Abstract:

The silk banner serves as both a common social landscape and a mode of social performance. Its subjects, motivations, and effectiveness vary across different historical contexts. The evolution of silk banner performances can be observed as a transition from “performances as a means of discipline and disciplined social performances” to “performances as expressions of public opinion and the social performance of public opinion”, and finally to “performances as acts of resistance and the social performance of resistance”. Furthermore, it reflects a process of continuous down shifting, mutating, and reconstructing the discourse power associated with social evaluation. Moreover, there is a significant historical process wherein the silk banner, before the advent of modern mass media, was constructed as a primary public medium. It participated in the formation of what can be termed as a “landscape society”, ultimately evolving into a new form of social landscape.

Key words: silk banner, social performance, social landscape