“Seeing by Infinite profundity” has two strata in meaning: on the one hand, it aims to thoroughly observe and grasp objects with unconventional wisdom; on the other hand, it refers to the spiritual universe.
　　The so-called “conceptual photography” characteristic of impetuosity and superficiality has been surpassed in Tianyuan’s photographic art. His art has entered the spiritual world precisely because he has reconsidered the problems in space and time.
　　From the birth of photography, its aesthetic features have been established with its mechanical optical principle gradually submitting to human visual experience. Anyway, what we call “standard lens” is defined for some focal distance of optical lens by human “normal visual angle and field”, while the lens beyond the above range such as “wide-angle lens” and “long-focus lens” are both regarded as “the other” of human normal visual threshold. The aesthetics represented by the “standard lens” exemplified exactly the human ambition to impose his visual experience on the machine. In effect, the unification between the photographic principles of focal-point perspective and instant image formation and the human visual experience can hardly be achieved, which has already been demonstrated by visual psychology.
　　Under the above premise, microphotography and spatiophotography born of the composite of optical lens can merely serve as visual instruments for scientific research all along. This reality implies an ontological basis for spatial sense. Qian Xuesen, the Chinese scientist, has ever put forward “five views” to explain the essence or arche of the world. He said, “There are only macro and micro views in our past recognition of the material world. Such things as people, houses, and the Earth can be classified into macro stratum, while micro view is concerned with quantum mechanics, which goes deep into the world composed of molecule, atom, atomic nucleus and particle. However, Dai Wensai, the Chinese astronomer, has added another one called spatial view which is as large as the Galaxy, approximately 100 thousand light years. Recently, the physicists has not only discovered another stratum under the microcosm which is called supermicro view, but also a larger stratum above the spatial view, which I name universal view. Hence, we have five views, namely universal view, spatial view, macro view, micro view, and supermicro view, rather than three views now.” Therefore, there exist five strata or five views in the material world in fact. But the classical aesthetics of photography has been interpreted by the ontology of our macro experience all the time, which certainly will lead to a kind of positivism and formulism or an empirical theory of “the total examples”. The realization of the different strata (five views) enables us to expand our ordinary visual experience into a mechanical visual aesthetics of photography as well as to probe the spatial spirituality of the universe.
　　Once one places himself in an environment alien from his ordinarily experienced space, such as facing the remote Galaxy, the vast ocean, the towering mountains and pouring rivers, he can not help exclaiming how many the gone days are and how short one’s life is. This is the proof that our different spatial experience can induce different temporal realization in us. Modern theoretical physics has also verified the unity between space and time. The premodern physics based upon Isaac Newton’s theory holds the idea that there is not any direct relationship between space and time as separate entities. In 1905, Einstein published his theory of relativity which can be summarized as follows: When an object moves, its quality will increase along with its faster and faster movement, and at the same time space and time will vary accordingly. The theory of relativity breaks up the absolute spatio-temporal 　　conception and points out that time, space, and the object’s quality can vary with the object’s movement rather than remaining unchanged. It is really hard for us to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity in our everyday life since the visible normal motion is far slower than the velocity of light so that we have no way to perceive the effect described by Einstein’s theory of relativity, that is the length becomes shorter and the clock slows down. Nevertheless, if the movement approximate to the velocity of light can be realized, a man moving at such speed just seems like a single line in the eyes of a static watcher. Another phenomenon can also happen: A man, who comes back home after a year’s interplanetary travel, has to face his son, an old man with white hair now, but he himself is still as young as before. The ancient Chinese saying, “One day in Heaven is one year on Earth”, can best explained by the theory of relativity. We should say that the theory of relativity has radically transformed the traditional physics in three aspects: It has amended the limited spatio-temporal view by denying the absolutism in classical dynamics, established a brand –new view of motion and matter by deep revelation of the spatio-temporal essence, and provided a methodological foundation for us to probe the universal spirituality as well.
