即逝現代性：肖像照．明信片．博物館

Ephemeral Modernity: Photoportraits, Postcards, and Museums

由攝影師貝瑞斯福特拍攝於1902年的吳爾芙肖像照明信片，乃吳爾芙作為英國「文化聖像」的博物館熱銷商品。本文將從此博物館販售的肖像明信片切入，視其為「即逝現代性」的歷史唯物與微物案例，以跳脫現有影像的「再現性」圈限，而朝向影像的「虛擬性」思考，讓「影像」不再是誰「的」影像，讓「複製」不再是同一的重複生產，以開啟「無人稱影像」與「差異複製」的可能。本文將分為三個部份。第一部份探討吳爾芙專業肖像照的前世今生，企圖在現有肖像照的美學／政治批判之外，展開攝影作為「過時」（在時間中行經過往）影像的思考。第二部份處理明信片做為影像的即逝性，其不僅來自明信片本身的差異創造，更來自「影像傳送」所啟動的網絡連結。第三部份討論當代博物館的「即逝性」，當「棄紙」明信片大量進入博物館成為收藏品與販賣品時，博物館將如何面對「流變明信片」與「流變影像」的新局。整體而言，本文嘗試鋪展現代性作為流變之力的虛擬操作，如何集結出肖像照—明信片—博物館的多樣性佈置（多摺性佈置），以及此佈置所觸動「當下生滅」的獨特時間感性。

The postcard imprinted with Virginia Woolf's photoportrait taken by G. C. Beresford in 1902 has long been one of the most popular souvenirs of British ”cultural icons” sold in museums and galleries. This paper takes this photo-postcard as a case study of historical materialism to explore modernity as the force of the ephemeral. It attempts to escape from the regime of ”representability” and moves toward the ”virtuality” of the image.The paper is divided into three parts. Departing from the dominant discourse on the poetics/politics of portrait photography, Part I explores the before- and after-life of Woolf's photoportrait by conceptualizing its ”out-modedness” as the virtuality of time. Part II deals with the ephemerality of the postcard itself by tracing its differential reproduction of the letter and by mapping out its network connections enacted through image transmissions. Past III focuses on the ephemerality of the museum to demonstrate how the museum itself is ”becoming-postcard” and ”becoming-image” when amounts of ephemera arrive at the museum as collections and as souvenirs. To sum up, this paper aims at mapping out the virtual operation of modernity to see how the force of becoming has created a multiplicity of photoportrait-postcard-museum, a creative assemblage enacted through a new bloc of sensation as the ephemeral.