The Battle between Simplified and Traditional: Chinese Text-based Interactive Installations and French Lettrism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_6-1_8Keywords:
electronic literature, text-based art, Chinese, interactive installation, lettrismAbstract
This paper will discuss several Chinese text-based interactive installations from Taiwan and Hong Kong which reflect the anxiety about facing the growing influence of Simplified Chinese and the cultural power from Mainland China. As a logosyllabic script, Chinese is structurally distinctive from alphabetical scripts. However, the ideas of French Lettrism on creating art through deconstructing languages to its smallest particles and using them as objects for a new form of aesthetics and social-political struggle has similarities with some Chinese text-based interactive arts of recent years. This paper will discuss how the ideas from Lettrism can be applied to artistic creations and to analyze Chinese text-based interactive works, so as to examine the specificity of Chinese-based works and the ways they handle the topics of China’s cultural expansion.
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References
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BOHN, Willard (1996). “From Hieroglyphics to Hypergraphics.” Experimental - Visual - Concrete: Avant-garde Poetry since the 1960s. Ed. K. David Jackson, Eric Vos, and Johanna Drucker. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 173-86.
BOHN, Willard (2001). Modern Visual Poetry. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
CHU, Kicheung (2013). “Lun fantizi he jian huazi de zongxian guanxi.” [The vertical relationship between traditional and simplified Chinese characters] The Journal of Chinese Characters 9: 209-20, doi: 10.14772/CSCCK.2013.9.209.
DRUCKER, Johanna. (1998). Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics. New York: Granary Books.
FOSTER, Stephen C. (1983). “Letterism: A Point of Views.” Visible Language 17.3: 7-12.
HUNG, Keung (2014). “Bloated City & Skinny Language.” bcslproject.wordpress.com/idea/context-of-bcsl-project/ 24 Feb 2018.
ISOU, Isidore (1983). “Manifesto of Letterist Poetry.” Visible Language 17.3: 70-74.
LEUNG, Po Shan (2007). “On the ‘Chinglish’ Exhibition from Hong Kong Museum of Art.” Motat Diary, motat.blogspot.hk/2007/04/blog-post_25.html. 24 Feb 2018.
LU, Tsung-Han. “Word Shatter.” Moca Taipei, 60.250.96.120/mocataipei/mocastudio/exhibition/show21/works21.htm. 24 Feb 2018.
“Magic.Type.Face.” YouTube, uploaded by Moca Taipei, 5 Sept 2010. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbwX-fP6yCI.
MUGNIER, Patrice (20 January 2016). “Re: A few questions about your work Jing.” Message to Yue-Jin Ho. E-mail.
SEAMAN, David W (1983). “Lettrism — A Stream That Runs Its Own Course.” Visible Language 17.3: 18-25.
SIMANOWSKI, Roberto (2013). “Text as Event: Calm Technology and Invisible Information as Subject of Digital Arts.” Throughout: Art and Culture Emerging with Ubiquitous Computing. Ed. Ulrik Ekman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 189-204.
SUN, Chaofen (2006). Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Hong Kong Museum of Art. Museum of Art Explores the Unique Language of Hong Kong. N.p., 22 Mar. 2007. Web. 22 Feb 2018.
ZENG, Cong-xiu (2009). Taiwan Dangdai Youxishi Lun [Poetics of Playfulness in Contemporary Taiwan]. Taipei: Erya.
Published
2018-08-10
How to Cite
Ho, Yue-Jin. 2018. “The Battle Between Simplified and Traditional: Chinese Text-Based Interactive Installations and French Lettrism”. MATLIT: Materialities of Literature 6 (1):121-34. https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_6-1_8.
Issue
Section
Secção Temática | Thematic Section
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