Chang Xin Tie 2022

Li Weiyi

China

2022

Green slate, handheld devices (smartphone or tablet computer)

Size variable

Using space as a means of interpreting calligraphy, using the Western tradition of single-perspective to “misinterpret” our famous calligraphic texts, is something I have always wanted to try. Imagine a calligraphy work that is actually composed of lines of exactly the same thickness, with the strokes varying in thickness only as the homogeneous line bends and spreads through space, the closer to our eyes the thicker it looked, the further to our eyes the thinner it looked. The line that hovers in space is the mirror image trajectory of our wrist movement when writing calligraphy. As our hand gets closer to the paper, the thicker the line of the falling brush, and vice versa. Calligraphy is all about the single line movement of our hands, and the softness of the tool so as to obtain a rich variety of strokes.

I “copied” Wang Xizhi's Chang Xin Tie using 3D software and made it into a virtual reality filter so that people can use their handheld devices to virtually travel through this work of calligraphy in space. I first encountered Chang Xin Tie on the Shu Tiao Shi (steles on which the works of famous calligraphers of former dynasties are engraved) in Lingering Garden. It is not Wang Xizhi's most prestigious calligraphy work, but it tells the heartwarming story of sending food between family and friends. In times of epidemic, such a story may be what is needed.

by Li Weiyi