在京東高科技工廠，看人類未來(lái)的可怕預(yù)言

No young artist has a sharper view of the future than Cao Fei. Her dreamlike visions of China’s full-tilt economic development, and the social dislocation and environmental abasement that have come with it, were the most beguiling and unnerving parts of her acclaimed midcareer retrospective at MoMA PS1 in 2016.

沒(méi)有哪個(gè)年輕藝術(shù)家能像曹斐這樣，對(duì)未來(lái)有如此清晰的看法。在2016年紐約現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)博物館(MoMA)PS1的那場(chǎng)備受贊譽(yù)的生涯中期回顧展上，她對(duì)中國(guó)如火如荼的經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展，以及隨之而來(lái)的社會(huì)混亂和環(huán)境惡化進(jìn)行的夢(mèng)境般構(gòu)想，是其中最令人迷醉和不安的部分。

Ms. Cao, 40 (her full name is pronounced TSOW fay), revisits those themes with her new video work, “Asia One,” a mournfully beautiful hybrid of economic forecast and tragic love story, now on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the group exhibition “One Hand Clapping.”

40歲的曹斐用她新的錄像作品《亞洲一號(hào)》(Asia One)重溫了這些主題，這部美麗而令人悲傷的作品混合了經(jīng)濟(jì)預(yù)測(cè)和悲劇愛(ài)情故事，正在古根海姆博物館作為群展“單手鼓掌”(One Hand Clapping)的一部分展出。

“Asia One” transports viewers to a high-tech warehouse near Shanghai, staffed by only two workers — a smiling porcelain robot nearby scans their every move — who oversee the automated distribution of hundreds of thousands of packages. The near-absence of human workers may feel like the stuff of fantasy, but it’s not. The film was shot principally at the newest warehouse of JD.com, a $48 billion company often (inexactly) called the Amazon of China, where robots handle almost everything.

《亞洲一號(hào)》將觀眾帶到上海附近的一個(gè)高科技倉(cāng)庫(kù)，那里只有兩名工作人員——一個(gè)微笑的瓷白色機(jī)器人在附近監(jiān)測(cè)他們的一舉一動(dòng)——工人負(fù)責(zé)監(jiān)督成千上萬(wàn)包裹的自動(dòng)分發(fā)。人類工人幾乎不存在，可能會(huì)讓這感覺(jué)像是幻想，但并非如此。影片主要是在京東最新的倉(cāng)庫(kù)拍攝的，這家價(jià)值480億美元的公司經(jīng)常(不準(zhǔn)確地)被稱為中國(guó)的亞馬遜，那里幾乎所有事務(wù)都由機(jī)器人處理。

Ms. Cao’s fixation on economics, labor and development is rare among artists, and I was eager to discuss the plausibility of “Asia One” with someone who had studied China’s industries up close. So I invited a New York Times colleague, David Barboza, who was The Times’s Shanghai bureau chief from 2008 to 2015, to join me at the Guggenheim, where we discussed what the Guggenheim work has to say about a future we’re already moving into. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

曹斐對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)、勞動(dòng)和發(fā)展等主題的著迷在藝術(shù)家中是罕見(jiàn)的，我希望與一個(gè)近距離研究過(guò)中國(guó)工業(yè)的人討論《亞洲一號(hào)》的可信性。因此，我邀請(qǐng)了《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》的一位同事張大衛(wèi)(David Barboza)和我一起來(lái)到古根海姆，他在2008年至2015年期間擔(dān)任《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》上海分社社長(zhǎng)，我們討論了古根海姆的這件作品對(duì)我們已經(jīng)在步入的未來(lái)的看法。以下是此次談話的節(jié)選。

JASON FARAGO “Asia One” is set in a China of the near future — but like so many great speculative fictions, it’s really about the present. In economic terms, how did you perceive “Asia One”: more like science fiction or more like real life?

杰森·法拉戈(JASON FARAGO)《亞洲一號(hào)》以不久之后的中國(guó)為背景——但就像許多偉大的幻想小說(shuō)一樣，它實(shí)際上是關(guān)于現(xiàn)在的。從經(jīng)濟(jì)角度來(lái)看，你如何看待《亞洲一號(hào)》：更像科幻小說(shuō)還是更像現(xiàn)實(shí)生活?

