The Feast of Trimalchio, Arrival of the Golden Boat, 2010
AES+F
社会，宗教，文化，界限，冲突，自然，人性，躯体…这些都是艺术家集团AES+F的艺术探索和创意方向。
AES+F 名字的由来是这四位艺术家名字的首字母组成。起初是由Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, 和Evgeny Svyatsky 三位好友在1987年组建为AES，1995年Vladimir Fridkes 的加入使其变为AES+F。
AES+F九零年代早期的作品形式包含表演，装置艺术，绘画与插图。但是跟随时代与科技的发展，他们的作品更是在摄影、视频和数字技术的交叉点上发展起来的，再结合更传统的媒介去制造出一种超前的数字化艺术形式。AES+F在这些媒介之间展开一场复杂又抽象的对话，渗透艺术史和其他文化规范的深度， 他们的视觉叙事探索了全球范围内当代文化的价值、缺陷和冲突。
AES+F的“怪诞”艺术表现形式以对人类身体与灵魂的探寻展开，标绘出人类与自然，动物，与科技之间的关联和冲突。
近期的作品更是与新时代女权运动有着很深的牵扯。比如说上一个艺术项目，他们通过探索意大利作曲家贾科莫·普契尼最著名歌剧《图兰朵》中西方人想象中的中国世界去展现以女性为中心的幻想世界。
RFB 进一步去了解了AES+F的“怪异”思维，创造过程，和想要传达给公众的信息：
AES+F 名字的由来是这四位艺术家名字的首字母组成。起初是由Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, 和Evgeny Svyatsky 三位好友在1987年组建为AES，1995年Vladimir Fridkes 的加入使其变为AES+F。
AES+F九零年代早期的作品形式包含表演，装置艺术，绘画与插图。但是跟随时代与科技的发展，他们的作品更是在摄影、视频和数字技术的交叉点上发展起来的，再结合更传统的媒介去制造出一种超前的数字化艺术形式。AES+F在这些媒介之间展开一场复杂又抽象的对话，渗透艺术史和其他文化规范的深度， 他们的视觉叙事探索了全球范围内当代文化的价值、缺陷和冲突。
AES+F的“怪诞”艺术表现形式以对人类身体与灵魂的探寻展开，标绘出人类与自然，动物，与科技之间的关联和冲突。
近期的作品更是与新时代女权运动有着很深的牵扯。比如说上一个艺术项目，他们通过探索意大利作曲家贾科莫·普契尼最著名歌剧《图兰朵》中西方人想象中的中国世界去展现以女性为中心的幻想世界。
RFB 进一步去了解了AES+F的“怪异”思维，创造过程，和想要传达给公众的信息：
Action Half-Life, 2004
- RFB: 可以分享一下你们作品的灵感来源和创作过程吗？
AES+F: 每个作品都有不同的灵感。最近，我们经历了这样一个过程：想象将原型神话与当代话语、问题和丑闻结合在一起。比如通过亚马逊神话的视角来观察最近的#MeToo女权运动。我们的工作主要是与我们的潜意识长期融合在一起，从古代神话，图像和文学，到当代流行文化。
- RFB: 你如何看待时尚与艺术的交集？尤其是Vladimir Fridkes，你的作品曾出现在一些主要的时尚杂志上。
AES+F: 去年我们在纽约大都会博物馆参观了《天体》（Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination），我们看到，例如YSL的礼服或McQueen的面具绝对是艺术杰作。但恰恰相反，Fridkes离开了时尚界，因为他在那里迷失了艺术元素。我们认为艺术与时尚的结合是基于目标和一定程度的，我们对时尚合作持开放态度。在我们的一些项目中，我们希望与我们喜欢和尊重的时装设计师合作，但有一些品牌认为我们的工作太有争议了。从这个意义上说，时尚界仍然有着与艺术界不一致的界限。除了极少数例外，时尚将艺术中的趋势提炼成产品形式，因此时尚需要艺术的存在。
- RFB: 可以跟我们分享一下你们是怎么开启作品《图兰朵》的创意大门的？你们想要通过它传达什么样的信息？
AES+F: 西西里首都巴勒莫的Massimo歌剧院邀请我们制作《图兰朵》，这与我们的兴趣不谋而合。女性复仇，#MeToo，女权主义的新浪潮，高科技的未来，和中国风（18世纪异国情调的欧洲版中国）都融合在一起创造了《图兰朵》。我们的《图兰朵》是一个当代中国式的童话故事，它通过欧洲的想象来审视21世纪中国的未来，它用同样的部分来描述中国的魅力和恐惧.