　　Taking the above conception as his theoretic basis, Li Tianyuan, in his series Tianyuan Space Station, has attempted to approach the primary mechanical aesthetics and thus produced a visual world for us to experience the spatio-temporal spirituality. Actually, his photographic art neither confirms to the aesthetics of classical photography nor caters for the theories of postmodern photography. On the contrary, his art possesses a kind of aesthetic trait of “pure technology”, which only appeared at the birth of photography, and is even correspondent to the traditional Chinese world and life outlook to some extent. On the one hand, the aesthetic trait of “pure technology” conveyed in his work exhibits the subtlety and delicacy of image itself produced by the light’s effect on film in a period. On the other hand, the traditional Chinese world and life outlook reflected in his work, just like Chuang Tzu’s idea clarified in his The Equality of Things and Opinions as follows, “Heaven and Earth are both born with me, and all things are identical with me”, underlines that Nature and man are an organic whole of life, advocates the interaction and interchange between all things and man, and invites us to lend an attentive ear to “the Music of Nature”, that is the sound of no sound, the source of all sounds. In this way, the opposition between “all things” and “me”, space and time can be eliminated; the bonds of mortality, values, ideas, reason, care, and fear can be burst; and it is possible for us to step across “infinite” threshold for a “happy excursion” on which “the identification with all things” can be achieved.
　　In Tianyuan Space Station: Portrait of Li Tianyuan, the microphotograph and satellite image are all combined with the photographer’s own portrait in real vision. Struck by such a triplicate structure composed of macro, micro and middle views, we can perceive the chronological historicity as well as the simultaneous spatio-temporality. Overlooked from the high sky, the Earth, which must be understood by indirect knowledge in normal condition, would change into a visible “dot” within direct visual threshold. At that time, a feeling of eternity and a regret at mortality rises of itself. On the contrary, once the conception of “man” is decomposed into cells or particles, both of our stereotyped natural and social identities don’t exist any more. Then, is there any difference between “this” present cell and “that” cell which ever existed long long ago? All the varieties and complicacies in society and history are hence condensed into a fixed original dot. At present, lost in the spatio-temporal and historical fluctuation and upheavals, we seem to hear Chuang Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage, saying “Heaven and Earth are born with me, and all things are identical with me”.
　　In producing Tianyuan Space Station: Atmosphere, the photographer at first collected rain, snow, frost, dew, and dust on a sheet of transparent glass and then had such a natural creation fixed by camera. From an objective point of view, there is a spatial correlation between the pure “Nature” before the lens and the “creation” on the glass. Du Fu, the ancient Chinese poet, wrote two famous lines as follows, “Nature puts all miracle and beauty together, and the sunshine turns the mountain into half dusk and half dawn”, which mean that the spatial variations are caused by the temporal change and summation, and the temporal flow is also measured by the different movements in space. Therefore, there occurs the reconstruction and correspondence between time and space, or spirituality and materiality. Can we perceive all the different kinds of variety and subtlety in the universe when we quietly observe a drop of dew rolling on the glass? There really exists some temporal correspondence among all things in the universe, which is well illustrated by the words in a Buddhist hymn, that is, “a flower is a world, and a leaf is a bodhi tree”. Buddha once said, “We have as many Ganges rivers as all the sand in one Ganges river, and we have as many lands of Ultimate Bliss as all the sand in all the Ganges rivers. Is it not sufficient yet?” It is the universal varieties such as reality and illusion, truth and lie, motion and standstill that give birth to the natural beauty. But it is the infinite space, time, meaning, and value in striking contrast with our finite life that bring about our pain of “ignorance”. What we can do is to see at quiet and by profundity, to deal with the changing Nature in an unchanged view, that is to say, to comply with the essence of Nature, to go from loss to enlightenment, to turn knowledge into wisdom. In this sense, the so-called “temporal” factor seems to be a superficial appearance, and our destination should be the ideal place in which we are “identical with bright and dust”.
　　Tianyuan Space Station: Fish and Tianyuan Space Station: Water are more like hypotheses or allegories, which represent the meaning and situation of our existence in a kind of magic realistic technique.
　　In short, in his series Tianyuan Space Station representative of his present photographic art, Li Tianyuan on the one hand has stressed the “ice-cold” nature of mechanical aesthetics of image itself in the way of “tranquil seeing” in order to wipe the sociological and ideological filth off image and to gaze into the spiritual essence of the universe; on the other hand, he has reconsidered the spatio-temporal conception to express the abstract and profound Eastern philosophy and wisdom in visual art, thereby speculating upon the real spatio-temporal relationship hidden behind appearance.
                                      Translated by Cao Leiyu      
 

作者：Wu,Hong