In light of the last Happy Friends Reading Club meeting’s topical foray into the “aesthetics of sustainability” (addressed in an essay of the same name by Hildegard Kurt, as introduced by Victor Margolin’s text in Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art), the validity of pinpointing or negating the any-be-all-whatever of contemporary art still stands at insecure shoulder to the hierarchies established by the art system, the values garnered by its economics and institutions and indices of fame. M.E. pointed out an important question raised by Margolin, of a possible aesthetics of ethics to describe those ambiguous projects (in his example, Mel Chin’s Revival Field “in which the artist explored the use of plants to remediate the soil in a landfill that had been contaminated by heavy metals.”) which become artistically difficult to interpret.

And while perhaps we should have been examining the ethics of any artistic practice all this time, it’s perhaps also true that a sublime—art historically speaking—needs not adhere to any particular ethic (unless that is an ethic in and of itself), as it induces the viewer (until glorious afterlife or perhaps now merely through the clicks) to a mode not unlike Agamben’s bumblebee, in a captivated kind of productivity, guillotined and still sucking for all it’s worth. This is perhaps the pre-thought to what I mentioned in the last post, “towards a ‘new’ language starkly founded in realism, unimaginative”, where aesthetics are the attributes of wallpaper styles and design tools to address real world issues. Not unimaginative by any means, but I wonder at which point in such an assembly line can meaning be redistributed.

Margolin’s essay calls for “a new aesthetic to embrace the three categories of object, participation, and action without privileging the conventional formal characteristics of objects. In this aesthetic, the distinctions between art, design, and architecture will blur as critics discover new relations between the value of form and the value of use.” If we have come towards forms of art-making that ‘see’ us through these categories, it becomes inevitable that ethics comes to the fore, and the voice of the artist be taken much more seriously than “wildly expressionist”. This puts art and its blurriness in danger of always being held to scales of use value, but let’s hope that it is still possible to expand the realms of possibility via the languages that we use, the way the signs are laid to their signifiers, to understand modes of transmission as the aesthetics of our ethics.

In an upcoming exhibition entitled All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism, curators Alfredo Cramerotti and Simon Sheikh bring art and journalism together as “two sides of a unique activity; the production and distribution of images and information.” This elevation of the importance of forms of transmission alongside the production of the object itself is crucial to contemporary thought. It is a call upon the collective, or maybe a confirmation that past forms of beautiful solitude are less relevant in our ways of production, parallel to the ethical consideration of the other as artistic criterion. The press release of the show goes on to state: “Whereas journalism provides a view on the world, as it ‘really’ is, art often presents a view on the view, as an act of reflection.” These are both response-based attitudes towards creation inseparable from their need for reader/audience reception (one could go into that other discussion on intention here), and in our case, perhaps a fitting media for engaging object, participation and action via a context-specific endeavour. It’s an emergent thought exactly without that specific intention that Q.Y.Z. is always disappointed about. But if it’s 涌现 yǒngxiàn, as H.J.Y. prefers to call it, it’s etymologically happening in large numbers, and maybe that’s something to think about. Big time, baby, big time.

Images taken from a ritual for hair-tossed-to-compost, May 2011

QU may ask, “What is your purpose in doing this?” And so if news can never be fully objective, there must be an agenda in there somewhere, or at least a tendency, an implication. “Gentrifier” could be one in this case, as per recent discussions at HomeShop, the Other’s guilt, or being accused of cultural colonialism. Production of any sort could then be nullified, re-organised, rendered meaningless…but to muster up the words—oh!—now wouldn’t that be amazing?

The press was seen as a tool, a transmission belt for public opinion, a marketplace of ideas. It was the platform for public discussion of issues of local as well as national importance. Hence the Chinese government “is well advised to consult public opinion” through newspapers. Pictorial evidence from November 1907 ironically underlines this point. A huge pot is filled with a burning substance labeled 舆论 yulun, “public opinion.” The characters on the lid read: “The power is with the court.” It is apparent, however, that the fire inside the pot will not easily be controlled. Public opinion seethes visibly in spit of attempts to “put a lid on it”: clouds of smoke and flames escape not just through the gap between the pot and the lid but also from a hole at the bottom. [p. 16]

Of course it seems ridiculous to say ‘subversion’, just as it is to render pure identity, forms like ‘global’ can never be slick surfaces but would rather seethe like pots.

