NOTE

There are two ways of walking into an old house. One, you get in and look for emotions, search through the past. Flip through stories. Rummaging through anecdotes. Leave no stone unturned. Formulating an arch of progression that converges onto now. And then you encounter Zeno of Elea, with each subdivision of states becoming increasingly small and stories becoming increasingly complex. It is difficult to circumvent the weight of the past. 

The second way is when one leaves those stories, memories, anecdotes be. Touch no things. These anecdotes and emotions still exist but in a somewhat hallucinatory state. Stories from different times and spaces form a continuum; sometimes, these anecdotes appear haphazardly and then linger on for seconds, minutes, or days. (It’s ok to dwell on) The house is merely a space that contains and confines, has no other functions other than warding off rain and the wind.

I imagine the past as monoliths of sound, but they are not immobile nor fixated in time and has no arch of progression, mainly serves as musique d’ameublement or, by happenstance, forms something monumental counterpointing the vista out of the glass facade overlooking Central’s main streets and fleeting images from a foreign place.

倘使有兩種勘踏過往的方法：一種是你在舊宅裡，翻箱倒櫳，尋索往昔，在正史與軼事之間，逡巡。一道又一道遞嬗的拱門盡頭，是當下，也是芝諾主張的無窮，兩道接續的門與門之間，細節變得更細，往事離析分崩。過往，一時間竟負重累累。



另一種是你在舊宅裡，不聞舊事、記憶和所有家長里短。軼聞和情感，在你避而不碰的維度裡，有如幻象般獨在。不同時間和場域裡面的故事，匯成一道連續體 (continuum)，橫空驟現，有時是一瞬，有時是以分鐘計算、有時算上數日…（不嫌詞費，仍可以無盡地羅列）所謂的空間，只是一個囹圄記憶的載體，房與宅，說穿了只是卸去風雨的蓬囊。


我想像裡的過往是聲音的巖陣，只是它從不固定，也不滯止於時間，亦不囿拱門 (arch of progression) 的圈框。反而有著幾分傢俱音樂的面向，因藉偶然，組成未可知的聲音遲相 － 當眺望中環街景的玻璃窗前，橫空錯置了異域的影像。

Translated by Ho Ying-yi