王濤 - 作品

山水寂
SOLITARY LANDSCAPE

寂
——作为动静之间的摄影

“时夜将半，四顾寂寥。适有孤鹤，横江东来，翅如车轮，玄裳缟衣，戛然长鸣，掠予舟而西也”。苏轼在《后赤壁赋》中，用“寂”来形容江岸上夜晚的活动观察。周围一切都非常寂静，只见一只云鹤展翅孤鸣，飞翔的声音突然在苏轼描绘的语境当中出现掠过，打破了自然环境的“寂”态，给人以无限遐想。
王涛在拍摄《山水寂》这个专题的时候，初始并没有发生任何外来的声音。摄影师关注的切入点是黄山环绕的烟云和怪石，但是因为静态的初心总是建立在流动的基础之上，同样假设没有声音也不会出现寂寞。所以后来王涛除了山之外也开始关注水，除了静态也开始关心流动的事物，除了无声的石头也开始从水的流动得到启发，毕竟两者都是大自然中不可或缺，互相能够包容和谐的视觉审美元素。
在佛教的语境中，“寂”经常跟寂灭联合起来，也就是指“涅槃”的意义，所指的是超脱生死的理想境界。有了寂灭，人就离开轮回，进入到涅槃的状态，再也听不到日常生活中的任何声音，感受不到世间普通人的欲望，消灭痛苦和烦恼，在平静当中保持无为的状态。作为媒介的摄影，它的本质也是把动态变成静态，把面临死亡和变化的事物凝视在图像当中，把光学负像感应的影像投射在银盐相纸上变成永久的图像载体实物。犹如涅槃的状态相似，底片一但感光拍摄完成之后，极少可能会再受到外来世界的影响，而将会存在于另外一个反观的向度。摄影师王涛借助对山水景象的“涅槃重生”，无异于是在两个纬度之间建立了一种自为的交流可能性，把静与动，生与死，形而上与形而下有机的加以联合，给观者延展出了另外一个对山水思考的空间。
山的衡坦代表土地的层面，佛教的寂灭代表上天的层面。另外，照片还包含着第三个层面上的解读意义，也就是人性的方面。面临黄山这么巨大的伟岸，人的内心里会感知到寂寞能量。审美范畴上的崇高，会让人觉得个体在大自然中不过只是一个相当微弱孤寂的渺小者。观察拍摄黄山的漫长历程让王涛面临自我人性的宽窄和底色，因为人类在大自然中永远只是一个微弱的点状而已。照片中可以看到，人内心里的疏密起伏与自然平等：当人生的孤独寂寞被外来“世界”的侵入打破时，寂静被流水喘息的声音截断，令人于时间瞬息之间回到了动静的现实中。摄影总是存在于两种或者多种相反的状态之间。摄影师选择用相机来记录从一种状态出发，走到第二种状态的路程：摄影把飘动的云烟变成相纸上的黑白影像轮廓，把流动的水变成底片上的透明线条，把人内心里的寂寞变成了恒久存在于人世间的精神与物质图像的载体。

朱馨芽Giulia Pra Floriani（意大利）
2017/5/19
北京

Quiet and lonely
- Photography as in between movement and stillness

Su Shi in the second part of the Red Cliff Rhapsody uses the word Silence to describe the activities observed at night on the river banks. Everything around him is extremely quiet, when he sees a solitary singing crane: the bird’s voice suddenly appears in Su Shi depiction of the natural context, breaking the calm and flatness of the silent environment and opening up an uncovered sensorial space both for the poet and the reader.

When Wang Tao initially started shooting the series Solitary Landscape, in the beginning no external voice appeared in the photographs, no sound could be communicated through the surface of the picture. The photographer used to focus on the silent movement of the clouds on the rocks. Later he realized static is always constructed on the alternation with movement,and no sound can happen if not surrounded by the silence. That’s why Wang Tao, in addition to the mountain, began to pay attention to the flowing of water, in addition to static also began to care about how things move, in addition to the silent stone began to get inspired by the flow of rivers: after all, both of these elements are indispensable in nature, which has the ability to harmoniously accommodate them with each other to generate visually satisfying elements.

In the context of Buddhism, silence is often associated with a special comprehension of existence, intended as the ideal world detached from life and death (Nirvana). When such a silence is reached, and the wheel of the Samsara is left, the cycle of reincarnation is interrupted, and the illuminated no longer hear any voice from daily life, they do not feel ordinary people's desires, their soul is eradicated from pain and trouble, it founds itself in in peace preserving an inaction state.

As a media, photography reveals its essence is the transformation from dynamic into static: the always changing is transformed in a dead (not moving) figure, the shapes captured on the film are then transferred on the silver salt paper, where the image becomes permanent. As a human beings who enters the state of Nirvana, once the photographic shoot is completed, it is rarely likely to be affected by the influence of the extern world, and it’s going to exist on another level of visuality, detached but still participating of reality. When working on his series Solitary Landscape, photographer Wang Tao is inspired tantamount by the two static and dynamic, alive and dead, physical and metaphysical features of the landscape, through which he tries to establish a communication with himself.

In the photographs, mountains represent the level of the land, while the connection with Buddhism refers to the level of the heaven. In addition, photos also lend to a third level of interpretation, focused on humanity. During the long process of observation and shooting of Huang mountain, the individual’s hearts feels overwhelmed by the Kantian sensation of the sublime, and finds itself as a weakand lonely creature. The series shows the ups and downsregulating the nature: when the loneliness of the human is interrupted by the invasion of the external world which breaks its silent breathing with a sound, it is time for the human to go back to reality.

Photography always originates between two or more opposed states. Photographers choose to use the camera to record the journey that took them from one step to the second step of a journey: Wang Tao’s photography takes him from the floating clouds to the black and white image contours delineated on the photo paper, from the flow of water into the impression on a transparent film, from the loneliness of the human heart into the permanent existence of a material image in the world.

Giulia Pra Floriani
2017/5/19
Beijing