Xu Bing's pictographic novel 'From Point to Point' explores universal communication through symbols
Xu Bing's novel, 'From Point to Point,' spans 112 pages and depicts a single day in the life of Mr. Black, an office employee, using solely pictograms, logos, and emoticons, devoid of any text. This work, which took seven years to develop as part of the 'Book from the Ground' initiative, seeks to establish a universal ideographic language. Key moments include Mr. Black selecting footwear from brands like Lacoste and Adidas, enjoying lunch represented by McDonald's arches, and feeling stress through emoticons. An additional volume, curated by Mathieu Borysevicz, chronicles the project and features software for translating Chinese and English into symbols. Borysevicz likens it to James Joyce's 'Ulysses' (1922), while Xu Bing recognizes the difficulty of achieving worldwide communication. This article was published in the Spring/Summer 2014 edition of ArtReview Asia.
Key facts
- Xu Bing created 'From Point to Point', a 112-page pictographic novel with no text
- The novel follows office worker Mr Black over 24 hours using symbols like logos and emoticons
- Xu Bing developed the universal ideographic language over seven years
- An accompanying book, 'The Book About Xu Bing's Book from the Ground', is edited by Mathieu Borysevicz
- The project includes software that translates Chinese and English into pictograms
- Xu Bing's earlier work 'Book from the Sky' (1987–91) used 4,000 fake Chinese characters
- Mathieu Borysevicz compares the novel to James Joyce's 'Ulysses' (1922)
- The article was published in ArtReview Asia's Spring/Summer 2014 issue
Entities
Artists
- Xu Bing
- Mathieu Borysevicz
- James Joyce
Institutions
- ArtReview Asia