虹吸 Siphon #001 | 展览现场&刘耀华对谈：艺术可能藏在尿中！

Q：为什么要做这样一个项目？

A：好玩呀。很早之前，有一次尿尿，我就发现颜色比平时深很多，很像我刚喝过的一瓶雪莉桶威士忌的颜色。于是我就在喝完的威士忌空瓶子里尿尿，然后跟真威士忌一起摆在酒柜上。后来跟冯兮聊起虹吸项目，我就说要不搞个酒会，因为本来项目时间也很短，把常规展览中酒会的形式单独抽出来做成展览本身，既匹配项目自身的特性，又可以当作是整个虹吸项目的开场。

Q: Why do you want to do such a project?

A: It is fun. A long time ago, I peed once and noticed the color was much darker than usual, much like the color of a bottle of sherry cask whiskey I had just drunk. So I peed in the empty bottle of whiskey and put it on the liquor cabinet with the real whiskey. Later, when I talked to Feng Xi about the Siphon project, I said, "Why don't we do a whiskey-tasting party?" Because the project was originally very short, we could take the event out of the regular exhibition and make it into the exhibition itself, which would match the project's characteristics and serve as the opening of the entire Siphon project.

Q：能不能告诉我，到底这些威士忌中有几瓶是尿？

A：一二瓶，二三瓶，三四瓶吧。

Q: Can you tell me how many bottles of these whiskies are actually urine?

A: One or two bottles, two or three bottles, three or four bottles, I think.

Q：那你是怎么处理尿的？大家都说很难辨认出来。

A：要是很容易能辨认出来，这个项目也就失效了。尿被称作人类身体的晴雨表，它在不同身体状况下的表现也很不一样。处理的技术层面主要有三点：一个是颜色，一个是清澈度，一个是气味。为了让尿自身的颜色尽量接近原有威士忌的颜色，首先要通过自己的身体来调，想要颜色深一点，我就多喝一点普洱茶之类的，所以身体是我的第一个工具。然后是清澈度，这需要长时间静置让尿液中的悬浮物沉淀下来，再过滤掉。如果还是不够清澈，我会选用食品级明矾粉末进行净化，再用非常细的滤网过滤。最后会加入威士忌香精，来压制比较明显的尿味儿，甚至还能给尿增加一点类似威士忌的香气。总之，就是要避免别人从视觉和嗅觉上毫不费力地分辨出来。

Q: So, what do you do with the urine? People say it is hard to identify it.

A: This program would be invalid if it were easy to identify.

Urine is called a barometer of the human body, and it behaves very differently in different physical conditions. The treatment has three main technical aspects: color, clarity, and odor. In order to make the color of the urine itself as close as possible to the color of the original whiskey, the first thing is to adjust it through my own body for a darker color. I will drink a little more Pu-Er tea, so the body is my first tool. Then comes the clarity, which requires a long time to let the floating particles in the urine settle down and then filter out. If it is still not clear enough, I will use food-grade potassium alum powder for purification and then filter it through a very fine filter. Finally, I will add whiskey flavoring to suppress the more obvious smell of urine, even adding a little whiskey-like aroma to the urine. In short, it is to prevent people from visually and olfactorily distinguishing it with ease.

Q：总共搞了多久？

A：半个来月吧。

Q: How long did the project take in total?

A: Half a month or so.

Q：你会不会把尿和威士忌掺在一起？

A：不会。这是这个项目的前提。酒就是酒，尿就是尿。因为我并不想搞一个恶作剧来捉弄大家。所以专门在展厅入口设置了提示牌，也嘱咐工作人员给来的观众事先说明情况。确实是有一些人看过提示直接转身走人，没关系，这就是一个游戏，愿者参与。只要你看过提示还愿意进来，就已经成为这个剧场中的一员。进来的人里面也有转了一圈就走的；也有人声称自己喝了多年威士忌，然后打开所有瓶子闻，非常自信地确认哪些是酒哪些是尿，却一滴没喝的；也有喝过之后怀疑自己是喝到尿的；也有喝了好几瓶都是酒没喝到尿有点遗憾的；也有一进来随便打开一瓶拼运气的；也有年轻人是自带酒水过来玩的......

Q: Do you mix urine with whiskey?

