the undesignable zhang qing translated by yiyou wang

2,211 years ago, the powerful warlord Yu invited his rival, Liu Bang, to a banquet in Hongmen. The banquet, conceived as a trap to kill Liu Bang, started in a tense atmosphere. The hosts and guests took their seats. faced east, and his consultant, Fan Zheng, south. Liu Bang’s consultant Zhang chose to face Xiang Yu so that Liu Bang faced Fan Zheng instead of Xiang Yu, hinting that Liu Bang had no intention to act against Xiang Yu. At that moment, Xiang Yu was leading 400,000 soldiers, and Liu Bang only 100,000. The two armies were only about forty miles apart. In order to avoid direct conflict with Xiang Yu and survive the banquet, Liu Bang needed to sheji (devise some strategies). During the meeting, raised a piece of circular jade three times to signal Xiang Yu to take action, but Xiang Yu did not respond. Fan Zeng then summoned to perform a sword dance with the intent to kill Liu Bang. At this pivotal point, the banquet was interrupted by Fan Kuai, whose arrival was arranged by Zhang Liang to distract Xiang Yu. When Fan Kuai impressed all the attendees with his bold manner of consuming the wine and pork, Liu Bang fled under the pretext of going to the toilet. At the banquet, Zhang Liang, on behalf of Liu Bang who was reportedly “drunk and left early” presented a jade disc to Xiang Yu, and a jade square ruler to Fan Zeng, who furiously broke the jade disc and predicted, “This mean fellow (Xiang Yu) is not worthy of my service. It should be Peigong (Liu Bang) who defeats Xiang Yu and conquers the country.”

This story shows the importance of sheji (design)1 in political and military conflicts. Thanks to Liu Bang’s chao sheji (hyper strategy),2 a strategy that allows him to outsmart his enemies, Xiang Yu loses the opportunity to kill Liu Bang, who later becomes the emperor of the dynasty.

Sheji refers to something planned or intended in the Chinese context. Han Feizi, a third-century B.C. Chinese thinker, explained the meaning of the character she in relation to shi as follows: “If shi is something determined by nature, it is not shi. By shi, I mean something planned by humans.” designates plans or strategies, as expressed in Guanzi Quanxiu: “A one-year plan is for growing crops; a ten-year plan, planting trees; a lifetime plan, cultivating men.” According to Emperor Gaodi’s Main Record in the , the prime minister devised a miji (secret strategy), which helped the emperor break the siege of the Huns.

Sheji (design) has played a critical role in history. It manifests human desires, as well as intellect and spirituality. The stories of the "Trojan Horse" and "Borrowing the Enemy’s Arrow"3 have always been associated with the winner’s ingenuous design. Inventions such as the compass and the steam engine illustrate design’s contribution to material culture.

Intellectual and spiritual activities are often multidimensional. It is significant that more than 2,000 years after the Hongmen banquet, we bring together a variety of contemporary cutting- edge works under the title HyperDesign at this Biennale. It is necessary to examine design from a philosophical and spiritual perspective.

It is noteworthy that design has brought about both self-realization and self-restraint. We need to envision another kind of design, a going beyond and a return.

 2006 Shanghai Biennale: HyperDesign. Courtesy of the Shanghai Art Museum.

 I want to name it wufa sheji (the undesignable), something that cannot be designed. Zhi, the renowned sixteenth-century writer, remarks,

The truly talented writer does not intend to write in the beginning. He has something strange, indescribable in his mind. He wants to utter something in his throat, but dares not. He often holds many words in his mouth but cannot find a place where he can speak out. Over time, these things accumulate to the point where they cannot be held anymore. As a result, when things touch his eyes and heart, he will chant expressively. He will grab anothers’ cup and drink to soothe his troubled mind. He will express his frustration. The extraordinary things he expresses will last for a thousand years. 4

Li Zhi suggests that marvelous writings are not something that can be designed. Similarly, the undesignable elements can also be found in other arts, as the saying indicates, “Without a touch of madness, one cannot create good artworks.”

