Mail I Ching — Paolo Ben Fausone

A grid of many Mail I Ching postcard fronts laid out on a dark green surface, showing the project at scale: each card carries a hexagram, a Chinese character, a one-word principle, a short interpretation and a film still.

Un oracolo al contrario

L'I Ching è un antico testo cinese che usa 64 esagrammi per descrivere le forme del cambiamento. Tradizionalmente si consulta come un oracolo: fai una domanda, poi leggi la risposta dentro la tua vita. Qui il circuito e invertito. L'esagramma arriva senza essere stato chiesto, indirizzato a qualcuno che non ha posto alcuna domanda, e chi lo riceve deve occuparsi dell'interpretazione.

Two open olive-paper envelopes overlap a printed sheet bearing the project manifesto: 'The Yijing is an ancient Chinese text, part philosophy, part riddle. It was born to predict, but I suggest using it as a trigger: like a stranger's comment that somehow speaks directly to you. These postcards work the same way. On the front: a principle pulled from the Yijing. On the back: space. For whatever it stirs up: a thought, a call to action, a confession, a family recipe. They're already addressed. If it sparks something, let it spread.'

A GROUPING postcard shown sideways, front and back. The front shows the hexagram 比, the principle GROUPING and the line 'Unity requires shared purpose, not just proximity. Are we loyal, or just afraid to be alone?' over a film still of a row of men in white shirts. The back carries the film credit, a Posta Prioritaria Italia stamp and a hand-addressed recipient.

Le cartoline

Sul fronte: l'esagramma, il carattere cinese, un principio in inglese, una breve interpretazione è un fotogramma cinematografico. Ogni film è stato scelto perché, da qualche parte al suo interno, il senso dell'esagramma affiora. Sul retro: l'indirizzo già compilato è lo spazio per scrivere.

Eight Mail I Ching postcards arranged in a two-by-four grid: POWER, PERSEVERANCE, INFLUENCE, ILLUMINATION on the top row and FALLING IN, OVERLOAD, NOURISHMENT, RETREAT on the bottom. Each shows its hexagram character, principle name, short interpretation and paired film still.

Close-up of a PROGRESS postcard: the hexagram 晉 and the line 'Climbing with light. Clear direction, rising steadily. If it's working, do you still need to fix it?' above a halftone film still of a stone resting on a ridge with a canyon and mountains behind.

The full index of all 64 hexagrams set in three columns on a dark green ground, each row pairing the Chinese character, the English one-word principle and the matched film title: Creation / 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nurture / Baraka, Sprouting / Cube, and so on down to Completion / Casablanca and Potential / Memento.

Una rete di sconosciuti

Ho disegnato le cartoline e le ho spedite in busta a 16 amici. Loro hanno scritto i messaggi e le hanno mandate avanti. Nessuno ha scelto dove sarebbero finite; nessuno sapeva perché fossero arrivate proprio a lui. La cartolina è l'oggetto giusto per questo: abbastanza privata da portare un messaggio, abbastanza pubblica da poter essere letta lungo il tragitto da chiunque la maneggi per un attimo. Alcune sono arrivate. Alcune sono ancora in movimento. Alcune, forse, non arriveranno mai.

A network diagram of the project: nine nodes labelled with country and city codes (DE, US1, US2, CH, TW1, TW2, IT2, IT3, ES) connected by arrows tagged with hexagram characters showing who sent which postcard to whom. Below it, a triangular receiver-sender chart cross-tabulates the same exchanges.

Two overlapping globes of the Earth rendered in olive tones, with thin white arcs connecting dotted points across continents — North America to Europe, Europe to East Asia — tracing the global movement of the postcards between the sixteen participants.

A poster on a dark green ground: all 64 hexagrams of the I Ching arranged in a thin circular ring around a central 8 by 8 grid of the same 64 hexagrams.