Maggie Menghan Chen: Unearthing Digital Ruins, an Archaeological Inquiry
Writer: 秦川 Ben
Date: 11/23/2022
Keywords: archaeological / digital medium / quasi-archaeological / ruinology
In a diminutive white cube space, under stark illumination and against towering walls in sheer white, a series of "unearthed artefacts" created by artist Maggie Menghan Chen through digital modeling and machine learning are displayed. A half-opened wooden crate, the relics, alongside rotten wooden stumps which are now their shrines – these exhibits unequivocally point to an enigmatic culture steeped in the cult of big cat worshipping. The exhibition's title, Unearthed, invites viewers to adopt an archaeological perspective. However, the artist's digital medium of art-making resounds with a reconsideration of this archaeological historical consciousness.
展览图片：残片 I ，140x70x160cm，木头纤维PLA，OSB木板，稻草，钢，2022
Exhibition View：Fragment I，140x70x160cm，Wood PLA, OBS, steel, straw，2022
Exhibition View：Fragment I，140x70x160cm，Wood PLA, OBS, steel, straw，2022
Deptford——曾经的皇家船坞和货运码头，伦敦历史最久的铁路桥下，展览的揭幕像是打开了一个临时仓库，一些货品在此中转，再去往下一个地方，但没有标注货源，没有收件地址，只是在这里开箱，接受核验。无从溯源，更不可得知它们的归宿，又要去改写什么历史。
数字就以这样的无根状态存在。艺术家的作品首先是数字生成物，由计算机编码，然后悉数在这个实体的世界里打印成形。它们可以有无限的摹本，不断地生成、增长，变幻模样。数字洪流里，编年史源头的缺失并不意味着数字即此飞升。数字不能单纯地化约成电子信号，反而往往落回到土地，也缘此更需要一种脚踏实地的考古精神。这恰是陈孟涵的工作方式，一种“准考古（quasi-archaeological）”的创作。
At Deptford, once a royal dockyard and freight wharf of the capital city, this exhibition is akin to a temporary warehouse beneath London's oldest railway bridge, where goods pause in transit before continuing their journey. Yet, there are no source labels, no delivery addresses – merely an unpacking for inspection. With untraceable origins and unknowable destinations, one wonders what histories these artifacts might rewrite.
The digital exists in such a rootless state. Chen's works are primarily digital creations, computer-encoded spectres before materialising in our tangible world through printing. They possess the potential for infinite replication, perpetual generation, growth, and metamorphosis. In this digital epoch, the absence of a chronicled genealogy doesn't equate to digital transcendence. Numbers cannot simply be reduced to electronic signals; instead, it often falls back to the land, necessitating a bound-to-earth archaeological methodology. This epitomises Chen's take on her field work – a "quasi-archaeological" approach.
展览图片：幻影 II , 木头纤维PLA，纸板，蓝晒于卡纸，24x16x12.5cm, 1+1 AP, 2022
Exhibition view: Apparition I, Wood PLA, cyanotype on paper, 24x16x12.5cm, 1+1 AP, 2022
考古，作为一种废墟的科学（ruinology），并不是为了找寻源头或者复原某个整体。扼制一种顺着历史长河跋涉溯源的冲动后，我们才看到大浪淘沙留下的废墟无处不在。作品“残片I”（Fragments I）和“新遗迹 III”（New Relics III）无论在字面上还是形制上都昭示着这样的废墟特质。干草、一个轻巧的老虎塑像和一块树化石被托起。它们可以是任何“自然拾得物”（艺术家如此称呼这些精美的化石），无论材质，断裂是其本质。
Archaeology, as a science of ruins (ruinology), doesn't seek to unearth origins or reconstruct wholes. Only when we resist the urge to trace history's long river do we perceive the ubiquity of ruins left by time's tides. Works like Fragments I and New Relics III embody this quality of ruin both in letter and form. Hay, a beautiful tiger figurine, and a fossilised tree are lifted up. These could be any "nature finds" (as the artist terms these exquisite fossils); regardless of material, fragmentation in their essence.
展览图片：新遗迹 III , 21x21x22cm，1+1 AP, 木头化石，木头纤维PLA，稻草，2022
Exhibitiob view: New Relic III, 21x21x22cm, 1+1 AP, Wood PLA, Petrified wood, straw, 2022
Exhibitiob view: New Relic III, 21x21x22cm, 1+1 AP, Wood PLA, Petrified wood, straw, 2022
世纪末的哲学家在数字时代的门外谨慎地组织语言，他们自然看不到今天的电子计算机的无限潜力，但却清晰地铺好了新世纪考古学的方法论：在对断裂的强调中寻找尚未发生之物（something yet to come）。这正是展览呈现的：数字信号和植物遗骸耦合的无限可能，不厌其烦地排列组合、交织。
Philosophers at the end of the century cautiously articulating at the threshold of the digital age, couldn't foresee today's advance of computational coding. Yet, they lucidly laid the methodological groundwork for a new century's archaeology: seeking "something yet to come" within the emphasis on rupture. This is precisely what the exhibition presents: infinite possibilities in the coupling of digital signals and organic remains, tirelessly re-arranged, re-composed, and intertwined.