Wufa sheji, which is made up of (no), fa (principle), she (plan or arrange), and ji (measure), refers to something that cannot be measured by set standards. Fa designates measures or standards. Guanzi, a seventh-century B.C. thinker, for example, mentions a set of measures: chicun (for measuring length), mosheng (for drawing straight lines), guiju (for drawing circles and squares), hengshi (for weighing), douhu (for measuring volume), and jiaoliang (for measuring angles). The concept of the undesignable implies that design is essentially a spiritual activity, which cannot be made or evaluated by the above-mentioned tools. The notion of the undesignable expresses our aspiration for a realm of freedom and new possibilities.

Ji Kang is an accomplished third-century writer and musician known for his love of personal freedom and spiritual cultivation. One day, he traveled to a place named Huangyang near Luoyang and decided to spend the night in a pavilion there. Ji Kang started to play the zither at night, ignoring the fact that the pavilion had been associated with many murders. Suddenly, he heard “Bravo, bravo.” Ji Kang continued playing the zither and asked, “Who is it?” Ji Kang learned from the response that it was a ghost who had been wandering for several thousands of years. The ghost told him, “I heard you playing the zither. The music is very refreshing and beautiful. Since I was a zither music lover, I come over to listen.” The ghost further explained that since he had been killed and mutilated, it would be inappropriate for him to meet Ji Kang in person. But he asked Ji Kang to forgive his terrible appearance because he loved Ji Kang’s music so dearly. Undisturbed, Ji Kang responded, “It is already late at night. Why don’t you appear? Our bodies do not matter that much. They are only appearance and skeleton.” The apparition came up to Ji Kang, carrying his head in the hand, and said, “Your music is so refreshing and enlightening that I feel as if I have come back to life.” Ji Kang and the ghost started to talk about music. The ghost even used Ji Kang’s zither to play a few pieces. He taught Ji Kang the best piece, “Guang Ling San.” But the ghost asked Ji Kang to keep his name and this piece a secret. When the morning came, the ghost said farewell to Ji Kang, “Our encounter occurred in just one night. We could be together for a thousand years. How can I not feel melancholy about this separation.”5

The piece “Guang Ling San” did not survive. But the strange tale of Ji Kang’s encounter with the ghost sheds light on the idea of the undesignable element in art making. Words are no longer adequate to express the thoughts and feelings the story evokes. Perhaps, the door to the undesignable opens at the moment when language fails.

If the story about the sage and ghost seems to be a rather remote and bizarre example of the undesignable, let us take a look at one of the most common ingredients of our life, qing (emotion).

 Tang Xianzu, a famous dramatist of the Ming dynasty, wrote: “Humans are born with feelings. Pensiveness, happiness, anger, and sadness are triggered by small things. They (emotions) can be expressed in powerful singing and movement. They can be released and extinguished in a minute, or last for several days. . . .”6 On a similar note, the well-known play Palace of Eternal Youth by Hong Sheng begins with, “[Something] moves metal and stone, responds to heaven and earth, shines in the day, and makes history. We can see the strong emotive elements in stories about faithful court officials and filial sons. The sage [Confucius] did not delete songs from the Zheng and states in the Book of Poetry.7 I borrow the ideas and compose the music. I create new lyrics based on Tai Zhen Wai Zhuan. Everything comes from emotion.” 8

Another play, The Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu, is known as one of the most classic love stories in the history of Chinese drama. The playwright, observes, however, “The most difficult thing to express in the world is emotion.” He seems to suggest that emotions, when not conveyed enough in real life, find their expressions in the mad and the fantastic in theatre.9

The Peony Pavilion defies the line between reality and dream, yang jian (world of the living) and yin jian (world of the deceased). The main character, Du Liniang, is not dead. She is only temporarily hidden in a yin jian (room) by the playwright, who constructs several touching love scenes in the absence of one of the characters in love. The device he employs is to place the main characters in different rooms. One character can only observe his/her lover, who is in the other room, through a kind of monitor, such as the portrait of Du Liniang. The play conveys the idea that love is something that won’t be affected by changes such as yin and yang, life and death, separation and reunion. In my view, the idea in the play suggests the essence of chao sheji (HyperDesign).

