Where does the tree grow? It grows in the mud that has been washed by tempests; in the rural areas which are still lingering in the memory; in the philosophical and critical screaming of the environmentalist movement; in the urban planning projects for the future architectural utopia; and in the memory of the childhood plays. It is true that the concept of the tree is multiple-layered, and in the cultural and political context of today, the tree has become a symbol of sentiments, nostalgia, memory, and harmony. It brings about a war between technology and nostalgia, and is the best departure critiques of modernity, industrial expansion and developmentalism.

But in The Flow, a collaboration by Xiao Yu and Wang Yonggang, the tree is deprived of these usual ecological meanings, which are freed from the mythology that is inherent in them. The tree is no longer a keen satire at the cruel industrial society, no longer a place in which lurks sentimental memories and ethical philosophies. On the contrary, the tree is here neutral, figurative, and dominated by the signifying structure, that is, the tree that is cherished by the artists is the special figurative structure, the organizing codes, and the botanical quality of the tree, in a word, the materiality of the tree. Environmentalists and sentimental philosophers have no interest in this; what they are interested are only the outside abstract functions of the tree and the poetical meanings derived from these functions. They regard the tree as poetical codes. But in The Flow, the artists cherish the materiality of the tree. They do not arouse their own passions through the tree, but take as a metaphor the structure of the tree, the special inner law of the tree, and the inherent organizing relationship of the tree, so as to connect the tree with some externality. The tree is not some functional code, but a figurative metaphor; not a critical departure of ecology and sentimental philosophy, but an eager observation of daily politics; not the miserable screeching after being wounded, but a sober reflection of a realistic situation; not lyrical romantic critiques, but its internal structure as a center of reflection.

What structural relationship is this? My impression is that Deleuze is the first philosopher who has metaphysically reflected upon the image and structure of the tree. For him, the shape of the tree is a vivid metaphor of philosophical essentialism and foundationalism. The leaves are the derived effects of the rhizome and the surface, outside phases of representation. The leaves, no matter how rich, flourishing, complicated, are always returning their truth, origin, foundation, and secret to their rhizome from whose restraint they can never escape. The leaves cannot run away from the limit of their rhizome. The relation between the rhizome and its leaves is that of depth, that between essence and appearance, between foundation and derivation, between truth and falsity, and above all, that of stratification. The rhizome is always the determining element of the leaves. In this philosophical way of thinking as a tree, emerges a quality of absolutism, of monopolism, and of autocraticism. The rhizome is the hegemony of the leaves which, wherever they sway violently, must be rooted in the rhizome. But one of the philosophical objectives of Deleuze is to  eradicate the philosophical way of thinking as a tree, and opposed to it, he proposes a way of philosophical thinking as a rhizome: a way of thinking as a rhizome. The rhizome is horizontal, spreading, and penetrating aimlessly. It has a possibility of endless extension, which is a way of thinking as difference. Between the absolutist vertical philosophy of tree and differential horizontal philosophy of rhizome, Deleuze chooses the latter. The direction of the rhizome is not dominated by violence and logical reasoning, on the contrary, it eliminates ontology, destroys foundation, eradicates origin and beginning, establishes differential relations without hierarchy, and finally, emerges endlessly like a stream.

As we have seen, The Flow repudiates not only the philosophy of tree, but also the mode of thinking as is demonstrated by this philosophy. The two artists seem to know nothing about Deleuze, but surprisingly this is a vivid realization of Deleuzian philosophy, the core of which is exactly “flow”. Here art and philosophy unexpectedly come into one. In the work, the tree occupies a peculiar space; it is not vertically planted, but horizontally. The tree is an integrated whole (it remains to be a tree lying horizontally on the ground), but it is also segmented, discontinued, and placed in three different spaces with leaves, trunk and rhizome cut into three pieces. The tree is put into its own conflicts, paradoxes and contradictions, into the conflict between its instinct for totality and its desire for difference. What are the relations among leaves, trunk, and rhizome? They are not only integrated but also different; not only related but also differentiated; not only connected but also separated. The tree keeps its own logic, but this is a logic full of paradoxes. Here, in the absolutist philosophy of tree, difference silently submerges into it and constantly harasses the philosophical thinking of tree. Driven by the artists’ desire for difference, the verticality of the tree is destroyed, and the hegemonic, parasitic, and deterministic relations between rhizome and leaves are destroyed. We see that the rhizome and the leaves are placed in two transparent glass boxes with exact spaces, sharing the same plains, status, strata, and brightness. The rhizome is not buried in the leaves so as to become its hidden truth, and the leaves are no longer the terminal demonstration of the rhizome. These are two open spaces of democracy and equality in which the leaves and the rhizome are transparently disclosed with their relations overtly dismissing any power and shadow. Here, the use of glass is meaningful. It is both self-closed and openly transparent; it has its own special space but not to let it fall into isolated night. The rhizome and the leaves are taking each other’s sunshine. How about the trunk? It is no longer an upright transition, no longer the bridge that connects the rhizome and the leaves. The trunk is round, embracing, netlike, and anti-deterministic. Here, the dominant function of the rhizome to the leaves is reversed, and by now, they are winding round each other, and are subjects of each other. This is a democratic, coordinate, and equivalent relation, which is anti-stratification, without beginning and origin, and always in a process of becoming, changing and flowing.

The Flow can therefore be seen as a critique of absolutist and hegemonic way of thinking, and not a sentimental critique of environment and nature. This is not the weeping tree in the eye of environmentalists, but the thinking tree of Deleuze. Tree is not a sign of sentiments, but a sign of image and philosophy. This tree, or the equipment of the tree, can also grow, shift, flow, whose parts and whole, time and space, rhizome and leaves, are not fixed. Here, the tree is out of its muddy context and into a totally strange space of exhibition. Sooner or later it will blindly leave here by means of its wheels, and find its temporary position in another space, and then leave again. Yes, the tree will escape from its rhizome for the time being. Why should it always be planted in the mud?

Modern art is heading for a sensitive direction. The artists are inclined to exaggerate the power of their images, and artistic production is becoming a competition of images. Decoration, exaggeration, violence, satire, and arrogance are the shared qualities of these images. They are possibly of the body, but could also be of the shallow body. Though such work as The Flow has no threatening power of the images, in it I could see another kind of ambition, the revivification of the age-old craftsmanship: art remains to be representation of philosophy.