would raise the call out to the people, another slogan would echo through the hills, drawing the together the masses, and, again, a revolution would take place. These were the vibrations of China 's history and became an ideal technique to manipulate the people. The recurring ideology consistently circles back to the value of equal wealth, with the only exception coming from Deng Xiaoping's call to “let a portion of the people become rich first.” Naturally, Deng's logic implies there will be equal wealth later, which at least succeeds – for the time being - in offering a distant consolation for those left behind. These slogans have been ingrained since I attended middle school. Throughout history, games have taken place between the interlacing histories of calligraphy and ideology. Sometimes, as I was writing the slogans of these revolutionaries, I found myself, conversely, using the same calligraphic style of established power during that respective period.

In the second cement block, each layer encloses language revealing Chinese perspectives on foreigners and outsiders throughout history. From contempt towards barbarians to the necessary study of and guarding against them, from subjectively opening up, to the regaining of self-confidence, here there is also a cyclical history. In modern times, it goes without saying that the language primarily targeted the Western Christian, but what goes unpronounced is the fact that the crises of modernism has greatly served nationalism, secretly replacing “all under heaven” with “nation,” and then replacing “nation” with “absolutely sovereignty.”

Examining the genealogy of calligraphy, the third block is much easier to comprehend. For this work I extracted headlines from “reformist” newspapers launching modernism at the end of the 19 th century. These were directly copied and reproduced, so there was no need to “collecting characters” or imagine their design. On one hand, the headlines point to the keywords of modernization. On the other hand, even as mass media gained popularity, the continued use of individual handwriting maintained a sense of traditional penmanship and thus carried a kind of sociological power, which remains highly valued today. From Liang Qichao and Yu Youren, to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, each generation's most dynamic leader left treasures in the ink of their headlines. The last layer makes use of the word “entertainment” in the Entertainment Pictorial , because certainly the term “entertainment” does not simply mean just entertainment anymore.

The fourth block's inscriptions are drawn from the song menus in karaoke clubs. Even at these kinds of entertainment complexes, people of each generation can freely declare their own ideological identity. While the songs that are reserved trace out the traces of a common history, each individual's adventurous performance and unique “playlist” sketches out the space of individual characteristics. Again, the songs present keywords leading to our collective unconscious: “the times,” “tomorrow,” “moon,” and “dream,” and, of course, the ever-abundant “love.” In the self-loving atmosphere that is Karaoke, the collective the collective unconscious dances behind the stage, while on stage, the grand entrance of this theatre is made by that the individual who supposes himself to be free.

The fifth cement block is testimony to particular sayings in Chinese history; within a certain historical context, some sayings that start out as individual can also become a type of public memory. Although these phrases may be born of a completely personal feeling or suggestion, due to the capabilities of an individual, and also as a result of the response to a certain collective unconscious, these words can relate to a kind of collective memory. This block differs from the “official” history of the previous three cement blocks in that it is a method for constructing the history or our “personality.” Although this public individual language is colloquial, it continues to moves through time, fermenting slowly like a curse, until after many years, when the particulars have gradually become indistinct, it leaves behind only this phrase that someone might let slip carelessly late in the night. Everyone creates his or her own version of this type of history.

The sixth cement block ought to be considered as purely individual memory. In adherence to our country's ancient instruction “cherish the words on paper”, I have collected handwriting for many years. So long as a piece of paper had original writing on it, no matter if I had written it or if someone had written for me, or if someone had written it for someone else, I have always collected it. Not even my family's cat ever tore up a single piece of written-on paper. After the arrival of the email age, as received handwritten letters become increasingly sparse, the only opportunity to see someone's handwriting is on a note left behind or a postcard. I chose a few to engrave on this stele. Some are my academic exchange, some memos and notes from daily routine life, and some personal life, recorded here just as it was written.

The seventh block consists of emails that other have written to me while I received in scrambled code.

