Silo Dreams
Mountainous silos create a new space with strong spatial awareness, breaking away from everyday architectural forms. In the bustling traffic of grain and goods, in the city built with railroads, bridges, and cranes, and under the booming city skyline, a stupendous vertical of concrete stands steeply, against all that surrounds it.1
As the inaugural exhibition of Keyi Gallery in Hefei's New Grain space, “Silo Dreams” begins with the establishment of this special exhibition space–silos built at the end of the century, transitioning from grain storage infrastructure to the locus for contemporary cultural production. The architectural transformation and contextual shifts of the exhibition space mark the functional change of social space. The exhibition sees it as a projection of ongoing transformations in social activities and economic development, specifically demonstrating the flow of postmodern labor and production relations dominated by emergent technology industry, algorithmic logic, and platform economy. Through non-linear connections between social relations and spatial structures, the exhibition outlines and explores the current situations and challenges facing contemporary cities. Bringing together paintings, videos, sculptures, and site-specific installations by 12 artists, the exhibition analyzes and responds to contemporary modes of production relations and organization based on drastic changes in the social production structure and its resulting spatial-temporal mobility. It seeks to offer perspectives for interpretation, reflection, and tackling of socio-spatial practices that are present, and will be more prevalent in the future.
The predecessor of New Grain–Anhui Mechanized Grain Depot–was constructed in 1992 as a complex for grain acquisition, storage, processing, and trade to promote grain reserves and circulation, responding to the social contexts and demands of the time. Today, the 6 grain silos, as industrial heritage, have been repurposed as art spaces, and New Grain has been reconstructed as a new cultural and commercial venue in urban renewal. As Henri Lefebvre pointed out in The Production of Space, social space is the production and reproduction of social relations, a projection of labor relations and social formations objectified in reality and changes with the mode of production, mapping economic transformation through Second Nature.2 The granary’s functional metamorphosis symbolizes a shift in the microcosm of everyday social life and stands as a representation of the changing social practice. Its concrete walls, still bearing rice husk residues, stand as a monument chronicling epochal shifts; The architectural substance and meaning of the ganery itself become an index revealing the social and productive transformations of space. Wan Chaoqian’s depictions of domestic interiors defined by household appliances capture modern life as reshaped by technological advancement. Chen Pai’an’s digital paintings and giclées restore the smooth texture of industrial commodities in modern scenes, using technology to convey a new, stylized spatial visual experience. They are acute witnesses to the results of modern production. Like grain silos, they have always addressed and illuminated the critical issues within social production relations, regardless of changing forms or functions.
However, although modes of production project social relations onto space, and this physical reality in turn reacts to social relations, there has never been a direct, immediate, transparent, and easy-to-grasp connection or definite relationship between the two.3 As Song Long uses living objects as psychological mappings, and alienates the habitual experiences of life to reveal the unexpected connections between humans and their living spaces; Li Tao, through reconstructing, appropriating, and recreating industrial materials and ready-mades, reflects on the contradictory unity of the urban space between collectivist planning and individual choices. The social condition of humanity, as the intersection of these relationships, projects its complexity and even reflexivity—as crucial attributes—onto the urban space where the exhibition is situated, mirroring key issues of contemporary labor and production relations.
Located in Hefei, the New Granary sits at the heart of a city rapidly propelled by high-tech innovation and industrial transformation in electric vehicles, intelligent manufacturing, and semiconductors, which forms an integrated industrial chain of “new productivity”. At the same time, the algorithmically managed Subsistence sector coexists with the modern sector represented by high-tech industries, where labor force has always been confronted with a decentralized and discontinuous dual economy.4 Li Xindi contrasts the temporary spatial extension of delivery shelves with upright and solid furniture, alluding to the flexible yet unstable nature of transitional employment. Post-Fordist elasticity intensifies within platform economy structures, where the total digitization and intellectualization of contemporary labor under algorithmic economies shifts traditional workforce control into remote control of labor itself through dotted connections. The replaceability and mobility of labor accelerate in tandem,5 as seen in Jing Ao's sculptures, where materiality transforms and occurs spontaneously across environments, and complex dynamics persist between random potentiality and heightened control. Thus, the gig economy is not only a pressing issue in contemporary labor and production relations but also reshapes completely different social relations and landscapes in the cultural practices of algorithms.6 Li Guanshuai portrays the universal situation of complexity, mutilation, and confrontation through the oscillation between humanity and divinity, while Li Li Ren imagines the commonality between humans and non-humans through biological interpretation, dismantling anthropocentrism as transcendental interpretations of contemporary instability.
As socio-economic and labor structures grow increasingly complex, flexible, and decentralized, facing the elusiveness of hidden organizational framwork, Xing Wanli reassembles fragmented elements to reconstruct the virtual reality of images, texts, and memories in the digital age; Li Penquan transforms transcendental moments into mysterious and absurd self-speeches; and Gong Bin depicts fantasy landscapes through spiritual wanderings, where the accidental slippage of consciousness and algorithmic imagination become methods for excavating the space of subjectivity and starkly divergent social spatial experiences. Xie Linyou combines artificial intelligence, multicultural migration waves, and the surreality of video games and prose poems to depict dystopian illusions that point toward the future. Guided by the complex interplay between urban spatial reconfiguration and social production, the postmodern labor force and social relations of production, shifting toward temporariness and instability, not only reflect the present but also foreshadow the new normal of future labor, always open to reflection and reimagination. Regardless of the changing times and architectural functions, the granary’s unique space, with its reverence for labor supremacy, always sows fertile and romantic ground for present discussions.
