01

TRAPPED

Alex Hanimann

在《TRAPPED》這本攝影集中,藝術家Alex Hanimann使用了「相機陷阱」拍攝了經過的野生動物。當裝置偵測到動作,就會自動激發快門,以250分之1秒的速度,將閃光範圍內的一切生命捕捉,轉化成數碼像素,傳輸至藝術家的遙控電腦中。

最初翻閱這本攝影集時,感覺這是一本獵奇而有趣的書。夜行動物在灰綠色的世界中行走、捕食、狂奔,滿足了人對自然世界近乎原始本能的好奇心。可是,當我以單鏡反光相機翻拍書的照片,在另一塊鏡片的過濾下再次凝視那些動物的身影時,卻感受到一種疏離和疑惑。

在我眼前的,真的是那些在黑暗大地上安靜存在著的生命嗎?

書中的照片主要分成三種,第一種是動物在某個連續行為的中段,對攝影機毫無所知;第二種是動物受到閃光驚嚇的抬頭瞬間;第三種是牠們好奇地走近鏡頭的近攝照片。

對於第一種照片,動物是作為一種景觀的存在。在先進的技術的協助下,藝術家拍下了珍稀動物難得一見的「真實生活」。然而,牠們的生活是作為被觀賞的對象而存在的。觀看一隻花豹奮力咬合、撕裂獵物脖子的照片時,我們處於一個觀賞的位置,就像身處動物園和水族館一樣,在保持安全距離下,感受大自然的原始和蠻荒。

當我們採取這種視角時,背後暗示的是以一條明確的界線,將自然與文明劃分成兩個完全相對的概念。只有在舒適的文明世界中,在似有若無的界限下,我們才願意接近和瞭解關於動物的一切。如果對方入侵,即違反了這條界線,必須馬上保衛文明。

這種動物的映像,只是用以滿足想像的中介。相機陷阱捕捉的,是人類單向的凝視。

05

第二種照片佔了這本攝影集的多數。夜行動物走進陷阱範圍,觸發閃光,抬頭,面對機器,凝結了動物瞬間的恐懼。面對無法理解的技術,牠們的肌肉緊縮,將全身的感官集中於將臨的危險中。

我們常常都會忽略,動物也有它們的眼神。

曾經,有一段漫長的時期,我們在猛獸的凝視下生存,確立自身於世界的邊緣位置。人類終於建起文明後,便將動物分門別類地關好,向孩子鉅細無遺地教授關於動物學的知識。然而,如同John Berger所言:「我們對它們知道得愈多,它們就離我們愈遠。」

孩子在玻璃旁奮力招手,希望取得獸的注意,卻只得到一個逃避的側視。日復日的生活中,牠們盲目地觀看遠方。

08

波蘭導演奇斯洛夫斯基記得一件他歷歷在目,母親卻完全不記得發生過的事情。那時候,他們居住在一座安靜的小城。一天黃昏,他牽著母親的手,從巿場走回小屋的家時,一個老男人牽著一隻象迎面走來。對小城來說這是一件大事,然而大家卻表現得好像沒有任何事情發生似的。

他一直盯著象混圓漆黑的眼睛,象也拖著沉重的腳步,一直看著只有五歲的奇斯洛夫斯基。孩子轉身,直至他們的身影消失。

當我們看到第三種照片,那些對相機陷阱感到好奇的動物照片時,很自然,我們會覺得牠們可愛,而且充滿人性。然而,更準確的說法,應該是我們在動物身上,瞭解到自己的某些感情和特質,是與世界共通的。很多時,人類都忘記了自己也是一種動物。

對某些人來說,相較人類,與動物更能建立親近的關係。

當然,對大部份來說,並不是。

09

In the photobook TRAPPED, the artist Alex Hanimann photographed passing wild animals with “camera traps”. Whenever the device senses a movement, it automatically triggers the shutter release. In the speed of one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, all lives within the flash range are captured, converted into digital pixels and transferred to the artist’s remote computer.

When I first read the photobook, it felt like a novel and intriguing book. Nocturnal animals moved, hunted and ran in a green gray world, satisfying human’s primal and instinctive curiosity about the natural world. But when I photographed the photos in the book again with a single-lens reflex camera, staring at these animals’ figures through the filter of another lens, I felt a sense of isolation and doubt.

Are these very things before my eyes really those lives that live quietly on the dark lands?

11

The book’s photographs are mainly of three types, the first are animals in the middle of certain sequential acts, entirely oblivious to the camera; the second are the moments when the animals looked up after the shock of the flash; the third are close shots of animals curiously approaching the camera.

With the first type of photographs, animals exist as a kind of scenery. With the help of advanced technologies, the artist captured the rare “real lives” of exotic animals, but their lives exist as objects of appreciation. Seeing a photograph of a leopard aggressively biting into and tearing through the neck of its prey, we are placed in a spectator’s position. Much akin to being in a zoo or an aquarium, we keep a safe distance as we take in nature’s rawness and savagery.

When we adopt this perspective, what it implies is a clear line that divides nature and civilisation into two completely opposite concepts. Only in the comfort of the civilised world, within intangible boundaries, are we willing to approach and understand everything about animals. If the object intrudes, and thus transgresses this boundary, civilisation must be guarded at once.

This type of animal images serves only as a medium to satisfy the imagination. What the camera trap captured was human’s one-sided gaze.

12

The second type of photographs make up the majority of this photobook. Nocturnal animals entered the trap range, triggered the flash, looked up and faced the machine, a moment’s fear frozen. Met with technologies that they were incapable of understanding, their muscles contracted,  the senses of their whole beings directed towards the incipient danger.

We often overlook the fact that animals have their own gaze too.

13

Once upon a time, for a very long period, we survived under the gaze of beasts, making our place in the world’s periphery. When humans at last developed civilisation, they shut animals in by categories and spared no effort to teach children about zoology. Yet, to quote John Berger, ”the more we know, the further away they are”.

The child waves desperately at the glass pane, in hope of gaining the beast’s attention, but only receives an elusive side glance. Day after day, they blindly look into the distance.

14

Polish film director Kieślowski recalled an incident vividly, one that his mother had no recollection of at all. Back then, they were living in a quiet little town. One day at dusk, as he was holding his mother’s hand and walking from the market back home to their little hut, an old man walking an elephant came up towards them. It was a big thing in a small town, but everyone acted as if nothing was happening.

He kept staring at the elephant’s rounded dark eyes. The elephant also dragged its heavy gait and stared at the five-year-old Kieślowski continuously. The child made a turn until their figures faded out.

When we see the third type of photographs, photographs of animals that were curious about the camera trap, naturally we find them adorable and also quite humane. But to phrase it more precisely, it is in animals that we learn that some of our own emotions and qualities are interconnected in the world. Oftentimes, humans forget that they are themselves a kind of animal too.

For some people, rather than humans, animals are better at forming intimate relations with them.

Then of course, to most people, that is not the case.

15
w