The Divine Melody 神曲(2021-2023) : 任建军

《神曲》
在面积36.3万平方公里的长江、黄河和澜沧江源头，我听从神的旨意，用传统的彩色胶片，记录了江源凡人头顶上的那束神秘圣光。
诗性，灵性，神性，咒语。拍摄这几年，这四个词一直笼罩着我，折磨着我，无法摆脱，它们已植入我的魂魄之中，我受她们的肆意摆布。
凝视修行者的眼神，我突然没有了用影像说谎的勇气，她们那诸世轮回叠加的光，会在底片上的化学涂层曝光。拍摄时，直视她们的面孔，试图发生心灵与心灵的沟通和碰撞，将触动我的“相”固定，着“相”，我似乎冒犯了天条，又试图用制作好的影像“赎罪”，一错再错。众生是佛，佛是众生，这次与众生在六道轮回里的人道悲欣交集。我“请神”回去，将相驻心，形式上与她们建立了联系，其实是受图像灵光的指引，我的精神找到了出口，好像清空了因果。
胶片和它生成的照片是机缘的结晶，将修行者彼时彼刻修行的道次固定，或者把她们的全部世界塞进时光胶囊，幻想着永不生灭。我一直以来想把江河源的一切“霸占”，这次我好像得逞了。

The Divine Melody

At the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong Rivers, a vast expanse of 363,000 square kilometers, following God’s will, I used traditional color film to capture the enigmatic and sacred light above the heads of ordinary people.

These four concepts—poetry, spirituality, divinity, and mantra—have haunted me and tortured me over the past few years of photographing. They've become so deeply ingrained in my soul that I can't seem to shake them.

Staring into the practitioners’ eyes, I suddenly lost the courage to lie with images. Their light, a testament to past reincarnations, would be exposed on the film's chemical coating. When shooting, I looked directly at their faces, trying to communicate heart-to-heart, and perpetuated the “appearances” that touched me. Being attached to “appearance”, I seemed to have offended divine law. In turn, I strived to “atone” for my sins through meticulous image creation. I made one mistake after another. All sentient beings are Buddhas, and Buddhas are all sentient beings. This time, they and I experienced a mixture of joy and sorrow in the human world of the six reincarnation paths. I "invited” the gods to go back, and deposited the appearances in my heart, establishing a connection with them in form. In fact, illuminated by the images, my spirit found an outlet, as if karma had been cleared.

Film and the photos it generates are the crystallization of causes and conditions, which freeze a moment when practitioners practice, or stuff their entire world into a time capsule as if there were no birth or death permanently. I have always sought to "monopolize" everything in the source area, and this time I seem to have made it.

Will the land, where gods reside and countless rivers converge, be the ultimate "backdrop" of human civilization? For now, I offer a divine melody as a tribute.

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