The Volcano of Flesh in the Distance between Life and Death: Hsiao Mei Ho’s Creation of the Body from New Paradise of Silent Island to Renaissance of Its Ashes

Abstract

<p>從《默島新樂園》到《極相林》，何曉玫變造生命與非生命之間的距離，在其中得到創造身體宇宙的動能。而她之所以能夠在生命的極限上再創造，在於她能夠掌握了身體創造的基本情動過程。本文承繼德勒茲以被情動的能力對身體的定義，描述何曉玫如何讓超過個體生命的力量在脆弱的肉身上發生，而以佛洛伊德「詭秘」（uncanny）討論何曉玫如何從這種詭異而令人毛骨悚然的情動結構，變造生死、神人的距離，讓身體內部的各種超過個體的極限形成德勒茲所說的變動的火山線，讓宇宙從體內發生。本文試圖描述何曉玫創作對思考身體帶來的啟發，也藉此以佛洛伊德詭秘的情動結構補充德勒茲非個體的生命力量與脆弱肉身之間的關係。</p> <p> </p><p>From New Paradise of Silent Island to Renaissance of Its Ashes, Hsiao Mei Ho distorts the distance between life and non-life [the living and the inanimate?] to gain the vitality for recreating the body and its universe. The reason why she can recreate at the limits/ boundaries of life is because of her mastery of the fundamental affective processes that create the body. This paper, on the one hand, adopts Deleuze’s definition of the body through as the capacity to be affected feel? Perceive? Change?in order to describe how Ho enables the forces beyond individuals to happen on affect? interact with? the fragile flesh; On the other hand, this paper engages with Freud’s concept of the uncanny to discuss how Ho recreates the distance between life and death, the divine and the human, through this kind of paradoxical and creepy unnerving? affective structure. Through this recreation of distance, Ho lets the limits within and beyond individual bodies form the active and changing volcanic lines, in Deleuze’s words, and force the universe to happen arise? from within the body. This paper is an attempt not only to describe the inspiration of Ho’s works for? and her thinking about the body but also, through her inspiration, to supplement the relation between the Deleuzian life forces beyond the individual and the fragile flesh, by through the Freudian affective structure of the uncanny.</p> <p> </p>