北京藝術家鬧市"遛"蘋果被驅逐

As scalpers offered smuggled new iPhones in front of an Apple store in Beijing on Thursday, a day before the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were officially to go on sale in mainland China, two men seated on a nearby bench arranged on the floor before them an iPhone 5s, an iPhone 6 and a string of six apples — all attached to leashes. One of the men had just taken a bite out of each of the apples.

在iPhone 6和iPhone 6 Plus在中國大陸正式發售的前一天，黃牛們週四正在北京一家蘋果店門前兜售走私得來的新款iPhone。而附近長椅上坐着的兩個男人，卻在他們面前的地上擺放了一部iPhone 5s，一部iPhone 6，和一串蘋果——它們都被繩拴着。這兩個男人中的一個剛纔在每個蘋果上都咬了一口。

Passers-by, and even the scalpers, were instantly riveted. They gathered around and tossed out questions. But the two men just smiled and said nothing. They wanted to maintain the suspense as they prepared to take the iPhones and apples for a walk at Taikoo Li, a shopping center in the city’s trendy Sanlitun district.

過路的人，甚至那些黃牛，都立刻被吸引了。它們紛紛圍過來，丟出各種問題。但是那兩個男人微笑着，什麼都沒有說。他們想保持一份懸疑——他們準備在北京潮人地帶三里屯的一家名叫太古裏的購物中心，遛這兩部蘋果手機和那些蘋果。

It was all part of a performance artwork the two men, the artists Han Bing and Hui Li, planned to satirize consumers’ hunger for the newest iPhones and encourage reflection on urbanites’ addiction to smartphones in general, said Mr. Han, who came up with the idea.

這是藝術家韓冰和翬力的一個行爲藝術作品。據設計出這個構想的韓冰說，這件作品是爲了諷刺消費者對於最新iPhone的渴求，以及引發都市人對智能手機上癮的反思。

But they were forced to abort their plan before they could even begin their apple walk. Members of the management staff at the shopping center approached and asked them to leave, setting off a squabble that soon turned into a vigorous debate between the staff members and bystanders defending the artists.

但是他們這次在還沒開始遛蘋果之前，就被迫放棄了計劃。購物中心的管理人員走上前來，叫他們離開，引起了一場口角，並很快演變成了一場管理人員和支持這兩位藝術家的旁觀者之間的激辯。

“Why should we leave?” Mr. Han asked.

“我們爲什麼要走？”韓冰問。

“Just leave,” said a uniformed staff member. “What do you mean by placing these objects on the floor?”

“你們就走吧，”一位身穿制服的管理人員說。“你們把這些東西放地上什麼意思？”

“It’s a game,” Mr. Han answered.

“就是玩兒的，”韓冰回答道。

“Then play the game somewhere else,” the staffer said.

“那上別處玩兒去，”那位管理人員說。

“But this is public space,” Mr. Han said. “I can do whatever I want in here as long as I’m not blocking traffic or disturbing the peace. I don’t think I’d even be stopped if I did this in Tiananmen Square.”

“但是這裏是公共區域，”韓冰說。“我在這兒做什麼都可以，我又沒有阻塞交通，又沒有破壞社會秩序。我到天安門去遛都不會有人管我。”

“Then go do it in Tiananmen Square and find out,” the staffer said.

“那你去天安門遛去試試吧，”管理人員說。

“I never got stopped when I walked objects in other countries,” Mr. Han said.

“我在國外遛東西從來沒有人阻止我，”韓冰說。

“This is China,” countered the staffer, who later threatened to call the police.

“這是中國，”管理人員反駁道。他隨後威脅報警。

A group of bystanders intervened.

一羣圍觀者加入了辯論。

“What’s wrong with you?” one man asked the staffer. “They were just having fun. Everyone was orderly until you guys showed up. Look who’s causing the trouble.”

“你怎麼回事啊？”一個男人問那位管理人員。“他們就是玩兒。你們來之前大家的秩序很好。所以你看看到底是誰在製造麻煩呢？”

“It’s only art! It’s because of people like you that China has no imagination!” shouted a woman, as Apple personnel gathered near the entrance of the store and watched.

“他們就是搞藝術！就是因爲有你們這樣的人，中國纔沒有想象力！”一個女人喊道。蘋果店員在店門口處聚集，圍觀這一場面。

In the end, Mr. Han and Mr. Hui left. Dragging the leashed iPhones and apples, the two walked out of the shopping center, tailed by a group of management staff members and turning many heads.

