From Xu Bing:

Book from the Ground is a novel writ­ten in a “language of icons” that I have been col­lect­ing and orga­niz­ing over the last few years. Regard­less of cul­tural back­ground, one should be able under­stand the text as long as one is thor­oughly entan­gled in modern life. We have also cre­ated a “font library” com­puter pro­gram to accom­pany the book. The user can type Eng­lish sen­tences (we are still lim­ited in this way, but the next step will include Chi­nese and other major lan­guages) and the com­puter will instan­ta­neously trans­late them into this lan­guage of icons. It can func­tion as a “dictionary,” and in the future it will have prac­ti­cal applications.

…

As we col­lected and orga­nized these images that are already in use and pos­sess both a foun­da­tion of common recog­ni­tion and the qual­ity of lan­guage, we had one prin­ci­ple: not to engage in any sub­jec­tive inven­tion or fab­ri­ca­tion, because most sound writ­ing sys­tems first arise from common usage and then take shape through a process of orga­ni­za­tion. We regard our set of pre­vi­ously orga­nized sym­bols as a type of lan­guage because it has not been invented, fab­ri­cated, or defined by any par­tic­u­lar person. Gen­er­ally speak­ing, sub­jec­tive, man-​made sym­bols are per­son­al­ized, lack a nat­ural logic, and are not based upon a widely shared under­stand­ing. They cannot sup­port easy recog­ni­tion or repeated and uni­form use. (This is also the reason that the car­toons cannot be con­sid­ered a descrip­tive language.)

Every “word” in this system has its own source or origin. The “grammar” (includ­ing adjec­tives, person, tone, prepo­si­tions, etc.) is sim­i­larly a col­lec­tion of widely used and com­monly rec­og­nized “representations,” which we have ana­lyzed and com­piled accord­ing to their visual and psy­cho­log­i­cal indi­cia. All of these ele­ments are pre-​existing. I have only col­lected and orga­nized them.

In cer­tain respects, this lan­guage tran­scends our struc­tures of knowl­edge and the lim­i­ta­tions of geo­graphic and cul­tural speci­ficity; it reflects the logic of real life and objects them­selves rather than any pre­ex­ist­ing text-​based knowl­edge. Com­pre­hen­sion is not con­tin­gent upon the reader’s level of edu­ca­tion or knowl­edge of lit­er­a­ture, but instead stems from his/her expe­ri­ences and way of life. More­over, this lan­guage need not be taught or learned through tra­di­tional edu­ca­tional models. Regard­less of your cul­tural back­ground or mother tongue, you will be able to read this book as long as you have expe­ri­ence of con­tem­po­rary life. The edu­cated and illit­er­ate should be able to enjoy equally the plea­sure of what it means to read.

For the rest of the novel’s first page, click here.

(h/t Ads with­out Prod­ucts, which promises com­men­tary to come. In the mean­time, bone up on John Wilkins.)