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1981
Volume 23, Issue 4
  • ISSN: 1539-7785
  • E-ISSN: 2048-0717

Abstract

This article speculates on the artistic rationale and mediumistic significance of Xu Bing’s pseudo Chinese script and Sinified English script. The former demonstrates that a text does not have to be comprehensible to be functional. The latter is provocative in the sense that it gives an alphabetic language a seemingly pictographic and calligraphic look, and points in the direction of the potential becoming-paratactic of an intrinsically hypotactic language. It may not be a pure coincidence that Xu Bing’s Sinified English emerged in a post-alphabetic age.

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2025-03-11
2025-03-21
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