最後，韓冰和翬力離開了。他們拖着iPhone和蘋果走出了購物中心，一組管理人員尾隨着他們，回頭率甚高。

“In this country, whenever you do something different, it becomes political,” Mr. Han said as he walked along the street.

“在這個國家就是，只要你做的和他們不一樣，這就是政治，”韓冰在路上走時說道。

According to the original plan, Mr. Han, who was walking the iPhones, was to have played the role of a “gaofushuai,” Chinese for “tall, rich and handsome.” The term is commonly used by young Chinese to refer to men who have it all, and presumably can easily afford the new iPhones. Mr. Hui, by contrast, was to drag the bitten apples in the role of a “diaosi,” a slang term for a loser. A diaosi can only afford actual apples, not the high-tech ones.

按照原本的計劃，韓冰負責遛iPhone，演“高富帥”的角色。這個詞常被中國的年輕人用來指代那些什麼都有的男人，可以想見，他們也可以輕易買下新款iPhone。翬力則負責遛那些被咬過的蘋果，演一個“屌絲”，一個指代人生輸家的俚語詞。屌絲只買得起真蘋果，卻買不起那些高科技的“蘋果”。

Mr. Han said the performance was intended to ridicule how Chinese people have embraced iPhones as status symbols, as if one could become a gaofushuai merely by having the newest model.

韓冰說，這件藝術作品也是諷刺中國人把iPhone當成身份的象徵，好像買了最新的iPhone就能躋身高富帥行列。

The iPhone craze has continued unabated in China since the smartphones’ third generation entered the mainland market in 2009.

中國的iPhone熱潮在這款智能手機的第三代於2009年進入中國大陸市場後，就一直熱度不減。

Mr. Han said he also intended a commentary on people’s over-reliance on smartphones. They are never not attached to their phones, he said, just as he was while leashed to the iPhones.

韓冰說，他還想指出人們過度依賴智能手機的問題。他們無時無刻不和他們的手機在一起，他說，就像他牽着iPhone遛一樣。

“People take their iPhones with them wherever they go,” he said. “They communicate only through their phones, even when there are people face to face with them.”

“現在的人不管去哪兒都帶着手機，”他說。“他們只用手機交流，哪怕有人面對面和他們在一起。”

“The smartphones have become a bodily organ,” he said. “They have changed every single aspect of our lives, emotionally and mentally.”

“手機已經成了人的一個器官了，”他說。“它們改變了我們生活的每一個層面，情感的，認知的。”

This was not the first time Mr. Han had walked something that does not walk on its own. He has been walking cabbages on a leash in public for more than a decade to explore people’s relationship to objects. “I’ve walked a lot of things — cabbages, bricks, even coal briquettes,” he said.

這不是韓冰第一次遛自己不會走的東西。他已經在街頭遛白菜超過十年了，藉此探索人與物的關係。“我遛過很多東西——白菜啊，磚頭，還遛過煤球，”他說。

In an earlier video interview he had said: “Now people are driving fancy cars like the BMW. They live with their cars every day. In some ways, it’s the same thing as my cabbage and I.”

在一個早些時候的視頻採訪中，他說：“很多人開寶馬啊，豪車嘛，他們每天與這個車相依爲命，其實某種意義上講它和我和白菜是一個道理。”

Sitting by the roadside after being forced out of the shopping center on Thursday, he elaborated.

在週四被迫從商場出來後，他坐在路邊，繼續闡釋。

“I’ve walked cabbages, and people say I’m insane,” he said. “But nobody says people are insane when they drive their cars.”

“我遛白菜，他們說我瘋了，”他說。“但是他們開車，就沒人說他們瘋了。”

“Like the people who stopped me just now. I walked my iPhones. That might be my daily, normal behavior. But my normal behavior is unacceptable to him,” he said of the shopping center management.

“像剛纔那些不讓我在那裏的人。我遛iPhone，這是我的日常行爲。但是我的日常行爲是他不能接受的，”他說，指那些購物中心管理人員。

Mr. Han paused and lowered his eyes. He said he had been emphasizing his freedom.

他停頓了一下，低下眼睛。他說他想強調的是自由。

“But freedom is not the ultimate goal. Freedom itself is an empty concept. What we’ve been striving for is actually a sense of ease and comfortableness,” he said.

“但是自由本身並不是一個目標。自由它是一個虛無的概念。我們想要爭取的其實是自然自在，”他說。

“We only think of freedom when we are fettered, don’t we?”

“只有你身上有枷鎖的時候，你纔會想到自由，對吧？”