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Xu(許) Ke(可) Ying(盈) (2021)
Xu(許) Ke(可) Ying(盈) is a visual representation of my identity through the exploration of language and culture. The work raises concerns on the lack of cultural knowledge people share in contemporary society, perhaps due to ignorance or the downplay of language as a form of communication. In this work, I use my cultural background as an advantage to share knowledge about Chinese calligraphy. From a young age, I have practiced writing Chinese characters in order to memorise its brushstrokes and meaning. In this work, I invite the audience as a participant member to write my Chinese name three times consecutively using traditional Chinese calligraphy ink and paper.
Chinese Calligraphy & Background
In Chinese culture, each character is written in a specific order known as "bìhuà" (筆畫). In this performative piece, participants with no prior knowledge of Chinese culture wrote the brushstrokes incorrectly, causing the characters to gradually become illegible. This raises the question: Can Chinese characters lose their meaning when written incorrectly? Through this work, I aim to explore how my name and identity transform from something personal into a shared element. Audience engagement is crucial, as it reveals how each participant adapts to my Chinese name.
My Chinese surname '(許)' was extracted from the illegible characters and transformed into lino-prints, each representing a unique character. The time-consuming process of creating each lino-print by hand helped me build a deeper connection with own my name. By working with the characters originally written by other participants, I am revisiting my Chinese surname from a new perspective. I am no longer reading my own surname; instead, I am looking at a completely different "character."
Overall, the collection of works invites the viewer to reflect on the presence of life and existence. How does the world around us evolve? What are the current situations in society that have alternated our presence and importance? How do humans cope with the ever-changing forms of life?
A total of forty-nine variations of the same Chinese character ‘許’ was created. Each lino-print is traditionally hand cut, this retains the ambiguity and uniqueness of each character. Each character has its own form of ‘error’ and ‘mistake’, the imperfections within each lino print in return becomes the beauty of the artwork.
The process of writing the Chinese characters itself becomes a performative agent in the work. This documentation process becomes another piece of artwork. Through the brushstrokes from each participant, it unveils a hidden a language barrier throughout the process of writing the characters.
Research: XU BING 徐冰
Xu Bing’s method of hand printing and printmaking is predominantly used within his works to promote cultural understanding of text in Asian cultures, as well as reconsidering pictorial multiplicity as a form of creative process in materiality and visual representation. As Xu Bing claims, “printmaking is an indirect form of drawing, as well as the element of repetition that characterizes the medium” (Bing, 1988). In ‘Five Series of Repetitions’ the artist uses print-making to revisit his markings by transferring each print onto a new surface. This is applicable in my work – by creating lino-prints of different variations of the same character, it generates multiple copies of my ‘identity’ which is now shared between strangers. Thus, the ‘characters’ in these lino prints loses its original meaning and origin.
In Book from the Sky, Xu Bing challenges the cultural understanding of text and language by creating thousands of meaningless characters that look like Chinese (Bing, 1991). From my previous experience and childish acts, writing English characters on Xuan paper (traditional rice paper) was seen as an offence to Chinese culture. As a result, my work seems to receive different reactions from Chinese viewers, since the meaningless/false characters appear to have upset intellectuals. This became too overwhelming for Chinese audiences and their beliefs in Asian culture.