Daydreamers

2024
installation,Composite materials (fabric, wire, beads),
300x180x120cm

After reading "The Night Submarine," I began to reminisce about the imaginings of my gradually fading childhood dreams. During the days of growing up, those once whimsical memories were often eaten away by the trivialities of life. I have integrated my daydreams, reflections on childhood dreams, and feelings about the surrounding things into my work.

The work takes the audience into an underwater perspective, where the childhood submarine is docked in an everyday ocean. Below is a soft blanket where the audience can lie down to view the submarine, reminiscent of the small mobiles above when sleeping as a child. The intention is to evoke each audience member's memories of napping during their childhood.

Through this work, I hope that everyone who passes by can rediscover the dream submarine of their childhood and once again feel the beauty and innocence in daydreams after growing up.

1966年一个寒夜，博尔赫斯站在轮船甲板上，往海中丢了一枚硬币。硬币带着他手指的一点余温，跌进黑色的涛声里。博尔赫斯后来为它写了首诗，诗中说，他丢硬币这一举动，在这星球的历史中添加了两条平行的、连续的系列：他的命运及硬币的命运。此后他在陆地上每一瞬间的喜怒哀惧，都将对应着硬币在海底每一瞬间的无知无觉。

1985年，博尔赫斯去世前一年，一位澳洲富商在航海旅途中无聊，借了同伴的书来看。对文学从无兴趣的他，被一首题为《致一枚硬币》的诗猝然击中。1997年，在十余年成功的商业生涯后，这位商人成了财产不可估量的巨富和博尔赫斯的头号崇拜者。他收藏了各种珍贵版本的博尔赫斯作品，博尔赫斯用过的烟斗、墨镜、吸墨纸，甚至连博尔赫斯的中文译者王永年在翻译时用的钢笔他都收集了两支（此时王还在世）。但这些仍无法平息他的狂热。同年春天，一个念头在黎明时分掉进他梦中，促使他资助了一场史上最荒诞的壮举。他要找到博尔赫斯扔进海里的那枚硬币。他买下一艘当时最先进的潜艇并加以改进，聘请了一批来自世界各地的海洋学家、潜艇专家和海底作业员（该团队由一名中国籍陈姓物理海洋学家担任队长）。富商深知他无法让这群精英为自己的白日梦效力，因此向他们承诺，将为他们的海底考察提供长久的资助，要求仅是他们在科研工作之余，顺便找寻一下那枚硬币的踪迹。陈队长问他：“如果一直都找不到呢？”“那我就一直资助下去。”

On a cold night in 1966, Borges stood on the deck of a ship and threw a coin into the sea. The coin, carrying a trace of warmth from his fingers, fell into the black roar of the waves. Borges later wrote a poem about it, stating that his action of tossing the coin added two parallel and continuous series to the planet's history: his fate and the coin's fate. From then on, every moment of joy, anger, sorrow, and fear he experienced on land corresponded to the coin's every moment of oblivion at the bottom of the sea.

In 1985, a year before Borges' death, an Australian tycoon, bored during a sea voyage, borrowed a book from a companion. Though uninterested in literature, he was suddenly struck by a poem titled "To a Coin." In 1997, after over a decade of a successful business career, this businessman became an immeasurably wealthy tycoon and Borges' number one admirer. He collected various rare editions of Borges' works, pipes, sunglasses, and blotting paper used by Borges, and even two pens used by Borges' Chinese translator Wang Yongnian while translating (at that time, Wang was still alive). Yet, these acquisitions could not quench his fervor. In the spring of the same year, an idea dropped into his dream at dawn, prompting him to fund one of the most absurd undertakings in history. He wanted to find the coin Borges had thrown into the sea. He bought the most advanced submarine of the time, modified it, and hired a team of oceanographers, submarine experts, and underwater operators from around the world (the team was led by a Chinese physical oceanographer named Chen). The tycoon knew he couldn't make these elites work for his daydream, so he promised them long-term funding for their underwater research, with the condition that they also search for the coin as a side task during their scientific work. Captain Chen asked him, "What if we never find it?" "Then I'll keep funding."