“The past is being drafted (consciously or unconsciously) into the service of present needs and purposes.” —Paul Cohen

A cartoon that appeared in the 申报 Shenbao in October 1907 depicts the role of that alien medium, the newspaper: the caricature shows two buildings, an elaborate one labeled  宫庭 gongting, “the court,” and a much simpler one named 民间 minjian, “the people.” From the court,  秘密消息 mimixiaoxi, “the secret news,” is being transferred by telegraph to the people–but not directly. The node at which the telegraph line from the court and that leading to the people meet is labeled 外国 waiguo, “the West”. This image echoes a declaration made by the Shenbao in its first issue: “新闻纸之制疮自西人搏舆中土 The making of newspapers has been transmitted by Westerners to Chinese lands”. [p. 23-24]

Maybe that time of trying to ‘integrate’ can be laughed at now in retrospect, dynamics change here all the time and I’m just trying to keep up. Would it be possible to propagate from the perspective of distance (BJ to GZ), without being thrust into a commune-like resort of separatism? Words gather for the sake of themselves, sadly just another kind of branding, but what other pretext can there be for the gathering, words and identities on paper, another party?

Since the foreign Xinbao 新报 (＝ new bao) was a 报 bao just the same, it was bound to be seen as akin to the Jingbao 京报 (capital bao). Foreign-style newspapers were aware that their audience’s perception of the newspaper was conditioned by their familiarity with the jingbao. They were quick to exploit this expectation: among other things, they reprinted the court gazette, imitated its format and punctuation, and adopted a name (xinbao, literally new announcements) formed in analogy to that of the court gazette (jingbao, literally capital announcements). They evidently felt that this foreign medium needed some “Chinese” legitimation. Why, then, did they not pursue the potentially convincing argument that the newspaper was really just a continuation of a indigenous Chinese tradition? Since by the late Qing finding Chinese origins for Western knowledge to be introduced to China (西学中原 Xixue Zhongyuan) had become a well-established rhetorical practice,  would this not have been a striking argument? [p. 25]

The principal difference, then, between foreign papers and their indigenous counterparts is the fact that the newspapers spread news by everyone from everywhere, whereas the Chinese papers report only official news. Naturally, the number of its readers was small and continued to dwindle. Moreover, the increasing centralization of politics, which peaked during the Qing and which was accompanied by a rigid system of secrecy laws (preventing the spread of all the “secret news” hinted at in Fig. I.2) confined the Jingbao to only the most commonplace court news and thus rather “boring” information. [p. 26]

Hurrah to boring news from everyone, all the time. Is it impossible to find a ‘new’ language starkly founded in realism, unimaginative?

… the Xinbao, the new(s)paper, was neither sold nor perceived as a foreign import. Instead, there was a strong tendency to domesticate it for Chinese use and Chinese understanding, for only thus—so it must have appeared to China’s newspaper makers—could it be an effective agent of change. [p. 31]

Indeed, however much the Shenbao may have profited from its foreign background, more often than not it had to defend itself against charges that it was a foreign medium or that it was pro-Western. this is the reason for its insistence that it relied on a Chinese readership and was thus written in Chinese by Chinese according to Chinese customs to be sold to Chinese. Like many other foreign-style papers, the Shenbao took pains to adapt to Chinese “idiom” (kouqi 口气). In the process, it created a “new” language with a “new” syntax that made the newspaper an acceptable and understandable means of communication. [p. 32]

Badiou, truth, new. Trajectory, 你的目的是什么？

All quotes above taken from A Newspaper for China?: Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872-1912.

家作坊是我现在工作的地方。最近我们在出一份有趣的报纸“北二条小报”登载的都是周边发生的各种各样的事情，超级生活化。这是我喜欢的话题。有一天和何颖雅聊天，聊到了我的爸爸。记忆中有一份报纸也出现在他的18岁，而且他和朋友包揽了内容编辑、排版印刷、成本核算、出版销售等格格环节的工作。何非常感兴趣这段经历，所以请我去请我的爸爸写下了他18岁时那份报纸是如何出生的。

私人办报并没有那么的功利，我父亲的那份报纸完全是各种巧合促成的。他们甚至根本没有考虑过卖不出去会怎么样。我想“北二条小报”或许也是这样的吧，但这正是有趣的地方。不确定的选题、不确定的观众群、不确定的销售模式或许就是私人板报的魅力吧。也许吧……

