【Audiovisual】你还在前进吗？ "Are you still moiving forward?"--For ruined primary school

"Are you still moving forward?" is an Audiovisual work for an elementary school ruins. The work is an attempt to respond to anthropologist Xiang Biao's concept of "_The disappearance of the nearby_". According to Xiang Biao's theory, "nearby" refers to the social relations and emotional connections established by people from different positions and backgrounds in a common living space. It contains two characteristics: fluidity and generativity, which means that the internal relations of the "nearby" are constantly changing and self-renewing.
Since the "Reform and Opening-Up" in 1978, the level of industrialization and urbanization in Chinese society has been rising rapidly, commodity culture and consumerism have improved the efficiency of individual life, but also destroyed people's ability to establish relations with the "nearby". The closed personal space makes people begin to escape from public life. The physical "nearby" does not disappear, but individuals are increasingly isolated in social relations and connections. How to reflect on and rebuild "nearby" is the main theme of this work.
This work uses VHS cameras and 3D scanning models to record and reproduce the ruins of an elementary school with real-time sound and video processing via Maxmsp. In modern society, the life of the elementary school campus is the first place to establish "nearby", and the nostalgia for this emotional memory also forms a reflection on "the disappearance of the nearby". VHS image represents a dream-like nostalgia feeling, while the 3D modeling effect represents an abstract sense of alienation, which build a "discontinuous memory" together and the process of this memory fading away.
As for sound part, the author uses the sampling of piano, synthesizer and field recording to produce a poetic music that gradually moves toward chaos and fragmentation. For example, the audio sampling of "eye massage exercises" and "broadcast gymnastics" in primary schools in China, which symbolize specific historical periods and ideological colors, is used as the material and Trigger for noise. Some notes and playing marks [^1] from Erik Satie's piano piece "Gymnopedies" are also borrowed to reinforce the mood.
The title of this work is Inspired by the graffiti on the walls of a ruined graduating class, the children's hopes to the future represent a kind of magical realist inquiry: "Are you still moving forward?"
[^ 1] : "painful" (_douloureux_), "sad" (_triste_) or "seriously"
(_grave_) *
《你还在前进吗》（Are you still moving forward?）是一部以小学废墟为主题的Audiovisual作品。这部作品试图回应人类学家项飚提出的“附近的消失”（_The disappearance of the nearby_）这一概念。根据项飚的理论，“附近”指的是不同立场和背景的人们在共同的生活空间（_a lived space_）内所享有的丰富的社会关系和情感连接。它包含了流动性（_fluid_）和生成性（_generative_）两个特点，也就是说“附近”的内部关系是在不断变化和自我更新的。
改革开放以来，中国社a会工业化和城市化的程度在迅速上升，商品文化与消费主义在提高了个人生活效率的同时，也消解了人们与“附近”之间建立关系的能力。封闭的个人空间使得人们开始逃避公共生活，物理上的近处空间并没有消失，然而个体在社会关系和情感上却日益孤立。如何反思并重建“附近”，是这部作品想要表达的主题。
本作品使用VHS摄影机和3D扫描模型记录了一个已经成为废墟的小学校园的影像，并通过Maxmsp对声音和画面进行了实时处理。在现代社会，小学是人们最初建立“附近”的场所，对这种情感记忆的怀念同时也构成了对“附近的消失”的反思：VHS影像代表了一种梦境一般的怀旧情绪，而3D建模效果则试图呈现一种抽象的疏离感（_sense of alienation_），二者共同构建了一段“不连续的记忆（梦境）”，以及这种记忆（梦境）不断消逝的过程。
在声音上，作者使用了钢琴、合成器和田野录音的采样制作了一种诗意的，逐渐走向混沌和破碎的音乐，例如将小学校园里使用的“眼保健操”和“广播体操”的音频采样作为噪音的素材和触发器（Trigger），同时借用了Erik Satie在钢琴曲《_Gymnopédies_》中的部分音符和演奏标记[^1] 来强化这种情绪。
本作品的标题灵感来自废墟中一间毕业班教室墙上的涂鸦，孩子们对未来的期许代表了一种魔幻现实主义式的追问：你还在前进吗？
[^1]: 即 “痛苦地”（_douloureux_）、“悲伤地”（_triste_）或 “严肃地”（_grave_）*