Tang Xianzu states, “Emotion grows out of nowhere. It is so powerful that the living can die for it and the dead can be revived for it. Strong emotions make the realms of life and death interchangeable. Why do people see emotions in dreams as something unreal? Aren’t there many people living in dreams in this world?10 HyperDesign, the theme of the Biennale, aims to explore the realm of dream in history and reality.

The renowned poet Li Po writes, “Heaven and earth is a guesthouse for all things; time is a passing traveler throughout a hundred ages.”11 From a cosmological perspective like what Li Po envisions, how can we set a rule or standard to design?

Like human emotion, the classical Chinese landscape is something undesignable. The scenery of Xiao Shi Tan (Little Rock Pond) described by the Tang Dynasty writer Liu Zongyuan is a good example: “Over a hundred fish swim freely in the pond as if they were in the air. The sunlight penetrates the clear water. Shadows of the fish appear on rocks without moving. Sometimes, the fish disappear or move back and forth quickly, as if they were playing with visitors.”12 Isn’t this landscape a “hyperdesign?” Man and undesignable nature encounter each other here, as Liu Zongyuan remarks, “The clear water meets the eyes. The sound of the water meets our ears. The sense of freedom, ease, and emptiness reaches the spirit. And the sense of profundity and serenity reaches the mind.”13

The concepts of design, hyperdesign, and the undesignable come together at the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. Four Chinese traditional architecture models, for instance, illustrate similar ideas of

 Xu Yongfu and Xu Hesheng, The Palace of Lingyan Temple in , architecture model. Courtesy of the Shanghai Art Museum.

 “the undesignable” that one finds in nature. Though they have the look of typical design products, they embody human dignity and spirituality as well as the idea of the union between humans and nature.

The four models were made by a master and disciple team, Xu Yongfu and Xu Hesheng.14 In 1952, Chen Congzhou, the foremost expert of Chinese architecture, met Xu Yongfu, the overseer of the Xuan Miaoguan Taoist monastery restoration project in Suzhou. Impressed by Xu’s marvelous skills, Chen Congzhou invited him to make models of ancient architecture for the wooden architecture model studio at Tongji University. Four years later, Master Xu’s student, Xu Hesheng, joined the studio. During the Cultural Revolution, Xu Hesheng was interrogated and insulted because of his refusal to use nails to build classical Chinese architecture models. One night, alone in a room, he killed himself by sticking a bamboo rod into his throat.

The Chinese artisan-architect ended his life in a highly symbolic way. The transient encounter of the throat and the rod strongly recalls the mortise and tenon joint, the basic component in Chinese traditional architecture. To the man who devoted his whole life to architecture, the rod had its life. The powerful meeting of the two beings leaves much to be considered. Wufa sheji (the undesignable) is probably all that I can say.

Written on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month in the Year of Bingxu at the Shanghai Art Museum.

Notes: 1 Translator’s note: The term “design” in English has been translated as sheji in Chinese. 2 Translator's note: HyperDesign, the theme of the 2006 Shanghai Biennale, has been translated as chao sheji. 3 Translator's note: The wise prime minister Zhuge Liang (third century) was asked to produce 100,000 arrows in ten days. He had twenty boats lined with straw scarecrows and sailed toward his enemy’s camp on a foggy day. Taking this gesture as a surprise attack, 3,000 bowmen from the enemy camp started to shoot. Zhuge Liang easily gathered more than 100,000 arrows with the straw scarecrows. 4 Li Zhi (Ming dynasty), Zashu Zashuo (Miscellaneous Narration, Miscellaneous Talk), vol. 3, Fen Shu. 5 Record of the Strange Narratives, a compilation composed of strange tales in the Wei and Jin dynasties. 6 Xu Shuofang, ed., Tang Xianzu (Ming dynasty), Record of the Temple for the God of Theatre, Xingyuan Master, Yihuang Prefecture, Selection of works by Tang Xianzu, vol. 2 (Beijing: Beijing National Press, 1999), 1, 188. 7 Translator’s note: Songs from the Zheng and Wei states were known for their bold love themes. 8 Hong Sheng (Qing dynasty), Palace of Eternal Youth (Shenyang: Liaoning Education Press, 1997), 1.