DAVID BARBOZA I’ve been to a lot of Chinese factories; that was one of my favorite things to do in China, actually. As an American, you have a natural interest in seeing all the hidden steps that go into making, say, a Nike sneaker or an electronic cigarette.

張大衛(wèi) 我去過(guò)很多中國(guó)工廠;事實(shí)上，這是我在中國(guó)最喜歡做的事情之一。作為一個(gè)美國(guó)人，你自然有興趣看到制作耐克運(yùn)動(dòng)鞋或電子煙這些東西的所有隱藏步驟。

And I have been to one of JD’s logistics centers, much like the one where “Asia One” was shot. There were certainly more than just two employees. But you could see, as the boxes flew down the conveyor belts, the beginnings of this trend toward fewer and fewer people doing the work. In that sense, there was nothing surprising to me in the look or feel of this “futuristic” distribution center.

我去過(guò)京東的一個(gè)物流中心，很像《亞洲一號(hào)》中拍攝的那個(gè)。當(dāng)然不止兩名員工。但是你可以看到，當(dāng)盒子從傳送帶上傳下去時(shí)，越來(lái)越少人工的趨勢(shì)正在開(kāi)始。從這個(gè)意義上來(lái)說(shuō)，這個(gè)“未來(lái)主義”配送中心的外觀和感覺(jué)并不讓我意外。

Maybe the reason Ms. Cao wanted to shoot there is that its lack of hustle and bustle is so jarring. China is a country with 1.4 billion people, and my own experience in visiting a manufacturing or distribution site was to be awed by the sheer mass of humanity you encounter. Everything is the biggest, with the most people. Now, though, China is undergoing a big demographic shift, with a steadily declining population of young people. In some parts of the country, there are already shortages of migrant labor.

也許曹斐想在那里拍攝的原因是，缺乏喧囂噪音讓那里非常不和諧。中國(guó)是一個(gè)擁有14億人口的國(guó)家，我自己參觀制造或分銷場(chǎng)所的經(jīng)歷，就會(huì)讓你對(duì)你所遇到的人類的數(shù)量感到敬畏。一切都是最大的，有最多的人。然而，中國(guó)現(xiàn)在正在經(jīng)歷一場(chǎng)大的人口結(jié)構(gòu)變化，年輕人的數(shù)量正在穩(wěn)步下降。在這個(gè)國(guó)家的一些地方已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了外來(lái)人口勞動(dòng)力短缺的情況。

FARAGO Hence the turn to automation. In the empty factory of “Asia One” there’s a banner that reads “Man and Machine Go Hand in Hand, and Create Miracles!” Which is a real JD slogan.

法拉戈 因此有了向自動(dòng)化的轉(zhuǎn)變。在《亞洲一號(hào)》的空工廠里有一面橫幅，上面寫著“人和機(jī)器攜手并進(jìn)，創(chuàng)造奇跡!”這是一個(gè)真的京東口號(hào)。

BARBOZA But if robots do too much, where are all the people going to work? China is moving ahead so fast with AI, faster than the United States or Europe, and yet the ramifications there could be the most troubling — a potential for massive dislocation.

張大衛(wèi) 但如果機(jī)器人做得太多，那么所有的人會(huì)去哪里工作呢?中國(guó)在人工智能領(lǐng)域的發(fā)展如此之快，超過(guò)了美國(guó)或歐洲，但其后果可能是最令人不安的——有可能出現(xiàn)大規(guī)模的混亂。

FARAGO Ms. Cao is from Guangzhou, the megacity of the industrial Pearl River Delta, and her career as an artist has run parallel to China’s arrival on the global stage. My favorite work of hers before this one was “Whose Utopia” (2006), which she shot in a light bulb factory. It beautifully humanized the migrant workers who made the world’s cheap consumer goods; they formed a band, talked about their dreams.

法拉戈 曹斐來(lái)自工業(yè)化的珠江三角洲的大城市廣州，她的藝術(shù)生涯與中國(guó)站上全球舞臺(tái)的過(guò)程并行不悖。在此之前，她的作品中我最喜歡的是她在一家燈泡廠拍攝的《誰(shuí)的烏托邦》(2006)。它通過(guò)美麗的方式，給制造世界上的廉價(jià)消費(fèi)品的農(nóng)民工形象賦予了人性;他們組成了一個(gè)樂(lè)隊(duì)，談?wù)撍麄兊膲?mèng)想。

In “Asia One,” China is no longer the back office but the main stage. The factory is gleaming — cardboard boxes dance across the screen as if they were in a Busby Berkeley musical — but no one is there. These two workers appear to be middle-class, and they’re managing this hugely complex set of logistical operations. Yet they might as well be the last people on earth, and they are under constant surveillance.