A: No.That is the premise of this project. Whiskey is whiskey, and urine is urine. I do not want to play a prank to fool people. So I specifically set up a reminder sign at the exhibition hall entrance and instructed the staff to explain the situation to the visitors in advance. Some people have indeed read the hints and turned away directly. It does not matter. This is a game for those willing to participate. As long as you read the tips and are still willing to come in, you have become a member of this theater. People who came in also turned around and left. Some people claim they have been drinking whiskey for years, and then open all the bottles to smell, and are very confident to confirm which is wine and which is urine, but did not drink a single drop; some people drank but suspected that they were drinking urine; several people drank many bottles of whiskey and regretted not having tasted urine; there is also a person who drank one random bottle to test his luck; there are also young people that brought their drinks just for fun...

Q：你确定真得有人喝到尿么？

A：画廊的工作人员告诉我，说他看见一个男的在展厅转了很久，然后小心翼翼地打开一瓶，倒出一点尝了尝，然后表情很不悦地偷偷走了。我猜想他应该是喝到了，却又不愿意让别人知道他喝到，甚至不愿意让别人知道他喝的是哪一瓶，这样的话，别人才会继续中招。

Q: Are you sure someone really drank the urine?

A: The gallery staff told me that he saw a man go around the gallery for a long time, then carefully opened a bottle, poured out a little bit and tasted it, and then sneaked away with a very unhappy expression. I guess he probably drank it but did not want others to know that he drank it, or even from which bottle he drank, so that others could also end up like him.

Q: 听赵邦说连你都喝到了？

A: 很有可能是的。我当时跟朋友们聊天正聊得起劲，拿错了桌上不知谁倒的一杯一饮而下，发现味儿不太对。毕竟，我在调尿的时候也没有试饮，并不知道尿加了威士忌香精到底是个什么味道。

Q: I heard Zhao Bang say that even you have drunk it?

A: Most likely yes. At that time, I was chatting with my friends, and I took a drink from the wrong cup and drank it, and found that the taste was not right. After all, I didn't taste it when I mixed my urine, so I don't know what the whisky essence in urine tastes like.

Q：有很多人觉得你这样做特别恶心。

A：嗯，成年人都挺容易恶心的，或者说大多数成年人都挺恶心的吧。我们小时候在农村都拿尿活泥玩。还会比赛谁尿得远尿得高，谁赢了就会骄傲地像个国王一样。我们也经常在野外生火，散场的时候所有孩子围着小火堆一起尿尿将火浇灭，你可能不知道，尿在火上会散发出异常的臭味，我们一闻到那个气味就会非常开心。

Q: Many people find you particularly disgusting for doing this.

A: Adults are easily disgusted, or most adults are pretty disgusting, I guess. When we were kids in the countryside, we played with live mud with urine. We would compete to see who could pee far and high, and whoever won would be proud as a king. We also used to make a fire in the field, and when it was time to leave, all the kids gathered around the fire and peed together to put it out. Moreover, in case you did not know, peeing on the fire would give off an unusual stink, and we would be thrilled once we smelled that stench.

Q：我想到《庄子》里面的一个故事，一个人反复问庄子：道在哪里？庄子最后说：道在屎溺。

A：对，艺术可能就藏在尿中。

Q: I think of a story in Zhuangzi where a man repeatedly asked Zhuangzi: Where is the Tao? Zhuangzi finally said: The Tao is in the urine.

A: Yes, the art may be hidden in the urine.

Q：有艺术家提到曼佐尼的屎罐头，还有卡特兰的蓝色饮料，你知道他们俩的作品么？

A：你不提的话我倒是忘了。蓝色饮料是克莱因，不是卡特兰。不过也无所谓。很多艺术从业者一看到什么作品，会条件反射地启动搜索引擎在已知的艺术史中开始搜索，这可能是一种艺术家病吧。这让我想到禅宗里的指月关系，类比来说，指是材料，月是观念，不能只看指而不看月，除非你就是个手指化妆师。冯兮讲得很好，尿是材料，和酒没区别，人在这个特殊场域中的反应、态度和行动才是观念，观念在这个项目中是运动的，不是固定的指向。把材料当作观念来看待，是很多艺术从业者的误区。提起尿，在佛教里有一个叫丹霞禅师，说是有一天，丹霞禅师在庄严的寺院佛殿内公然小便，其他和尚一看，这对佛也太不尊重了吧，没想到丹霞禅师却理直气壮地回答：“何处无佛？教我去何处解手？”。不过这些故事也不能当真，要不谁都要跑到寺庙里尿尿，宣布自己成佛了。

Q: Some artists mentioned Manzoni's shit cans and Cattelan's blue drinks. Do you know both of their works?