 9 The play revolves around the love story of Liu Mengmei, a young scholar, and Du Liniang, the daughter of Du Bao, the governor of Nan’an in the Southern . In her visit to the family garden, Du Liniang falls asleep and dreams of falling in love with a young scholar, Liu Mengmei. Having awakened from her dream, she becomes lovesick. Unable to find her love, she finally dies of a broken heart. Before she dies, she buries a portrait of herself under a stone in a garden near the Peony Pavilion. Liu Mengmei stays at the summer house in the Du family garden on his way from the South to the imperial examination in Hangzhou. His discovery of the girl’s portrait leads to many hours of gazing at her lovely image. One night she appears before him and they consummate their relationship. At her bidding, he unearths her coffin and she comes back to life, as fresh and beautiful as ever. The couple leaves for Hangzhou, where Liu Mengmei takes an examination, but there is a delay in announcing his test results due to the war. Liu Mengmei finds Du Liniang’s father, Du Bao, and tells him what had happened. Instead of recognizing Liu Mengmei as his son-in-law, Du Bao has him arrested for unlawful disruption of a corpse. Liu isn’t released until an official comes in search of him because he scored the highest on the imperial examination. Finally, in an audience before the throne, Liu Mengmei proves successively his claims, with the help of his resurrected wife. The story ends with the reunion of Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang. 10 Preface to the Peony Pavilion. 11 Li Po, Prologue on a Spring Evening Spent with Cousins in a Peach and Plum Blossom Garden. 12 Liu Zongyuan, Record of the Little Rock Pond. 13 Liu Zongyuan, Record of the Little Hill West of Gumu Pond. 14 I saw eight Chinese traditional architecture models for the first time in the red building at Tongji University when I was working with the faculty for the 2002 Shanghai Biennale. The models include a Suzhou-style hall (double-layer xie shan roof) with scaffolding for the restoration project, the Palace of Lingyan Temple in Suzhou style (single-layer xie shan roof), Shizi Linyanyu Hall (ying shan roof), Suzhou Lingyan Temple’s Main Hall (double-layer xie shan roof), and a Northern Palace-Style Hall (with double-layer arched roof) of the Qing dynasty. Ever since then, the eight models have fascinated me. Whenever I revisit the university, they always invite me to look carefully and quietly contemplate them. Why was I so drawn to these architectural models? The theme of this Biennale, chao sheji (or HyperDesign), gives me a better understanding of my preoccupation. What does the term “hyper” mean? Does it merely mean “to go beyond or to transcend something?” Does it imply that tomorrow will be better than today? Does it direct our attention only to the future? In my view, “hyper” has another dimension. When looking back, one can find the notion of hyper and its manifestations in traditional Chinese culture. The architecture models included in the current exhibition show that the HyperDesign elements in ancient China can inspire designers today. By displaying these seemingly old things in a contemporary art venue such as the HyperDesign exhibition, I aim to not only demonstrate generations of Chinese artisans’ marvelous skills, but also to illuminate the time-honored idea of the union between hand and mind. It took me more than two months to find out the identity of the two artisans who created these models. At noon on July 12, 2006, my assistant Xiang Liping and I went to Tongji University despite the hot weather. Professor Yin Zhengsheng and an associate professor, Lou Yongqi, introduced us to Professor Ruan Yishan. In the early 1950s, Ruan Yishan, a student of Chen Congzhou, worked closely with the artisans. Yuan told us, “The two artisans are father and son. Xu Hesheng is the name of the son. I cannot remember his father’s name. In 1956 or so, I worked with Xu Hesheng on several projects, including the Kuala Lumpur Triumph Memorial, Warsaw Heroes Memorial, and Moscow southwest district. Dai Fudong was the person responsible for the master plan and other design work. Xu Hesheng was supposed to make models based on Dai Fudong's plan. Sometimes, Xu Hesheng finished the model even before Dai Fudong completed his design drawing. Dai Fudong was amazed by the fact that the model perfectly corresponded to his own design concept. The eight models you see were made at the request of Chen Congzhou. The two artisans created more than just eight models. I remember they made a fantastic model showing the intersection of Bei Si (Northern Temple) Pagoda in Suzhou. But the rest of the models they made were lost during the Cultural Revolution. Even these