筒仓，算力，垂直之梦
高耸起伏的筒仓，以极强的空间意识和突破日常的建筑形式创造了全新的空间，在装载着粮食与货物的熙攘车流中，在铁路、桥梁和吊车构建起的城市里，在蓬勃生长的城市天际线下，一个巨大、垂直的直面混凝土建筑陡然矗立，与周遭的一切相映成趣。1
作为可以画廊于合肥新粮仓空间的开幕首展，“筒仓，算力，垂直之梦”始于这一特殊展览空间的建立：兴建于世纪末的筒仓由存放储备粮向当代文化内容生产的转向。空间的建筑改造与情景轮替是社会空间在功能上的转变，展览将其视作社会活动与经济发展转型的投射，具体展现新兴技术产业、算法逻辑和平台经济主导下后现代劳动力与生产关系的流转更迭，以社会关系与空间结构间的非线性联系勾勒并探讨当代城市的发展现状与面临的挑战。展览集合了12位艺术家的绘画、影像、雕塑与特定场域装置作品，剖析并回应以社会生产结构剧烈变化和由此引发的时空流动性为基调的当代社会生产关系与组织形态，希望为显现于当下，并将在未来更为普遍的社会空间实践体验提供解读、思考与处理的视角。
新粮仓的前身——安徽省机械化粮库——于1992年立项修建，作为粮食收购、储存、加工、商贸的集合体促进粮食储备与流通，回应了当时的社会情境与诉求。如今，6个粮食筒仓作为工业遗产被再利用为艺术空间，新粮仓亦在城市更新中重筑为文化商业的新场域。如列斐伏尔在《空间的生产》中指出，社会空间是社会关系的生产和再生产，是劳动关系与社会形态对象化于现实之中的投射，因而社会空间“随着生产方式（mode de production）的改变而改变”，以第二自然的方式映射了经济转型。2 粮仓空间功能的轮替象征微观社会生活场境的转变，成为社会实践变化的表征。仍然残存着稻谷壳的混凝土墙壁筑就了记录时代变迁的纪念碑，粮仓本身的建筑质性与意义也随之成为揭示空间的社会与生产变革的索引。宛超前以家用电器定义的家居空间提供现代生活的画像，关注技术发展对空间与生活经验的重塑。陈拍岸以数码绘画与微喷还原现代场景光滑的工业产品质感，借科技传达新的风格化空间视觉体验。它们是现代化生产结果的敏锐见证，与粮仓类似，无论其形式功能之更替，始终处理并帮助理解着社会生产关系中的主要问题。
然而，虽生产方式将社会关系投射于现实空间，这一现实又反作用于社会关系，两者间始终不存在一种直接的、即刻的、能迅速被掌握的透明化联系或决定关系。3 如松郎将生活物品作为心理映射，间离式地异化生活末枝处的惯常经验以展现人与其生存空间的意外联系；李涛通过对工业材料和现成品的重构、挪用和再造，思考城市空间在集体主义规划与个体选择间的矛盾统一，人的社会性处境作为上述关系的交点，其复杂性乃至自反性作为重要属性影射于展览置身的城市空间中，亦反映了当代劳动与生产关系的重要议题。
新粮仓所处的合肥依高新技术飞速发展，以新能源汽车、智能制造、半导体领域的产业转型形成了实践着“新质生产力”的完整产业链。与此同时，算法管理下的零工经济生计部门（Subsistence）与以高精尖产业为代表的现代部门共存，劳动力始终面对着分散、不连续的二元经济结构。4 李昕頔以外卖货架临时的空间延伸对照端正稳固的家具，指涉过渡性就业灵活不稳定的处境。后福特主义（Post-Fordism）的弹性在平台经济组织结构中加剧，当代劳动模式在算法经济下的全面数字化和智能化使过去对劳动力的控制转为对劳动本身点状连接式的远程控制，劳动力的可替代性增强，流动性也加快，5 如经傲的雕塑中材料物质性在不同环境中偶然转化与发生，随机潜能与高度控制间总存在复杂的动态。由此，零工经济不仅是当代劳动与生产关系中的迫切问题，亦在算法的文化实践中重塑了全然不同的社会关系和文化景观。6 李关帅以人性与神性间的摇摆博弈刻画复杂、残缺、对抗的普遍境遇；任莉莉则通过生物学诠释幻想人与非人的共性混淆，瓦解人类中心主义，即是对当代社会不稳定性的超验阐释。
当社会经济结构与劳动关系越发复杂化、灵活化、分散化，面对难以掌握的隐匿性组织化结构，邢万里以碎片化元素重组电子时代图像、文字、记忆的虚拟现实；李喷泉将超验瞬间转化为神秘荒诞的自我言语；龚斌以精神游历为线索描绘幻想中的景观，精神的偶然滑脱与算法想象成为了挖掘主体性空间、回应迥然社会空间体验的方法。谢林佑集人工智能、多元文化背景下的移民潮、电子游戏和散文诗的超现实，描绘出反乌托邦的虚幻世界而指向未来。以城市空间重构与社会生产间的复杂关系为引，后现代劳动力与社会生产关系向临时性、不稳定性的变迁不仅反映当下，更预示着未来劳动形式的新常态，永远开放予反思和再想象。无论时代变化抑或建筑功用更迭，粮仓这一特殊空间对劳动至上的尊重，终为当下讨论的伊始奠定着丰沃且浪漫的象征。
- 1 Adapted from Erich Mendelsohn’s description of grain elevators when he visited Buffalo City in 1942, from Miriam Kelly, Following Function: Putting the Industrial Buildings that Inspired the Modernist Movement Back to Work.
- 2 Henri Lefebvre, La Production de L’Espace, 1974.
- 3 ibid.
- 4 Temin, Peter. The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy. MIT Press, 2018.
- 5 Ping Sun, Transitional Labour, 2024.
- 6 ibid.