There is, in my humble opinion, an overused saying in chinese 無中生有, creation out of nothing, but there exist no equivalent phrase to counter such concept. To me, this is a strange contrast to western philosophy literature, where it’s easy to find the two opposing views, in the forms of creatio ex nihilo and ex nihilo nihil fit, that is creation out of nothing and nothing comes from nothing. The implied logic of nothing comes from nothing, is that all things are from something. When taken literally, nothing comes from nothing, it’s if nothing is a thing-in-itself. Interpretations are somewhat in that spectrum.

Note: there are many concepts and passages in Taoist or Buddhist text that is along the lines ex nihilo nihil fit. But I cannot find any common phrase in Chinese that is both succinct, symmetric, and at the same time a reflection to 無中生有. So, if I were to invent a phrase, what I’d like to say, is 無中本無. Which would translate more like, in nothing, there is nothing, or maybe the start of nothing is in nothing.

There is a slight nuance in the difference in meaning. The phrase would immediately express something along the lines of the more literal ex nihilo nihil fit. But the more I thought about it, with my ambiguity in the use of grammar, I started to think about the implied logic, and its implications on my made up phrase.

Calligraphy

In some mixture of two, I started to ponder about what is in nothing? Figuratively, the character nothing 無, consists of 12 brushstroke of 4 types of brushstroke. Namely, a diagonal stroke going upper right to lower left, pie 撇-1, a horizontal stroke, heng 橫-2, 3 8; a vertical stroke shu 豎-4, 5, 6, 7; a dot dian 點- 9, 10, 11, 12.

Perhaps I was drawn to the centrality and symmetry of the number 5; or perhaps the number, five is pronounced as wu, the same as 無, nothing. And in the number 12, our timeless clock comes to mind. A cyclical familiarity in a day or in a year. But here we arrive at an impasse. 5 and 12 are co-prime. The least common multiple would be 60.

There are no rules or guide on how to write calligraphy on a potter’s support wheel. By turning the wheel at PI/6 for each of the 12 strokes. And for each stroke, I subdivide into 5 fractal strokes in order to make up an impression for that stroke. It was very difficult to orient myself within such a calligraphy. I had trouble centering on the wheel. And what is the center, the center of word nothing 無, or the centre of each of the 12 strokes.

Calligraphy as sculpture

One way to think of sculpting is pushing planes through space and then becoming a volume. Not remembering when exactly I had abstracted brushstroke into sculpture forms. I cannot erase my knowledge of the intended modelling of nothing, 無, no matter how many multiple of transformation I give it. This knowledge is a ground, or the “centering”, a recognition that always returns. Looking at this fictional sculpture nothing, nothing does really come from nothing.

Like zen stone gardens, one cannot see all stones in one line of sight. It is most likely, I cannot see all 60 sculpted, of abstracted, of fractal, of brush stroke, at any given perspective angle. It is in time, and through space, that we experience the whole 60 second of a minute, and around a closed circle.

Now when I take a new degree of freedom, I usually give back two or three.

Composition and Performance

In 5/4 time, whether take five or tolerate, the unlearning and relearning to write a character you have known for a long time, is strangely similar to learning to play a new instrument on an old tune. 12 version of five-twelfth of the same character might actually be easier to get mixed up than 12 randomly selected characters. Out of time, the mistakes are left without a trace. And if mistakes are accepted, not a lot of space need to be taken.

If the composition is fixed, only then, can we perform. A performance that is generative, of abstraction, of forms and of color.

Though if read as calligraphy, convention dictate reading from right to left, up to down. And footnote “of taste” is of “alternative” contrasting forms to the main body text. Stamp of the author is conventional to the bottom left. But as the work is passed down and through time and ownership is often associated with more stamping.

If viewed as a performance. You can view it in any way you would like, orientation or time. Performance is not perfect. A stroke might be missed here or there. A mistaken stroke has non-zero probability of happening. Different dimensions of brushes and amount of ink varies etc.

Look at nothing

What is generated comes from not nothing. Every token are generate from fixed composition, i.e. the code and is performed by the seed hash. What looks like nothing came from nothing, indeed, in nothing, there is nothing.

See more generative tokens on Nothing comes from nothing: