ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two historical examples of people who did not have access to audio-visual equipment, but whose alternative strategies of audio-visual documentation still inspire us today. In 1925, thirty years into Taiwan’s colonial experience, Chiang Wei-Shui 蔣渭水 (1891–1931) established the Taiwanese Cultural Association, which included a team of projectionists and silent film narrators called Bitai Itinerant Film Troupe who traveled around Taiwan bringing films to the people. The Bitai Troupe didn’t simply narrate the films for Taiwanese audience members, but rather used “yaoyan” 謠言 (rumor) to deliberately distort their meaning so as to criticize the colonial government. My second example regards George Bataille’s philosophical treatment of a late Qing photograph depicting lingchi 凌遲 (slow death, or death by 1,000 cuts), in his book Les larmes d’Eros. It shows the victim looking skyward with a faint smile. No solid evidence exists regarding his smile, but it may embody the spirit of the Buddhist concept of Pariṇāmanā 迴向 (merit transference). It is not wild conjecture to suppose that the victim was actively creating contrast with the torture scene by smiling to confuse those who would view the image. Neither the target audience of the silent films nor the anonymous, photographed lingchi victim possessed audiovisual technology, and therefore none could directly produce audiovisual records. Nonetheless, each, through some subtle action, such as skewing the original meaning of the films or a faint smile, produced alternative records that have contributed to dynamic and continued interpretation of certain events. Most importantly, their actions make us realize that any kind of power structure can be qualitatively altered.
