(written by Joy Zhu under the pseudonym diuleuze, this fictional dialogue is fabricated as response to Mark Chung’s solo exhibition “Dead End” at Foo Tak Building, Feb 19 to Mar 27, 2022)

Collector: You call it the illusional pain of your phantom limbs, but I think Agnes Martin would call it chaotic summer – the disrupted surface of a pool.

Mark: Her pool in summer doesn’t have light. It is not rippled by movement. Perhaps it is a pool at dawn when the sun rays haven’t hit.

Collector: In the Birth of Art, Bataille once said: “Greece also gives us the impression of a miracle, but the light that emanates from Greece is the light of broad day: dawn’s early light is less certain, less distinct, but during a stormy season, morning light is the most dazzling of all.”

Mark: My delusions only occur in intense daylight, or in the waning light of the dusk.

Collector: Is the light from the intense daylight or waning dusk?

Mark: none but the result of a decompression of the two-dimensional surface into three – now the surface of the aluminum reflects the LED from the panels, as if breaking the boundaries between day and night.

Collector: there is something intriguing in the idea in which liquid becomes hardened to glass.

Mark: Glass and water have similar wave impedance. They are both electrical bodies that impede light from entering through refraction.

Collector: the luminosity of the bodies of glass and water owes only to the fact that neither of them absorb light, leaving the light waves in limbo. I have always been told that the UV rays inside the water are stronger, but now I suddenly realized that the level of sunlight is only akin to the amount one receives inside an office building. You only get burnt when you are near the surface, or when you stand amidst a matrix of glass buildings.

Mark: But the light of my reflection is never allowed to enter the body of the image. You can only see a complete image of the piece when you look at it sideways.

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(translated by Chris Wan & Joy Zhu)

收藏家：你說這是你幻肢的幻痛，但看見這個泳池被擾動的畫面，艾格妮絲馬丁（Agnes Martin）一定會說這代表著雜亂無章的夏天。

鍾正：她的夏日泳池沒有光或漣漪。也許它是一個陽光還未至，黎明時分的泳池。

收藏家：《藝術的誕生》中巴塔耶(Georges Bataille)曾說過：「希臘也給我們留下奇蹟的印象，但希臘顯露的光是大白天的光：黎明的晨曦是不那麼確定、明顯的。暴風雨的季節，晨光卻是最耀眼的。」

鍾正 ：我的妄想只會衍生於強烈的日光或黃昏的微光中。

收藏家：那鋁板上的光是來自強烈的白天還是微暗的黃昏？

鍾正：都不是，而是二維表面解壓縮至三維的結果——鋁板的表面反射著熒幕上的LED，彷彿打破了白天和黑夜的界線。

收藏家：液體凝固成為玻璃的意想使人耐人尋味。

鍾正：玻璃和水有相似的波阻抗。它們體內的電波可阻止光的穿透並使之折射。

收藏家：玻璃和水本身的反光源於它們的阻光性，使光波處於游離狀態。我一直以為水裡的紫外線比水面更強。但現在才意識到水裡和大廈內的紫外線強度是相當的。只有接近水面或立於玻璃大樓的矩陣中才會被灼傷。

鍾正：因此，我的倒影永遠被禁於鋁板之外。我們只能從作品的側面才見到不經反射影響的完整作品。