Romance Of Black And White (1) Poem by Denis Mair

1
The eternal encounter between white and black is an abstraction of polarities. Rendered visually it encapsulates the theme of complementary forces unfolding. A local corner of the cosmic swirl can be writ large in imagination, or maybe it defeats all attempts at resonance and leaves the viewer in a blind alley, where shadows evoke the bruises of passing seasons. In certain phases the eternal romance of black and white may quote its own history, or fetishize technique, or the unmaking of an image can generate new effects. For instance, coarse pixelation can be re-engulfed in mists.

2
It's about time something happened in the dark. Night is the site of enlightenment... so let light come to suffuse the darkness, un-glimpsed until you notice the fish-belly streak of dawn. The streak begins a luminous assault; it glints on edges and gleams on drops. In a visual display, darkness is often represented by ink; light is represented by absence of pigment. Darkness is always the same, but light differs... light is the displaced presence of its origin. Effects of pigment depend on statistical dominance; receptors in the eye work in committees. Darkness is local but may become pervasive; light is non-local and tries to expand its reach. Darkness does not actually "encroach" on anything... as an absence it wins out because it always returns, but light can only be intermittent.

3
Where is the position from which one can witness a murky mass of air? Go to the back of beyond, where you will find it by getting lost. It's a blacked-out scene where whiteness stakes its claim in different ways... near and far, vague and clear... You locate yourself by streaks in space... The far and near sources insinuate themselves in different ways. Some things are out of the picture, so they become part of the big picture. Black-and-white scenes stand for any forces able to hold their own against each other... or give in to each other. They are groping, sliding over and under each other, trying without intention... to find a complementary relation that makes sense.

4
The sweat of labor leaves white traces on a dark work shirt... From up close we see nothing but the weave of dark fibers and the diffused streaks of whiteness... If the eye is inclined it may see a night-time graveyard... if the heart is susceptible it will be chilled by hoarfrost. Depths of night air and salt-streaks of labor can only be perceived in alternation, like steps carrying you into an ambivalent illusion.

5
The impression of something "once-having-been" is how Barthes defined the power of photography. But when consciousness is processing a black-and-white abstraction, it deals with a nothing that was elsewhere, leaving a trace like a lost-wax casting, or maybe like the graph of an irrational number run through a mathematical noodling function. A noodling function is a procedure for surreal results, extracting patterns from segments of a number that never repeats itself.

6
When we see image-generating procedures from one domain echo or quote the patterns native to a different domain, then we get an inkling that we are living in a pan-aesthetic cosmos! (Take for example the streamlined black-and-white patterns of an orca whale, evocative of fluid dynamics but formed by aleatory color-determining procedures in the embryo.)

7
Irreproducible results are the result of ablation and deposition... slight initial differences are magnified stochastically... to highlight a phase boundary... flux is a form-maker but has no form... forces in rapid interchange show no shape... after falling into pattern-lock they leave markings... for example like scaling on the inside of a pipe...or blistering tubercles where corrosion is hidden.

8
Time-prints winnow the darkness for flecks of light... nothing is determined and the specks are free to fall as they may... weathering on a wall is an accidental chromatograph where spatters diffuse through damp plaster... mold-spores come to lend their accents... Where could the dream of intention ever find traction? Subjectivity is looking for itself everywhere.

9
Rumi wrote a poem about the relation of figure and ground (Mathnawi - Part VI: 2955-2962) . After I read it, my memory distilled his ruminations into a single image; several years later, that image triggered my own ruminations. A man is sitting on the ground having a picnic; the dishes are laid out on a piece of black woolen felt黑毡. He sees white grains of rice moving in a line across the black background. For a moment he is puzzled by this dotted line of moving rice grains. Finally, without needing to look closer, he realizes that a column of black ants is marching in single file across the felt, and each ant is carrying a grain of rice. This haunting image makes me think of many things. In a developing field of knowledge or art genre, our creative thinking is driven by motives we cannot fully know or express. Those motives act upon the signs in a system, but we are only conscious of unfolding relations among the signs. Perhaps these motives are personal and private...for instance one's need to assert oneself or escape from a sense of confinement. The motives cannot determine how the system will unfold, because the system's development depends on its previous history and its rule-governed possibilities. The language of a system runs on rails, and the motives must be harnessed to that language. Our expression of interplay between polarities often seems to lead toward narrowing pathways, but a new possibility may emerge from an unexpected point of view. To write about the romance of black and white, I am hoping to stumble on unexpected points of view. In fact, many of the breakthroughs I'm seeking have already been made by ink artists or poets who write about light and shade. These breakthroughs only need to be recognized in a context of appreciation. They need to be brought to the light of day, so they can be celebrated in another phase of the dialogue of black and white.

10
Around a deep, dark well there are accretions of discourse inspired by the well-water, but now calcified. Keep drawing from the well... in each generation it will inspire new expression. Maybe it makes you want to rant excitedly, but make sure you don't get stuck in the ossified layers. We have tongues, so we are born to speak of what that deep well contains. To say it is INEXPRESSIBLE would be a hackneyed strategy, a boring use of mystical language. Yet I have to admit the landscape of ossified expression is lovely, with lots of microclimates for new creations to flourish in.
..........


