谁的乌托邦 Whose Utopia
2006 基于佛山欧司朗工厂实地录音的作曲
* 为艺术家曹斐的录像作品《谁的乌托邦》所做的声音设计，2006
谁的乌托邦，是应艺术家曹斐邀请，所做的声音项目。我跟随曹斐一起，在佛山的欧司朗工厂进行田野工作。所进行的实地录音，涉及到广州到佛山再到厂区的交通，车间里的各式机器声响，工人们的闲谈和娱乐，厂区花园的风声鸟鸣，篮球场上的运动喊叫声，宿舍里的空旷寂静等。
我还组织了一些小型的工作坊，包括邀请工人以各种乡音所展开自述和交流的声音游戏；邀请他们在自己所生产的欧司朗各种样式的灯泡产品中，自由选择自由探索物件的声响，进行包括敲击，摩擦等动作在内的即兴声音实验，以声音呈现他们的日常感受和思考。在项目的工厂开放活动日，我在工厂的篮球场，以来自欧司朗的实地录音，为工人们进行了20分钟的声音表演。
项目最终呈现为唱片《谁的乌托邦》，三首曲子分别为城市梦，工厂奏鸣曲，以及关于产品的想象。
接下来的文字，是为当时的唱片所写，并印刷在唱片内页，是该项目的一些记录和思考。
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<欧司朗中国：谁的乌托邦> 文：张安定 Zafka
过去半年，周末间或去欧司朗Osram工厂采样。从广州通往佛山Osram的路程并不长，从广州地铁的城郊坑口站下车，顺广佛高速公路而下，二十分钟车程后，盘旋的高架路边即是Osram。
整个旅程对我来说相当迷幻。比旅程更迷幻，是Osram的声响环境。Osram美妙的混合了前工业和工业的声响环境。厂区的空间并不大，但几个不同空间的声音反差和融合却相当有趣：厂区墙外有大片安静的农田，轰鸣贴墙而过的铁路和高速公路；厂区内，不仅有标准的工业流水线车间，同样有紧凑的庭院，大片的草地，因为三班倒工作时间而依序空荡的宿舍，食堂。这些空间紧紧地镶嵌在一起，工作和生活就同时发生在这样一个复合空间之内，它们一起构成了听觉上的Osram。每次在工厂的草地发呆聆听鸟鸣，耳边低轰着远处车间的噪音，间或驶过火车，前工业和工业环境声响环境交错在一起，丝丝入扣，感觉分外迷幻。
这样的声响环境让我感到了巨大的不真实。即时面对工人们，我仍然触摸到这种不真实和时刻发生的疏离感。这更像一个巨大的黑洞——工人们的梦想混合麻木与无奈的生活，就静悄悄的发生在厂区内，我那些针对现代工业所准备的左派仇恨并没有发生效用，试图的批判抑或同情，连同他人的苦楚欢愉，比念头更快的消失在厂区内。
也就是说，在Osram样本中，我这个外来者观察者的批判早早成为了一个不折不扣的乌托邦；而工人对现代工业的想象、现代生活的憧憬和向往——他们的乌托邦同样现实发生在Osram。残酷的是，这样的状况恰恰组成了现代性问题的一体两面，归根结底，他们的乌托邦和我的乌托邦，并没有什么不同，在看似错位的想象中，重合的都是关乎人类最终境遇的乌托邦——而这样的乌托邦，现在看来，更多的陷入了无力感的沼泽。
是的，如齐泽克所说，我们必须重新发明一种新的乌托邦——它既不是对未来的想象，更不是对过往的眷恋。新的乌托邦就存在于现在，把不可能变成可能，这种实践就是乌托邦。
因此，整个唱片的构思，并不试图依照批判的理性去安排声响结构，而是在具象和抽象混合运用的基础上，试图印象般的涂抹出对于Osram的想象、情绪与记忆，在听觉上塑造一个乌托邦，并试图呈现以上的问题——他们的乌托邦也是我们的乌托邦。
所有素材均采集自去往Osram的路途和Osram厂区。三首曲目按照城市——工厂——产品的顺序安排。第一首城市梦，记录的是去往Osram路途，穿梭城市间的聆听和想象。第二首工厂奏鸣曲，试图还原我每每穿梭在厂区不同空间的感受。第三首是关于产品的想象，尝试在工人玩灯泡和车间流水线的录音中安静冥想。
曲目名称/时间
1. 城市梦 (City Dreaming) 18：58
2. 工厂奏鸣曲（Factory’s Sonata）21：34
3. 关于产品的想象 （Product’s Imagination）14：40
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（页面下拉到底部，可以在线听完整的整张唱片）
Composition based on field recording of Osram factory in Foshan, Guangdong. It’s also the sound design and soundtrack for artist Caofei’s video work .
