Words Such As Worlds: From the Symbolic to the Real

As Mr. Xu Bing’s creativity in the formation of Chinese character and dispositif of art, his coinage of language turns the words into the infinite universe, that is, words such as worlds through active imagination and innovation artworks. Xu Bing’s representative series, Background Stories, deployed the cultural contextualizing plot to demonstrate the Art (capital letter) as an era of significance. This article will be presented through the symptomatic reading strategy to cite the psychoanalyst Lacan’s the real order, try to interpret the story of his artistic meaning.

As Lacan’s allegations, the subject is not a problem, but an answer, it was the Real’s answer to the symbolic order. The power of the real is to resist the symbolic meaning, therefore does not answer the questions, thus, it is the barred subjectivity. On the one hand, to view Xu Bing’s artworks Background Stories through the naked eye is the process from the imaginary to the symbolic. On the other hand, to view through the psychanalytical gaze is the trajectory from the symbolic to the real. Signifiers of the Art is unlimited and can be interpreted by replacement and repetition, but the real eventually returned to the original place. This site is called the beginning of the story and also the end of the plot paradoxically. It is called the real order of the background story.