在Google 找尋〈回憶有罪〉MV的連結,鍵盤上卻輸入「回憶無罪」,個人潛意識的slip of tongue,結果當然找不到,現實世界一記當頭棒喝!達明一派最近發表的單曲〈回憶有罪〉,似乎是三十年前〈天問〉的延續,開首唱道:「舊日或問天/怎允許摧毀信念/浩蕩像為了 被懷念/現在別問他 可有膽公開紀念/被現實騎劫 怎怨天」,便是今昔對比的時光轉換——三十年前的「六四事件」,廣場上的血腥屠殺,帶來情緒的震動,震得天崩地裂,周耀輝寫下抑鬱的火焰、紫色的煙霞、惶恐的百姓;三十年後林夕接力,由問天、問人到問世,何以連回憶都戴罪?!MV從鍵入「8964」到「Error 404」的畫面開始,顯示檔案不存在,是歷史被消除抹去的狀況,然後以非常原始感官的電腦動畫合成,有「還原真相」的寄寓:綠色光影的天安門化成坦克,一個男人站立前景,然後虛擬的子彈發射,單車倒下,一對男女騎著單車被坦克追趕;鏡頭一轉是蠟燭的火光、黃色的雨傘、到催淚彈爆裂刺眼的光芒,最後歸於一條閃動的燭芯,也是火苗,象徵薪火相傳……動畫跳躍的節奏都在劉以達電音的重拍上,聽起來似心跳或眼睛的閃動,黃耀明的歌音是平和的詢問,沒有〈天問〉的浩瀚、激盪與空靈,畢竟滄桑少年早已被驚濤駭浪衝擊了三十年,磨去了棱角,卻磨成了沉厚的聲線,唱來彷彿喁喁細語的自問,或跟閱聽者檢視前塵、記認現況;也許是因為音樂沒有激烈起伏的旋律,而是一路走來跟城市風雨同路的步調吧,簡約,但真誠!
Simon Frith說我們聽音樂,產生共鳴,建構身份,那是一種情緒的和應,既是主體也是集體的念記,內裡那份融入自我就是美感經驗或美學的過程,通過音樂尋認個人與社群的關連,以及情感的認同,在樂曲的節奏和旋律、歌者演繹的聲情、歌曲內容的字詞,以及三者糅合而成的真理和感官,讓自我參與其中,成為表演的一部份,涉入個人的想像和移情代入,將「現實」變成儀典,讓自己從此找到一個存在位置,跟歌曲同悲共喜、同生共滅,這就是流行音樂的力量!從〈天問〉到〈回憶有罪〉,三十年過去了,歷史不但沒有平反清算,暗影還逐步伸入我們原本太平的城市;此外,〈回憶有罪〉還進一步將1989年北京的「六四事件」,聯繫2014年香港的「雨傘運動」,時空幾度轉接,但彼此面對同一個極權,當年的真相一日被隱藏和噤聲,極權的魔爪將繼續無限擴展,如果回憶有罪、如果事不關己,有一天消失的不是檔案,而是香港!
It is now common sense that vision is possible because light rays enter our eyes, stimulating the photoreceptors that help transmit signals to our brains. For people in the past, the mechanism of vision is not so clear. Back then, there were mainly two schools of theories, the extramission theory and the intromission theory.
The intromission theory is closer to our current understanding of vision. Intromissionists conjectured that something representative of the object entered into the eye. Famous supporters of this school include Aristotle and Democritus. Democritus, for instance, believed that objects cast out « eidola », which is a continuous stream of atom-thin flakes, each a miniature replica of its source.
On the other hand, the extramissionists believed that our eyes emit something in order to see the object. In this sense, seeing is more or less a sort of touching.
According to the extramission theory, our eyes are more than the passive recipients of images. Rather, they send out eye-beams—feelers made of elemental fire that spread, nerve-like, to create our field of vision. Luminous tendrils stream out from our eyes into the world, apprehending objects in their path and relaying back to us their qualities (Soth, 2019)
While this theory may sound outrageous now, there were empirical observations to support the theory back then. For example, the gleam of animal’s eyes at night (especially cat’s eyes) was seen as proof of fire emission from pupils.The extramission theory had many famous supporters back then, including Plato, Galen, and Euclid. In his work Timaeus, Plato argued that the eye emitted a kind of gentle « visual fire » which combined with ambient light to generate a « body of vision » that encompassed or touched objects, thus generating a medium between the object and the viewer that allowed aspects of the object to contact the soul (See Reference 3). Retaining Plato’s idea, Galen declared crystalline lens to be the « principal instrument of vision » , and conjectured that visual perception involved the circulation of « visual spirit » through the crystalline lens to obtain information from the world and bring it back into the lateral ventricles of the brain. The works of Galen heavily influenced many medieval Islamic scholars in the 9th century (Tong Dynasty in China). Hunayn ibn Ishaq, for instance, reinforced Galen’s arguments in his works.
Up til today, we can still find traces of extramission theory. Mythology is an example, like the basilisk which killed the person which met its eyes. Assuming that their eye-beams are as poisonous as their venom, it is reasonable to conclude that a basilisk can kill you with eyes using the extramission theory.