Wushu is an infinite and collaboratively written “Book” that intends to encourage and archive active participation of Calligraphy while extending its scope as an art form. This interactive work engages the audience in generating ink strokes and effects from their motion input. Two customized neural networks generate bilingual inscrutable characters from the audience’s engagements through a “Motion Caption” process.
Procedural algorithms derived from Calligraphy research and “Four Principles” manipulates the generated characters and its layout compositions responding to the motion data, and automatically “writes” them in the genre of Chinese Cursive Calligraphy. This offers the audience an accessible method to interact with the calligraphy, regardless of their previous knowledge of this oriental art. Wushu accumulates participants-generated calligraphy works and serves as a compendium and digital archive which keeps expanding with the audience’s collective participation.
The process of creating (“writing”) and appreciating (“reading”) Calligraphy becomes a cyclical process within this infinite “book.” Wushu seeks to stimulate further attention and discussions concerning the visual forms, linguistic meanings, and cultural essence of Chinese characters and Calligraphy.
