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Emergence Magazine Vol.2

在做雜誌的人心中,大多都存在著一本對自己來說接近完美的雜誌。每次接手新的提案計劃時,都以它作為量度距離的標準,確認接下來做的事情處於什麼位置,有多接近(大多時候是偏離)當初對於未來的想像。

對我來說,Emergence Magazine就是一本這樣的雜誌。

EM還未成為經典,正好相反,它是一個2018年才開始的新計劃,今年年初才出版了vol.2的實體版本。第一次拿起這本以人類末日迫近為前題的雜誌時,就產生了一種非常強烈的感覺,它詢問了一直想詢問的,卻還未知道該用什麼詞彙表達的問題,而且給予了極為新鮮的觀看世界方式。

在開首的文章Stone Alphabet中,藝術家Katie Holten分享了她在曼哈頓「閱讀石頭」的經驗。如果細心觀察,散步時很輕易就能夠觀察到城市表面鋪滿了來自不同時間的石頭。她在住宅大堂的大理石上看到三叠紀的砂石;在商業大廈的外牆找到鑲嵌了苔蘚蟲化石的石灰岩。在筆記本上,她畫下石頭的紋理、裂縫、孔洞和化石的痕跡,嘗試聽見石頭的聲音。我們的語言只是這個世界的縮寫,她說。

唯有將目光移離自己,人類才更接近事物的本質。

Emergence Magazine Vol.2分成語言、食物、末日、樹木4個主題,以完全不同的角度連結了雜誌的關鍵詞:生態、文化、心靈。

在食物一章,Dwelling on Earth研究了所有食物的來源——泥土;Tasting Sunlight 記述了柬埔寨的採集飲食傳統;苗族美國作家Lisa Lee Herrick在回憶家族的怪奇飲食習慣同時追尋自己的魔幻身世;Reseeding the Food System訪問了莫霍克族(Mohawk)行動家如何透過保存種子,與土地維持親密的關係。

我開始明白EM將每年的文章集中一次出版的原因。翻閱以不同紙質串連而成的雜誌時,你會發現每件事物背後都有一連串可以追溯的脈絡。就像人類眼睛認識到的菇菌只屬於小部份,它們的根部連成一片廣闊的網絡,在眼睛看不見的地方熱烈地交流著。EM嘗試做的,是開放我們觀看世界的方式,從格式化的目光中釋放出來。

EM Vol.2 最吸引我的,是Apocalypse一章。

Apocalypse,末日。這章的開首以攝影師拍下的澳洲焚火開首。毀滅的映像看起來,竟然如此美麗。就如雜誌中我最喜歡的一篇文章引用本雅明(Walter Benjamin)所說,唯獨人類這種生物,會在自身的毀滅之中獲得美感和享受。

那篇文章的標題,是Beginning with the End

這數年來,難免被一種末日感籠罩著,彷彿世界真的接近終結。可是,我們說的「世界」,說的其實是以集體的觀念所共同投射、共同建構的一套共識。這套抽像的共識,從過去就不斷毀滅、重生著。當事物的毀壞難以阻擋,真正重要的問題也許是重生的,到底是什麼。

在做雜誌的人心中,大多都存在著一本對自己來說接近完美的雜誌。Emergence帶來的啟發並不是形式或是美學上的,而是位置,該怎樣掌握自己和世界的距離,在這個確切而必要的問題上。

生命應該是一個微小的、親密的、個人的作品。在整本厚重的雜誌中,我抄下了這一句。寫這篇文章想找回原文時,卻怎樣也找不到。這也許只是我個人投射的想法。也許不是。

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Most people who work in magazines hold close to their hearts that one magazine that means near perfection to them personally. With every new proposal or project, one takes that magazine as a standard of measurement to evaluate how his next task is positioned, and how close it is to (or in most cases, how much it digresses from) his initial imagination for the future.

To me, Emergence Magazine is that kind of a magazine.

EM is not yet a classic. Quite the contrary, it is a new project that only began in 2018, and only just published the print edition of its vol. 2 early this year. The first time I picked up the magazine, which takes the imminence of the end of the world as its premise, it drew such intense feelings. It asks questions that I have always longed to ask, that until then I had not the vocabulary to express, and it offers extremely refreshing ways to see the world.

In the opening article “Stone Alphabet”, artist Katie Holden shares her experience in “reading stones” in Manhattan. If one is attentive enough, as he walks around the city he may observe that the face of it is covered in stones of different eras. She has found Triassic stones in the marble of an apartment lobby; and limestones encrusted with bryozoan fossils on the exterior walls of commercial buildings. In her notebook, she drew the stones’ textures, cracks, holes and traces of fossils, as she attempted to listen to the voices of stones. Language is an abbreviation for the world’s readability, she said.

Only by shifting his perspective away from the self does man draw closer to the essence of things.

Emergence Magazine Vol.2 is divided into the 4 themes of language, food, apocalypse and trees. These distinctly different angles connect the keywords of the magazine: Ecology, culture and spirituality.

In the chapter on food, “Dwelling on Earth” studies the source of all food – soil; “Tasting Sunlight” documents Cambodia’s food harvesting tradition; Hmong American writer Lisa Lee Herrick recalls the bizarre eating habits of her family while exploring the family’s mystical past; “Reseeding the Food System” interviews an advocate of Mohawk descent on how she keeps seeds to maintain an intimate relationship with the land.

I began to understand why EM combines a whole year’s articles for publication. Flipping through a magazine bound together in papers of different textures, one discovers that underlying everything is a string of traceable development, like how fungi as perceived by the human eye is but one small part, while their roots join together in a vast network, interacting vigorously in places where the eye cannot reach. What EM tries to do is to open up the way we view the world, to liberate us from structured perspectives.

What appealed to me the most in EM Vol. 2 is the “Apocalypse” chapter.

Apocalypse, the end of the world. This chapter begins with the Australian bushfire as captured by a photographer. So surprisingly sublime was the imagery of destruction. As my favourite article from the magazine quotes from Walter Benjamin, humans are the only species who can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure.

The title of that article is “Beginning with the End”.

In these few years, no doubt a sense of doom encloses us, as though the world really is approaching its end. This “world” that we talk about, however, really refers to a collective consciousness projected and constructed en masse through shared values. This abstract consciousness has never ceased to be destroyed and regenerated since times past. When the destruction of things is inevitable, the real question of significance is perhaps to ask what then is regenerated.

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Most people who work in magazines hold close to their hearts that one magazine that means near perfection to them personally. The innovation that Emergence brings is not in form or aesthetics, but in positioning, that is, in the urgent and essential issue of understanding one’s own position in relation to the world.

Life should be a small, intimate and personal piece of work. I jotted down this line out of this whole thick and heavy magazine, but as I was writing this article and trying to locate the original passage for the quote, it was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was only a projection of my thoughts. Or perhaps not.

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