Wu-mojis

A cyber Wu(Chinese witchcraft) practice that allows users to cast spells in ancient bone script characters using emojis.

Project Video

Abstract

My project is about cyber-witchcraft in the context of Chinese culture and social media. As technology develops, witchcraft activities that take place in cyberspace become new trends for Mysticism lovers. As a social media addict, I personally love to retweet pictures that people claim to contain magical powers, such as rainbows as symbols of good luck, cute kitties that benefit your energy of the week, etc. In China, there are memes of people who are known as being lucky all over the internet and it’s believed that if you make interactions online using these memes you will also become lucky. Even Though it doesn't sound scientific it also doesn’t hurt to try. So I engaged in these types of activities like many others who think so, without noticing that this belongs to the category of cyber witchcraft. Cyber witchcraft participants believe that digital elements have similar power to natural elements that are used in spells and ceremonies, thus cyberspace became their new medium of spell-casting. One popular cyber spell-casting method on the Western internet is known as emoji spells, which use emojis to represent different elements needed for a spell. Based on the idea of inventing a way of allowing Mysticism lovers in China to participate in cyber witchcraft in a context of traditional cultural background, I started to relate emojis with ancient pictographic symbols, and oracle bone scripts. These symbols that originated more than three thousand years ago are known as the earliest form of the Chinese characters we use today and were used by our ancestors back then in witchcraft activities. By referring to the actual element emojis and bone scripts represent in common, I created a spell-casting platform that allows users to cast spells in ancient symbols by selecting emojis. Users are able to turn their selfies into charms which would be enhanced by sharing or posting on social media.

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