The fictional Nian Beast exists in the consciousness of Chinese, but never comes out of consciousness. | Year Beast

Nian Beast: What can be imagined is real

Qi Shore People

The surrounding peach charms, door gods, couplets, firecrackers, etc. of the Nian beast have become the standard for Chinese New Year. However, we ignore the main thing, this kind of neglect is not only wrong in the contemporary era, but also in the ancient times, and no one has really portrayed and shaped the beast, or someone has tried, but has not been effectively disseminated or recognized by the public.

The non-cute and fierce beast with a unicorn that looks like a lion seems to have been compiled by contemporary people into anime stories as nian beasts, and if the results of searching Baidu, the appearance of nian beasts has surprisingly similar category differences, which may come from imitating or referring to each other. I have also seen independent illustrators draw a very cute Nian Beast, in the children's fable-like story picture, is a lonely existence, no past and posthumous life but eternal existence of the divine beast, it hides in the distance of the inexplicable mountains, hides in the depths of the inexplicable sea, only once a year wakes up, there is a willingness to go out and hang out, as a result, it is crowned by the human world as a "crime" that may harm the township, with non-violent firecrackers, red to drive away the Nian beast, and at the same time, in all the versions of the Nian Beast, the Nian Beast has almost no "crime" The actual record.

The Nian Beast was easily driven away, but the wayward one, every New Year's Festival, would come once as always, its purpose seemed to have been blurred, it may just be a distraction, and the so-called expulsion Chinese, on the spiritual level, it is better to say that it is a kind and self-amusing introduction, showing a scene of peace, reunion and expectation.

About the story of the New Year beast, from ancient times to the present, it is so simple, just like Santa Claus Christmas Eve driving a deer, the simplicity of distributing gifts, but santa claus appearance in 1930 for the Coca-Cola company deliberately stereotyped, became the world's recognized image, its universal spiritual culture was subsequently transformed into commercial value, and the appearance of the new year beast was not stereotyped, becoming the lack of Chinese Spring Festival IP.

The deep-seated reasons for the neglect of the collective consciousness of the Nian Beast have so far been unable to be analyzed. Our ancestors have no shortage of imagination, and the shaping of dragons and strange beasts in the Classic of Mountains and Seas makes our descendants sigh and admire. So why did the ancients simply omit the shaping of the beast of the year, as far as the reason is concerned, it seems to make no sense. The shaping of the divine beast is nothing more than animals and people, animals and animals collage and combination, is it difficult? It's not really that hard. If we have to forcibly pursue the mistakes that the ancients omitted, then the cause is just not caring, and the result of not caring is ignoring.

We have become accustomed and conventional to the concept or culture of the New Year or the New Year; the version of the legend and story about it is as simple as a three-sentence overview, that is, there is not much literary foreshadowing, and there is not much documentation. Not even, not many people realize its absence.

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His initial attention to the Nian Beast actually came from his son's question.

What is the year? What does the Beast look like? In the face of the child's questions, I could not tell satisfactorily, so I casually picked up the calendar of the Year of the Ugly Ox, pointing to the child, "This is the Year Beast", and what I pointed to was obviously the zodiac bull, obviously perfunctory. So the child carefully drew a pair of "Nian Beasts" full of exaggerated imagination, in fact, it was just a mutated cow. Until 2020, adults still asked me: Is the zodiac a year beast, I have stopped being perfunctory, and I have replied exactly: it is not.

The first time I was asked by a child what a young beast looks like? Naturally, I couldn't answer it, and now I still can't answer it. In fact, I know that it does not exist, but exists in the consciousness framework of the ancestors, which is a reverence for supernatural forces, full of imagination.

Children will think that it exists, otherwise why New Year's Day, press the age, peach charms, couplets, firecrackers, and so on. The annihilation of the divine nature of the years has become a straightforward time node, and the mystery, charm, and imagination contained in it have disappeared.

Adults forget the original meaning of the year, there is no or little text and illustrations to follow the simulation, so the New Year, become dull, bland and boring, in addition to the so-called delicious food, affinity reunion, couplet, door god and red packets, pressing the old money, the protagonist beast is hiding in the tunnel of time secretly sad, depressed, its imagination of Santa Claus's bright illumination, imagine the collective joy of halloween ghosts, the frustration of the beast is inevitable.

The return of the nian beast is a cure for frustration. It is not only the reproduction of new words and images, but the search for the continuity and imagination of the fictional world civilization Chinese, and the originality, divinity and awe of the ancestors.

After 2009, I began to implement the design of the annual beast "pressing the year money", the shape of the commemorative coin, small batch production, the material of copper, silver two kinds, the circle of sale, the annual beast looks different, quite popular with friends, praise!

At first, there was a kind of hazy attempt to "press the old money" of the nian beast, that is, to replace the popular "red packet", and it was repeatedly found that children did not have much interest in such "red packets", especially children who were not likely to "use money".

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On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2017, I suddenly felt that I might as well extend the concept of the Nian Beast, so after 7 days of preparation, I invited 9 artists to complete a miniature exhibition with the theme of "The Return of the Nian Beast". The exhibition site is located in the sales department of the commercial body in Longhuli, East District, Zhengzhou, where the space is about 100 square meters, but he himself boldly said in the "Preface": "Nian Beast, urgently need to have a dignified appearance, not only for the New Year, but also to awaken or restore the Chinese imagination, we firmly believe that the history of Chinese god creation has not ended, and there is no need to end." Now it seems that the so-called "we" at that time were suspected of the so-called "spiritual direction" of the so-called "spiritual direction" of the arm and the call, and predicted its outcome: "The creation of gods and beasts can eventually be transformed into productive forces, benefiting everyone." ”

Now it seems that at that time, it was too "shaking" interests. Will it be such a one-time success and easy? At that time, "we" were actually the only ones, purely verbal "masturbation". 4 years ago, I and the so-called us really didn't have such a big will, laying out such a big ambition, and at that time, "we" included artists and organizers Longhu li, just not seriously playing.

