(I realized artist statement is missing from the website, so I’ve updated it here)

Once in a while another human simply startles us.

In an informal meeting, two minds fluctuate between ideals and emotions. Even
our normal frequency of failure mirrors the accuracy in which two minds
sift and propel the conversation.  It seems we live our entire lives
longing for such bewilderment.  Yet the intensity of a life-changing
conversation is protected by a mutual stipulation of convergence.  We
are both unable to unlock the barrier alone. We are both satisfied by
the realization.  In this momentary buffer zone lies the basic
requirement for mapping, a whispering engagement of the senses.

But this crystallization comes as exhaustion from everyday events.
On most days the accuracy of time and place is lost to the average
human due to a broadening spectrum of human syndromes.  Most of all we
are unable to affect our wavering perceptual limitations.  Our own
mapping system can prevent us from venturing too far.

As an experiment I am asking a curator to visit an empty gallery
space and invent a universe based on no curatorial engagement. On one
hand, the curator will use his own knowledge of curatorial mapping to
invent a non-curatorial text.  On the other hand, gallery space becomes
a site of work-in-progress in which the artist showcases her own
spatial projection. The curator will yield, after mapping through an
empty gallery space, a strenuous forecast so the artist may counter the
poetics of anticipation.

The physical space in which viewers are allowed to walk through is
a path of extensive decisions, derived from an invisible command to
guide unexpected viewers.  This is the buffer zone in which the curator
carefully pours the final glaze to summarize the adhesion of an artwork
per space.  The ideal display environment is perhaps so fixed to the
point that the decree of art’s meaning is unlikely stray with viewers.

What if an artwork ceases to exist in the confinement of this
mapping? Despite seamless curatorial mapping, the natural predicament
of human syndromes will drive some viewer astray. Essentially cultural
synesthesia is the mega sum of human syndromes sifting through a given
space.  In this case it is up to the artist to dispel and contain the
absurd drive of human syndromes.

As an experiment I use the term cultural synesthesia to counter the
mapping context of curatorial practice.  It is the goal of Antimapping
to encounter cultural synesthesia at its brink of expression.  Cultural
synesthesia is the stuff that does not become a piece of art or enter
music composition, but rather the developing stage of inspiration that
gives human impulse to create.  It is possible to pocket these
bottomless encounters anywhere.  But what must be done to protect this
fragile convergence?

Wei Weng
March 16th 2009
Chaoyang, Beijing

（艺术家的展览叙事）

反映像：文化通感实验

偶尔，另一个人会让我非常惊愕。

这是一个 非正式的会议。我们积极地尝试描述各自的理想与激情。通过这次看似平凡的交流，整个过程精准地折射出人的思想如何一次次筛选和推动彼此的对话。这就是我们 毕生都在寻找的困惑。一次能够改变一生的对话其强烈程度已经被对话者的默契所保护。我们双方都无法打破这种趋同障碍。就此双方达成一种认识，轻微的满足于 暂时的缓冲地带，而感官系统已经锁定了各自对映像的基本要求。

是疲惫的平凡生活滋养了感官的结晶。平时大部分人无动于衷，这正是受人类综合症谱系扩散的影响，人失去对时间和地点的掌握。我们大部分人都无法影响自身的极限。我们各自的映像体系尽量阻止我们过于冒险。

做一次实验。一位策展人到一个空荡荡的画廊空间，我请他不要根据策展的形式创造一个新界。一方面策展人提供一种非策展的文本，运用他一贯的映像知识。另一方面，画 廊空间陈列艺术家在空间里展开绘制的进程。看过空荡荡的画廊，策展人根据自己的映像提供某种预测，以便艺术家尽可能反抗忧虑的诗意性。

观众经过的展览空间，其实是一条布满大量决策的路径。某种看不见的指令引导着不期然而然的观众。围绕作品，策展人小心用他特有的釉彩，在这片缓冲地带里贯注空间。也许理想的展示环境就是一个使观众无法错过对判断艺术本质的空间。

假如一件艺术作品不再受策展映像的限制，又会怎样呢？尽管策展人自己对映像掌握的准确无误，但人类综合症自然而然迫使一些观众步入迷失的窘境。本质上，文化通感是人类综合症在空间里的总合现象。在这种情形之下，艺术家决定去驱散和抑制人类综合症的荒谬本能。

作为一次 实验，我运用了文化通感这个术语，以此来对抗策展实践的映像语境。反映像作品的目的，就是艺术家在表现文化通感的边缘进行反抗。作为原料而已，文化通感不 会成为一件艺术品或者融入音乐的演奏，它是人在创作时感受灵感冲动的阶段。每一个地方都隐藏着深不可测的邂逅。但是保护这一脆弱的趋同我们又该做些什么 呢？

翁维

2009年3月16日

北京市朝阳区