The eighth cement block is made up of fragments from my own diary, a computer diary and a written one. Once after a particularly vicious virus attacked my computer, my computer diary became an irretrievable, incomprehensible code. Indeed, I respect these strange codes: in my opinion, the accidental nature of computer jargon is not related to Dadaism, instead it is more closely resembles black holes or spots in human ignorance. These messages are not devoid of meaning, just a deviated system of decoding, and we are powerless to handle this kind of deviation. It is just like people that follow palm-reading or astrology, or those that have the ability to read messages in tea leaves or the stars, if we had the ability, we would certainly find a voice in the midst of these computer characters, and that voice is certainly not limited to my own.

When I was young, I deliberately invented a secret code. It was a symptom of adolescence, as I was suspicious of my parents peeping into my diary. I used single characters found in the inscriptions on ancient oracle bones and bronze cauldrons to create a phoneme, inventing a kind of phonetic language, and I used this code to write the majority of my diaries. In addition I also composed a kind of reference, or dictionary, which included the research I did and the rules and regulations of my language. Perhaps it was after puberty that I no longer felt the need to manufacture secrets anymore, and if someone saw, they saw, it was nothing to me. Maybe it was because employing these codes was a bit of a bother, and everyday life's normal occasions did not require anything but normal characters, so gradually I stopped using them, and gradually forgot I'd ever even used them. It was not until I graduated from college and returned to home that I rediscovered the diaries in a pile of old things, only to discover I could not understand a word. The code had already turned into an incomprehensible, jumbled mess.

The eight blocks use public knowledge as their starting point and gradually individualism emerges on the scene, yet complete individualism is actually incomprehensible code. Individual concern is at some point tied up by language, simultaneously transforming the language, and through language transforming once again into a public power. The conclusion one may draw is that this so-called public language, or historically-based common sense, is actually composed of the incomprehensible code of individuals.

I have noticed the ideological force of the script. Perhaps this comes from xinwenti script which was commonly seen and used during the Cultural Revolution. I don't know if it is because of the Late Qing Reform leader Kang Youwei was also an important theorist and practitioner of a movement regarding the study of Wei Dynasty inscriptions – something that I have myself studied. The enduring script from the Wei Dynasty seemingly continues to be loved by modern revolutionaries as being opposed to the classical calligraphic text on paper. It is odd that the difference between conservative and revolutionary held within this thin sheet of paper. In the third cement block, modern newspaper titles till today, the earliest “Current Affairs Newspaper” “Qinyi Newspaper” are all written in the style of the Wei inscriptions script. During the period of the Republic, the renowned newspaper owner Mr. Yu Youren, was also a famous scholar of Wei tablet inscriptions and calligraphy. At the end of the 1940' s, the Yixing-born Chen Luyuan arranged an new Wei script based on the fierce and powerful structure of Zhang Menglong's tablet, adding to it the style the late Qing dynasty Hubei-born calligrapher Zhang Yuzhao's zhangmo technique, in which the inner curve of each turn and the cross of two strokes, as well as influences from Peking Opera, with the intensity and tension of a musical rhythm. In the 50' s New China's fresh air called for an energetic font; in the 60' s and 70' s during the Cultural Revolution the same font took on nervousness in the tense atmosphere, and the inventor of these scripts disappeared. This kind of font had reached its peak, becoming a kind of “artistic” font tucked into the printing process, and now findings its way into computer font options. In the 80' s when I grew up, New Wei script was commonly used for newspaper title headings. Today, already a large amount of the script has been transformed into a rounder, softer style; cuter, saucier fonts have replaced it, and one doesn't often see the New Wei script. In my opinion, these changes in fonts are also an indicator of change in the collective unconscious. Along with the decomposition of the New Wei script, social keywords such as “revolution” are being replaced with the likes of “success” and “pleasure”.

Another popular computer font is created in the style of the calligrapher Shu Tong, an expert on Yan style characters. The most common script during the Republic of China, was created by Tan Yankai, a senior member of the KMT. Shu Tong was conveniently a calligrapher for the Red Army during the Long March.

