摄影的价值在于，它不仅承载了观看者的观看，也承载了历史的再生。透彻一点说，摄影复原了消逝的现场，并以其直接与尖锐，让视觉全球化的进程成为新的政治，一种图像的政治。
金江波很早就意识到这一点。对他来说，所有曾经定义艺术的陈词滥调其实都在无情地消解现实，其中之一就是对“创造”的过分依赖和颂扬。事实上，全球化所带来的变动本身就在制造一个又一个比“创造”更具有力量的怪异现场，而面对这样一堆现场，“创造”已经无能为力。居波.德依是意识到这一新现实的先知，许多年以前，他就提出了“景观世界”，用以取代对传统表象世界的深度迷恋。
但是，金江波的《经济大撤退：东莞现场》，却用一组朴实无华的图像，辛辣地告诫我们，比哲学式的“景观世界”更为重要的仍然是现场，一种单一经济行为所塑造的单一场所，一种文化地理学的现实遗存。
只有这现场才是构成视觉世界的日常景观，它琐碎，断裂，拒斥概念，藐视艺术。它本身就是一种现象，生活世界的残酷现象，因而也是一种政治，生存的政治。
由于某种原因，我常常去东莞。这是一个奇特的地方，包含着完全对立的因素，却又拼合成繁华的表象。大革命时代，这里是南方最重要的共产党地方武装“东江纵队”的诞生地；六、七十年代，这里成为偷渡香港的重要前沿；邓小平时代，广东改革开放在这里起步，并最终成为著名的“世界工厂”。东莞几乎每一镇都建有五星级甚至六星级的豪华宾馆，这说明东莞本地人的富裕令人难以想象。但偏偏就是在东莞，外来人口几乎占百分之八十，他们为东莞的建设奉献了青春，但回报，即使在东莞已经富得流油的今天，却仍然少得可怜。
没有比东莞更能说明中国的经济现状，以及由这现状所导致的文化现状。也没有比东莞更能浓缩中国的现实，东莞的现场所提供的意义，早就超过了它的地域特征。
突然之间，东莞的工厂集体逃亡。了解本地情况的人都清楚，这些工厂之所选择逃亡，不是因为亏本，而是因为形势逆转。东莞本来就是形势逆转（改革开放）的产物，这一次同样无法逃避新的形势逆转的压力，所以就只好逃亡。
金江波恰在这时进入东莞，用他的相机，一一拍下逃亡的现场。
其实根本就不需要构思，不需要想象，不需要独创，只需要在现场，然后按动快门，把现场转变成图像。
显然，这是一种有明确针对性的工作。从终极目标来看，我甚至觉得这是一次图像化的政治实践。金江波用相机把逃亡的现场拍下来，这也意味着他用同一行动去颠覆由来已久的摄影观，颠覆摄影本身。
因为，金江波看透了，现场比摄影更重要。同时，不可否认的是，现场要靠摄影来再生，通过展示来复原。
一直都有人想刻意隐瞒这一现场，抹杀这一现场，无视这一现场，而金江波却用摄影去支配这一现场。一旦支配，就无可避免地涉及到了政治。金江波让东莞的现场再生，这恰好说明了他的野心。他不满意至今为止的摄影，他想颠覆这个摄影，好让摄影转变成一种政治，图像的政治，从而有效地支配现场。从这一意义看，金江波所从事的是一种图像的政治实践。相比之下，摄影反倒不那么重要了。
在我看来，《经济大撤退：东莞现场》印证了这一点。
杨小彦
2008-8-23-温哥华
Subversive On-Site Photography
Jin Jiangbo’s Visualized Political Practice
Yang Xiaoyan
The value of photography is that it not only accommodates the audience’s looking at, but allows the reenactment of history as well. In other words, photography revives a disappeared site, employing the medium’s immediacy and incisiveness to let the process of globalized visual globalization become a new politics, a kind of image politics.
Jin Jiangbo has long noticed this. To him, every single cliché that once defined art is viciously diminishing reality – including the excessive dependence on “creation” and its eulogy. In fact, the changes brought about by globalization are generating more and more sites more powerful and strange than “creation.” Under these circumstances, “creation” has become irrelevant. Guy Debord is the first one to be aware of this new reality. Many years ago, he argued in Society of the Spectacle a thesis to replace the traditional indulgence in the emblematic world.
Yet, Jin Jiangbo’s Great Economic Retreat: The Dongguan Scene employs a series of earnest pictures to send a biting message: more important than the philosophical Society of the Spectacle is the site – a singular situation begotten by a single-product economic behavior, remnant of a cultural geographical reality.
Only a daily landscape like this site can construct the visual world. It is trivial, fragmented; it resists constructs and despises art. It itself is a phenomenon, a cruel phenomenon of the living world, because it is also a politics, a politics of living.
For some reason, I always go to Dongguan. It is a peculiar place overran with contradictory factors that piece into a facade of prosperity. During the Revolution, Dongguan was the birthplace of the Communist Party’s most important southern regional regiment of Dongjiang. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a vital frontline for mainlanders attempting to cross over to Hong Kong illegally. Under Deng Xiaoping, reformations for Guangdong began here, with Dongguan subsequently becoming the famous “world factory.” In almost every town in Dongguan stand 5- or 6-star hotels, indicating how incredibly wealthy the locals of Dongguan are. Yet it is also in Dongguan that immigrants make up 80\% of the population; they sacrificed their youth for the development of Dongguan, but still receive pitiful compensation albeit the prosperity of Dongguan today.
No place is as suitable as Dongguan to explain the economic situation of China and its resulting cultural phenomena. Neither is there anywhere else that better encapsulates China’s reality. The significance of the site of Dongguan has long transcended its regional specifics.
All of a sudden, factories in Dongguan collectively retreat. All who understand the local conditions know that the withdrawal of these enterprises is not due to loss but to changes in the situation. Dongguan itself is the product of changeovers (the reform and open-door policy). Similarly this time, it is unable to circumvent the pressures of new changes, with escape as the only solution.
Jin Jiangbo enters Dongguan at this moment, using his camera to capture these scenes of retreat.
In fact, there is no need to conceptualize, no need to imagine, no need to create; one only needs to be present and to press the shutter in order to transform these sites into images.
This is obviously work with specific objectives. In view of its ultimate goal, I even feel that this is a visualized political practice. Jin Jiangbo’s taking pictures of the scenes of retreat with a camera also suggests a subversion of the established concept of photography within the same act, hence subverting photography itself.
This is because Jin Jiangbo thoroughly understands that the sites are more important than photography. At the same time, it is undeniable that the sites are reliant on photography for their resurrection via representation.
There have always been people who want to hide this site, to write it off and to disregard it. Nevertheless, Jin Jiangbo uses photography to preside over the site and as such, politics is unavoidably implicated. Jin’s revival of the site of Dongguan speaks well of his ambition. He is not satisfied with current photography, he wants to subvert this photography, so as to turn it into a politics, a visualized politics, and as such, control the scenes effectively. From this point of view, Jin Jiangbo is effecting a visualized political; photography is relatively unimportant.
In my opinion, The Great Economic Retreat: The Dongguan Scene confirms this point.
23 August 2008, Vancouver
【编辑：霍春常】
编辑：admin