Benerkenswert June 2023
Remembering 8964 in Taipei and oh so many pictures
Welcome to the June issue of Benerkenswert, a monthly-ish newsletter on art, Taiwan, society, and stuff I’m interested in! As always you can find it also here on my homepage. Click here for a German translation provided by Google.
I’m working on some longer essays but their time hasn’t yet come. As I’m dedicated to my schedule, this issue features:
A report on the Tiananmen memorial event in Taipei
Reflections on photography
Some short recommendations
Enjoy!
Remembering June 4th in Taipei
(Click here for the photo essay on my website in a special photo-essay layout. Also, due to Substack’s limit many images are missing here.)
On June 4th, 1989, Chinese government troops violently suppressed student demonstrations on Tiananmen Square urging for political reforms. While hundreds or thousands were possibly killed, thousands more wounded, official numbers are not know as the Chinese government continues to forbid even discussions of the protests. Internationally, a picture of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks leaving the Square a day later reached iconic status as “tank man.”
The incident marked the end of the Chinese pro democracy movement as well as of relative press freedom. Since then, many people have been jailed in China for even reminding of the day. Since 2020, June 4th was still commemorated in Hong Kong, but this year again, people have been jailed for “disrupting order in public places” or “acts with seditious intent.” Some were arrested for small acts like lifting an (unlit) candle or driving a car with a plate reading “US 8964.”
In Taiwan, the memory of June 4th is still alive. At its 34th anniversary this year (2023), an official memorial event was hold right in front of the Chiang Kai-Check memorial – in itself a political statement, given Chiang’s history with regards to China and the suppression through his own party, the KMT. (Too much to get into here. I wrote a bit about it here.) The event featured a big stage, several stands of different NGOs (including from Hong Kong), the date of the incident, “8964” in candles, and a replica of the pillar of shame from Hong Kong. (The pillars of shame are a series of sculptures by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt remembering various “shameful events.” The first such pillar remembered the Tiananmen massacre and was erected in Victoria Park in Hong Kong in 1997.) Approximately 1000 people attended the event despite rain.
The number of visitors maybe highlights the complex role Tiananmen plays in Taiwan. While it is central for Chinese history, Tiananmen protests took place after Taiwan split from mainland China. It is thus partly a sign of pride that the event never reached the importance it had in Hong Kong (which has a similar or even slightly smaller population than the Taipei metropolitan area). At the same time, its broader messages of liberty and freedom from oppression are important especially in these times. They are a reason for many young Taiwanese, NGOs and Tibetan and Hong Kong activists to come. Many might not come as everyone here should probably expects to be photographed. Given the tight family and business relationships between Taiwan and China (and its strenuous relationship), it wouldn’t surprise me if many people wouldn’t go on the chance of problems somehow some-when later. Finally, there is the fact that Taiwan is a young democracy, a democracy with a distinct cultural heritage. Democratic rituals like protest don’t necessarily translate directly into all generations of Taiwan’s culture – and don’t need to.
As if all that wasn’t complicated enough, Taiwan just experiences its own #MeToo moment, as politicians especially of the ruling (liberal) Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Dissident community are accused of sexual harassment or even rape. Currently, one of the persons in the center of attention is the Tiananmen student leader Wang Dan, further complicating the relation of Taiwan’s youth towards the issue.
I visited the event towards the end, mainly to take pictures, maybe to meet some people I know. The atmosphere was relaxed, mixed with confidence, pride, and determination. Tiananmen meant something for the people here, but even more, Taiwan’s democracy, rule of law, and civil liberties mean something for the people here. While of course much of the evening was performative – there were dozens or hundreds of photographers, many activists, speeches, journalists from international media – the gravity of the moment was imminent.
(You might like my report on the Oslo Freedom Forum if you are interested in civil society in Taiwan.)
Creative burst
In my free time, I like to see myself as an amateur photographer in the best sense of the word. Photography is an artistic outlet, a way to engage with the world. To let it in and keep it at arms length at the same time. A way to learn something about myself.
I used to play music during most of my life. There is little as meditative and monumental as rehearsing eight ours a day in the Alps for a week with an orchestra of 130 and playing Strauss’ Alpine Symphony in a big concert hall afterwards. But as I left my loved double bass in Germany (logistics, Covid, climate, …), taking pictures has taken its role for now.
It is hard to underestimate how important it is to have an artistic or creative outlet, I think. Not only is it fun and you meet lots of great people, it might even help to stay sane. Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song:
Therapy works for a lot of people, though entertainers have it easier than most. Instead of having to pay someone an hourly fee to feign interest in listening to them drone on about their lives, a canny performer can reel in an audience, unburden themselves, and receive adulation as well as a nice payday simultaneously. What issues was Elvis working through with thousands of teenage girls calling out his name? What death issues was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins coming to terms with, charging people to watch him emerge from a coffin?
Entertainers understand that a good story is a basic commodity, one they are not about to give away. The therapist is on the wrong side of that transaction—if you have a lurid story to tell, like you want to fuck your father or want to make love to your mother, why are you paying a shrink to listen to it? He or she should be paying you.
What fascinates me about photography as a “new” hobby is how chaotic it is in the way it impacts my life. It started as a way to create memories as I took photos of trips, moments, friends & family. (I still don’t have an outlet for those images…) But as my hard drive fills, I learned to follow the itch to do something more with it.
