1、以骰子隐喻文明博弈
《游戏》系列作品中骰子是主要形象，其背景是以水造就的各国地图。骰子成为主要形象有着一个发展的过程，这个过程伴随我对历史、当下问题的思考展开。现实中骰子兼具娱乐和博弈两种功用，而世界的关系，我认为恰恰也对应了这种关系，即有序的博弈。
骰子的形象最早出现在我的油画作品《信手拈来第18号》中，这件作品中我将思考点放在东西方艺术的对比（一个写实，一个写意），具有同样思维但没有出现骰子形象的作品是《失之交臂》（在这件作品中，我让中国的千手观音与西方断臂维纳斯相遇，有着调侃的意味）。
在《信手拈来》系列作品中你可以看到西式瓷器，也可以看到水墨写意与西方写实的对立。瓷器原产于中国，国名“China”即是“china”的大写，但近代西方也有制作瓷器，西方制造的瓷器上有着西方的纹饰图案，这正显示出区域视觉艺术的融合。就艺术史本身来讲，西方艺术自现代艺术开始便向中国美学靠近取写意融入到表现主义中去，中国自近代开始绘画也在向西方写实靠拢，这二者都是视觉融合的案例。将水墨写意和图像写实并存，这种感受是奇特的，依照固有视觉经验来看，这是不和谐，但如果跳出文化对立的固有偏执而从文明动态交互来看，对立实际是不存在的。文明都彼此关涉，所谓对立冲突不过是文化惯性使然，其背后的集体认知导致了这种感知的不和谐。
但得益于科技进步，时空差距在缩小，今日世界比以往各个时期联系都要紧密，文化的交融也更为频繁，正因如此，文明交融之中的斗争也是激烈的。从文化到文明，博弈是无处不在的。
2、游戏即秩序
骰子最直接精准地将文明博弈的内涵传达出来。我之前的作品《哥德巴赫猜想》系列中，骰子在人脑中，而在《游戏》系列中，骰子以独立形象提纯并作为主题。因为骰子是游戏/博弈的器具，它同时暗示出的是规则。所谓游戏，即在共同规约下，双方遵循认可同一法则建立基本互信，在有序争斗中使自身利益最大化，从这个意义上说，只有信任为基础的博弈才可称为游戏，相互间的不信任、信息的差异导致的猜忌则会引发“战争”。从文明发展历程来看，世界朝向和平也是要建立更有序的联系。
文明发展即文明间的融合，文明间的融合（博弈）从来都不是静止的。就文化本身来说其在空间上是流动，在时间上是变动的。《金刚经》曾讲“如来者，无所从来，亦无所去，故名如来。”，过去、当下、未来都不是绝对的，也就是说要从变动的眼光看世界。变动之物皆有原初，都有不动的“一”，老子又讲“道生一一生二二生三三生万物”，所以我用骰子隐喻“一”，它正代表博弈的源初。何谓“二”呢，“二”即是对立的博弈双方，正是利益产生了“对立”，成就了“双方”。但博弈不能只讲“二”，仅有“二”世界将陷入绝对的争斗。这就要谈到“三”，三即是“多”，即是复杂，事物到了三才成就现实。如果用博弈的观点看，“一”可比“聚合”，“二”可比“分离”，“三”便介于“聚合”、“ 分离”间；若“一”为静止，“二”为运动，三便是万物存在的现实，即运动与静止的并存，静止于空间，运动又产生时间。
文化也正是时间、空间的产物。古典时期，由于科技的落后，地域的阻隔，文化获有独立发展的空间，其时间性来讲是连续和稳固的。但到了今天，科技如此之发达，对于时空的影响力巨大，文化固有的连续性被打破，正处于交融的状态。文化相互之间的撞击是互利的，文明博弈没有输赢，逞一时之强没有意义，无论如何文明都在推进之中，文明越是博弈文化则越会繁盛，而如今任何文明也不可能独立发展。
3、文明的游戏：从持续博弈与永恒秩序
博弈有静态博弈和动态博弈，合作博弈与非合作博弈，完全博弈与不完全博弈，博弈也有短暂博弈与永恒博弈。只要文明存续即存在博弈，而恒久博弈必将产生恒久秩序，所谓文明即是恒久秩序的产物。文明的博弈正是无止境的博弈，这便要回到博弈原点看博弈：博弈是对“路径”的寻找，即一方企图掌握对方的行事方式，然后找寻使自身利益最大化的方式。而当双方都企图把握对方，博弈就是相互的事情，文明也正是在相互博弈中进化。达尔文进化论核心是“物竞天择，适者生存”，讲的是“二”，但越来越多生物进化案例表明，“协作”在进化博弈中的作用也不可小觑。博弈之中若只顾及“私我”，这就消解了规则，文明间真正的博弈恰在于建立更多关联，以更多规则沟通双方，使合作/冲突的后果可测，今日的世界也正是在构建同一平台进行“游戏”。
结 语
自《圆明园》系列作品我便开始思考中国近代化的发展。近代以来，中国正是被迫卷入到世界一体化进程中来，国门是被迫被打开的。今日回头看，若说那是一段屈辱历史，我觉得其中也有必然性，这段历史只是世界一体化逻辑主导进程的部分。工业革命是世界一体化的开端，从鸦片战争到柏林墙倒塌，从对抗到共同发展，文明正建立更广泛“联系”。当世界同处一场“游戏”，冲突可以控制，战争也就消弭了。2001年后，中国加入到了世贸组织，这正是中国积极参与世界事务的象征。《圆明园》和《万国园记》是中国与世界联系的两个节点，它们彼此构成互文关系：从“闭关”到“入市”，中国正加入到世界游戏之中。
The Wiser’s Game
1. Using the dice to explain the gamble of civilization
