2026 Process Cinema Project
酚循環：
汀甫圳的低碳影像實踐
The Phenolic Cycle:
Low-Carbon Image Practices in the
Tingfu Canal
// The Phenolic Cycle: Low-Carbon Image Practices in the Tingfu Canal
＃Phenolic Cycle ＃the Sixth Fuel Factory
＃Tingfu Canal＃Small-File Ecomedia
＃1.44MB ＃Low-Carbon Image
// Lecturer：Hsin-I, LIN. Associate Professor Department of Arts & Design NTHU
// 酚循環：汀甫圳的低碳影像實踐
＃酚循環 ＃新竹六燃 ＃汀甫圳
＃小檔案生態電影 ＃1.44MB ＃低碳影像
// 計劃主持：林欣怡．清大藝設系副教授
// 參與者：施懿純、黃彥寧、張佳妮、蔣皓任、謝杉杉、詹雲涵、李佩霖、盧沛璇、黄紫彤、關雨諾、賴希帆、殷語彤、張佳筠、劉紜辰、楊雅涵、尹沛螢、王宜巧、林楷育、施亦恬、楊純鑾、呂盈蓉、陳含瑜
// 助理：彭佳筠、鄧宇琇、蔡佩君
// 國立清華大學場景實驗室
// 國立陽明交通大學｜大學社會責任實踐計畫｜新竹六燃作為想像共同體：建構生態—文化永續體｜綠色顯影工作坊（2026）
// This project adopts the “Six-Fuel” (Imperial Japanese Navy 6th Fuel Factory) chimney and the Tingfu Canal in Hsinchu as its spatio-temporal coordinates, launching an cinematic experiment that traces the transition from military-industrial metabolism to ecological rheology. As a relic of World War II, the Six-Fuel chimney once functioned as a colossal “hardware processor” for refining wartime propulsion, while the Tingfu Canal serves as a horizontal artery carrying the pulse of the land.
Adhering to “Small-File Ecomedia” standards, we compress the video bitrate to a radical limit of 1.44MB, forcing the virtual, high-definition fluid to revert into a low-bandwidth cinema defined by granular materiality. At the heart of this practice is the “Phenolic Cycle“: we harvest plant-based phenolic developers from the Tingfu Canal basin to conduct antagonistic experiments on 35mm film and photo paper through Phytograms and Chemigrams.
The resulting images are no longer products of energy-intensive digital rendering; instead, they are traces of “carbon sequestration“—the result of a chemical dialogue between plant energy and silver halide grains under sunlight. This is an act of “Site-as-Lab” centered on restraint. Within a shattered, low-bit aesthetic, this project seeks a “small-but-resilient” survival strategy, reconnecting the image to the earth.
// 本計畫以新竹「六燃」大煙囪與「汀甫圳」為時空座標，開展從軍事工業代謝到生態流變的影像實驗。六燃煙囪作為二戰遺構，曾是精煉戰爭動力的巨型「硬體處理器」；而汀甫圳則是承載土地脈動的水平動脈。透過「小檔案生態電影」標準，我們將影像位元率壓縮至每分鐘 1.44MB，迫使虛擬的高清流體回歸為具備顆粒質感的低頻寬電影。
實踐核心聚焦於「酚循環」，採集汀甫圳流域的植物萃取酚類顯影劑，在 35mm 底片與相紙上進行 Phytogram 與 Chemigram 的對抗實驗。影像不再是耗能電力的渲染產物，而是植物化學能與銀鹽顆粒在陽光下的「固碳」留跡。這是一場關於節制的「場所實驗室」行動，在低位元的碎裂美學中，找回影像與土地重新連結的「小而韌」生存策略。
The spatial topology of Hsinchu is woven from vertical military remains and horizontal ecological waterways. The 60-meter chimney of the “Six-Fuel” (Imperial Japanese Navy 6th Fuel Factory), soaring into the sky as an industrial metabolic relic of World War II, stands as a symbol of fossil energy and the apparatus of wartime propulsion. Running parallel to it is the “Tingfu Canal”—the city’s horizontal artery. From agricultural irrigation to industrial cooling cycles, the canal has witnessed a slow shift in the nature of energy and matter.
The Green Photography project takes this as its point of departure, shifting image production away from “energy-intensive industrial hardware” toward the low-carbon cycles of the Tingfu Canal basin. By utilizing the waterway and plant-based phenolic developers, the project harvests a de-carbonized image and a “low-bit” aesthetic of the fragmented.
新竹這座城市的空間拓撲，由垂直的軍事遺構與水平的生態水路共同交織。「六燃」海軍第六燃料廠高聳的 60 公尺煙囪，作為二戰時期的工業代謝遺構，象徵著化石能源與戰爭動力的供給表徵。與之並行的「汀甫圳」，則是這座城市的水平動脈，從農田灌溉到冷卻循環，它見證了能源與物質的緩慢轉向。〈綠色顯影〉計畫以此為起點，將影像生產從「高能耗的工業硬體」位移，轉向汀甫圳流域的低碳循環，透過水路與植物的酚顯影劑，採集一種脫碳影像與低位元的影像美學。
In his seminal essay There is no Software, Friedrich Kittler issued a stern warning for the new media age: software is merely an extension of hardware at the level of voltage. For Kittler, high-level programming languages serve only as a “shading away,” a veil to obscure the machine’s inhuman and cold logic of electrical operations. All windows, interfaces, and commands must ultimately collapse back into the logic gate switches on a silicon wafer.
