请允许我先描述这样的一个情景：在很久很久以前，陆地上出现了一种叫作“人类”的生物。他们拥有一对明亮的视觉器官———眼睛，还拥有一个构造复杂且精密的高级神经中枢———大脑。所以，人类以此来持续获得对外部世界及所有事物的认知信息，并为此而感到幸运和骄傲。
对了，也许这只是在“很久很久以前”。
在今天，在一个全新的、瞬息万变的数字化时代里，信息的组织与传播呈现出了截然不同的局面。于是，人类开始怀疑那曾经忠实于自己的眼睛，人类开始质疑从那里转变成的神经信号的真实性。迷惘，不断地蔓延；恐惧，不由得滋生。视觉器官逐渐丧失了原来的敏感，神经中枢的运转也随之被弱化，甚至出现了“麻木”、“停滞”和“失控”等症状。
舒杰的“网络标准表情”正是在这样的一个时代应运而生。在一系列从上世纪90年代后期开始创作的图片作品中，现实世界里的所有人物的眼睛都幻化成了一对“肉团”，而脸上挂着的，则是统一的被扭曲的笑容。对于这样的一种异化形象，在受众中引起了一定的争议，甚至被批评为“极其恐怖和恶心”的产物。试问，有谁又仔细地想过，舒杰所乐于翻刻的这些“标准化”产品，正是在21世纪里我们共同面临着经济体制、社会结构、文化模式、价值观念等领域的裂变而催生的“后遗症”。作者在肆虐着人们日常生活的网络社区、论坛、聊天室、QQ和MSN这样的介于真实与虚拟之间的“异度空间”中，捕捉到了一个个已经成为人们彼此间进行情感沟通和思想交流的媒介———“网络标准表情”。它的恐怖，它的争议，正是由于艺术家的“直面”，那是舒杰在这发生着如同井喷般的变化的时代中，对现实生活的一次精神审思，对视神经出现“衰退”的一次省思。
当话题被顺利地转移到“眼睛”之上，当人们还为“网络标准表情”争论不休、不得其解之际，舒杰又来了一次180度的转弯，出人意料地让那蜕变成“肉团”的眼睛轻轻地、悄悄地眯开一条细小的缝。
那是8月17日，那是一个名为“小眼看世界”的个人作品展，舒杰的“触须”从图片伸向了画布，他把数码输出的程式化符号变成了架上绘画的象征性迹象。通过现场展出的六幅油画新作，人们惊讶地发现以往那种恐怖的角色形象统统换成了一个个可爱娇艳的美女。尽管舒杰还没有为其命名，但画面中的美女与玩偶所形成的细腻、艳丽、欲望、时尚、脆弱、肤浅、暴力、空虚、无聊、无助并存的异样景观，清楚地看到这是艺术家把“网络文化放入现实文化”一贯的语汇特征又一次探索和延续。
画中，“小眼睛”的设计并没有让美女延续了之前“网络标准表情”的突兀和异样，反而以一种或贪婪、或妩媚、或罪恶的性感示人，并通过具象形象的另类隐喻来昭示着人们在数字化时代中的生存境遇。正如舒杰所说，“小眼睛”是真实存在的。只是数字化时代像旋涡一样将我们卷入了“虚拟”中去。虚者，即不完全真实的现实；拟者，即比梦还恍惚倏忽的状态。置身其中，使得我们的感官系统逾发变得很“小”，尤其是“眼睛”。这个承载着我们大脑中大约有一半的知识和记忆的感观器官，受到了前所未有的威胁和侵袭。
如今，舒杰滤掉了作品一直以来的“恐怖”印象，正是要在虚拟与现实这个相对统一的国度里，以小小的眼睛来探索着让人们迷失自我的时代景观。虚拟众生者，具有狂欢的本质，它是解放人类的普罗米修斯，也是出卖基督耶稣的犹大。从中，人类觅得文明延伸的肇端和摇篮。不过，或许也终成人类自掘的墓地。舒杰在油画样式的转换下，“肉团”的混沌被迫接受无法逃避的“真相”，小眼看世界，看到了现实与梦想被欲望、技术、金钱、权力、暴力切割得支离破碎的场景，一切都定格在方寸的画布之上。迷幻、阴冷又带有点香艳的气息，让艺术家的“眼睛”记录了当下一个赤裸裸的无奈的个体体验，这是潜藏于思考状态中的一种精神诉求。小眼睛，清楚地反映了人类的欲望，也彻底揭露了真相的细节。
“活在生机蓬勃、物质过剩的钢筋森林里的我们，眼睛确实已经变得越来越小。”就像策展人白湧说的一样，当我们面对一个时代催生的事实之际，当我们站在仅有的一条视觉的边沿界之上，“小眼睛”所带来的内观审思正是不可多得的冷静与独立。
从“网络标准表情”到“小眼看世界”，舒杰既是思考者，也是实践者。正是这样一个不太爱说话的人，正是这样一个十几年以来几乎不在艺术圈“活动”的人，舒杰以其构建在视觉边沿上的一种独特的艺术语言，诱导着甚至是强迫着他者在饕餮狂欢的虚拟与现实的临界处，返顾本我，从人类最原始的视觉器官出发，在前进中重新学会“审思”。

Please allow me to describe the following scene first: A long, long time ago, a species named "Homo erectus" appeared on the surface of the earth. These creatures have a pair of splendid visual sense organs and we call them "eyes". They also have a complicated and sophisticated nerve center: brain. With the two tools, human beings have the cognitive ability to understand everything in the world and they feel lucky and proud about it.

