The question of “speed” is actually a question of “modernity”. In the “accelerated” modern Chinese society, Flowers presents a unique “slow modernity” with a slow and moderate narrative rhythm. Firstly, “being slow” is the high-frequency vocabulary for the characters’ actions and words, which lies in the slow tempo and slow pace of “telling the Chinese story well”, the charm of the language and the slow rhythm.Secondly, it demonstrates the tenacious folk nature in the context of the “being fast” of the “radical modernity” and “small age”, showing the “normal way of life” of the slow, stable and dynamic people in the “accelerated era. In general, Flowers overcomes the thin time and fragmented experience in contemporary era with a profound sense of the “speedy” writing, and provides a writing experience of “slow aesthetics” for the literature in a speedy era.
The positive-energy playlet is a new cultural genre generated by the bottom-up “vernacular creativity” in the platform ecosystem,which becomes a lens to examine the cultural politics and social values in contemporary China. From the three aspects of story morphology, iconic politics and pleasure ethics, the article adopts the approach of critical techno-cultural discourse analysis to explore how this genre shapes the social imagination, and how media specificity mediates this shaping process. The research finds that the positive-energy playlet is a kind of utilitarian aspiration in the disguise of altruistic care. It reinforces the logic materialistic competition in contemporary society, and implies that only when people strive for the upper socioeconomic status can they have the rights of moral autonomy and heteronomy. The space-time structure and entrepreneurial atmosphere of short-video platforms are facilitating the formation of this moral imagination, thus blurring the boundary between the two ethics of commodity market and civil society.
“Immersive home Vlog” is essentially a kind of image consumer goods processed by content producers according to the imagination of urban subjects. The objective material space is symbolically encoded as the simulacra of a better life, and the indoor household furnishings present an aesthetic turn of outward centralization, reflecting that the physical property of commodities is replaced by the symbolic property. The narrative subject of the video adopts the narrative way of deself-orientation, trying to act as an exquisite life agent in line with the urban collective imagination, and invites the object（audience） to react on behalf of the subject（photographer）. The perceptual and differentiated private life is presented in a homogenous and standardized shooting mode and narrative content. This paradox not only originates from the atrophy of the imagination and creativity of the contemporary urban subjects for real life, but also coincides with the requirements of the mandatory and repeated order of landscape communication. The production, acceptance and dissemination of video constitute the process of the subject engaging in immaterial labor. While the subject is producing and consuming itself, it sells the imagination of exquisite life to countless others, thus triggering the infinite landscape manufacturing of immaterial labor. By manipulating the vision and desire of the subject, the landscape encoded by capital becomes new cement for the reproduction of social relations space.
Yuan Xuefen, the master of Yue Opera, is famous all over the world for her distinctive personal style in creating and directing “Sister Xianglin”. From the initial life experience of “sister Xianglin” to the conscious artistic creation, her local complex and regional identity also experience a process from spontaneous to conscious. The premiere, revival and changes of “Sister Xianglin” witness Yuan Xuefen’s transition from youth and middle age to old age, and also carry her inquiry to each era.
一、高居翰教授的艺术遗产与影响 《上海文化》:很荣幸能够在此采访您.您在20世纪是如何开始进入中国美术史的课程学习和研究领域的?当时系中有多少人学习中国美术史呢?文以诚:当我是本科生的时候已开始探索此领域.当时我选修了一两门相关课程,课程授课人是Robert Poor,他在明尼苏达大学和加州大学洛杉矶分校教书.