Thanks to Mr. Wang Hao for helping me to translate this into Chinese:

黑与白的浪漫史·之一


一部创作中的散文组诗，以探究事物两极间的相互作用。白与黑的永恒对话是将普遍的变易纳入哲思的一条路径...沿着它前行，我们或许会在最意想不到的地方撞上美学的种种主题。

一

白与黑永恒的相遇，是对立或互补的抽象表达。当它在视觉中呈现，便能概括哲学的课题。也许宇宙旋转的某个小角落，会在想象中被写大，但也可能会挫败一切发出共鸣的努力，让观者走入死胡同，而那里的阴影会让人想起过往岁月留下的淤伤。在某些阶段，黑与白的浪漫史可能会引述自己的历史，或是把技术作为拜物的对象，抑或一个形象的消散可以生出新的效果。譬如粗像素化可能再次被雾气吞没。

二

该有某些事情在黑暗中发生了。夜是开悟的场所...不妨让光来充盈黑暗——-那尚未现出的光，直到你眼里生出鱼肚白的晨曦。这片光发起一场明亮的攻击，在事物的边缘上闪烁，在水滴上生辉。在视觉的展示中，黑暗常用泼墨来表达，光亮则是颜料的留白；黑暗往往一致，光亮每每不同...光亮是它的来源发生位移之后的存在。颜料的作用依赖于统计学的优势，眼球里的众多接收器需要同心同力。黑暗存在于局部，但也可能弥漫在四周；光明并不集于某处，并会拼命四处扩张。黑暗其实并不会"侵占"任何事物...作为一种缺场，它能胜出，是因为它总要回来，而光明只能时断时续。

三

从哪个位置可以目睹一团晦暗的空气？到那遥远的僻壤去吧，到那里你就会在迷失方向的时候找到它。在那没有半点灯火的一片漆黑之中，白色以种种方式申诉它的用地权...而其来源或远或近，或模糊或清晰...。你只好用空间里的一抹抹光影给自己定位...。远处和近处的光源各自暗表自身的存在。有些事物处在小的画面之外，为的是在大的真相中找到一席之地。黑与白的画面代表着任何能够相互抗衡...或是相互妥协的力量。它们彼此摸寻，从彼此的头顶和脚底擦身而过，漫无目的地尝试...为了找到一种颇有旨趣的互补关系。

四

劳动的汗水在深色的工作服上留下白色的印渍……凑上去什么也看不到，只见黑色纤维的缠织，以及白色痕渍的扩散...眼睛要是愿意，就会把它看成夜晚的墓地；心灵要是感怀，就会易于被白霜凉透。只看得到夜里空气的深度和劳动的盐渍条纹相互交替，就像一级一级的阶梯，仿佛正把你带进暧昧不清的幻觉。

五

罗兰·巴特把摄影的力量定义为对某个事物"此曾在"的印象。但当意识处理白与黑的抽象，它面对的是一个处在别处的不存在的东西，这事物只留有如失蜡铸造的痕迹，又像是一个用随机函数来处理并制图的无理数。随机函数是一种可以获取超现实成果的程序，能够从不重复数字的某一段抽取图样。

六

当我们看到某个领域的图像生成程序在效仿或是引用来自另一个领域的图形，我们就隐约知道我们生活在一个泛审美的宇宙中！（例如虎鲸流线型的黑白图案令人联想到流体力学，但它却已在胚胎时期经由随机的色块择定程序所决定。）

七

不可重复的结果，产生于削蚀或积淀的过程...微小的初始差异被某一种涡流放大...以突出相位的边界...流动性是没有形式的形式生成机制...快速交互的力量没有形状...当其中的多重格式环扣卡住后，会留下特殊的形状，例如管道内壁上的结垢...又如隐藏着腐蚀的起泡的瘤节。

八

时光的刻印播撒黑暗以取得光的谷粒……没有什么一成不变，小斑点可以任意下落...墙壁上的风化是一种偶现的色谱图，洒溅的液体在潮润的灰泥中晕开...霉菌的孢子也来参与点缀...。意图的梦想可以在哪里得到牵引？主体意识四下寻找落脚的地方。

九

鲁米写过一首关于造型与背景关系的诗（《玛斯纳维》卷五，2955~2962行），读过之后，我的记忆把他的沉思浓缩成一个形象。几年以后，这形象引发了我自己的沉思。一个男人坐在地上野餐，餐盘罗列在一块黑色的羊毛毡上。他看到白色的米粒排成一行在黑色背景上移动。一时间，这条移动的米粒虚线让他迷惑不解。最后，无需细看，他便意识到这是一列黑色的蚂蚁从毛毡的左边穿过，每只黑蚁都衔着一粒白米。这萦绕脑际的画面让我浮想联翩。在一个不断发展的知识或艺术领域中，我们无法完全了解或表达的动机驱动着我们的创造性思维。由这些内在动机作用于一个系统中的符号，但观者只看到符号之间的关系在展开。也许这些动机是个人的、私密的...例如一个人自我呈现的需求，或是摆脱束缚的愿望。这些动机无法决定该系统将如何展开，因系统的发展取决于其之前的历史，及其受规则支配的可能性。一个系统的语言在轨道上运行，因此这些动机必须服从于语言的逻辑。我们对两极之间相互作用的表达似乎常常走入渐窄的路径，但一种新的可能性或许会从一个意想不到的视角中呈现出来。为了写作一部关于黑与白的浪漫史，我希望能偶然撞上一些意想不到的观点。实际上我正在寻求的种种突破，已经由丹青高手或是写作光影的诗人所实现。这些突破正等待着在欣赏的语境中被认出。它们需要被带到日光下，这样就能在黑白对话的另一个阶段得以发扬光大。

十

一口又深又暗的井边积满了受井水启迪的话语，但此刻已经钙化。继续从井中打水...它会在每一代人中启发新的表达。或许它会让你兴奋不已，侃侃而谈，但你千万别让自己凝固在硬化的层次中。我们有舌头，所以生来就要言说那口深井盛纳的东西。要说它不可言传，真是一种陈腐的说法，故弄玄虚罢了。然而我必须承认，固化的表达形成的景观实在可爱，其中有许多小气候让新的创造蓬勃兴旺。

王浩、梅丹理译