When this perspective is transposed into the historical context of the “Six-Fuel” factory, the 60-meter chimney is transformed from a mere architectural symbol into the literal “Hardware Reality” of the industrial era. During World War II, this chimney and its interconnected refining system functioned as a gargantuan “hardware processor.” It did not process bits; it processed molecules. Within the fractionation towers, crude oil was “encoded” into propulsion based on its physical properties. This was an era of physical computation without a software interface, where every result acted directly upon the transformation of matter.
The Green Developing project adopts the production standards of “Small-File Ecomedia.” By radicalizing the video bitrate to a capacity of 1.44MB per minute, it demands that digital images retreat from the liquefaction of software and return to a low-bandwidth cinema of granular materiality.
基特勒（Friedrich Kittler）在《沒有軟體這回事》（There is no Software）中拋出了一個關於新媒體時代的警語：「軟體只是硬體在電壓層面的延伸。」 對基特勒而言，軟體的高階語言只是一層遮蔽（Shading away），用以掩蓋機器那種非人（Inhuman）、冷酷的電壓運作邏輯。所有的視窗、界面與指令，最終都必須崩解回矽晶圓上的邏輯門開關。
若將此觀點帶入六燃的歷史語境，那座高達 60 公尺的「大煙囪」就不僅是一個建築符號，它本質上就是工業時代的「硬體現實」。在二戰期間，這座煙囪與其連結的精煉系統，即為一個巨型的「硬體處理器」。它不處理位元，而是處理「分子」。原油在分餾塔中根據物理特性被「編碼」為動力。這是一個沒有軟體介面的物理運算時代，所有的結果都直接作用於物質的變形。〈綠色顯影〉計畫取徑「小檔案生態電影」（Small-File Ecomedia）的影像生產標準，透過將影像位元率降至每分鐘 1.44MB 的容量，要求數位影像從軟體的液態化中回歸為具顆粒狀物質性的低頻寬電影。
If the “Six-Fuel” chimney represents a “high-energy” hardware order, the “Phenolic Cycle” initiated along the Tingfu Canal serves as a proactive response to ecological ethics. Within this watershed, we harvest indigenous plants such as the Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) and Coatbuttons (Bidens pilosa) to extract their natural phenolic compounds (Phenols) for use as photographic developers. Here, image production bypasses the energy-intensive silicon cycle and digital rendering, drawing instead upon the chemical energy stored through plant photosynthesis.
Through the practices of Phytograms (35mm film) and Chemigrams (5×7 inch photo paper), we suture topographical data with physical resistance. Every trace of corrosion and scorching on the emulsion is a slow-motion confrontation between phenolic molecules and silver halide grains under the sun’s radiation. This “low-bit” visual language quantifies the transition from the “high-definition” toward a process of low-carbon sequestration.
如果六燃煙囪代表「高耗能」的硬體秩序，在汀甫圳開展的「酚循環（Phenolic Cycle）」則是對生態倫理的主動回應。我們在流域內採集構樹、大花咸豐草等在地植物，提取其天然的多酚化合物（Phenols）作為顯影劑。影像的生產不透過高能耗的矽循環與電力渲染，而是來自於植物光合作用所儲存的化學能。
經由 Phytogram（35mm 底片）與 Chemigram（5×7 吋相紙）的實踐，我們將地誌數據與物理阻力進行縫合。影像的每一道腐蝕與燒灼的痕跡，都是酚分子與銀鹽顆粒在日照下的緩慢對抗。這種「低位元」的視覺語言，量化了從「高畫質」轉向「低碳固碳」的過程。
The core significance of “Site-as-Lab” lies in perceiving urban waterways as productive pathways. Within the botanical traces on the film, the industrial legacy of the “Six-Fuel” factory and the natural pulsation of the Tingfu Canal forge a new correspondence, attaining a form of topographical authenticity.
Such practice responds to the aesthetic posture of low-bit imagery: a “small-but-resilient” survival strategy. Through the radical compression of 1.44MB, we re-expose the physical weight of the image. In the low-velocity movement of phenolic molecules, we rediscover the possibility of reconnecting with the land.
「場所實驗室（Site as Lab）」的核心意義在於：將城市水路視為具備生產力的路徑。在底片的植物殘影中，六燃的工業遺緒與汀甫圳的自然脈動產生了新的對應，具備了地誌學的真實性。這樣的實踐回應了低位元影像的美姿態：一種「小而韌」的生存策略。我們在 1.44MB 的壓縮中，重新揭露影像的重量，並在酚分子的低速運動中，找回了與土地重新連結的可能。