— 高杏

“文革”办报记

我喜欢看报，长年以来订有“武汉晚报”，“作家文摘”，从报纸的字里行间洞悉了世界风云，社会变革,人生百态。看报已成为人生一大乐事。但“办报”之事在我一生中曾经历过一次，哪是在难忘的“文革”岁月中。
我是“老三届”学生（高中68届）。在1968年全国正处在文化大革命的深入，发展阶段，革命形势仍然是“一片大好”。但是我们经过两年来的文化革命，当年革命小将的革命意志有所消退，同学一起在学校打牌、聊天、整天无所事事，处于一种逍遥状态。在68年4月的一天，我有一邻居叫原原（高我一届），跟我说他家一批白纸，我到他家一看果然有5捆白纸，他说纸的单位叫定（每定约5000张），面积和现在的作家文摘版面一样大，他说想将每定纸20元卖掉。第二天我将原原想卖纸一事告诉了我同学周冀元，随后周冀元对我说我们把这批白纸买来办一期报纸吧。我说：我们是学生，手无寸铁，身无分文如何能办报纸，想要把油墨、铅字、纸性搅到一起变成报纸，谈何容易。他说报纸印刷不成问题（他哥哥是文革小报“五干里狂澜”主编，认识印刷厂的人），只要商量把这批纸买过来就行。过了两天我们两人一起找到原原把我们想办报的想法告诉了他,然后,用卖报的钱来还他的纸钱,原原当时没有多想就答应了（虽然文革年代，虽然都是中学生，但诚信是不容置疑的），这时办报的硬件都已完备，如何办报的事就紧锣密鼓进行了。首先我们进行了经济测算，纸张要100元,印刷费要130元，成本在250元左右，（根本没有考虑报纸卖不出怎么办），当时小报是两分钱一张，我们要印2万多张才行，目前纸张不成问题。接着就是对报纸进行总体设计，为了使报纸更有可看性，首先是刊名要醒目，我们几个同学讨论后认为“红旗”比较醒目，决定用“红旗”作我们的刊名，出版单位为，中学红联武汉20中红海燕战斗兵团。然后，我们几个同学在一起商量报纸的版面策划。经讨论确定一版为要闻版，并登一篇创刊词（由周冀元主笔），再加上“中央首长讲话”“北京来电”等等内容，第二版为全国各地文革动态，第三版为本报亮点，我们找了一些“二战期间”斯大林，苏联红场，希特勒等等一些历史趣闻。第四版主要是武汉市的文革动态，四个版面的内容确定后，我们就分头准备，并吸收其它小报的长处（文革时期各种小报很多）经过一星期的努力按计划完成了四个版的内容，在68年4月中旬的一天我们借了一辆三轮车，将纸张和四个版面的内容，拖往了两里路远的印刷厂，这辆车上就承载着我和同学们的寄托和希望。三天后我们如期到印刷厂进行了校对，又过两天印刷厂就通知我们报纸印好了，现在是木已成舟了。报纸印好后如果卖不出去对我们当年还是学生来说将是一个沉重的打击，不光是经济上的还有思想上的。所以对报纸的销售我们进行周密的策划。我们几个同学经讨论后一致认为应该在一个星期天的上午（天气晴好）在武汉市的江汉路进行销售（江汉路是武汉市的商业中心和文革信息的集散地，相当于北京西单地区，离我家也只有5分钟的路程），在4月下旬一个星期天，天气果然不错，我们几个同学拖着三轮车一早就到了印刷厂，办完了有关手续后就看见经过20天的努力，两万多张报纸静静的放在面前，一种成就感从心里油然而生，我们同学几个赶紧将报纸装车上午九时拖到了目的地江汉路。还飘着油墨香的报纸一到江汉路就引起了广大革命群众（文革语言）的关注，面对满满一车刚印好的报纸，大家围了过来一看又是一个新面孔，同时我们同学一起喊“20中红旗、20中红旗”。接着就不但有钱递过来，三轮车已被团团围往，我们接着喊请大家排队。几分钟后我们车前竟排起了上十米的长队，经过简单收钱发报的安排后，只见钱不断进来，报纸不断出去，中午12时估计已卖了几千份，我和同学轮留到蔡林记（武汉老字号热干面馆）吃了碗热干面，下午接着卖到5点钟，第一天就估计卖了1万份，剩余的报纸就拖到我家，在回家的路大家都兴高采烈，成功的感觉都写在了我们脸上。第二天，第三天我们又接着去卖报，销售就差多了，两天共卖了5干份，就在第三天卖报时两个带袖章的解放军来到三轮车前对我们进行查询，并要我们到武汉警备司令部去登记备案，我和同学商量后认为我们又不是经常办报的，这期报纸是我们办的第一期也可能是最后一期，不必登记备案。接着我们又卖了两天，估计这几天共卖了1万8千份左右成本是收回了还略有赢利，最后还剩4千份报纸就动员我妹妹及她们的小伙伴拿到街上卖，并承诺卖报钱，可适当买冰棍吃，经过上十天的努力报纸卖了2万多份，家里还剩1千份左右就没有卖了，遗憾的是我们辛辛苦苦办好报纸一张也没留下来。
经过一个月的努力，我们的办报经历总算完成，通过结算后我们不但还清了所有的欠款，还赢利100元左右。1968年的100元和今天的100元是不能同日而语的，对我们学生来说就是一笔大的收入，我班同学用这笔钱到武汉东湖风景区玩了一天，并吃了红烧桂鱼，余下的钱还买个篮球  和排球供班同学同共玩，到此，我们第一次办报按我们的理想顺利的完成了。
通过这次办报使用领悟到办任何事除要周密的思考，努力工作外，天时、地利、人和，也是成功的重要因素。

高孟枚
2011年2月26日