根据诗中信息，博尔赫斯是从蒙得维的亚启航，拐过塞罗时将硬币丢进海中。团队调取了那一年的洋流资料，并将塞罗周边海域划分成许多个边长一公里的正方形，逐块搜索。为了区分海底矿床及海中垃圾，他们特制了一台金属探测器，仅对微小体积的金属圆片产生反应。结果只找到几枚大航海时期沉在海底的金币。考虑到那枚硬币已被盐分啃噬了数十年，很可能仅剩余一点残片，或者完全消融了。第二年，富商让他们离开塞罗，去全世界的海域开展科研考察，同时保持探测器开启，万一发现反应，再设法进行打捞。富商明白找到的希望微乎其微，但他认为找寻的过程本身就是在向博尔赫斯致敬，像一种朝圣。其间所耗费的财力之巨大和岁月之漫长，才配得上博尔赫斯的伟大。

According to the information in the poem, Borges set sail from Montevideo, tossing a coin into the sea when rounding Cerro. The team retrieved ocean current data from that year and divided the sea around Cerro into many one-kilometer square sections for searching, piece by piece. To differentiate between seabed mineral deposits and ocean trash, they specially designed a metal detector that only reacted to small metal discs. The result was finding only a few gold coins from the Age of Exploration that had sunk to the seabed. Considering the coin had been eroded by salt for decades, it might only have a few fragments left or be completely dissolved. The following year, the wealthy businessman had them leave Cerro to conduct scientific research globally while keeping the detector on, in case any reactions occurred, they would then attempt retrieval. The businessman understood that the chances of finding it were extremely slim, but he believed that the search process itself was a tribute to Borges, likened to a pilgrimage. The immense financial and time expenditure would be worthy of Borges' greatness.

阿莱夫号潜艇（名字自然取自博尔赫斯一篇小说的题目）的技术领先于同时代任何国家，为避免受到干预，这次考察行动从未向外界公布。潜艇定期在指定坐标浮出海面，同富商的私家飞机交接。飞机运来物资，同时将潜艇外部安装的摄像头所录下的影像资料带回去。富商每夜看着海底的画面入睡。考察进行了将近三年。1999年底，潜艇失去联系。推测是在探索海沟时失事。次年，富商病逝。他的孙女在多年后翻看他的遗物时发现了那些录影带。其中有一段不可思议的影像：

潜艇于1998年11月驶入一座由珊瑚构建的迷宫。探照灯照出绚烂迷幻的图景。队员们误估了两座珊瑚礁之间的距离，导致潜艇被卡住，动弹不得。六小时后，镜头拍到远方驶来一艘蓝色潜艇，向阿莱夫号发射了两枚鱼雷。鱼雷精准地击碎了珊瑚礁，艇身得以松动，快因缺氧而昏迷的队员连忙操纵潜艇，向海面升去。那艘潜艇则像幽灵般消失在深海，此后的航行中再未和它相遇过。

The Aleph submarine (naturally named after the title of a Borges story) was technologically advanced beyond any country of its time. To avoid interference, this expedition was never disclosed to the outside world. The submarine regularly surfaced at designated coordinates to rendezvous with a private jet owned by a wealthy businessman. The plane delivered supplies and took back the video footage recorded by cameras installed on the outside of the submarine. The businessman watched the underwater footage every night before sleeping. The expedition lasted nearly three years. At the end of 1999, the submarine lost contact. It is presumed to have met with an accident while exploring a trench. The following year, the businessman passed away. Years later, his granddaughter discovered those videotapes while going through his belongings. Among them was an incredible sequence:

The submarine entered a labyrinth constructed by coral in November 1998. Searchlights illuminated a dazzling and surreal scene. The team misjudged the distance between two coral reefs, causing the submarine to become stuck and unable to move. Six hours later, a camera captured a blue submarine approaching from afar, which fired two torpedoes at the Alif. The torpedoes accurately shattered the coral reefs, allowing the submarine to loosen, and the crew members, who were nearly unconscious due to oxygen deprivation, quickly maneuvered the submarine upwards towards the surface. The other submarine then disappeared like a ghost into the deep sea, and it was never encountered again during subsequent voyages.

A Submarine in the Night 《夜晚的潜水艇》
——Chen Chuncheng 陈春成