A: I almost forgot about them if you don't mention.The blue drink is Klein, not Cattelan. But it does not matter. When they see something, many art practitioners habitually turn on the search engine and start looking through the known art history, which is probably a kind of artist's disease. This reminds me of the relationship between the finger and the moon in Zen Buddhism, where, by analogy, the finger is the material, and the moon is the idea, and you cannot just look at the finger without looking at the moon unless you're a finger makeup artist. Feng Xi points out that urine is a material, no difference from whiskey. The reactions, attitudes, and actions of people in this particular field are the ideas, and the ideas are in motion in this project, not a fixed point. Treating materials as ideas is a misconception of many art practitioners.Speaking of urine, in Buddhism, there is a Zen master named Danxia. One day, Danxia openly urinated in the Buddhist temple of the solemn monastery, and the other monks saw him, saying that this was disrespectful to the Buddha. However, the Zen master Danxia replied with a straight face, "Where is there no Buddha? Where should I go to relieve myself?" Nevertheless, these stories cannot be taken too seriously, or we would all run to the temple to pee and announce that we have become Buddhas.

Q：贾浅浅也写了一首关于尿的诗。

A：那是非常好的诗。

Q: Jia Qianqian also wrote a poem about urine.

A: That's a very good poem.

Q：我不理解。

A：不理解就不理解吧。

Q: I do not understand.

A: If you don't understand, you don't understand.

Q：哎，我又想到一种可能，是不是根本就没有尿，全是酒。

A：可能，事实正是这样。但我看好像有个人留言说，他偷偷拿了一点自己的尿趁人不注意的时候灌进某一瓶里了。

Q: Hey, I thought of another possibility. Is there no urine at all? It's all alcohol.

A: Maybe. I think there was a message left saying that he secretly filled a little bit of his urine in a certain bottle when no one was looking.

Q：威士忌那么贵，如果全是酒的话得花不少钱吧？

A：但我也想到一种可能，先不说是尿还是酒。就算是酒，难道那些瓶子里的酒真是原来的么？有没有可能1000块钱的酒瓶里装的是50块钱的酒呢？

Q: Whiskey is so expensive, so it would cost a lot of money if it were all alcohol, right?

A: But I also thought of a possibility, not to mention whether it was urine or alcohol. Even if it is alcohol, is it the original wine in those bottles? Is it possible that a 1,000-yuan bottle contains 50-yuan whiskey?

Q：对对对。

A：套用一句卡佛的名言：“当我们喝威士忌的时候，到底是喝什么呢？”。

Q: True.

A: To paraphrase a famous Carver quote, "When we drink whiskey, what exactly are we drinking?"

Q：聊了半天尿了，聊聊威士忌吧？

A：B站上有一个视频，一个UP主把一个50块钱的低端调和威士忌和一款5000块钱的30年苏格兰单一麦芽威士忌倒在两个杯子里，在一个威士忌博览会上随机找人盲品，男的女的都有，好多都是喝威士忌比较长时间的，并且信誓旦旦，心想这都喝不出来还混啥呀，最后有好多人都打脸了，觉得50块钱的非常醇厚层次丰富，觉得5000块钱的不太好。还有一次，我把一款雪莉桶的威士忌和一款波本桶的威士忌，给一个八九岁的小女孩闻，她是我朋友的女儿，年纪太小他爸也不让喝。因为闻香是威士忌品鉴的第一个环节，我就说你仔细闻闻，然后告诉我这两款酒是什么味道，有什么不同，分别能跟你吃过喝过闻过的什么东西对应上，结果让我非常惊讶，特别准确。

Q: We talked for half a day of pissing. Let us talk about whiskey.

A: In a video on the Bilibili, a blogger poured a 50-yuan low-end blend of whiskey and a 5,000-yuan 30-year-old single malt Scotch whiskey in two separate glasses. He was in a whisky fair, randomly looking for people for a blind tasting, both men and women. Many have been drinking whisky for a long time and swore they could taste the difference. However, many people were finally wrong, thinking the 50-yuan whiskey had rich and complex tastes while thinking the 5000-yuan to be not so good.Another time, I poured a sherry cask whiskey and a bourbon cask whiskey for a little girl of eight or nine years old to smell. She is my friend's daughter and too young that his father will not let her drink. Because smelling is the first part of whiskey tasting, I told her to smell careful and then tell me the difference between the two and how they correspond with what you have eaten, drunk, or smelled. The results surprised me: incredibly accurate.

Q：这说明什么呢？

A：说明有的东西是无法说明的。

Q: What does that show?

A: It shows that there are things that can't be explained.