在《亞洲一號(hào)》中，中國(guó)不再是后臺(tái)，而是主要的舞臺(tái)。工廠閃閃發(fā)光——紙板盒在屏幕上飛舞，就像在巴士比·柏克萊(Busby Berkeley)的音樂(lè)劇里一樣——但那里沒(méi)有人。這兩名工人似乎是中產(chǎn)階級(jí)，他們正在管理這一極其復(fù)雜的物流業(yè)務(wù)。然而，他們也可能是地球上的最后一批人，并且他們受到持續(xù)的監(jiān)視。

BARBOZA Ten years ago Chinese manufacturing was all about exports. This work is much more representative of the shift in Chinese business toward a domestic consumer class.

張大衛(wèi) 十年前，中國(guó)的制造業(yè)幾乎都與出口有關(guān)。這項(xiàng)工作在中國(guó)企業(yè)向國(guó)內(nèi)消費(fèi)階層的轉(zhuǎn)變過(guò)程中更具代表性。

China is also going full steam ahead with facial recognition technologies, mobile payments and mass surveillance. There are cameras everywhere, CCTV everywhere. At lots of the factories I visited, companies had installed fingerprint recognition to better track and authenticate who was visiting the site. And Ms. Cao is playing with that — the female worker has a bar code tattooed on her wrist, as if she were the product rather than the employee.

中國(guó)也在全力推進(jìn)面部識(shí)別技術(shù)、移動(dòng)支付和大規(guī)模監(jiān)控。到處都有攝像頭，到處都是監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)。在我訪問(wèn)的許多工廠中，公司已安裝了指紋識(shí)別功能，以便更好地跟蹤和驗(yàn)證進(jìn)入工廠的人員。曹斐利用了這一點(diǎn)——那名女工手腕上有條形碼刺青，好像她是產(chǎn)品而不是雇員。

FARAGO This is a future where everything is constantly scanned and scored: the goods but also the workers. The smiling robot scans the male protagonist and gives him a low “trust score.”

法拉戈 這是一個(gè)一切都在不斷被掃描和評(píng)分的未來(lái)：既包括貨物，也包括工人。微笑的機(jī)器人掃描男主角，給了他一個(gè)很低的“信任分?jǐn)?shù)”。

BARBOZA That’s already happening, too, in China with the social credit system. Outdoor surveillance cameras can record the image of a person’s face and know whether that individual has an unpaid parking ticket, has poor credit history or has made some radical comments online. This happens first in the factory, because the factory is the most controlled space, with cameras everywhere, recording every moment.

張大衛(wèi) 中國(guó)的社會(huì)信用體系中已經(jīng)發(fā)生了這種情況。室外監(jiān)控?cái)z像機(jī)可以記錄一個(gè)人的臉部圖像，并知道此人是否有未付的停車罰單、信用記錄不良或在網(wǎng)上有過(guò)激進(jìn)的言論。這種事首先發(fā)生在工廠，因?yàn)楣S是最受控制的空間，到處都是攝像頭，每時(shí)每刻都在記錄。

FARAGO Yet the film’s heroes exhibit no outrage. “Asia One” is shot through with pathos; it’s a thwarted romance as much as an industrial drama. The woman is so desperate for affection that at one point she hugs the robot. But she and the man can’t connect; he has to use his digital goggles to scan her face for emotions. There is no love in the age of data.

法拉戈 然而影片的主角們沒(méi)有表現(xiàn)出任何憤怒?！秮喼抟惶?hào)》是在感傷之中拍攝的;它既是一部工業(yè)劇，又是挫敗的愛(ài)情片。這個(gè)女人非常渴望感情，以至于有一次擁抱了機(jī)器人。但她和那個(gè)男人無(wú)法產(chǎn)生聯(lián)系;他必須用他的數(shù)碼頭具掃描她的臉上的情緒。在數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)代是沒(méi)有愛(ài)的。

BARBOZA About a decade ago, a migrant worker might have worked three years in a factory, and then returned home to find a spouse or settle closer to home. A factory job allowed them to save money, and that’s obviously changed in recent years, as China’s economy has grown along with consumption. So I think the actors in this film do, in a way, represent what I have seen in China’s factory zones: this is now a more permanent state, and while the work may be mind-numbing, people are more resigned to it.

