Printed on the occasion of 2000sinned 孩子的房間；2000 (2022), in an edition of 6 printed copies.

Curator and Contributor 策展及文字: HO Ting 何婷

Editor 編輯: HO Ting 何婷

Image 附圖: HO Ting, Chi Wing HO, Enna CHEUNG, Rainbow SIU, Antony LI, and CHI Tin Sui

Book Designer 刊物設計: HO Ting 何婷

Special Thanks 特別鳴謝: CUFA 中大藝術

1st Edition, Summer 2022 二零二二年夏 第一版 © HO Ting 2021-2022

Printed in Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

<序>

我們正處於一個「之間」 (in-between) 的閾限 (the liminal) 時空。

閾限意指門檻 (threshold) ，一個存在於「之間」 (betwixt and between) 的時空，一個既不屬於這、亦不屬於那的尷尬情境。這是一個意義上的個人剖白策展，由多位千禧年 (2000-2001) 出生的人類，在二十歲的過渡性年紀裏，面對社會定型和性規限，我們從男孩變成男人、女孩變成女人，在「非男孩/非男人」 (not-boy-not-man) 的模糊身份 (unclassified) 中。

我們作為社會的閾限團體，被灌輸二十年的社會意識形態，所謂二分法的（將男人與女人、死亡與生命、神聖與世俗、宇宙與渾沌、秩序與紛亂等）本來截然切割，現在處於的閾限階段，似乎世界的界限並非非黑即白，定義曖昧搖擺，質疑信仰誘引的情操或昇華感，有可能只是洗腦下產生的幻覺。這一群定義不明的共同體 (communitas)，是在萌生一種集體返回子宮的渴望嗎？一起處於未經仲介 (unmediated) 的情境關係嗎？

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[Translated version]

<Prologue>

We are currently in a liminal space, an in-between threshold, both temporally and spatially.

Liminality refers to a threshold, an existence betwixt and between, an awkward situation that does not belong to this or that. This is a personal confessional curation, undertaken by several individuals born in the millennial generation (2000-2001). At the transitional age of twenty, we face societal norms and sexual restrictions, transitioning from boys to men, girls to women, in the ambiguous identity of "not-boy-not-man."

As a liminal group within society, we have been ingrained with twenty years of social ideologies, where the dichotomy between men and women, life and death, sacred and secular, cosmos and chaos, order and disorder, was once sharply divided. Now, in this liminal stage, it seems that the boundaries of the world are not simply black or white. Definitions become ambiguous and uncertain, questioning the allure of beliefs or transcendent feelings, which may be mere illusions generated by indoctrination. This undefined community, the communitas, is it harboring a desire to collectively return to the womb? Are we together in unmediated relational contexts?

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以布萊恩・弗里爾 (Brian Friel) 的劇作《在魯那撒節跳舞》 (Dancing at Lughnasa, 1990) 分析「閾限」是怎樣的感覺。劇作描述一個1936年愛爾蘭小村的家庭生活，五個天主教背景的姊妹，因為參加歡慶豐收的魯那撒節，她們被異教崇拜的狂歡所吸引，舞會中成人愛與性，滿足她們幼年對「改變」的慾望和憧憬，朝思暮想的彷如 (if-ness) 情境、回憶懷舊與事實之間的混淆，令其陷入尷尬的閾限時刻，一個由孩子過渡到大人的時段。

策展故事抽取了「性」的閾限，幼童的性觀念形成過程 (Psychosexual Stage) ，大部分資源來自於早期互聯網普及化。故此，另生一種網路文化稱為「怪核」 (Weirdcore, Oddcore, Strangecore) ，源於二十世紀九十年代至二十一世紀初期的網際網路風格，對千禧群體童年的網絡經歷，記憶裏斥著大量匪夷所思的符號元素、意義不明的外星文字、高飽和度的色調、低解像度的攝影。影視媒體的普及和家庭監管失調，導致群體成長過渡期間，負上精神或肉體創傷 (Traumacore) ，甚至PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) 。一個正常人的性觀念發展，由母親乳房作為人生第一個性對象後 (sexual object) ，也屬於佛洛伊德性心理學階段中第一個階段——口唇期 (Oral Satge) ，當某個發展時期過渡不順時，創傷可能造成某種性癖好、強迫、執著或戀物等心理變態，但它們都非顯而易見的罪行，只是自身贖惡的善。

碎片化的物象與陌生的熟悉感，我們欲解剖自身幼稚的秘密，展開千禧群體脆弱的討論。

[Translated version]

Analyzing the feeling of "liminality" through Brian Friel's play "Dancing at Lughnasa" (1990), we can understand its essence. The play depicts the lives of a Catholic family in a small Irish village in 1936. Five sisters are drawn to the pagan festivities of the Lughnasa festival, where adult love and sexuality intertwine, satisfying their childhood desires and yearnings for "change." It is a realm of if-ness, blurred between nostalgia and reality, plunging them into an awkward threshold moment, the period of transition from childhood to adulthood.

The curatorial narrative extracts the threshold of "sexuality," the formation process of a child's sexual consciousness (psychosexual stage), with much of the resources derived from the early popularization of the internet. Thus, a new internet culture emerged known as "Weirdcore," originating from the internet aesthetics of the late 20th century to the early 21st century, embodying the millennial generation's childhood experiences on the web. Memories are filled with a plethora of bizarre symbols, unintelligible alien scripts, highly saturated colours, and low-resolution imagery. The proliferation of audiovisual media and dysfunctional parental supervision during the group's formative years led to psychological or physical traumas (Traumacore), even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A normal person's sexual development, which involves the mother's breast as the first sexual object (sexual object), belongs to the first stage of Freudian psychosexual development—the oral stage. When a transitional phase does not proceed smoothly, trauma can result in various sexual preferences, compulsions, fixations, or fetishistic tendencies. However, these are not evident crimes but rather the self-redemption of one's own sins.

With fragmented objects and a sense of unfamiliar familiarity, we seek to dissect our own childish secrets and engage in discussions about the vulnerability of the millennial generation.

Photo credit to Ho Ting, at the New Asia College, Hong Kong.

Text and image by Ho Ting