- RFB: 你们的作品里有许多（中国）文化的借鉴，哪些文化方面吸引了你的注意并激发了你的灵感？你如何将你的工作与不同的文化联系起来？
AES+F: 我们对中国文化其实是不完全了解的。我们对西方眼中的中国更感兴趣。与此同时，西方对中国在短时间内取得的时代与科技进展感到着迷，并担心它将取代西方中心文化。我们的工作涉及到这些西方的综合体。例如，我们可以看到ALLEGORIA SACRA中使用的象征和隐喻，中国冰上芭蕾舞，或《图兰朵》里的飞行宫殿。从概念上讲，龙宫的使用暗指的是《权力游戏》中的Daenerys，她是一个类似图兰朵的隐喻人物。当代的信息网络将所有的神话和符号融合在一起，它们的根源在集体的潜意识中遗失和不相关。这个过程的产物是一种文化的混合体，它已经摆脱了自己的基础，但仍然与所有文化的人们紧密 联系在一起。
- RFB: 你们对人体和表演欲望有什么看法？你们的许多作品（如Feast of Trimalchio）都涉及到人类躯体，而你对人性的诠释方式也是非常创新有时甚至是怪异的。你们是如何创造出这种展现形式的？
AES+F: 身体的语言是一种社会礼制的语言。我们喜欢研究人的躯体，它的运动，它的形式；它作为一个社会机器人，执行由社会编程的仪式。我们展示人们和他们的身体的方式是他们向别人展示着自己。这样的躯体是一种自恋的反映，对于一个专注于“奇观”的社会来说是典型的。我们的人物总是向内看而不是向外看，以确定他们自己是否符合社会规范或刻板印象。为了达到这个效果，我们开发了一种语言和方法—在拍摄过程中，我们只使用照相机去单独拍摄每一个演员，然后将这些照片在后期制作中结合成一个移动的影像。最后它自然而然地变成了一种虚拟的身体舞动。
- RFB: 数字技术可以让你扩大创造艺术的想象力和可能性，但是你如何通过例如表演、安装、雕塑和绘画的传统媒介来看待艺术品的实质存在性呢？
AES+F: AES+F的世界由无数的资源组成，我们所有的作品都是通过反应这个世界的问题和图像来进一步去创作的。我们不认为数字和物质之间有任何矛盾。雕塑是虚拟的物化。它看起来很像古董，是古人们用石头和青铜制造出想象中的神话英雄。即使我们现在可以虚拟地描述它们，虚拟性也不能代替物质性的愉悦。每个媒介都有特定的历史和背景，这使得它在表达方式上具有独特性。每一种媒介都能以非常不同的方式讲述同一个故事，这就是它之所以有趣的原因，也是为什么我们使用这么多不同的媒介来照亮我们的艺术世界。
Turandot, 2019
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Turandot, 2019
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- 1. What is the source of inspiration of your works? Can you share anything that comes up in the creative process with us?
Every work is different. Recently we go through a process where imagination combines archetypal mythology with contemporary discourse, problematics, and scandals, like for example looking at the #MeToo movement through the lens of the myth of the Amazons. We work mostly with our subconscious, where everything has long blended into one, from ancient mythology, images, and literature, to contemporary pop culture.
- 2. How do you see the intersection of fashion and arts? Especially Mr. Fridkes, your works had appeared in some of the major fashion magazines.
