藝術自出版的後數位美學實踐：以《沒有未來》與《現在過去式》為例

Abstract

本文從後數位美學的角度出發，探討近年的藝術書籍以獨立出版自主發行的自出版實踐，並以臺灣藝術家黃海欣與獨立出版社「挪石社」於2016年合作的《沒有未來》和《現在過去式》為例。這組藝術書作品，無論是在圖像內容本身、書藝性的設計佈署、以及其所涉及開展的文化活動，皆提供思考後數位美學中，紙媒印刷與數位科技之間的混種狀態。文中首先釐清數位技術對印刷出版的影響，透過媒介律四元圖示的識別架構，分析媒介技術之間的多重交互作用與文化效應，再而指出：在後數位文化中，因數位技術提升製作效率與擴散傳播範圍，一方面將創作權交予大眾「強化」內容產製，另一方面則「弱化」書籍產製管道及文類分界。數位媒介提供製書者更多的合作管道，網路社群等平臺培養分眾讀者，形塑特定社群的文化認同，因此「重拾」的書市社群，使大眾（讀者／創作者）可以在現場偶遇未被分類的材料，並且將數位介面上的使用者經驗「轉化」於書的體驗介面，藉由書藝性編制調度，折射出超文本的閱讀情境。

This paper seeks to investigate the artist practice of self-publishing in recent years from the perspective of post-digital aesthetics with a special focus on There Is No Future and Now Is the Past-two books authored by Taiwanese artist Huang Hai-Hsin and published by nos:books in 2016. The two books, whether in terms of content, design, and implicated cultural events, afford us an opportunity to ponder on the hybridization of printing and digital technology in post-digital aesthetics. This paper first of all clarifies the impacts of digital technology on printed media, and then analyzes the complex interaction and cultural effect between medium and technology by reference to the tetrad framework in Laws of Media. This paper points out that digital technology has improved production efficiency and expanded the scope of dissemination in the post-digital culture, which grants the public the authorship to "enhance" the production of content, "obsoletes" conventional literary genres, as well as highlights the materiality of paperbacks as the reading interface. Digital media offer book producers greater access to cooperation, whilst online communities develop their respective target readers and shape their own cultural identities. Therefore, the "retrieved" art book fairs not only allow the multitude (readers/ authors) to encounter unclassified material and "reverse" digital thinking (e.g. user experience) into artistic book design, but also enable them to reconfigure the existing material and create hyper-textual contexts for reading.