Osram China: Whose Utopia? by Zafka
I went to Osram several times in the weekends to do field recording during the past six months. The trip from Guangzhou to Foshan is not very long: get off at Keng Kou metro station in the suburb of Guangzhou, drive along the Guangzhou – Foshan Expressway, and you’ll see Osram besides the spiral highway in 20 minutes.
The whole trip is quite psychedelic for me. But what’s more psychedelic than the trip itself is the sonic environment of Osram: a fascinating blend of pre-industrial and industrial sounds. The factory is not huge, but the contrast and mixture of sounds in different spaces are very interesting: outside of the factory are vast, quiet farming land and the roaring railway and expressway besides the walls. Inside of it, there are also grassland and densely organized courtyards in addition to the standardized production line workshops, as well as dormitories and dining halls which stay empty regularly because of the working schedule. All these spaces are inter-embedded into a big complex space in which the workers work and live, results in what I call the “aural Osram”. The warble of the birds on the grassland, mixed with the mumbling noise from the workshops in the distance, form a psychedelic soundscape of pre-industrial and industrial sounds.
Such a sonic environment feels radically unreal. Even when dealing with the workers, I can still touch this unrealness and the omnipresent alienation. It’s like a giant black hole – the workers’ dream and their torporific life happens in the factory area at the same time. The leftist hatred that I prepared for modern industry didn’t work, my planned critique or sympathy, together with others’ pain and joy, vanished in the factory before even a sparkle of idea.
In another word, in the sample of Osram, the criticism of me as an outsider has turned into a 100% utopia. And the workers’ utopia – the imagination that they have on modern industry and their aspiration towards modern life – is also present at Osram. What’s cruel is the fact that the situation is but the two sides of the same coin of modernity, after all, their utopia is nothing different from mine. In the seemingly misplaced imagination are the paralleled utopias about the ultimate situation of human beings. Such utopias, examined nowadays, more or less sank into the swamp of diluteness.
Yes, as Slavoj Žižek puts it, we must reinvent a new utopia – it’s neither the imagination of future nor the reminiscence of the past. The new utopia is now. The very practice of turning the impossible into the possible is utopia.
Therefore, the arrangement of sound structure in this album is based not on critical reasoning. I tried to paint my imagination, feelings and memory about Osram in an impressionistic fashion by using both concrete and abstract materials, thus creating an aural utopia in an attempt to present the above issue: their utopia is also our utopia.
All materials were collected on the way to Osram and in the Osram factory. The three tracks are arranged in the sequence of “City – Factory – Product”. City’s Dream is about my listening and imagination when traveling between the two cities; Factory Sonata is my attempt to recreate my feelings when strolling between different spaces of the factory; the third track is an imagination of product, which aims at a state of meditation during the field recording work in the workshops and the “Playing with light bulbs” session.
Track titles / Durations:
1. City’s Dream 18:58
2. Factory Sonata 21:34
3. An Imagination of Product 14:40
Original text by ZHANG Anding (Zafka)
Translated by Lawrence Li
