Paper Scissors Rock ,
Rock-Paper-Scissors Exhibition,
The Scholar's Rock Project,
Chinese Arts Centre,
Manchester, UK, 2010.
At the time, Wang Jun was undertaking a residency at the Chinese Arts Centre, where he was developing what he described as The Scholar’s Rock Project. This body of work examined the cultural and symbolic resonances of the game, situating its apparently simple mechanics within broader art-historical and philosophical traditions.
“Rock-paper-scissors is a universal folk game that dates back to ancient times. Players substitute the three elements of Rock, Paper and Scissors with representative hand gestures and the winner is determined by following the rules:
Scissors cut paper (scissors wins against paper)
Paper covers rock (Paper wins against Rock)
Rock breaks scissors (Rock wins against Scissors)
If both players show the same gesture, the game is tied.”
Rock-Paper-Scissors Exhibition,
The Scholar's Rock Project,
Chinese Arts Centre,
Manchester, UK, 2010.
At the time, Wang Jun was undertaking a residency at the Chinese Arts Centre, where he was developing what he described as The Scholar’s Rock Project. This body of work examined the cultural and symbolic resonances of the game, situating its apparently simple mechanics within broader art-historical and philosophical traditions.
“Rock-paper-scissors is a universal folk game that dates back to ancient times. Players substitute the three elements of Rock, Paper and Scissors with representative hand gestures and the winner is determined by following the rules:
Scissors cut paper (scissors wins against paper)
Paper covers rock (Paper wins against Rock)
Rock breaks scissors (Rock wins against Scissors)
If both players show the same gesture, the game is tied.”
In formulating my response, I turned to another widely recognisable childhood activity with roots in East Asian culture: kirigami, or the practice of creating cut-paper chains. This strategy provided a conceptual counterpoint to Wang Jun’s premise while remaining structurally aligned with it. Kirigami inherently incorporates two of the three elements specified in his exhibition framework, paper and scissors, understood respectively as material and instrument. These components, when activated through repetition and transformation, suggested the possibility of generating the third element, “rock,” not as literal stone but as a conceptual or symbolic outcome. Thus, the work sought to synthesise the triadic structure of the game through transformative into representation.
The final consideration concerned the selection of paper. While reflecting on possible materials, I became increasingly drawn to the use of newspaper. At that time, the British press was saturated with coverage of the global credit crisis, precipitated in part by the collapse of Northern Rock. The convergence of the bank’s name with the exhibition’s titular motif presented a compelling conceptual resolution. Consequently, the installation was constructed from the Markets Data pages of the Financial Times, a publication emblematic of global finance and economic fluctuation.
In conclusion, the work operated as both a formal and contextual dialogue with Wang Jun’s project. By mobilising the elementary actions of cutting and repetition, it reconfigured the playful logic of a children’s game into a reflection on economic instability and symbolic value. The transformation of financial newsprint into a sculptural form foregrounded the instability of material and linguistic signifiers alike, allowing “rock” to emerge not as a fixed object, but as a layered metaphor shaped by cultural memory, economic history, and artistic process.
The final consideration concerned the selection of paper. While reflecting on possible materials, I became increasingly drawn to the use of newspaper. At that time, the British press was saturated with coverage of the global credit crisis, precipitated in part by the collapse of Northern Rock. The convergence of the bank’s name with the exhibition’s titular motif presented a compelling conceptual resolution. Consequently, the installation was constructed from the Markets Data pages of the Financial Times, a publication emblematic of global finance and economic fluctuation.
In conclusion, the work operated as both a formal and contextual dialogue with Wang Jun’s project. By mobilising the elementary actions of cutting and repetition, it reconfigured the playful logic of a children’s game into a reflection on economic instability and symbolic value. The transformation of financial newsprint into a sculptural form foregrounded the instability of material and linguistic signifiers alike, allowing “rock” to emerge not as a fixed object, but as a layered metaphor shaped by cultural memory, economic history, and artistic process.