Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

SESSION 1 0 : NEW ORIENTATION FOR THE NEW MI LLENNIUM Hou Hanru Facing the Wall of the Future So finally we come to the end of everything so it is the moment to talk about the future , as the title of this section indicates. My paper is cal led 'Facing the Wall of the Future'. Living i n the present actually means living in the future. We are so much used to d iscuss about the future , to plan its possible ways of bei ng , like what we are supposed to do now in this section of the conference , u nder the title 'New Orientation for the New Millennium'. Moreover, in our mi nds, in our imagination, the future almost naturally should and wi ll be a better world than our present one, i n wh ich we will be able to live in a much wider space with more freedom, prosperity and justice. At least, we tend to believe so. Such a belief is derived from a certai n cultural tradition interiorised i n our minds and become a kind of i ntuition. Such a tradition has been named 'Modernism'. It believes history is by destiny a process of prog ress towards a better future. Tomorrow will always be better than today. Actually, nobody can deny the role of such a tradition in our reality, although we a l l proclaim t o be 'postmodern ' . We are optimists, a t t he turn of t he millennium, trying t o p l an t he future with a conviction that we are the master, or creator, of a better world . However, one should ask, in the meantime, whether real ity is somehow idealised , deformed and turned into an illusion beh i nd such an optimism. Perhaps the futu re will not be so much different from today since it wil l be no more than a continuation of today's everyday l ife. It may not mean to be a new world with more freedom, prosperity and justice. It will be probably as boring as the present . . . However, once the question is raised , the future becomes a wall lying in front of us. We have to face it and find a way to go over it. The future is by destiny a wal l . Yes, t he future is a wal l . I n h istory, human beings o f different periods and cultures have constructed a l l kinds o f walls - of bricks, earth , wood , iron and even plastics, etc. - in order to defend the interests of their own communities, nations and states. Of course, these walls are also considered as a g uarantee of a better future . Or, i n other words, the future will certai nly be better than today as long as the wal l is maintained . The wal l is the strongest and most effective symbol of defence , safety and, again , the resource of the ideal future . It is therefore a myth. China's Great Wall is no doubt the first example of this kind of myth that comes to mind . It is a defence system to protect the Empire of the Centre from foreign invasions. It is the symbol of the Chinese national identity. It is the first place where resistance to the Other occurs when the Other appears. At the same time, it is the border of the country, the very limit of 'Chineseness'. And , more remarkably, its symbolic val ue and function are always stronger than its physical value and function, as the controversial TV series 'Heshang' aims to demonstrate. Another example, the one of our contemporary times, is the Berlin Wal l . It can be seen as the Great Wal l of the second half of the twentieth century in which we all live. It wi ll remain so i n our memories as wel l as i n those of the next generations. It is, and i n the future wi ll continue to be, the wall that we have to constantly confront, both psychologically and cultura lly, i n spite of its physical disappearance. 1 37