4 years ago, the truth of the self was a few other superficial words in the "preface": "When the nian beast returns, everyone has a taste of entertainment, and tastes the taste of really passing the 'year' and having a little monster to accompany it." ”

However, there is still a kind of obstacle that you can't overcome, knowing that in this world, there is no nian beast. The imaginary beast of the year has been stubbornly existing in its own consciousness, perhaps as others have said: "What is imagined is real." ”

About one day, there will be a young beast drawn by one person, not recognized by himself, but by the majority.

After that Chinese New Year's Day, the New Year beast and dumplings, flower buns, firecrackers, couplets, door gods and pressed money, etc., can finally be combined with joy and become new props, hand companions or mascots.

We know how Maitreya Buddha evolved from a bearded Europa to a smiling white, chubby cloth bag monk; we know how Santa Claus was nothing more than a medieval benevolent preacher who evolved into a smiling white fat old man wearing a Coca-Cola red cotton robe to give gifts to children; perhaps we also vaguely know that the skeleton goddess Katrina of the Mexican Day of the Dead is nothing more than a skeleton image painted by the painter Posada in 1913.

After the emergence of these virtual IPs, they have become Chinese citizens, world citizens, and Mexican citizens, respectively, and have become indispensable beings in real life scenes, but they are not attached to the flesh, but exist in the world as a "medium".

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Since the second annual animal exhibition, began to intentionally invite designers to participate, they belong to another species of human beings, belong to technical service providers, they are accustomed to being Party B, for party A's intention has a natural spirit of fit, so the exhibition began to explore the possibility of commercialization, but this layer of meaning is not openly picked, just tacit hazy surge. The commercial airspace, whose boundaries are not clear, is nothing more than the "Santa Claus" as a doll, which is a seasonal or temporal product, but a relatively eternal product.

Many times, some people have asked, can you "confirm" the appearance of the Nian Beast at one time? For such a question, I and the organizers have no way of answering exactly, and such a will or will has not been seriously determined by me or us so far.

Subconsciously, the image of the beast is universal, not decided by who will, it is very likely that it was obtained by chance, and that accident has not yet been accidental, it can only be left to time, and we have enough time to wait for the inevitable end after the process.

Since the second annual animal exhibition, the high-profile words have been reduced, the passion has been relieved, the preparatory period has been changed from 7 days, and the change has been changed to 30 days to complete the collection and installation of works, and the exhibition has been attributed to the exhibition. It was an inertia, dragging forward.

What was not expected was that the third annual animal exhibition, the number of exhibitors reached 83, the works in the non-standard exhibition area of Longhu, like the warehouse "piled up", the exhibitors do not seem to care about all this, but they have a kind of nameless guilt, probably, perhaps, there should be a better way to give the work a better presentation of the results, right?

It was the turn of the fourth time to prepare for the exhibition, and this guilt evolved into seriousness. It was decided to control the number of exhibitors, give the works as much display space as possible, and finally determine the 36 exhibitors. Under the theme of the original works of exhibitors, similar to the composition under the unified proposition, the same fear of off-topic, you can not prescriptively regulate the participating painters, sculptors, designers, new media, how this or how, can only be twisted like friends to the results they want, and the actual situation is not subject to the will of the people as a transfer, this period will be alienated, do sculpture will suddenly do flat, do design must pinch statues, do video non-to-do installation, this seems not to be chaotic art experiments, you can not refuse, Can only wait for the result, the process is not only curatorial people hanging in the line, the implementer also encountered the process of entanglement, trouble or challenge, at this time can only be encouraged in exchange for the result of perseverance, in exchange for self-comfort.

Once, twice, and three times, they stirred up the Void Year Beast, gathering a small number of people's insignificant strength to try to create the Year Beast. Even know that it is difficult to do this for yourself, but the inertial thinking is turned into behavior by inertia, and if you are far away from the trance that exists, the unknown fierce or cute beast is always unwilling to provoke you in turn, and such a existence is itchy and itchy.

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Vaguely premonition, capital can drive the rapid presentation of the Annual Beast IP, it is a story with roots, as long as it is not easy to Chinese the cultural customs of the New Year, sooner or later the Nian Beast will become the spokesperson for commercial interests.

Some time ago and friends chatted about "Xiyangyang, gray wolf", as if suddenly disappeared, no one is interested, no toy sales, no anime sequels, some are just old and old goods forgotten in the storage box, accidentally found, the so-called memory is still there! So soon "joyful, gray wolf" has become the historical past. So we probed each other, and the result was a unanimous assertion of the question in the affirmation: Is there no root?

So we ask another question: What about Santa Claus? What about Monkey King? What about Guan Gong? Will it be polished and smoothed by time and become a historical stage of IP, everyone shakes their heads: "It's not easy to say, right?!" "Who's sure? To see how long this time is pulled, how long it is dragged, a thousand years, ten thousand years or a hundred million years? It is also necessary to look at the subsequent extension to see whether future generations are willing to continue and pay bills.

For the annual beast that already has a legendary history, and has a strong "Spring Festival" support point ip, what we are doing now, in a sense, can be described as continuity and extension, it probably belongs to something with roots and veins, right? Me and I had a hunch that the payer was coming, and that the heavens were going to do a great job.

Suddenly, I believed the words of others: "What can be imagined is real!" ”