Railing Codex /ˈreɪlɪŋ ˈkəʊdɛks/ 名词

1. 一个写作项目，由栏杆外于2022年四月发起，同年六月正式发布

2. 一部不断扩充的词典，每册收录二十位写作者创作的二十个词条解释，由作者们从特定词库中选择，并以任意方式、任意语言诠释

3. 一场接力，其中每位写作者从完成的词条中选择另一个词语，加入下一册的词库，并邀请另一名作者参与下册的写作

4. 一则故事，内容如下：

去年秋天，我们告别了在上海的实体空间，随后开始着手修改栏杆外的简介。如何精确地描述我们自己一直是一道难题：“机构”显得自视甚高，“组织”又有着些奇怪的古板气息。所幸，那时我们有一处空间，而任何接在“栏杆外是一个空间”后面的话都显得自然而然。 如今不再能求助于“空间”，我们又回到了起点。我们在公众号上发表的第一篇文章题为《栏杆外有什么》，现在则要刨根追问：栏杆外是什么？我们知道的是，栏杆外成立时，也就诞生了“栏杆外”这个自造词。词语背后的故事我们倒是熟稔。我们在维基百科上发现“栏杆”的词条如是说：“一般情况下，栏杆是一个边界部件。” 这种措辞严谨却古怪的定义令我们着迷。意味着“边界”的词语，自身的边界正在被划定，却好像变得开阔起来：某种入口向我们打开，通向它所不是的、在它之外的一切。什么是“非一般的情况”？在非一般情况下，“栏杆”是否就意味着它的反义词？那么，“栏杆外”可不可以是“栏杆”的定义一种？如此一来，任何形态的“栏杆”——家门口的，机场海关旁的，文化、国别、语言四周的——是否也就蕴含着对栏杆的跨越？ 这些逻辑是否经得起严苛推敲不论，作为一种思维上的跨栏训练，却似乎能在这个处处埋伏着栏杆的世界，给我们带来一些什么。于是，在栏杆外成立的一年多后，我们把“词语”看成下一个有待跨越的栏杆，开启了 Railing Codex。如上述定义，Railing Codex是一个写作项目，邀请不同的写作者为各类词语撰写词条，这些词语由作者们从特定词库中挑选。项目分期展开，而词条也相应地收录成册，汇成一部不断扩充的词典、一本共同撰写的百科全书。 今年四月，我们同第一批作者一起开始了Railing Codex第一册的编撰，并在五月完成。第一册的词库与栏杆外的关系颇深。在栏杆外正式成立前，我们曾在一个谷歌文档上随手记录初期的点子与灵感。这个文档中有几页尽是单词，看上去零零散散，却包罗万象，涉及日常物品与行为、建筑部件、数学概念、地质学名词。“栏杆”也位列其中：

这是我们为自己取名时的头脑风暴的成果。最终“栏杆”脱颖而出，“栏杆外”随之而生，而其余的词变成了比赛中落败并无人问津的第二名，失落在这座小型辞海。我们一直没有忘记这些差一点可能就成为了栏杆外的词，于是将它们系数选为Railing Codex的初始词库，供首期的二十位作者——包括了艺术家、策展人、写作者、诗人、学者、艺术从业者与栏杆外的三名组织者——挑选，并以任意的方式和语言阐释。 这是一次对栏杆外历史的打捞，也是对这些词语的营救行动。栏杆外策划项目的核心，总是要回归于最初与那个维基词条的碰撞，那次专注于平常词语的思索、想象与延展。营救词语，意味着把它从既有的定义与印象中解放，也是对于我们思维的放归。词语是构成我们的语言的基本单位，塑造着我们表达、沟通和认知的根本。词语平凡而广博，词典为它们工整地划分词性、类别，一册册装订捆好，为我们奉上深入浅出、手到擒来、取之不竭的知识。 我们越是熟悉词语，就越发感到它的陌生：剥去精美印刷在书页、网页和我们脑子里的含义，它是什么，又可以是什么？词语如何嫁接并渗透进我们的生活，或者，我们能怎样让生活、体验、情绪渗透进词语，渗透进词典？某一刻，油墨殷染，纸张软烂，然后我们就可以将知识重新塑型，像捏一块陶泥，让属于个人、信仰真实的意义拔地而起，作为我们的另一种宝典。 到那时，栏杆的宝典也会从栏杆外中解放，来到栏杆外之外的地方。Railing Codex 中收录的每一则词条，都会标记出另一个词，由词条的作者挑选。这些新词将会被纳入下一册的词库，而这些作者也将每人邀请一名新的参与者，来诠释它们。词语的跨栏是一场接力赛，栏杆外不负责决定它的终点，而它最好没有终点——我们也想知道，栏杆外之外能延续到哪里。 在起点的地方，我们想分享修改后的栏杆外简介。那时Railing Codex的想法尚未萌生，但现在看来，可能早就孕育其中。这个“栏杆外”的词条，是Railing Codex的外一篇：

一般情况下，栏杆是一个边界部件；那么，栏杆外是： 松散的队列，临时的状态，失败的修辞，不自由的落体，错位的愿望，待定的猜想； 规则，犯规，聚会，例会，伏笔，笔记，拜访，旁观，意外，栏杆外； 名词，介词，副词，连词，半个歇后语——一个破折号； 钥匙？钥匙孔。

