Visualizing I-Ching by Yvette Shen

This interactive project uses text mining and data visualization techniques to reveal new patterning insights of the ancient Chinese text I-Ching from both divinatory and philosophical perspectives. 

The goal of the project is to overcome cultural and language barriers, and investigate more innovative methods to objectively analyze and interpret I-Ching than language translations. The visualization approach and research process explore four aspects of I-Ching: the cyclical dynamic among different fortune stages, the thematic categories of the Decisions, the occurrences of keywords related to divination, and the geometrical patterns of the Hexagrams. 

Visualizing abstract text information that is polysemic and sometimes uncertain provides a new way to view and understand I-Ching and Chinese philosophy that can reach to a wide range of audiences. We hope the intuitive feeling viewers get with the abstract symbols makes the comparison among stages of fortune and thematic concerns within or between the Guas (hexagrams) more compelling. At both a micro and a macro level, we intend to develop a new appreciation of I-Ching – as it is a systematic yet still organic structure that expand to support itself as it grows in richness and complexity.

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