張大衛(wèi) 大約十年前，一個(gè)農(nóng)民工可能在一家工廠工作三年，然后回老家結(jié)婚或在離家更近的地方定居。一份工廠的工作讓他們可以存夠錢;隨著中國(guó)的經(jīng)濟(jì)與消費(fèi)一起增長(zhǎng)，這在最近幾年發(fā)生了明顯的變化。因此，我認(rèn)為這部影片中的演員在某種程度上確實(shí)代表了我在中國(guó)工廠地區(qū)所看到的：這成了一種更永久的狀態(tài)，雖然工作可能讓人麻木，但人們對(duì)它卻更加順從。

FARAGO At the Guggenheim, Ms. Cao is screening “Asia One” within an installation that features much more low-tech equipment, like a motorized rickshaw loaded with packages. There’s also a second film she made, a documentary, that shows couriers high-tailing JD deliveries to customers across Beijing. This is the other side of the contemporary factory: the migrant laborers who ferry clothes or baby formula or consumer electronics from the automated site to customers.

法拉戈 在古根海姆，曹斐是在一個(gè)裝置作品中播放《亞洲一號(hào)》的，裝置中有許多很低科技的設(shè)備，比如裝載包裹的機(jī)動(dòng)三輪車。里面還有一部影片，是她制作的一部紀(jì)錄片，展示快遞員把京東的貨品送往北京各處的情景。這是現(xiàn)代工廠的另一面：農(nóng)民工從自動(dòng)化站點(diǎn)向顧客遞送衣服、嬰兒奶粉或電子消費(fèi)產(chǎn)品。

BARBOZA The documentary shows that the final steps of this logistics chain are still more reliant on humans than you would expect. When JD began operating some years ago, its couriers were delivering goods on motorbikes — or even bicycles, with your packages taped to the back!

張大衛(wèi) 這部紀(jì)錄片顯示出，這個(gè)物流鏈的最后一步仍然比你預(yù)料的更依賴人類。幾年前，當(dāng)京東開(kāi)始運(yùn)營(yíng)時(shí)，它的快遞員用摩托車甚至自行車運(yùn)送貨物，你的包裹就捆在車后面!

Probably 90 percent of these delivery workers are migrants from elsewhere in China, and in Ms. Cao’s project you see the delivery men shoving odd-shaped packages into a van, racing through the alleyways of Beijing. And she takes you home with some of these people, where several generations live in a one-room apartment.

大概90%的送貨員是來(lái)自中國(guó)其他地方的外來(lái)打工者，在曹斐的作品里，你可以看到送貨員將奇怪形狀的包裹推進(jìn)一輛貨車，在北京的小巷里飛馳。她帶你走進(jìn)其中一些人的家，一間一室公寓里可能住了幾代人。

When you put the two films together, you have this portrait of a Chinese economy with a lot of automation, but still a lot of heavy lifting and arduous tasks. And she shows you the challenges for the human worker in 2018, and the coming challenges of isolation, loneliness and perhaps joblessness — or the absence of jobs. And of technological control.

當(dāng)你把這兩部影片放在一起時(shí)，你看到的是一幅中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)的肖像，有很多自動(dòng)化，但是仍然有很多繁重的工作和費(fèi)力的任務(wù)。她向你展示了2018年人類工人面臨的挑戰(zhàn)，以及即將到來(lái)的隔絕、孤獨(dú)，也許還有失業(yè)——或者工作消失帶來(lái)的挑戰(zhàn)。以及技術(shù)的控制。

FARAGO Toward the start of “Asia One,” as a robotic vehicle glides across the empty factory floor, Ms. Cao plays a clip from a Mao-era patriotic song: an early ode to logistical infrastructure, with a soprano singing about piers and cranes and the Great Leap Forward. There are also some unexpected dance sequences, too, with performers sliding down chutes on the factory floor, that have the feel of a Maoist pageant.