文/徐思行

Railing Codex /ˈreɪlɪŋ ˈkəʊdɛks/ noun

1. a writing project initiated by Pararailing in April 2022, officially launched in the same June

2. a dictionary with expanding volumes, each collecting twenty entries contributed by twenty writers, on words that are pre-selected by the contributors from a designated pool of words and interpreted in their own ways and languages

3. a relay, where each contributor picks out another word from their completed entry for the next volume and invites another person to contribute in that following volume

4. a story, which goes as follows:

Last fall, after bidding farewell to our physical space in Shanghai, we began working on Pararailing’s biography. Finding a fitting definition for ourselves has always been challenging: “an institution” is too pretentious, and “an organization” feels awkwardly formal. Luckily we had a space, and everything that follows “Pararailing is a space” always and automatically sounds decent.  Without “the space” as our temporary recourse, we are now back at the beginning. In the first article published on our WeChat account, we asked: “What is beyond the railing?” The question now requires a more inquisitive follow-up: what is “beyond the railing,” namely Pararailing? What we do know is that in tandem with the birth of Pararailing, the made-up word “pararailing” was also born. We are indeed familiar with the word’s backstory. We saw on Wikipedia that a railing is defined as “in general… a boundary feature.”  Odd yet particular in wording, this definition intrigued us. The boundary of the word is being set with a meaning so self-referential, that it seems to open itself up, like a portal opening to everything it is not and everything that is beyond. What are cases that are not general? Under such non-general circumstances, will the meanings of “railing” and its antonym conflate? If so, could “pararailing” become one of the definitions for “railing”, and does any railings – the ones outside of our doors, by airport customs, and around cultures, nations, and languages – carry within it a meaning of leaping over it?  Whether their logic stands up to rigorous scrutiny, in a world ambushed with railings, these rhetorical questions conjure a hurdling practice for our minds. More than a year after the founding of Pararailing, we launched Railing Codex, where “words” are our next railing to jump over. A writing project as defined above, Railing Codex invites different writers to contribute original entries for words individually picked from a designated pool. As the project continues in consecutive rounds, the collected entries bring together a dictionary of expanding volumes, a collectively written encyclopedia.  With our first cohort of contributors, we began compiling Volume 1 this past April and completed it by May. The first pool of words bears a deep connection with Pararailing. During the early days of Pararailing, we used to jot down preliminary ideas for ourselves on a Google Doc. A few pages in this Doc are dedicated to just words, seemingly arbitrary and all-encompassing, ranging from daily objects and actions to architectural elements, mathematical concepts, and geological terms. “Railing” was amongst them: 

These words were the products of a brainstorming session, where we sought a name for ourselves. In the end, “railing” came out on top, followed by the birth of “pararailing,” while the rest failed, like the unfortunate runner-ups to a competition, never made known and remained lost in this tiny sea of words. We never did forget about these words that could have become “Pararailing” and have included them all in the initial pool of words. Twenty contributors – artists, curators, writers, poets, scholars, and art professionals, including the three organizers of Pararailing – were asked to pick one word and write about it, in whatever language and format.  Salvaging a slice of history for Pararailing, the project is also a rescue mission of these words. At the core of Pararailing and our programming is that early encounter with the Wikipedia entry, where, in scrutinizing a common word, thoughts expanded into imagination. To rescue a word is to liberate it from its preexisting definitions and our impressions, by which we liberate our minds. The basic units that constitute our language, words shape the grounds on which we speak, communicate, and perceive. Words are commonplace and vast. Neatly classified by their parts of speech and meanings, words present to us knowledge in the form of dictionaries: bound into volumes, knowledge is palpable, inexhaustible, and always at hand.  A word remains unknown to us regardless of our knowledge of it. What is this word, and what else can it mean, if stripped of the imprints of books, websites, and our minds? How could words bridge up our reality, trickling down and into the streams of our life? And how could the ebbs and flows of our life, experiences, and emotions enter every word, every dictionary? At one point the ink would spread, the pages soaked; we reshape our knowledge as if kneading a piece of clay, allowing meanings to emerge. Belonging to ourselves and faithful to what is real, the meanings will compile an alternative codex of our own.  By then, the codex of railings will too be liberated from Pararailing, arriving at somewhere even further beyond. From their respective entry, each contributor picks out another word, which joins the pool for the next volume. Each would invite another writer to join that upcoming volume and write about a new set of words. The word-hurdling race is a relay; Pararailing has no power to decide its finishing line, and perhaps having no end is for the best. We are more curious than anyone to witness how far Pararailing can extend beyond itself.  At the starting line, we would like to share our revised biography for Pararailing. The text was written at a time when Railing Codex was yet to be born. In retrospect,  the idea might have been there all this time. The following definition for "Pararailing" is but another entry in the Railing Codex: 

In general, railings are a boundary feature. Pararailing is, then,  a loose procession, a provisional state, a failed rhetoric, an un-free fall, a misaligned wish, an indefinite speculation; a set of rules, a violation of rules, a gathering, a routined gathering, a foreshadowing, a note, a visit, an observation, a circumstance beyond plans, somewhere beyond railings; a noun, a preposition, an adverb, a linking word, half of a wisecrack — a long dash;  A key? A keyhole. 

Text by Sixing Xu