In the series Game the dice is the main figure, and in its background there’s the map of each country created by using water. The dice as the main figure is the reflection of a developing process, which follows the evolution of my cogitation over the past and the current issues. The dice in reality is used both for entertainment and for gambling; in regard to the world, I think there’s exactly the same kind of relation, that is, an orderly gamble.
The figure of the dice appeared for the first time in my oil painting work Pick at random n.18, in this work the core of my consideration is the contrast between eastern and western art (one is realistic painting, the other one is spontaneous brushwork). The same consideration is expressed, but without the figure of the dice, in the work Lose an opportunity close at hand (in this work, I make the Chinese thousand-handed Avalokitesvara meet the Western statue of Venus de Milo, with a jeering meaning).
In the work Pick at random you can see western-style porcelain, but you can also note the contrast between the ink painting sketches and the realistic western figures. Porcelain originally comes from China, which name is namely the word “china” starting in capital letter; but in modern times the West has also begun to manufacture porcelain, so the porcelain made in the West has a west-style design, as just to display the assimilation of local visual art. As art history tells itself, western modern art has started approaching Chinese aesthetics, merging freehand brushwork into expressionism, while China has recently started approaching western realistic painting, therefore both are examples of visual assimilation. The coexistence of free sketches and realistic images creates an unusual perception: according to a proper visual experience, there should be incompatibility, but jumping out from the bigoted cultural antagonism and speaking of cultural dynamic reciprocity, there is no contrast at all. Cultures are all related to each other, what is called contrast or conflict is just made to happen by cultural inertia, and it is the collective cognition behind which has led to perceive this sense of disharmony.
However, the advantage of technological progress is that the difference in time and space is shrinking. Compared to the past, nowadays the relation is very tight, the cultural blends are more and more frequent, for this reason the strive is intense, too. From culture to civilization, there’s no place with no gambling.
