马清运致世界策展人的十个问题/SZB - Ten Curatorial Questions
梁井宇答马清运的致世界策展人的十个问题
Liang Jingyu’s answers to Ma Qingyun’s ten curatorial questions for this year’s Shenzhen Biennale:(English version inside)
1. 你知道如今我们如何同城市相处？从城市中得到什么？为城市做什么？
每一个生活在城市的人都拥有一个自己版本的城市。比如各自通勤经过的街道、常去的餐厅等等。城市内容的多样及可变性是保证市民与之亲密相处的基础；反之，保持一个灵活、可变的多样性的城市生态环境，是市民和城市相处的关键。灵活多变的城市生态本身就没有一个固定的样本，它既可能是速生速死，以求旧城速死来埋葬其自身的困境，同时期盼新城的早日重生；也可能是缓慢代谢，寻求新旧更替的自我持续。我们作为城市研究人员，能做的要么是在加速、要么是在减缓城市的死亡过程。
2. 我们能相信我们对于未来的判断吗？
问题应该是，就算能相信我们对未来的判断又怎样呢？经常看到的是人们在对待“知”与“信”方面的矛盾态度。我们明明“知道”如果不改变、不作为，会对我们的未来产生灾难性的后果，我们还是会仿佛“不相信”真会发生那样，对此无动于衷而显得无能为力。比如全球变暖问题，“911”，和在城市发展中的私人汽车问题，等等莫不如此。
3. 我们应该投资于使建筑在一定时段内功效最大化，还是致力于让它得以永久保存？
见第一个问题。或者也可以问成一个对待生命态度问题：如果只有两种人生供选择，你是会追求短暂而灿烂的一生呢，还是冗长但平淡的一生？
4. 如何能使我们的需求最大化？
如果你选择了享受短暂而灿烂的一生，你会怎么做呢？就是要“过度”和“浪费”。这也体现了我们从现代性之前（我不知道，所以我做了），到现代性（我知道了，所以我不做）再到后现代性（我知道了，但我还是要做）的变化。
5. 建筑应该有保质期吗？
或短或长，总是要有的。参见问题3的回答。
6. 城市应该一直延续保持目前我们熟知的形态吗？
这不是一个应不应该的问题。如果是一个速生速死的城市，她的形态就是在不断改变的，而相反，一个缓慢更新的城市，她的形态是相对保持一致的。
7. 我们能否想象一个布满非永恒建筑的城市？
可以啊。为什么不能呢？
8. 城市的对立面是什么？
不知道。
9. 农业的精髓是什么？
为什么问这个问题？以城市为参照，农业没有什么特别与城市不同的“精髓”。前南斯拉夫解体之后，萨拉热窝市内很多城市居民就在住宅区的周围空地上自种粮食、蔬菜养家糊口。城市和农村的概念在今天还互相格格不入么？城市也可以有农业啊。不是有城中村么？不是也有郊区化的城市么？
10. 农业化是否是都市化的未来呢？
这又是一个对未来的判断。农业化是什么呢？如果农业化和城市化指的是人口密度、基础设施强度的两极的话，只有两种可能：要么两极分化，要么均质化。
Ma Qingyun: What do we need and get from the city? Conversely, what do we provide for the city?
Liang Jingyu: City dwellers all have their own version of interpreting their cities. For example, we often take the same path to go to work and frequent the same restaurants. The fundament of the relationship between the citizen and city is the city’s own diversity and flexibility. This kind of diversity or flexibility in urban growth doesn’t have a fixed characteristic; a city can have a short life-cycle so that the problems acquired during its life time will expire along with the city. Or cities can change slowly, mutating into a new one. We, as urbanists, can only expedite or slow down the death of cities.
Ma Qingyun: Can we trust our judgment of the future?
Liang Jingyu: The question should be: what can we do even if we have predicted our future? We always run in to a conflict between “knowing” and “believing”. Even though we “know” the future will be disastrous if we don’t take any actions now to make changes; we still don’t “believe” that the worst could happen. Consequently, we put ourselves into problematical situations, for example, global warming, “911,” and the overproduction of automobiles on the roads.
Ma Qingyun: Should we invest in intelligence that maximizes a building’s performance in a given time period or in sentiments which demand its perpetuation ?
Liang Jingyu: See question 1. May be we can think of this question on how we want to live: if you only have two choices, would you want an exciting life that is ephemeral, or a plain life that last?
Ma Qingyun: How can we maximize our needs today?
Liang Jingyu: That means you have chosen to live an exciting but ephemeral life, it should be something about fast metabolism, - “surplus” or “wasteful”. It also can be interpreted into the developing attitude of human beings: pre-modernity period (I didn’t know, so I did it); modernity period (I knew, so I didn’t do it) and post-modernity period (I knew, but I did it anyway).
Ma Qingyun: Should buildings have expiration dates?
Liang Jingyu: It should, over either short or long periods of time. See question 3
Ma Qingyun: Should a city stay in its current form forever?
Liang Jingyu: It isn’t a should-or-should-not question. If a city has a short life-cycle, it is changing constantly. If a city has a long life-cycle, it is static.
Ma Qingyun: Can we envision a city composed of temporary buildings, instead of eternal monuments?
Liang Jingyu: Yes of course, why not?
Ma Qingyun: What is the polar opposite to the city?
Liang Jingyu: I don’t know.
Ma Qingyun: What is the essence of agriculture?
Liang Jingyu: Why ask? From a contemporary urban perspective, there is no significant difference between farmland and city anymore. After former Yugoslavia dissolved, Sarajevo’s people once cultivated food and vegetable on empty lands inside their urban space. There is a self sufficient way of living. The notion of a city and a farmland shouldn’t be so clear now. Aren’t there many villages-in-the-city and suburbanization at the same time?
Ma Qingyun: Is agriculture the next form of urbanism?
Liang Jingyu: That is another prediction of the future. What is “agriculture”? If we have to say the difference between agriculture and urbanism is based on the form of the density of residence and development of infrastructure and service, then the future could have two possibilities: polarization or homogenization.
Translation: Violet Lam, Hai-Yin Kong
October, 2007