Bakhtin uses the term “heteroglossia” to describe a characteristic in a society where a variety of voices and the multiplicity interact to convey ideas and communicate. The Bakhtin School thinks that heteroglossia can present different voices and diverse personal experiences in a society and hence open up the possibility of disrupting the authority61. It was not until the third period of Wu’s artistic creations that he first started to use heteroglossia in his works.
During this period, his works start to present multiple figures at a time, and they are more elaborate than the ones before. It is the advancement of digital techniques that makes Wu’s pictures more and more meticulous. He has also developed his thoughts into different levels by means of the advancement.
The elements of cinematic effects become an issue in Yang Ming-eh’s (楊明鍔) review62 on Wu’s works. Like the ghost wondering in the films63, Wu’s figures do not look different from the normal people in daily life at the first sight. When the viewers find out that the figures are not human beings but dead people, they immediately feel creepy64 (Yang 29).
Besides, according to my interview with Wu, I believe that some elements in films are also shown in his works. He tells me that he thinks all the artists like films, and so does he65. Wu insists that each of his works has an integrated story, but he wants to compress the story, including the prolog, the analysis and the end, into one shot. Set-up photography becomes one
61 “The Popular Culture in the Public Sphere ,” Cultural Policy and Power, ed. Shu-chen Chiang, 2004, National Chiao Tung University, Center for Emergent Cultural Studies,
<http://www.cc.nctu.edu.tw/~cecs/web/context.htm>
62 Ming-eh Yang, “The Composition and Decomposition of History/ Reality and Simulation/ Illusion,” Taipei:
Modern Art 121 2005: 24-35.
63 What Dreams May Come (Vincent Ward 1998), The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan 1999) and The Others (Alejandro Amenábar 2001).
64 「這三部電影(《靈異第六感》、《美夢成真》、《神鬼第六感》)的手法安排，讓你起先在看的時候，覺得
與人類社會無異，覺得稀鬆平常，可是當你知道他們早已死亡不再是人，立刻會讓你毛骨悚然」(楊)。
65 In my interview, Wu said David Lynch and Peter Greenaway are his favorite directors. There are some similarities they share. The topics which Lynch has dealt with are always around psychos and criminals. Also, he is good at presenting them in an aesthetic style, such as in Twin Peaks (1991) and Lost Highway (1997). The crime scenes are so beautiful that they may be taken as art performances. When it comes to Greenaway, his presentation of art history is conspicuous, especially in Prospero’s Book (1991). Wu’s personal favorite is The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) which utilizes an extremely gorgeous setting to decorate the ugly and sinful story.
of the most important ideas in his works which are also closely related to theatricality. He does not want the natural elements in photography; he needs dramatic tension. He adds so many elements in his works; consequently, his works cannot be classified into the category of either photography or digital graphic design.
The grotesque in this series can be examined visually. From Wu’s previous style of iconology to photography, he has been catching up with the latest technologies. The Former and Current Life series (《前世今生》) reveals a cinematic language, and the framing is like a
“tableau vivant.” The mise-en-scene is ludicrous but in a horrible way. Wu zooms out his works from a body part to a whole body, and finally he does not only display the figures in full-size but also make them in motions. However, the full-size figures are not
healthy-looking; what is even worse is that they are physically and mentally abnormal. For example, the four little people managing to row a boat in Work Together toward Same Goal (《同舟共濟》) (2002) or the two buddies riding a Tandem bicycle in United in Our Effect (《永 協同心》) (2002) or the couple sitting on the people with unicorn-like gesture in Dreaming of Golden Millet (《黃粱夢》) (2003). Their freakish smile creates a sense of monstrosity rather than happiness. The strange atmosphere reminds us of the formula of horror films. According to the analysis of Horror Film Reader (Schneider 2002), one’s fundamental fear of watching horror films comes from his/her self-identification with the roles on the screen. Wu sets up stages where monstrous figures embody the intrinsic monsters inside the viewers’ minds. It is a collective anxiety about the return of the repressed. Similar to monsters in horror films, the monstrous images in the series are also the “metaphorical embodiments of such narratives […
which] are capable of reconfirming surmounted beliefs by their very presence” (Schneider 169). The superstitious beliefs abandoned before are coming back. What makes the viewers uncomfortable is “something which is familiar and [previously established] in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression” (171). The spirit
of death spreads out in this series. The photography symbolizes “an existence at that time,”
and the images which are in the photo claim the necessary death66 (Yao 75). However, the images are prophetic to the content of the words beside them. The dialectic relation discloses our fear of the unknown side of the world, and also reveals a potential for a “self-demonized”
spirit (76). After his manipulations, the figures are not simply physically different, but have done something evil, just like some atrocious villains. The “self-demonized” character appears on their looks and in their minds as well.
In one of Wu’s latest works, Spirit Dreaming Conjuration (2004), the viewers can feel the atmosphere of Chinese New Year pictures. The child-like figures wearing aprons are similar to the ones in ordinary New Year pictures which depict children playing games.
People believe that having more children can bring happiness to the family, and it symbolizes birth, fertility, reproduction and regeneration. The title “Spirit Dreaming Conjuration,” which means to attract the opposite sex, implies sexual desire. Wu’s conjuration includes “lovesick conjuration” too. According to the instruction of the conjuration (Fig. 30), by praying sincerely, people can receive an intercourse of “Yin and Yang” (陰陽) which means the harmony between men and women through intercourse. Some pictures of this series even provocatively portray the ecstatic sexual orgy through promiscuity of faceless clone bodies.
In Spell to Shift Mountains and Overturn Seas (2005), the scene of orgies took place in a hell-like landscape. The masculine figure at the center is surrendered by many naked female bodies, while the male seems painful and the females seem expressionless. The combination symbolizes the flesh and sexuality. This in contrast to his previous works where figures of sexual orgy have smiley faces. The sturdy male image has no lower body; hence, it is suggested that his sexuality is gone. The allegory skillfully conveys the meaning of
“everything visible is empty” (色即是空), a proverb which literally admonishes people
66 Jui-Chung Yao, “Wu Tien-chang’s Digital Transmigration,” Main Trend Dec. 2004: 75.
against indulgence in sex. Also, the female bodies and the floating heads in the picture are arranged in an order similar to the ones in La Danse Macabre, the dance of death. Therefore, it is implied that the flesh and sexuality will eventually vanish.
During this period, Wu’s pictures look familiar but they are not exactly the same with the originals67 because Wu produces them by computers. The original images of his collages from Chinese New Years pictures, Taoist spells, and vaudeville costumes into his own pictures.
After the reproduction of the digital editing, the images appear repeatedly or appear as clones in Wu’s pictures. Hence, they lose their previous particularity. It is what Fredric Jameson calls
“pastiche” which is “one of the most significant features or practices in postmodernism today”
(Jameson 1983: 113). He remarks pastiche as “a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody's ulterior motive, without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic” (Jameson 1983: 114). Different from what Jameson terms as “pastiche is blank parody” (114), Wu supplies his pastiche with particular texts to add some humorous elements to his parody.