Recent Studies / 最近的学习

Postpost publication plan #1: Muxi Gao, Recent Studies

“This book is an image dictionary compiled by collecting debris of news, reproducing moments that almost seem like fiction, and rewriting hearsay as alphabets for distributing these new vocabularies. I repeatedly attempted to understand these recent, incredulous years, which seemed to me have revealed fragility to be our society’s fundamental base, an infrastructure of sort, connecting us to each other. My question: what happens if we construct something on, or out of, fragility? Something that will hold, yet may collapse at anytime, or never?”

Muxi is an artist and designer who lives and works in Beijing since Covid-19. We met under the walnut tree in postpost, 3standardstoppage’s space in Beijing, where she shared “Recent Studies” with us. It is an ongoing project that lasted for 3–4 years beginning from her study in the US and then moving back to China. She observed, collected and reacted to some pieces of the world since Donald Trump’s election to the pandemic. Paul Elliman generously contributed four gorgeous pieces written during the lockdown in London. Recent Studies was first written in English then translated into Chinese. It was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of MFA at Yale University School of Art. The second edition was published in Beijing in 2020, with a lot of help from family and friends.

Current Studies is comprised of three main parts:

Part 1 Current Vocabulary. Muxi selected 26 found images as her alphabets from A—Z, and hand drew them as a way of studying this language. Some of the images may seem familiar, as they have been sourced from a piece of news or meme, or a scene from a popular Japanese anime.

While some others are from her personal memories.

In Part 2 Writing Practice, Muxi practices using the vocabulary she learned in Part 1. Each entry comprises of floating thumbnails of the original found images, with a corresponding text. The title of the text, composed of the letters (or matching reference images), reveals the complex yet strong intertextuality between texts and images.

Part 3 Souvenir is a new set of letters (to go), reinterpreted and further developed from Part 1. Each Souvenir is a response to its previous version. The new A—Z, presented as postcards, can be re-inserted to the real world through their circulation and consumption, while the empty spaces of the pages created by the removal of postcards anticipate forthcoming letters to continually replace and update the vocabulary set.

In between each section are four beautiful written pieces contributed by Paul Elliman. The first, How to get in, slipped inside the cover as a secret opening, is a note Paul discovered from his friend who has been an Airbnb host of his central London apartment. During Covid, he had to write a complicated note for his guests to find the hidden apartment key by themselves without having to meet in person. The second piece, Contact Improvisation, depicts how passengers mysteriously communicate in a subway station in New York. Vai e Volte (to go and to come back) tells about how language illustrates us. Lastly, in Guess where I am, Paul shares an encounter with an old friend who passed away some time ago.

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“这本书是一本图像词典，它的语汇由收集来的新闻碎片，重构的近乎虚构的瞬间，以及重新编写的传闻们构成。我试图反复地去理解这最近的、不可思议的几年。好像我们作为个体和集体的脆弱性一下被全面暴露出来了，好像这种脆弱才是一切的基底，是社会中真正的基础设施。我想知道如果我们在脆弱性之上、或者用这种脆弱去建构事物会怎么样呢？构建一些也许可持续，也可能在任何时候坍塌，或永不坍塌之物。”

Muxi是一位艺术家和设计师，自Covid-19以来她生活和工作于北京。我们在postpost的核桃树下相遇，这里也是3standardstoppage的北京空间。Muxi和我们分享了她的“最近的学习”，这是一个进行了三四年的项目，贯穿了她在美国的学习以及随后搬回国的过程。通过这个项目她观察、收集和回应了自特朗普当选到全球疫情爆发以来的世界的一些片段。著名英国艺术家Paul Elliman在伦敦隔离期间，为这个项目慷慨地贡献了四篇极为美丽的写作。《最近的学习》最早先由英文写成，并作为耶鲁大学艺术学院研究生学位论文的一部分提交，后翻译为中文。此书的第二版在来自家人朋友的许多支持下，得以在2020年出版于北京。

《最近的学习》由主要的三个部分构成：

第一部分“当前词汇表”，Muxi筛选了26张现成图像，作为她的A-Z字母表，再通过手绘对这套语言进行临摹学习。其中有些图片可能让人感到熟悉，它们可能来自于一则新闻或表情包, 或者广受欢迎的日本动画中的场景。其它一些画面则来自个人回忆。

第二部分写作练习，是在学习了第一部分词汇表以后，Muxi对新语言的练习使用。在每一个开页上，有一些漂浮着的小图—它们是26张现成图像的原图—以及一些回应图像的文字。乱码般的标题字母对应了每一张小图，揭示出图文之间的复杂而强烈的互文关系。

第三部分留念则是基于第一部分，并被重新理解和发展后的一组新的（可寄出的）字母。每一个纪念品都是对其原来版本的回应。新的A-Z也是一套明信片，它们可以通过流通和消耗重回现实世界。而在明信片被取走，并在书页上留下空洞之时，这套语汇也将被持续地被替换和更新。

在每个章节之间，流畅地衔接了一共四篇来自Paul Elliman的美丽文章。藏在封面里的第一篇“如何进来”是全书的秘密开场，这是Paul从一位朋友那儿发现的便条，他是伦敦市中心一间公寓的Airbnb房东，在疫情期间为了避免与客人见面，他写了这张复杂的字条，好让客人自行找到被他藏起来的公寓钥匙。第二篇“即兴通讯”描绘了在一个纽约地铁站中，乘客们用神秘方法交流的情形。Vai e Volte（往返）讲述了语言是如何刻画我们。最后，在“猜我在哪”中，Paul分享了与一位已过世朋友的重逢。