2. Game, that is, order
The dice communicates directly the implication of the cultural gamble. In my previous work Goldbach’s Conjecture, the dice is in the skull, but in Game the dice is an independent figure, it is the subject. Since the dice is a utensil for playing or gambling, it also suggests rules. In what is called game, under mutual agreement, both sides adhere to the same rules and establish basic mutual trust. In this orderly fight your own profit is maximum, in this sense, only having confidence in the basic gamble we can consider it as a game; if there’s no mutual trust but misunderstanding, the risen suspicion then will evoke “war”. From the perspective of the cultural development process, the world is oriented toward peace and wants to establish more orderly relations.
The cultural development is namely the mix between cultures, and the mix between cultures (gamble) is never static. The culture itself is a flow in the open air and a change along the time. In the book The diamond sutra it is said: “Tathagata has no origin, neither destination, because he is Tathagata.” The past, the present and the future are not absolute, in other words, the world is to be seen from a changeable viewpoint. Changeable things all have origin, a fixed “1”, Laozi said: “The Dao originates 1, 1 originates 2, 2 originates 3, 3 originates the universe”, so I use the dice to express the “1”, which represents the origin of the gamble. Meanwhile, what is meant by “2”, is just the two opposite sides of the gamble, it is exactly the profit that has originated the opposition, and has achieved both sides. But the gamble cannot only take “2” into consideration, if so the world would fall into a definite struggle. It has to speak of “3”, which means “many” and is complex: when things get at 3 they then become real. If looking from the viewpoint of the gamble, “1” can be compared to “fusion”, “2” to “division”, and “3” is between “fusion” and “division”. If “1” is static, “2” is dynamic, 3 is the reality in which the universe exists, in other words it is the coexistence of the static and the movement, the static lies in the space, and the movement produces time repeatedly.
The culture is exactly the product of the time and the space. In classical times, because of the technological backwardness and the isolation of the region, the culture has developed in an independent space, and its timeliness was continuous but firm. But today, with such a technological development, the influence toward time and space is huge, cultural intrinsic continuity has been interrupted; it is rather in a condition of blend. The ram between each culture is mutually beneficial, cultural gamble has no gains or loss, indulging in a moment of power is meaningless. In any case all cultures are moving forward, the more they gamble on the civilization, the more cultural rules will prosper; furthermore, nowadays no civilization can have an independent development.
3. The cultural game: continuous gamble and eternal order
Gamble can be static and dynamic, cooperative and non-cooperative, complete or not complete, and it also can be short or perpetual. Only if will culture continue to exist, gamble then will exist as well, and long-lasting gamble will take to a long-lasting order: what is called culture is nothing but a long-lasting orderly outcome. The cultural gamble is just an endless gamble, and we must then go back to the origin of the gamble in order to look at it: the gamble is the seek for a route, a scheme to master the behavior of the other side, the seek is then a way to increase your own profit. But since both sides attempt to manage the other side, the gamble is something reciprocal, and the culture is the evolution within a mutual gamble. The core of the Darwin’s theory of evolution is “the law of natural selection and the survival of the fittest”, that is the “2;” but there are more and more cases of organism evolution that indicate that the function of “cooperation” in the gamble of evolution cannot be underestimated. It seems that in gambling only “I” is taken into consideration, this clears up the rules, while the real gamble within culture lies exactly in establishing more connections. Using more rules to communicate with the other side, makes the consequences of the cooperation/conflict measurable; this world is just constructing a common platform for the “game”.
Final remarks
With the work The Old Summer Palace I’ve started pondering over the modern development in China. Recently China has been forcedly drawn into the process of global unification, and its national borders to be open. Looking around now, it seems as this is a humiliating past record, but I think it was also necessary, this era is just a period in which the logic of global unification is the leading process. The industrial revolution was the beginning: from The Opium War to The fall of the Berlin Wall, from an opposite to a common development, culture is establishing more extensive “connections.” The present world is a playground, the conflict may dominate, or war may terminate. After 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization; this is a symbol of the China’ dynamic participation into the global routine. The Old Summer Palace and Story of the Expo Park are two nodes of the connection between China and the world; they are mutually making up their cultural relation: from “isolation” to the “free exchange-market,” China definitely has joined the global game.
原文刊载于2012年《画廊》