Photography is more than taking pictures
The German sociologists Andreas Reckwitz has focused on the idea of “practices” in much of his work. A “practice” is something we do again and again, cooking and sharing dinner, reflecting and writing in a journal, meeting to play music, to name a few examples. As a sociologist, he tries to make sense not of a specific instance, what we feel, why we do it in the moment, but its function for ourselves and in our social surrounding. It is a fascinating perspective, as it allows something simple to become bigger, more important, more meaningful in a concrete and real way. Suddenly “having dinner” becomes a center piece of family life. Not out of tradition or even nostalgia, but because looking at how families live it might turn out to be the only recurring instance where everyone meets. “Journaling” might be not something you do as a “mindfulness ritual,” but an innovation that separates (parts of) Renaissance society from its forebear, a corner stone for individualism as people started to project meaning onto their feelings and to create a specific narrative of self.
Similarly, photography is a practice that allows you to go out and engage with the world. To reduce it to images. To let it in and keep it out at the same time. To freeze time and keep or destroy moments. To look for the small that represents the whole. But beyond this direct more psychological effects, it also changes how we cluster life around us in different stories and places. How we become aware of some (visual) similarities while more ignorant of others. How we appreciate some things (nice places and people) but maybe overlook others (beautiful voices, more complex attributes of places). It changes how we interact with others (by taking photos together, taking photos of them, sharing them digitally). It’s not uncomplicated (Brazilian-Czech media philosopher Vilém Flusser has written a whole book on this issue that still rings true 50 years later), but what is…
Maybe seeing something as a “practice” is just a sciency way to allow it to bring some change and magic into your life – beyond the smaller thing that it itself is or simple “vibes”. Thus, for me, photography is not just taking images, it’s… well, also organizing, editing, publishing images of course, … but: It can change the way to see the world, to engage with it, to approach it. To see other people, engage with them, approach them. For me it has often become the reason to go somewhere. Like to the memorial event mentioned above. Maybe it also makes me not go elsewhere. Who knows. And whatever!
Sharing is caring
One thing I struggled with for a long time was to find outlets that felt authentic. Radio Taiwan International featured some of my images online. I supported Anna’s office opening with some portraits and interior shots. But taking these organic opportunities aside, “outlet” feels like too big a word for my current solution. I haven’t sent my images to photo journals or competitions, for example. Didn’t hold any exhibitions.
But that’s my strategic, structured mathematician-brain talking, and I enjoy to embraced the chaotic creative process of just doing things and see where it gets me. “Doing things” means taking photos (and organizing, culling, editing, …). “Seeing where it gets me” mostly meant to set up what started as a small personal website. It… let’s say… metastasized a little bit into a place to share my favorite images, cultural insights about Taiwan, favorite places to travel to. (I even hooked up Google maps to show where all the places are!) And I love how this thing grows wildly before I prune it a little bit, instead of following a strict plan. Let’s see what happens!
The other part is about sharing, “distribution” as the kids say these days. I used to hate social media (for reasons I will not write about now) but got around to try it again (ditto) and started to like it again (ditto). You might see it coming, this is the advertising block…
One part of the “pruning” process was that I started a project (✨) to share a photo a day to test whether it’s true that on social media, consistency is king. (It’s true.) It’s a fun project which allows me to pick a couple of images every weekend and throw them in one of those scheduling apps. If you like, you can follow the project on Instagram, Pixelfed/ActivityPub, RSS, or just by visiting the project on my Website directly.
Communities of practice
As the casual social media user I was before, I underestimated its power to meet people once I make the step from consuming what others “share” to posting my own stuff. Especially with photography, it’s really easy to just meet people for a “photo walk.” Last week for example, some casual messages lead me to join a group of eight for an evening in Tamsui, Taipei’s “coastal” district.
So, if you are taking your images alone, reach out to others and just take a walk. Highly recommended. Five stars. ★★★★★
(The only problem is: Other people might see you like a hungry pack of wolves and avoid you. In that case, just feast on each other!)
Recommendations
Stéphane Brizé, Un Autre Monde & La Loi Du Marché
Stéphane Brizé is a French director. He directed a powerful trilogy featuring actor Vincent Lindon, a testimony to the pressure on people in all parts of society. You could say they dissect capitalism, but that sounds too clinical and too theoretic to do his work justice.
The first part, “The Measure of a Man” tells the story of Tierry, an unemployed father of a disabled child in France, trying to get back into “the system.” We see all the humiliations he has to endure only to get a job as a security guard where he is the one to push others back down. Depressing and powerful!
Part three puts Lindon in the role of a plant manager who sees his private life dissolve while he is made the hangman of his own employees for the betterment of the career and bonuses of his bosses. It’s even more crushing than the first part, but the fact of his virility makes it somewhat less bleak.
Both movies are fascinating milieu studies, showing life that is easy to miss when reading the news or staying within one’s own bubble. It’s auteur cinema at its best, and European.
Parts 1 and 3 are available on Mubi right now. (In Germany, but Mubi is quite lenient with VPNs, not like other services.)
Sam Mallory on Photography
Mallory is a US American photographer roughly my age with a self-ironic twist to tell its story. Talking about both photography and social media in this issue, I want want to highlight his YouTube channel as one entertaining example of the authentic creativity it can spark. He too has a philosophical itch to scratch, but given his medium addresses it lighter than I do here.
As common on the platform, it’s a lot of product reviews, but often with a very creative and well-crafted twist (here in the style of Wes Anderson). I think it was one of his videos that made me aware of Voigtlander, the producer of all my lenses. He also has some great educational material and travel logs.
In the age of cheap AI content and cheap “growth hackers,” I appreciate everyone who goes the hard way of sitting down, creating something, and sharing it with their (small and hopefully growing) corner of the world.