Sadly, the scene only depicts the reality "a long, long time ago".

In the contemporary digital era where things are changing at a dazzling speed, the organization and communication of information have taken a completely new shape. People start to question the "loyalty" of their own eyes. They start to question the authenticity of the neural signals they receive from their visual system. Confusion and fear begin to emerge and spread. Our visual sense organs gradually lose their sensitivity. The role of our advanced nerve center is also weakened, leading to symptoms like "indifference", "stagnation" and "loss of control".
"Standard Internet Emotion Icons" by Shu Jie was created against the backdrop of the contemporary era. In this series that he started in the late 1990s, all the figures have a couple of "meat balls" as their eyes and twisted smiles on their faces. These pictures stirred controversy among the audience. Some criticized them as "extremely horrible and disturbing." In fact, these works are anything but "standard". They represent the "sequelae" of the nuclear-fission-like changes in economic systems, social structures, cultural models, values and beliefs in the 21st century. The artist was inspired by the "standard emotional icons" in the "parallel cyber universe" consisting of on-line communities, forums, chat-rooms, QQ and MSN instant messages that have become omnipresent in our daily lives. These icons have turned into a major medium of emotional communication and exchanges of thoughts in the cyber-space that is neither realistic nor virtual. The "horrible" aspect of these works and the controversy that accompanied it were a result of the artist's effort to "confront" the reality. They demonstrate the reflection by the artist on the contemporary world featuring drastic reforms and on the "degeneration" of our visual nerves.

Just when our attention was attracted on the "eyes" in his works and arguments were still heated on his "Standard Internet Emotional Icons", Shu Jie took a 180-degree turn and we find all figures in his latest works have a pair of half-open, half-closed eyes that are narrowed into a slit instead of a couple of "meat balls".

These works were first shown in his solo show "Small Eye Look World" that opened on August 17. Shu Jie abandoned his original medium of photography and chose oil painting to express himself. He replaced the digital output of programmed signals with the symbolism of easel painting. In the exhibition, audience found to their surprise that all six paintings featured lovely beauties instead of "horrible figures". The artist hasn't come up with any titles yet, but we could clearly see that this is another attempt made by the artist to "put cyber culture into the context of real-life culture". A strange scene was created by his juxtaposition of beauties and dolls on the canvases that convey a mixed sense of subtlety, colorfulness, desire, fashion, fragility, superficiality, violence, emptiness, boredom and helplessness.

The beauties with "small eyes" in the paintings don't look as abrupt or strange as the figures in the "Standard Internet Emotion Icons" series. They appear either greedy, or charming, or criminally sexy and represent our living conditions in the digital era in a strangely metaphorical manner. As Shu Jie pointed out, "small eyes" exist in the real world. But we are sucked into the swirl of a "virtual world", a world with "virtual" reality where everyone is in a dreamy state. Our stay in that world contributes to the "degeneration" of our senses, in particular our eyes. This organ responsible for supplying half of the knowledge and memories to our brain has received unprecedented threat and intrusion.

Shu Jie filters out all the "horrible" aspects in his latest works and attempts to explore with small eyes the current era that integrates the virtual and real world, an era that makes a lot of people lose themselves. The virtual world provides a venue for a grand carnival to which everyone is invited. It can be compared to Prometheus that liberated the entire humanity and Judas that betrayed Jesus. The human civilization can further develop in the virtual world, yet it might become an ultimate graveyard for the human race. In the paintings of Shu Jie, previously closed eyes ("meat balls") were forced to open up to face the "truth". He successfully depicts a scene where reality and dream are broken into pieces by desire, technology, money, power and violence. The works have a sense of hallucination, bleakness and sexiness and the "eyes" in them record the harsh experiences of countless individuals, which is an integral part of the artist's spiritual pursuit. So I believe "small eyes" represent human desire and reveal truth in a detailed way.

Bai Yong, the curator of Shu Jie's solo show, once remarked, "Living in a booming concrete jungle with excessive goods, our eyes are getting smaller and smaller." As we are standing on the threshold of a visual revolution, the reflection of our inner-self brought about by the "small eyes" would keep us cool-headed and independent, which are very precious and rare qualities in this brand-new era.

The creation of "Standard Internet Emotion Icons" and "Small Eye Look World" shows that Shu Jie is both a thinker and doer. As a man of few words who has practically shunned himself from the artistic community in the past decade, the artist has constructed his own artistic language centering on human vision and encourages (or even forces) people in the carnival at the border between the virtual and real world to return to their "Id" and re-learn how to "think" with the help of the original human visual sense organ.