As an ongoing long-term project, Crystalline Layer | 结晶层 borrows the imaginative resonance of a geological term to articulate my understanding of myself, of living beings, and of the environment. It seeks to explore the flow and balance inherent in the elements and material structures—born of the cosmos—that constitute all forms of life on Earth: the tender entanglement between living beings and their environments, the vitality that extends through matter, and the perspectives of transformation, diversity, and hope contained within. As I follow the rising and subsiding of rock strata, and listen to the gazes, touches, and depictions among forms of life, birds lead me to learn the language of water and to grow familiar with the words of mountains.
Drawing on methods from archaeobiology, the project treats the field both as a site of inquiry and as a site of practice. By reading stratigraphic profiles, it seeks to apprehend the depth of time; by imagining within vestiges—the landscapes and ecosystems of the slice of space-time in which they were once gathered, whether in a world before the Cenozoic, in a world after our own, or at the moment when the vestige had not yet become a vestige—it attempts to approach the language of the cosmos. Guided by journeys and encounters that follow evolutionary facts, as well as the dreams and reveries arising within the flow of the spirit, the project aims to respond to the resonances and stirrings produced by these precious meetings and conjunctures, recording and cherishing those beings whose existence intersects with my own.
The project therefore emphasises the narrative capacities and imaginative scope of working in a hybrid field of media—photography, sculpture, performance, music, furniture, painting, and publications—in order to pursue a more complete and experimental mode of expression. Over the past five years, I have moved across the Eurasian plate: from Mount Wutai in China and the Swiss Alps to the volcanic ranges of Iceland and Norway’s Scandinavian Mountains; from the North Sea and the North Atlantic to the Norwegian Sea. I have sought to read those things that are nowhere set down in writing, things that can only be known by entering these environments and breathing their air. These journeys have established the research framework of Crystalline Layer | 结晶层 and continually nourish the branches that grow from it. For example, All Those Convergences That Rise and Settle | 那一切浮起又沉降的交汇 employs an audio-visual approach that interweaves field-based image recording, microscopic imaging of crystal cultivation, and improvised performance documentation across different environments, collectively shaping a web of life-relations that blurs the boundaries of time, region, and language.
Living alongside species that survived the fifth mass extinction, can we respond in ways beyond critique or sorrow when confronted with the potential continuation of catastrophe and extinction? Could we imagine a new perspective—one that would allow us to discard the notion that the world ought inevitably to be like this? Once we ourselves have become part of the geological strata, what traces will we leave behind? When future beings peer back into the past, will they be able to discern the tender entanglements that once existed between species?
—— Text / Iceylithe Bintong Wang
作为持续进行的长期项目，《Crystalline Layer｜结晶层》借用一种对地质学词语的想象，描述着我对自身及生物和环境的理解。它旨在探索源自宇宙间的，组建了地球万物生灵的元素和物质构架之中的流动与平衡——作为生物与环境间的缠绵，和绵延于物质间的生命性，以及其中所包含的变幻、多样性和希望的视角。当我追随着岩层的升起与凹陷，倾听生命间的凝视、触碰与描绘时，飞鸟引领着我通晓水的语言，熟悉山的话语。
借鉴于考古生物学的方法，该项目将田野既视作研究环境，也作为实践场域。通过阅读地层剖面了解时间的深度，通过在遗迹中想象——在新生代之前的世界里、在我们之后的世界中、当遗迹尚未成为遗迹的时候凝聚为它的那一片时空中的地貌和生态景观认识宇宙的语言。该项目依照着演化事实的旅行和触碰，以及精神流动中的梦境和遐想，意图回应在这些珍贵的相遇和契机之下产生的触动与共振，记录并珍惜那些与我产生交集的存在。
因此，项目强调使用摄影、雕塑、表演、音乐、家具、绘画、出版物等不同媒介混合状态中的叙事能力和想象空间，以期进行更完整也更具实验性的表达。在过去的5年里，我穿梭在亚欧板块间，从中国五台山、瑞士阿尔卑斯山脉、到冰岛火山山脉、挪威斯堪的纳维亚山脉；从北海、北大西洋、到挪威海。试图阅读那些并未用文字记述的，必须深入这片环境，吸纳这里的空气才能知晓的事物。它们确立了我关于《Crystalline Layer｜结晶层》的研究框架，并不断滋养这一框架下生长而出的分枝：例如《All Those Convergences That Rise and Settle｜那一切浮起又沉降的交汇》采用视听的方式，结合田野考察的影像采集、显微拍摄的晶体培养，以及不同环境间即兴的表演记录，共同缔造出一种朦胧了时间、地域和语言边界的生命关系。
和从第五次大灭绝中幸存下来的生命在这里共同生活的我们，在面临可能继续到来的灾变和消亡时，我们能有批判和悲哀之外的回应吗？我们是否可以设想一种新的视角？而对这一视角的设想，将能撇开世界本该如此的想法。当归于地质层之后，我们将留下怎样的痕迹？当后世的生命窥探往昔时，能否看到曾经的物种间存有着温柔的缠绵？
—— 文/王彬潼