YIZHUO DU

Inside the Power Temple

This title is much inspired by an album named Inside the Cable Temple, created by my hometown's most famous rock band. The "Power Temple" in my view is a metaphor for the modern home we live in. The duality of the term ‘power’ in the discourse of politics and energy seems to be a double reference to modern life: ideology, social media, oil, electricity... these cold words together make up the flesh and blood of the womb that nurtures us. Growing up in it, I always felt in a trance that I was born wrapped up in a religious fervour called modernisation, which taught me a pilgrimage of exaltation towards every product of modern civilisation.

Over the past few years, I have been constantly searching for these energy-related landscapes across the UK, Europe and China. These photographs never focus on specific people or sites, but they all suggest traces of modern human activities. In an abstract way, these activities and places are ceremonies and monuments for a religion called 'modernisation', and I am a pilgrim who comes to see them. Towards the end, I realised that the photographs seemed to constitute an apocalypse of modern life, which might serve as a comment in an age full of anxiety about the energy crisis, global warming and nuclear safety. I have compiled them into a book in the hope that archaeologists from the future will be able to learn from them about the home in which our generation lives.

这一项目很大程度上受启发于我家乡最著名的摇滚乐队的最后一张专辑：《Inside the Cable Temple》。

在我看来，“Power Temple” 是对我们所聚居现代家园的一种巧妙的比喻。“Power” 在政治和能源语境下的二义性似乎是对现代生活的双重暗示：意识形态，社交媒体，石油，电力，这些冰冷的词条一共构成了孕育我们的现代文明子宫的肉体和血液。我生长在其中，恍惚间总觉得我生来就被裹挟在一种名为现代化的宗教狂热中，教导着我对每一个现代文明的产物产生崇高感的朝圣心态。

在过去的几年中，我不断地在英国，欧洲和中国各地寻找这些与能源相关的景观中。这些照片从未专注于具体的人或者场域，但是他们无一不暗示了现代人类的活动痕迹。从一个抽象的角度来看，这些活动和场所仿佛是名为“现代化”的宗教仪式和纪念碑，而我则是一个前来瞻仰的朝圣者。当这一切接近尾声的时候，我发现似乎这些照片构成了一本对现代生活的启示录，这或许能作为我在一个能源危机，全球变暖和核能安全等话题引起广泛焦虑的当下所留下的一些论点。我正在试图将他们整理成一本书，期冀着来自未来的考古学家能从中了解到，我们这一代人所生活的家园。