塵埃碎屑 The Dusty Debris of a City

塵埃碎屑

無止盡地拆除更新是城市表皮上未曾終止過的一項活動，而過去存在的各種證物，終將化為砂礫塵土。城市裡的人們為了製造故事而製造模子，這些模子堆積而占據空間，所以形成記憶後，必須不斷地丟掉舊模子，然後準備製造新的模子。然而在這過程之中，我們的記憶還留下多少？

城市，或說城市裡的人，對於空間的渴求是無止境的嗎？當香港不停的進行填海造陸的同時，處於板塊交界地帶的台灣，正在發生的是一場都市造山運動，而我們正處在這資本板塊擠壓的核心之處：把都市剖成橫斷面來看，容積持續地往上堆疊，市中心不斷抬高。這些容積加乘、聳立的大樓，正恰似一座座入雲的高山。我們是當代的巴比倫人，不斷的在彼此之間，生成一道又一道的斷層：貧富的斷層、生活水平的斷層──人和人之間的斷層。

人，和他所生存的空間之關係，在空間被替換成僅以貨幣單位計算之後，在這個城市裡，剩下的是「占有」，以及「排除」。空間的占有並不代表意義的生成，但是空間載體的消亡以及對人的排除卻總是見證了意義的散失。更新的城市，保證的卻未必是更好的未來。以幸福與進步之名所建造的，總立基在他人的廢墟之上。無論是在何處，這些占有與排除，不停重覆著同一的邏輯，而羸弱者只得在城市的角落邊緣，徘徊流浪。

…人們是這樣描繪歷史天使的。他的臉朝著過去。在我們認為是一連串事件的地方，他看到的是一場單一的災難。這場災難堆積著屍骸，將它們拋棄在他的面前。天使想停下來喚醒死者，把破碎的世界修補完整。可是從天堂吹來了一陣風暴，他猛烈地吹襲著天使的翅膀，以致他再也無法把翅膀收攏。這風暴無可抗拒地把天使刮向他所背對著的未來，而他面前的斷垣殘壁卻越堆越高直逼天際…

要是我們能多重視一點，人與土地，生存的基本權利和意義，那麼，這場災難也許還來得及阻止，並在已不可彌補的拆毀和重建當中，仍能修補出一些珍貴的歷史與價值，讓我們能夠「更新」我們的價值觀，以不同的姿態，朝向未來。

(文：鄭安齊，譯：葉佳蓉)

The Dusty Debris of a City

The endless renovating of the surface is continuously happening in cities. The evidence of every being will eventually turn into dust and sands. Human-beings in the city built houses to contain their own stories, and the concrete bricks they built took up the spaces. So when the memories are formed, they need to constantly replace the old containers, and prepare to make the new ones. In the end, with the repeating of the process, how much can remain unforgotten?

Metropolitans, or the citizens in the metropolitans, are their hungers for more space really endless? When Hong Kong is reclaiming the sea to earn more land, Taiwan, located on the edge of plates, is experiencing an urban uplifting. We are in the center of the collision of capital plates: viewing from transect of the city, FAR (Floor Area Ratio) keeps rising, city center keeps growing. Those skyscrapers with multiplied FAR are the same as tall mountains towering into clouds. We are the contemporary Babylonians, adding one after one gap between each other, gap between the rich and the poor, gap between different classes, gap between people, between us.

While the measure of space has been convert into monetary currency, the relationships between one and the space of his/her being have been turning into simply the behavior of “occupy” and “expel”. To occupy a particular space doesn’t equal to the generating of its meaning. But the dying out of the spatial container and the exclusion of people witnessed the fading away of the meaning of a place. The renovated city doesn’t promise a better future. Building in the name of happiness and progress is actually based on others’ lost. No matter where, those occupied and expelled keep representing the same logic: that the minor can only wander on the bordering rink of the city, always.

His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.

If we can pay more attention to human and land, the basic right and meaning of being. Maybe we can avoid the disaster in time to rescue the precious history and value from the irrepairables and the irreversebles. Thus we can „renew“ our mind-set and face toward future in a different attitude.

(Cheng An-Chi,Translated by Zoe Yeh)