Xu Bing's The Character of Characters and the Possibilities of Calligraphic Animation

This arti cle exam ines con tem po rary Chi nese art ist Xu Bing's (b. 1955) 2012 ani ma tion video, The Character of Characters, , which reme di ates Zhao Mengfu's (1254-1322) cal lig ra phy and paint ing. The video, in which Chi nese writ ten words become the true pro tag o nists, was orig i nally a com mis sioned instal la tion presented at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco from Octo ber 2012 to Jan u ary 2013. The arti cle aims to model a form of extremely close anal y sis of new media art, which bor rows vocab u lary and meth od ol o gies from both art his tory and media stud ies. While making a timely con tri bu tion to Xu Bing schol ar ship by focus ing on an understudied work in his oeu vre, it also adds new lines of inquiry: first, with regard to text-image rec i proc ity, which con tin ues to be a focal point in stud ies of con tem po rary Chi nese art; and sec ond, with regard to ani ma tion-cal lig ra phy reciprocity, which begs more critical attention. The Character of Characters, , I argue, invokes a double vision that sees words on screen simul ta neously as lin guis tic texts and pic to rial shapes, a vision through which and because of which the activ i ties of looking and read ing are com bined into one.