surviving models were in danger. In order to protect them, Chen Congzhou came up with a plan. He and some students secretly moved the models to room 223 and 226 in the Wenyuan building. In my recent visit to room 223, I found a piece of golden-thread phoebe wood we left in the room. Xu Hesheng has worked on traditional Chinese architecture models at the studio since he came to Tongji University. Later, he also made geometric teaching models. His superb skills were widely known. The most amazing thing is, he visited Yonghe Palace (a lama monastery) in Beijing for just half an hour. When he came back from the trip, he made a model of the palace! In the afternoon of July 18, 2006, associate professor Lou Yongqi introduced us to Dai Fudong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Science. Dai reminded us of an ancient sage. He closed his eyes for a moment and talked about his experiences fifty years ago, “I came to Tongji University after graduating from Nanjing Technology Institute. From 1952 to 1953, I was Chen Congzhou’s teaching assistant. I remember that the older artisan was very short and thin. The younger person, Xu Hesheng, was tall and strong. I am quite sure that their relationship is that of master and disciple and not of father and son. The master wasn’t in good health, so he would give oral instructions to Xu Hesheng who then made models according to his master’s ideas. Xu Hesheng not only had great manual skills, but also an exceptional sense of space. Architects are persons who create something in an empty space. Xu Hesheng was highly gifted in understanding the essence of architecture. The models he built are treasures of Tongji University.” Unable to recall the name of the older artisan, Dai Fudong phoned Tang Yunxiang, the then party secretary of the architecture department. Tang Yunxiang could not remember the name either. But he confirmed that they were master and disciple. Dai Fudong insisted that we should visit his home because he kept an old photo of him and Xu Heshang studying models together in the studio. He searched his home for an hour and finally found the photo. He made a replica of it before our eyes. I think, this is an example of Techniques of the Visible (Translator’s note: Techniques of the Visible was the theme of the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. The transliteration of the Chinese ying xiang sheng cun can be “image existence.”) Though we obtained a rare image, we still can’t locate the name and biographical information of the master because people who once worked with him are either in their 80s or 90s or have passed away. We did, however, learn that he and Xu Hesheng were master and disciple. Furthermore, the disciple, Xu Hesheng, died from unnatural causes during the Cultural Revolution. In the afternoon of July 28, 2006, Wei Meizhu and Jin Dian, volunteers working for the Shanghai Biennale, visited the archive of Tongji University with a letter from the Shanghai Art Museum. Fortunately, they found Xu Hesheng’s file, which contains the master’s information. The file indicates that Xu Yongfu is the person who can verify Xu Hesheng’s experiences from 1934 to 1954. We concluded that Xu Yongfu was the person whom we were tirelessly looking for, based on the following reasons: The reason professor Ruan Yishan thought they were father and son is probably that they had the same family name and came from the same town. 2. Dai Fudong and Tang Yunxiang thought they were master and disciple. They recalled that Professor Chen Congzhou met the older artisan, who was working on the Xuanmiao Taoist monastery restoration project in Suzhou in 1952. Impressed by his superb skills, Chen Congzhou invited him to work at Tongji University. In 1954, Chen Congzhou invited the disciple, Xu Heshseng, to Tongji University to help him when he was not in good health. 3. According to the archival information, Xu Hesheng was born on November 10, 1918. In 1934, he was 16 years old, the average age a boy begins to take apprenticeship under a master. It was probably in 1934 that Xu Hesheng became Xu Yongfu’s disciple. In order to make a living, master and the disciple were often as close as father and son. It is in 1954 that Xu Hesheng arrived at Tongji University. Xu Yongfu, listed in the file as the person who knew Xu Hesheng well between 1934 and 1954, is presumably the master. Our search for the artists was concluded just before 3 p.m., July 28, 2006, when a complete list of participating artists in the 2006 Shanghai Biennale was officially released. The master’s name came at just the right moment, which is probably a blessing from generations of Chinese craftsman and artists for the HyperDesign exhibition.

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