Calligraphy has always stemmed from the individual, yet political life has always appointed a handful of people to look after public affairs. Therefore individual fonts have become part of the collective memory. After the establishment of the People Republic of China , Mao Zedong's script gradually became publications only choice. Unimportant units of the government were unable to obtain a copy of Mao's original handwriting and therefore they used a historical method of “collecting characters”. For example, the paper Fujian Youth, which I often read as a child, began to piece together the fonts of the Fujian Daily and China Youth. Until now, if you look around, if a University doesn't have Chairman Mao's handwriting, it isn't considered a topnotch University. The Zhong Nan Hai cigarettes in my hand are the same. During the Cultural Revolution, everyone in every part of the country was imitating Mao's handwriting, including Jiang Qing (madam Mao) and Lin Biao. After the Cultural Revolution, there was the emergence of Deng Xiaoping's handwriting. While I was making this set of cement blocks, I also often used this “collecting characters” method. This is because some language naturally calls for a certain kind of style. The past year of making this work has been a review and a re-organization of memory. At the same time, it has been a review of the genealogy of ideology. Discourse connects the different periods of history, scripts and characters also preserve the anxiety, it is over-discretion can cause us to be in possession of nothing at all.

When Yang Jiechang and Martina Koppel Yang came to my studio to see these blocks of cement, Jiechang said: “How are you going to prove to people that you have actually engraved and re-covered the engravings you say are inside? Can't you use a kind of clear material, so that you can see in between every layer, or some kind of light to make the inside characters visible?” My own answer to this was, believe or don't believe. Martina's response was, “Yea, that's cooler.”

The origins of engravings in China are extremely ancient given the large-scale collections that the Chunhua Council of Inscriptions has accumulated which date back almost one thousand years. Ancient China didn't have news or publishing bureaus, and publishing things didn't apparently require advance applications. Anyone could be an intellectual writer, editor or propagandist. Ancient carvers who used their hands to carve characters committed to stone, bronze, and wood did so both for immortality and to spread the word. Of course immortality and dissemination have always been controlled, a seal could denounce it, inscribed stones would also be ground down by using the grit of a large stone. These layered cement engravings are similar, after repeatedly inscribing each layer I would quickly cover it again with cement. This is myself controlling my own dissemination. The imitating inscriptions are just like history and life's other events, they cannot be seen again. Clouds and smoke that pass the eye are real, not fantasy, these events that are written in the inscriptions indeed occurred. White clouds become blue sky without leaving a trace, the inscriptions are no more than occurrences. Nothing more.

Among collective memory and individual memory, it is difficult to escape error. Whether or not the accumulation of many individual memories is actually collective memory is difficult to say. Every individual can only remember a portion of his or her self and experiences as that self. The memories then owe themselves to certain chance events that belong to each person, and these individual, due to certain chance events, become a part of the collective. To sum it up, memory is an impossible truth, it is a part of the imagination.

If memories can only rely on medium to exist, where can we find such a permanent medium? And if a kind of medium can seal and thus preserve the memory, then it also possesses the capacity to forget. For those stone tablets which have not been preserved through rubbings, it is not necessarily that they have not be transferred to another medium that they are forgotten. After all although absolute memory is impossible, what happens in our physical body and internal spirit is in fact reality.

Perhaps what is recorded shouldn't be remembered, or are not the things we would want to remember. What becomes memory are only those things that enter onto the stage of larger events. But back stage, and amidst the crowd of the audience, the drama continues without cessation. Now, these eight cement blocks in the light of Feijiacun Village 's noon sun are also carrying out a drama, sort of like 8 codes. The very top layer of these cement blocks have already been sealed, even though they contain honest inscriptions even more secrets form to keep the secrets. … the sound of the song has already dispersed, the rays of light are ever-changing, the emperor decomposed long ago, only the scent of the Nanmu tree remains.

Qiu Zhijie is considered one of the earliest practitioners of media art and video art in China in the mid 1990' s.