法拉戈 在《亞洲一號(hào)》的開(kāi)頭，當(dāng)一個(gè)機(jī)器人載具在空蕩的工廠地板上滑行時(shí)，曹斐播放了毛澤東時(shí)代的愛(ài)國(guó)歌曲片段：一首關(guān)于物流基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的早期頌歌，一名女高音歌唱著碼頭、起重機(jī)和大躍進(jìn)。也有一些意想不到的舞蹈片段，表演者在工廠的地板上滑下滑梯，有一種毛派選美比賽的感覺(jué)。

In the U.S. we think of shipping and robotics as economic questions, but of course they are deeply political in China. And this gets to why I think “Asia One” is such a monumental work: Ms. Cao somehow convinced one of China’s most valuable companies, with deep government ties, to let her shoot this tragic portrait of China’s future — our future, too — right inside its flagship warehouse.

在美國(guó)，我們認(rèn)為貨運(yùn)和機(jī)器人是經(jīng)濟(jì)問(wèn)題，但當(dāng)然，它們?cè)谥袊?guó)具有深刻的政治意義。這就是為什么我認(rèn)為《亞洲一號(hào)》是一部偉大的作品：曹斐用某種方法說(shuō)服了一家中國(guó)最具價(jià)值的、與政府關(guān)系密切的公司，讓她得以在旗艦倉(cāng)庫(kù)里拍攝這幅中國(guó)未來(lái)——我們的未來(lái)——的悲劇畫像。

BARBOZA Whether you’re a private company or a state-owned company in China, everyone knows that you need to be on the same page as the government. You have to seem to promote the interests that they want to promote, even if you don’t believe in them.

張大衛(wèi) 無(wú)論是中國(guó)的私營(yíng)公司還是國(guó)有企業(yè)，每個(gè)人都知道你需要和政府站在同一條戰(zhàn)線上。即使你不相信他們，你也必須看起來(lái)在推動(dòng)他們想要推動(dòng)的利益。

And in “Asia One,” Ms. Cao invests this empty factory with this romantic, heroic, Cultural Revolution-style rhetoric. You’re really working for the benefit of the company and its shareholders, but you have to fuse that with national priorities and ambitions. It’s all about the goals for the nation.

在《亞洲一號(hào)》里，曹斐用這種浪漫的、英雄主義的、文化大革命風(fēng)格的修辭來(lái)描繪這家空曠的工廠。你的確在為公司及其股東的利益工作，但是你必須將這一點(diǎn)與國(guó)家的優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)和雄心結(jié)合起來(lái)。一切都是為了國(guó)家的目標(biāo)。

FARAGO Liu Qiangdong, the chief executive of JD, recently said that China “can realize the dream of Communism in our generation,” which is not what we usually hear from billionaires. But the old Marxist dream that robots will free us from the drudgery of labor doesn’t convince Ms. Cao: They seem to have subjugated the two heroes instead, and stunted their capacity to feel and to love.

法拉戈 京東首席執(zhí)行官劉強(qiáng)東最近表示，中國(guó)“可以在我們這一代實(shí)現(xiàn)共產(chǎn)主義的夢(mèng)想”，我們通常不會(huì)從億萬(wàn)富翁口中聽(tīng)到這樣的話。但是，馬克思主義關(guān)于機(jī)器人將使我們從繁重的勞動(dòng)中解放出來(lái)的古老夢(mèng)想，并沒(méi)有說(shuō)服曹斐：它們似乎反而征服了這兩位主角，并阻礙了他們?nèi)ジ惺芎蛺?ài)的能力。

BARBOZA To me, Ms. Cao is trying to portray that, even in a dehumanized environment like the automated warehouse, you need that inspiration or that order from up high. And who knows, maybe the idea is that these two characters make themselves able to cope with this need, this illusion that they are part of something bigger. You know, it’s a beautiful dance. We’re doing something for the party. We’re doing something for the country. Because the future is going to be very challenging.

張大衛(wèi) 對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，曹斐試圖描繪的是，即使在自動(dòng)化倉(cāng)庫(kù)這樣非人化的環(huán)境中，你也需要來(lái)自高層的啟發(fā)或命令。誰(shuí)知道呢，也許這個(gè)想法是，這兩名工人讓自己能夠應(yīng)付這種需求，幻想他們是某種更宏大的東西的一部分。就像，這是一支美麗的舞蹈。我們正在為黨做一些事。我們?cè)跒閲?guó)家做一些事。因?yàn)槲磥?lái)將會(huì)非常具有挑戰(zhàn)性。