Last year we stopped by the Metropolitan Museum for the Celestial Bodies show, and we saw that for example a gown by Yves Saint Laurent or a mask by McQueen were absolutely masterpieces of art. But to speak to the contrary, Mr. F. left the fashion world because he was missing the element of art. We think it's all a matter purpose and degree. We are open to doing fashion collaborations, but on our terms. We recently did a campaign for FENDI x Gentle Monster, which was our first such collaboration. In some of our projects where we wanted to collaborate with fashion designers whose work we like and respect, we were told by their marketing departments that our work is too controversial. In that sense fashion still has boundaries set by the industry that don’t align with those of art. Fashion, with rare exceptions, distills trends within art into product form, so fashion requires art to exist.
- 3. Can you share with us how your recent work Turandot come together? What was the message you were delivering?
The invitation by Teatro Massimo in Palermo to produce Turandot coincided with interests that excited us at that moment. Female revenge, #MeToo, a new wave of feminism, the hi-tech future, and chinoiserie - an 18th c. exoticised European version of China all blend together to create Turandot. Turandot is a contemporary chinoiserie fairy tale that examines the future of China in the 21st century through the European imaginary, which addresses it with equal parts fascination and fear.
- 4. You have some Chinese cultural references in your works, what cultural aspects caught your attention and inspire you? And how do you connect your work to different cultures?
We don’t know Chinese culture well. We are more interested in the Western perspective of China. The West is at the same time fascinated by the progress China has made in a relatively short time, and fearful that it will replace Western-centric culture. Our work addresses these Western complexes about the Other. For example we can look at the symbols and metaphors that are used in Allegoria Sacra, like the 3-story mythical airplane or the Chinese ballet on ice, or the flying palace in Turandot that looks like a Chinese dragon but also appears to be made of plastic. Conceptually the use of a dragon palace is an allusion to Daenerys from Game of Thrones, who is a metaphorical Turandot-like character. Contemporary information networks blend all the myths and symbols together, and their roots become lost and irrelevant in the collective subconscious. The product of that process is a cultural hybrid that has shed its foundation but remains highly associative to people of all cultures.
- 5. What are your opinions on human body and performance desire? A lot of your works (such as Feast of Trimalchio) involve human bodies, and your way of interpreting human natures is very innovative and somewhat mesmerizingly bizarre, how did you come to this specific form of expression of the human body?
The language of the body is a language of social rituals. We like to examine the body, its movement, its forms, as a social robot that performs rituals programmed into it by society. We show people and their bodies in a way that they show themselves to others. It is a narcissistic reflection that is typical for a society that is concentrated on spectacle. Our characters are always looking inward rather than outward, ascertaining their own conformability with social norms or stereotypes. To this effect we developed a language and a method where during the shoot we only use photo cameras and shoot actors separately, and then combine them all into a moving digital collage in post-production. It then becomes a kind of virtual choreography.
- 6. Digital technologies allow you to expand imagination and possibility of creating arts, but how do you see the physicality of art through traditional media like performance, installation, sculpture, and painting?
The world of AES+F consists of a myriad of sources, and all of our works are windows and reflections into that world through the prism of issues and images that populate that world. We don’t see any contradiction between digital and physical. Sculpture is a materialization of the virtual. It looks a lot like antiquity, when imagined mythological heroes are depicted as objects rendered in stone or bronze. Even though we can now depict them virtually, virtuality cannot substitute the pleasure of materiality. If we were ancient Greeks, we would only use marble and paint. But now all of these different media are ways to show and say the same thing from different perspectives. Each medium has a specific history and context, which makes it unique in its mode of expression. Some projects are media-specific. Opera and theater in general is a kind of mysteria that also existed in ancient times, and contemporary performance comes out of that tradition. Painting, whether digital or physical, of course has its own very long tradition extending to antiquity, but it operates in a different mode than video for example. Each medium can tell the same story very differently, which is what makes it interesting, and which is why we employ so many different media to illuminate our world.
Allegoria Sacra, The Battle, 2011