Techno Among the Tea Fields - Experiencing the Pastoral Symphony of this Era
Introductory point of view: The pastoral symphony in the modern sense signifies tangible opportunities and social mobility open to the majority. Recently, I spent a few days with a rapper friend whom I hadn't seen for years. Apart from drinking and chitchat, he invited me to stay for a night in a big house in a homestay among the Longjing tea fields in Hangzhou.
It was wonderful.
Humorously, two people who used to make beats and rap in university, one who hadn't seriously made music for years, and another who hadn't seriously rapped for years, we were both busy making a living, embodying Kundera's "lightness of life".
For the first time, I had the opportunity to traverse the tea fields up close, carefully observing the pruned Longjing tea buds. The scene was strikingly similar to my high school days when I would sit on the ridge of the fields at my grandmother's house in the countryside on weekends, watching the green wheat seedlings undulating in the breeze. However, the Hangzhou tea fields at the end of July 2023 were too hot. So, I put on my sunglasses and noise-cancelling headphones, and started listening to Minimun Techno — my cooling tool.
The undulations of the tea fields and the rhythm of Techno 144 BPM were so harmonious that they rekindled a spark in my heart from years ago — to experiment with what an electronic rhythm based on Chinese culture would be. Apart from "Village Rock" and "Agricultural Heavy Metal", is it possible to create a "Tea Field Techno" that is also artistically high?
My friend said he was going to visit the Xiangshan campus of China Academy of Art in the afternoon, and I thought to myself — yes, what Wang Shu has done is exactly the "Tea Field Techno" in the field of architecture.
During my undergraduate years, I designed the Logo and VI for the "China Digital City Brand" Summit. At that time, I discovered that trying to blend Chinese cultural patterns with those sharp-angled, sans-serif "modernist" patterns was extremely difficult. In Tea Field Techno, it's like trying to simply replace the 4/4 beat with syncopation and swing samples in the original Techno rhythm with Chinese silk and bamboo orchestra — this kind of overly literal method can only be used on styles that are genetically similar, such as Electro House and Vaporwave. For a greater span, it's necessary to trace back to the abstract structure behind it, and then hybridize based on these. This is similar to the question once pondered by Wu Guanzhong — what is the abstract expressionism of Chinese ink painting.
I'm already accustomed to living in the modern city — the city brings many conveniences and opportunities, as well as many problems. The discussion of "digital nomads" once caused such a stir largely because everyone resonated with it. The state is also advocating for new urbanization and urban-rural integration, and I believe we are moving in the right direction. But before we reach the other shore, I keep imagining: What is the pastoral symphony of the industrial age like? The information age? After the rise of AI?
I jokingly call it the "Tea Field Techno" problem, or the "Tea Field Techno" fantasy. This is actually a cultural positioning issue, but when I describe it this way, I'm often laughed at by friends around me, as if the term is too associated with trauma literature or implies a certain sour literati air, so I gave it a serious, yet funny and absurd name.
The pursuit of the pastoral symphony, it seems that what we are pursuing is the harmony of human-land relationship, a home facing the sea with spring flowers, a living space where changing scenes don't lead to fatigue. In essence, what we are pursuing is value creation with a sense of happiness and meaning, a longing full of openness and possibility — the pastoral symphony in the modern sense signifies tangible opportunities and social mobility open to the majority.
This pursuit, or discovery, or feeling of the modern pastoral symphony, is the deep thought that Wu Guanzhong has devoted his life to, the idea behind Wang Shu's "Taihu Stone", the tune of green water and green mountains being gold and silver mountains, the perspective of the "Tea Field Techno" problem.
Perhaps, 20 years later when we look back, we will find that this is the historical mission of our generation.
07/27/2023