Reading Ouroborian 阅读衔尾蛇语
2023-2024, text (fable). 2023-2024，文本（寓言）。Workshop at Laboratorio Laguna, collecting glass on Murano Islands. 在穆拉诺岛的泻湖实验室工作坊搜集玻璃。
I attended a workshop of Laboratorio Laguna in Venice in the summer of 2023. In this workshop, we kept sailing through the canals, shallow and deep waters of the Venetian lagoon, traveling between artificial islands, barrier islands, marshes, and wetlands. While observing the Venetian’s interactions with the lagoon, I further realized the importance of the water surface for countless amphibious activities, such as public transportation, swimming, and marine transportation, fishing, and fish farming. The organizers guided us on a tour of the artificial island in northern Murano, which is mainly made of waste glass as a reclamation material. We collected discarded glass on the island and repurposed it into new artifacts. As a result, my attention was drawn to this transparent and shiny matter. I realized that glass has been used as a transparent inscriptive medium for a long time. Thus, I started thinking about how this transparent, ancient medium might provide further inspiration to imagine a amphibious way of reading that blurs the dichotomy between surface and depth.
Deep reading or symptom reading, as a common approach to interpretive practice, treats the surface of a text as redundant, believing that the truest meaning of a text lies in what it does not say. Surface reading refers to a reading approach proposed by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus that focuses on “what is evident, perceptible, apprehensible in texts.” It is introduced as a response to the limitations of deep reading. However, both deep reading and surface reading are constrained within a binary framework that regards the surface as a strict boundary.
Can’t the surface of a text be ever-changing, just like the water surface? Can we read amphibiously with our bodies floating on the surface of a text like swimming instead of distancing ourselves from it? These questions inspire me to write the media fable “Reading Ouroborian.” This fable aims to further respond to the following questions: 1) What new mode of reading beyond the framework of the surface/deep reading binary can be evolved from the movement of the water surface and the transparency of glass as an inscriptive medium? 2) What role does the body play in this mode of reading? 3) How does such a mode of reading affect mindsets as well as cultural and social practices?
In this fable, I describe the special media milieu of an isolated place called “Glassland.” Glassland consists mainly of sand plains lacking raw materials for paper making, and thus, glass has always been the main inscriptive medium used by the local dwellers, the “Swimmers.” From this transparent medium, a special language “Ouroborian” has been derived. The experience of reading Ouroborian is like swimming on the surface of the sea of meaning and leads the local dwellers towards a society without a fixed hierarchy.
我于2023年夏天参加了威尼斯的泻湖实验室工作坊。在这个工作坊中，我们不断地穿梭于威尼斯泻湖的运河、浅水和深水区域，旅行于人工岛屿、屏障岛、沼泽和湿地之间。通过观察威尼斯人与泻湖的互动，我进一步认识到水面对于无数两栖活动的重要性，例如公共交通、游泳、海上运输、捕鱼和。组织者带我们参观了位于穆拉诺北部的人工岛，建造该岛主要原料是废弃的玻璃。我们在岛上收集玻璃碎片，将其重新加工成新的物品。于是，我对这种透明且闪亮的物质产生了兴趣。我意识到玻璃长期以来一直被用作透明的记录介质。因此，我开始思考这种透明的古老介质如何可能提供进一步的灵感，想象一种能够模糊表面与深度二元对立的两栖性阅读方式。
深度阅读或症状阅读作为一种常见的解释实践方式，将文本的表面视为多余的，认为文本的真实意义在于它未说的内容。表面阅读是斯蒂芬·贝斯特和莎伦·马库斯提出的一种阅读方式，专注于“文本中明显的、可感知的、可理解的内容”。表面阅读是一种对深度阅读局限性的回应。然而，深度阅读和表面阅读都局限在一个将表面视为严格界限的二元框架内。
文本的表面难道不可以像水面一样不断变化吗？我们能否像游泳一样，在文本的表面上浮动，用我们的身体进行两栖性阅读，而不是与之保持距离？这些问题激发我创作了媒介寓言《阅读衔尾蛇语》。这个寓言旨在进一步回应以下问题：1) 从水面的运动和玻璃作为记录介质的透明性，可以发展出什么新的阅读模式，以超越表面/深度阅读二元框架？2) 在这种阅读模式中，身体扮演什么角色？3) 这种阅读模式能够如何影响思维模式以及文化和社会实践？
在这个寓言中，我描述了一个名为“玻璃之地”的仙境所独有的媒介环境。玻璃之地主要由沙地构成，缺乏造纸的原材料，因此玻璃一直是当地居民“游泳者”使用的主要记录媒介。通过这种透明的媒介，人们衍生出了一种特殊的语言——“衔尾蛇语”。阅读衔尾蛇语的体验就像在意义的海洋表面游泳，并引导当地居民走向一个没有固定等级的社会。