- Year
- 2016
- Role
- Research experiment · Visualization
- Team
- Fan Xiang
- Source
- Eileen Chang’s novel Eighteen Springs
- Includes
- Literary visualization · Printed fan · Physical model · PDF
A literary-visualization experiment that reorganizes the color records in Eileen Chang’s novel Eighteen Springs across its eighteen chapters, then translates their distribution into a folded paper fan.
Reading beyond the plot
The project approaches the novel through its color language. Rather than reducing the book to a single palette, it preserves individual color records and their place within the chapter structure, making recurrence, density, and change available for comparison alongside a conventional reading of the story.
Keeping the chapter sequence visible
The eighteen chapters become eighteen divisions in a fan-shaped composition. Each color mark represents one record. The format holds onto sequence while allowing distant comparison: viewers can scan the entire work, then return to particular chapters and color traces.
A visualization made physical
The diagram was printed and folded into a paper model. As an object, it can be opened, compressed, and viewed from different angles, turning an abstract literary dataset into a spatial reading experience.
The limits of distant reading
Distribution reveals patterns, not literary meaning by itself. The visualization is therefore an invitation to move between overview and close reading, using the image to formulate questions that must ultimately return to the text.
