Answer 答案
A performance of self-portraits on 4×5 black-and-white film,
exam questions inscribed on the body.
HSU, Che-jui was one of the "guinea pigs" of Taiwan's 108 Curriculum Guidelines, a curriculum reform implemented in 2019. The inspiration for Answer comes from HSU's experience of taking the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT), Taiwan's university entrance examination, in 2022. The performance has been photographed using 4x5 black and white large format film since March 2024.
許哲睿身為108課綱教育改革第一屆的白老鼠，以2022年5月考學測的經歷作為靈感，2024年3月開始使用4x5大型黑白底片自拍《答案》系列行為表演。
Video
Talk and Martial-Arts Film
Venue: Taiwan Library, Shuanghe Gallery. Date: 2024/09/14.
Year of filming: 2024. Age: 20 years old, just granted the right to vote under Taiwan's Civil Code.
20歲，剛得到臺灣民法上的投票權。
Examination Machines
Asked on the front, answered on the back.
HSU inscribed Taiwan-specific past GSAT questions and hypothetical "future questions" onto his own body — question on the front, answer on the back — self-photographed as life-size black-and-white portraits. Fifty diptychs to date.
《Answer》: “The answers appear on your back, yet you can't see it yourself. How can you move forward then?”
In this kingdom, examinations determine who can ascend to royalty. The King of Examination designs countless examination machines.
The King feeds the machines examination-pills; upon ingesting these pills, the machines' backs will appear the answers that the King desires. Yet the machines themselves never understood why those are the solutions, for the right or wrong — or rather, the "Good or Bad"— of answers rest solely in the King's hands. The examination machines merely inscribe obediently. Those who answer well and score highly are granted the "right to speak" and differing ranks, while those who falter are discarded as defective.
Finally, on the day the annual examination scores were released, the top-scoring machine suddenly starts singing on the assembly platform when it's awarded — but the song is allowed by the King……
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（An Examination Machine's Diary）
Examination Machines No.: 10830177
Date: 2022/01/21 (Fri.)
Upon waking up at the factory, I chanced upon a biology textbook titled "A Manual of Young Examination Machines about Daily Sleep". I could make no sense of it: "I only have 4 hours left to sleep every day just for reviewing for examinations. How is it possible to get a full eight hours to sleep?" — I rushed to the examination arena.
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"Education reflects the mindset of those in power, schools become large-scale brainwashing institutions, and examinations are a competition to see who has been more thoroughly brainwashed."
The 108 National Basic Education Curriculum Reform in Taiwan is a shared experience for students of HSU, Che-jui's generation, and this curriculum reform is still ongoing. This curriculum reform emphasizes open-minded thinking, logical criticism, competency-based practical skills, interdisciplinary integration, and extended reading, among others. Moreover, the changes in how contemporary society refers to Taiwan, the Republic of China, or other names, implying shifts in national identity.
The 108 Curriculum seems to have broken away from cramming education, but what comes next?
Taiwanese artist HSU, Che-jui has created an ideological performance that combines Traditional Chinese Martial Arts, and shooting on 4x5 large format films to critique Taiwan's examination-driven education system. By carving past and hypothetical future examination questions onto his body, HSU explores the scars inflicted on individuals' lives by examinations—learning without thinking about why I have to learn.
Both martial arts and examinations require daily, repetitive practice to make knowledge or forms engraved in bones.
Martial arts are fundamentally about self-defence and personal growth, however, many practitioners focus solely on aesthetic forms or competition success, missing the philosophical core. Similarly, examinations are meant to assess learning and guide collaboration, but often foster individualism and competition instead. "Knowledge can be returned to the teacher after the examinations." —A famous idiom among Taiwanese students.
Both martial arts and examinations have been reduced to mere survival tools in modern society. HSU sees the primary rule of natural competition is violence, examination is pitting students against each other, and allowing those in power to shape thinking, enforce assimilation, and promote a cult of personality through violence, too. This exam centric culture, HSU argues, extends beyond schools to influence the entire nation.
Through HSU's performance, HSU invites people of different generations to recall their educational experiences and student life. By reading and contemplating examination questions that reflect societal norms and historical contexts, HSU encourages viewers to consider how such questions might shape the minds of current students and then lead society to what kind of future.