艺术家作品3D打印的材料来自植物，植物的化石嵌于其中，有机的可降解材料赋予了数字生成物独特的触感，缕缕纤维粘着在作品表面，在白墙下泛着微光。它们的交织势必要形成新的地层，不论我们姑且用人类世还是其他拗口的地质术语唤它。
The 3D printing filament of the artist’s works come from plants, with plant fossils embedded within their structures. These organic, biodegradable materials imbue the digital creations with a unique tactility – wisps of fibre cling to the surfaces, shimmering subtly against the white walls… Inevitably forms new strata, whether we choose to term it the "Anthropocene" or some other awkward-sounding geological slangs.
展览图片：双连画:⻁与豹的肖像研习，45x140cm，卷轴，蓝晒于宣纸，单幅, 2022
Exhibitiob view: Portrait Study of Tigers(left), Portrait Study of Leopards(right), Scroll; 45x140cm, cyanotype on rice paper, 2022
双连画:⻁与豹的肖像研习 （Portrait Study of Leopard & Portrait Study of Tiger）两件作品同样是机器学习的成果，但这里的“study”便不只是机器对人类图像、制符逻辑的学习，相反，或许是我们向机器学习的契机，学习如何在这篇大地上共生。“Unearthed”，正如艺术家为其展览命名，这些数字作品从大地里现身，但也是离开这个人居住、为万物命名的地方（earth，the abode of man）。
The diptych Portrait Study of Leopard & Portrait Study of Tiger also results from AI or machine learning. Here, however, "study" transcends the machine's learning of human imagery and symbolic logic. Instead, it perhaps offers "us" an opportunity to learn from the machine – about how to coexist on earth where "we" live.
今天的科学家或许对于地层的了解还甚于对我们自己的认识，自然博物馆里充盈着化石标本，却未注意我们沿着浅滩迈下的每一步都会留下足迹，成为新一段历史的明证。一俯身，就可拾掇起一串新的历史。
Scientists today may know more about strata than we do about ourselves. Natural history museums are filled with fossil specimens, yet we fail to notice that each step we take along the shallows leaves an imprint, becoming evidence of a new history.
展览图片：幻影 I, 24x16x12.5cm, 1+1 AP, 木头纤维PLA，纸板，蓝晒于卡纸, 2022
Exhibitiob view: Apparition I, 24x16x12.5cm, 1+1 AP, Wood PLA, cyanotype on paper, 2022
Exhibitiob view: Apparition I, 24x16x12.5cm, 1+1 AP, Wood PLA, cyanotype on paper, 2022
于是，展览“Unearthed”不是一个考古现场，但是对考古方法、历史编纂的数字初探。Deptford码头和货运铁道曾经连接一段帝国殖民历史，琳琅满目的珍品、文物从梦幻的东方来到这里。今天我们不再以博物学家、历史学家自居，但看到这些方才抵境、无法分类的文物，一样是充满对异域文化的疑惑。但这里充斥的又是谁的幻想呢？构筑的是属于谁的文化，成为了谁的枕边故事呢？
As a result, "Unearthed" is not an archaeological site, but a digital exploration of archaeological methods and historical writing. Deptford’s docks and its railway tracks evoke memories of a bygone era, when it was a bustling hub of colonial trade and commerce, resounding with the arrival of cargos from oriental lands. Today, upon seeing these unknown and uncategorised artefacts, one is filled with confusion about the foreign culture. But whose fantasies pervade this space? Whose culture is at play, and into whose bedtime stories have these artefacts been woven?
📍 展览地点 Exhibition Location：Danuser & Ramírez Gallery
⏳ 展期 Exhibition Duration：2022. 11.11- 11. 21
展览现场 Exhibition view
上海Brownie Project同期展出了陈孟涵的系列作品，群展“身外之躯”展期至2023年2月12日。
The Brownie Project gallery in Shanghai simultaneously showcased Chen Menghan's series of works. The group exhibition "Bodies Outside Themselves" runs until February 12, 2023.
艺术家介绍 Artist Introduction
陈孟涵于（b.1998，北京）现工作和生活于伦敦。她于纽约大学取得艺术史学士学位，硕士毕业于切尔西艺术学院纯艺专业。
陈孟涵以准考古学的方式进行雕塑，装置和纸本的创作。她以作品为证据编织线索，还原遗失或推测性历史，并游走于史实，历史性叙事和幻想文学之间。她常常提取自然中的符号与隐喻，通过数字生成和重塑，与自然拾得物相并置。通过仿制历史语境，她的创作反思社会构建记忆在当今数字时代中的虚实边界。
Chen Menghan (b. 1998, Beijing) currently works and lives in London. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from New York University and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Arts.
Chen Menghan creates sculptures, installations, and paper-based works in a quasi-archaeological manner. She uses her works as evidence to weave together clues, reconstructing lost or speculative histories, and navigates between factual history, historical narratives, and fantasy literature. She often extracts symbols and metaphors from nature, juxtaposing them with digitally generated and reshaped natural finds. By simulating historical contexts, her work reflects on the blurred boundaries between reality and fiction in the social construction of memory in the digital age.