Drawing upon wind and ocean currents throughout human and more-than-human history, the artists present Aeolian Charts (2023), a new series of watercolor works on paper which consider the poetic potential inherent in climate modelling and the visualization of global, atmospheric phenomena. Each Aeolian Chart plots the path of shifting wind movements using methods normally applied to predictive weather forecasting, although in this case the textual and numerical data have been replaced with noteworthy world events from maritime and climatological history in distant time periods and territories. As a result, new maps emerge, in which the wind patterns of the present become connective forces for events in asynchronous historical strata. Thus representations of meteorological phenomena in the past, such as the 1736 Meiyu or „plum rain season“ over the Yangtze River, coalesce with the so-called “screaming” Agulhas current, as it flows at a speed of 33 knots across the Indian Ocean near the mythical location of Mount Potalaka, the supposed original dwelling place of the Buddhist deity of Mercy (known as Guanyin in Chinese). Other Aeolian Charts in this series note the second-ever recorded jufeng (typhoon) of 818AD, as well as a twelfth-century oracle bone found in Xiaotun, Henan province, used as a tool for weather divination.
Also installed in Allora & Calzadilla’s Shanghai exhibition is the work Penumbra (2020), a digital shadow animation that recreates the effect of light passing through foliage in the Absalon Valley of Martinique. The outlines of dense vegetation are projected beyond it spatially, but also through time, as Allora & Calzadilla’s work follows in the footsteps of poets and theoreticians Suzanne and Aimé Césaire, whose walks through this area inspired their own writings on diasporic culture and anti-colonial resistance in the Caribbean islands. Moved by a deep sense of “cosmic solidarity”—a concept closely related to Gǎnyìng—they also introduced this landscape to a group of Surrealist refugees fleeing WWII in 1941, among them Wifredo Lam, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacqueline Lamba, and André Breton. The multiple accounts of this historical, yet quasi-legendary encounter, also inspired Allora & Calzadilla’s recent animation work. “The tangle of these trees that specialize in acrobatics,” said André Breton, “boost each other into the clouds, leap over cliffs and cut moaning arches over sweet sorceresses under suction cups of sticky flowers.” Penumbra is projected in the gallery at an angle based on a continuous, real-time simulation of the sun’s location over Shanghai. The work is complemented by a musical composition by the Grammy-award-winning and Oscar-nominated composer David Lang and inspired by “shadow tones,” a psycho-acoustic phenomenon perceived when two real tones create the semblance of a third. While the notion of “sympathetic resonance” can be applied to the relations of sound and light waves, it may further be expanded to describe the influence and interdependence between human and more-than-human forces, geopolitical and geological powers, climate and historical time.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated publication including a newly commissioned study on the implications of Gǎnyìng in contemporary, global ecopoetics. Taking the form of a polyphonic text, the scholarly work has been carried out by einaidea, a Barcelona-based research group directed by writer and curator Manuel Cirauqui and associated with EINA School of Art and Design and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). The resulting collective essay features the collaboration of Caribbean and Spanish co-authors Alba Lorca, Mireia Molina Costa, Lizette Nin, and Nicola Pecci.
在驻波多黎各艺术家组合阿洛拉&卡尔萨迪亚 (Allora & Calzadilla) 的中国首次个展中，他们探索“感应”的理念——这一概念源自中国古代宇宙学，在当代语境下被用来描述日常生活中各种力量与生灵之间的纠葛和作用。他们结合宇宙和时间的主题，将重要的历史时刻与当下的全球气候危机联系起来，在哲学、历史和生态学的交汇处实现了一种优雅而矛盾的平衡。
同时着眼于人类及非人类历史，两位艺术家从风和洋流的自然现象中获得启发，呈现一系列纸本作品《风成图》(Aeolian Charts，2023)，探讨气候模型与全球气象可视化中所蕴含的诗意。每张《风成图》都使用常规的天气预测方法来绘制风的移动路径，但是这些预测中的文本和数字被替换成了世界海事与气候历史上的各种重要事件，涵盖了跨度极大的时间与地域。由此形成了一张新地图，把今日的风向与逐层积淀的历史联结起来。作品中涉及的历史及气候事件包括位于印度洋的阿古拉斯洋流，它又名“尖叫洋流”；神秘的补怛洛伽山，传说中观音菩萨的居所；公元816年中国历史记载最早的飓风；以及河南小屯出土的甲骨，它在公元前12世纪曾被用来占卜天气。
阿洛拉&卡尔萨迪亚还为此次上海个展带来一件影像作品《半影》(Penumbra，2020)。这部描绘影子的数字动画再现了加勒比海马提尼克岛押沙龙山谷中光线穿过枝叶产生的效果。浓密植被的轮廓不仅投影在展览空间中，也在时间里穿行：作品跟随了诗人与理论家苏珊·塞泽尔 (Suzanne Césaire) 和艾梅·塞泽尔 (Aimé Césaire) 的脚步，他们在马提尼克岛的徒步经历启发了其关于加勒比群岛离散文化和反殖民抗争的写作。他们深受“宇宙团结”的概念触动——这一概念也与“感应”密切相关，并于1941年将这处风景介绍给了一群因二战而流亡的超现实主义者，其中包括林飞龙 (Wifredo Lam)、克洛德·列维-斯特劳斯 (Claude Lévi-Strauss)、杰奎琳·兰巴 (Jacqueline Lamba) 和安德烈·布勒东 (André Breton)。关于这段略带传说成分的历史会面有着诸多记载，这正激发了阿洛拉&卡尔萨迪亚创作这件动画作品。“这些纠缠的枝叶擅长杂技，”安德烈·布勒东曾说道，“它们相互推上云层、跃过悬崖，在黏黏的花吸盘下、甜甜的女巫头上，割开呻吟的拱门。”《半影》基于上海展厅上空太阳的连续实时位置来确定投影角度。伴随影像的是由格莱美奖获得者、奥斯卡提名作曲家大卫·朗 (David Lang) 创作的配乐，此乐曲受到了心理声学现象“影调”的启发：两个真实音调在同时播放时相互作用，会使听者仿佛感知到第三种虚拟的声音。“谐音共振”的概念可被应用于声波与光波间的关系，但也许还可以拓展开来，描述人类和非人类力量、地缘政治和地质力量、气候历史和时间历史之间的影响与依赖。
展览随附的图文册子内含一项全新的委任研究，关注当代全球生态诗学中“感应”的意义所在。这篇学术著作以复调文本的形式呈现，由巴塞罗那研究团队 einaidea 撰写。该团队由作家及策展人曼努埃尔·西拉乌奎 (Manuel Cirauqui) 领导，由西班牙巴塞罗那的 EINA 艺术与设计学院和巴塞罗那自治大学合作推出。此文本由加勒比地区和西班牙的作者们共同完成，包括阿尔巴·洛尔卡 (Alba Lorca)、米雷亚·莫利纳·科斯塔 (Mireia Molina Costa)、莉泽特·尼恩 (Lizette Nin) 和尼古拉·佩琪 (Nicola Pecci)。
