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• 1 media/IMG_1151.jpg 2016-12-05T18:03:55-08:00 Book from the Ground: from point to point by Xu Bing 7 image_header 2016-12-12T06:31:07-08:00 This artist's book by Xu Bing, called Book from the Ground: from point to point, is an entirely readable story written completely devoid of words of a twenty-four hour, day-in-the-life presentation of a typical urban white-collar worker. Taking Bing seven full years to complete, this book presents its audience with an entire story composed of only icons and emoticons. Bing's idea in making this book is that anyone can read it, regardless of a reader's native language or level of education, expressing his belief in a universally understood language, that each individual can read this book.
  
  In constructing this book, Bing believes that this is the future of communication, seeing that a significant amount of our population that has access to these symbols can communicate using emoticons provided for them on their phones or computers. This belief aligns itself with the idea that symbols allow for a universal language and universal understanding of the text; however, as I have mentioned earlier, it is possible that this form of typography could lend itself to alternate versions of the story. While I do not believe that Bing is insinuating that each person will interpret his book in the same way, it is possible that, if people have different interpretations due to their own language or cultural upbringing, it could be difficult to discuss and analyze the text outside of just the form of the book.
  
  The site called Emojipedia holds a collection of all the emojis available to users of technology on either their phones, tablets, or computers. Beside each emoji, there is a description of what that symbol is supposed to mean, or what people are supposed to use them for. However, there are quite a few of these emoticons that I personally use in a different context than the one that they are suggesting I use it for. Due to the fact that each person reading Bing's book and other emoticons has their own socioeconomic background, their own native language, and their own culture at play, each reader will have their own unique experience and can virtually create their own story.
  
  For example, here is my reading of the first page:
  
  "Zooming in on this tiny dot in space, one will find Earth. Keep zooming in, and soon enough, one will see a land mass, a country, cities, and then one particular city, one particular house with a tree beside it where birds are singing a familiar melody. Our protagonist, John Doe, begins stirring in his bed after a successful night sleep. He hears the last few notes of the bird's sweet melody, and then subsequently, his alarm starts ringing. After about five seconds of the alarm having sounded, the bird stops singing and soon flies away."
  
  I'm sure that this is a satisfactory reading of this page (it actually seemed much harder than it was), but if I had never read music, I wouldn't know what the icon of written music meant and would therefore not understand the beginning of this person's day. While it's great for readers to have their own personal experience, their own personal connection with a book, it could pose a potential problem in the context of analysis and conversation about the text.