記憶、被記憶與再記憶化的視覺形構——臺灣近現代攝影的歷史物質性與影像敘事

Remembering, Being Remembered and Rerememberization–The Historical Materiality and Image Narrative of Modern Photography in Taiwan

臺灣近現代攝影的誕生及發展，一般認為來自於19世紀以來西方及日本殖民統治的轉介，經歷全然不同的歷史時空，至今已有百年。其中，不論是人類學攝影、紀實攝影、商業攝影、沙龍攝影、畫意攝影、現代攝影等，臺灣攝影所形構的視覺性歷史，反映從殖民到後殖民時代變遷的主體重構歷程。攝影作為一種反映臺灣社會、歷史真實的物質性文本，可以說是檢視上述不同歷史階段最直接而重要的視覺材料，然而，長久以來遭受外來政治力絕對性支配之結果，尤其是戰後箝制思想、言論自由的威權統治，已使其淪為失去正確觀看、思考、批判、詮釋時代可能的「他者」。戰後，臺灣攝影主要以沙龍攝影、紀實攝影及現代攝影最為重要，值得注意的是，興起於1960年代中葉的現代攝影，透過既疏離又荒謬的視覺影像對長期的政治壓抑傳達一種「宣洩與抵抗」，回歸攝影者真實處境的探索；進入1980年代，隨著社會民主化的開展，紀實攝影更對何謂「臺灣」的問題，進行長久、多重視角的視覺探索，重構「去他者化」的影像物質與歷史記憶，觸及長久以來未曾被論及的臺灣主體性問題。解嚴以後，社會上掙脫極權監控及反思臺灣位置、價值的轉變，對臺灣攝影的發展產生巨大影響。此時，攝影已然超越純然的政治消費性工具，而轉變成歷史再編、文化主體性及身分認同重構的全新論述載體。

The conceptual and technical development of photography in modern Taiwanese history can be traced back to the colonial rule of western powers and Japan and has been an integral part of modern art history and visual culture for more than a century. In those 100 years, whether anthropological photography, realistic photography, photoreportage, commercial photography, salon photography, pictorialism, rural photography, eco photography and even the popular digital photography of today, the visual history created by Taiwanese photography reflects the process of visual reconstruction based on the change from the colonial to post colonial era. Photography that should reflect the historical materialism of Taiwan, especially in the post war period and the beginning of the totalitarian rule of the KMT, came under the absolute control of unprecedented political forces and was therefore reduced to the role of“other”having lost the power to observe, criticize, interpret and create thought provoking images and stripped of its visual identity. Beginning in the 1980s realistic photography began to ask“What is Taiwan?”and engaged in a visual exploration that was long-term, involved multiple points of view and akin to field research in nature. On the one hand this involved recording the omnipresent otherness of“colonial ruins,”on the other it used the visual process of rural and local people to reconstruct images and historical memory based on the elimination of otherness. This became the earliest experience in the search for a Taiwanese identity in the post war period. After the end of Martial Law and especially since the beginning the New Millennium rapid democratization, the removal of totalitarian control of society and changes in the way people reflected on Taiwanese values had a huge impact on Taiwanese photography. As a result Taiwanese photography entered an era in which it became far more critical on political, societal, communal, cultural and gender issues. At this point, photography became much more than a tool of consumption and was transformed into a vehicle for the showcasing of new ideas on the reformulation of history, opposition to otherness and the establishment of cultural subjectivity and identity in the post war period.