WEI Tao: A Vector Comma: Curated by WANG Yaoli
“I actually don’t really like things that are overly symbolized. Although this (the Comma Project) is indeed something highly ‘symbolic,’ I dislike symbolism. It is precisely because we tend to assign excessive meaning to symbols that I chose the ‘comma.’ Unlike a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point, it does not carry any clear symbolic implication. It is simply a comma. To me, it holds neither much symbolism nor much meaning.” — WEI Tao
BONIAN SPACE is pleased to announce the solo project, A Vector Comma, by artist WEI Tao, from November 8 to December 21, 2025. Curated by WANG Yaoli, the exhibition centers on WEI Tao’s new media installation A Vector Comma, marking the completion of the second work within his long-term Comma Project. Continuing his inquiry into “existence” and “meaning” through the lens of a seemingly trivial punctuation mark, the artist extends his reflection into the realm of mathematics and algorithms. Here, by rendering a perfect comma through computational precision, WEI engages the Platonic notion of the World of Forms, confronting the enduring human pursuit of perfection and the tension between ideal and material worlds.
In September 2025, WEI Tao realized the first comma on a 35,547-square-meter expanse of land in Inner Mongolia. Local herders and migrant workers from various regions collaborated with him, not out of theoretical understanding but through an unspoken trust in the process: they simply knew they were helping the artist make a comma. When the project was complete, WEI and all participants witnessed its revelation through drone footage—a vast punctuation mark inscribed upon the earth, soon followed by a rainbow after rain, as if to seal the moment in grace.
This ephemeral comma, briefly inhabiting the grassland, was later captured in real time by the European satellite Sentinel-2 L1C. Even now, viewers can locate it through the Copernicus BROWSER by entering the coordinates “Lat: 41.39407, Lng: 111.19516,” and see the comma that existed from September 5 to 29, 2025.
“If the first comma is a material comma, then the second comma is an ideal comma.” — WEI Tao
If the first comma brought punctuation down from the page to the earth’s surface—a symbolic reincarnation of the mark from the world of Forms into material reality—then A Vector Comma represents its return to the ideal realm, a turning inward toward pure abstraction.
In CAD software, WEI Tao precisely defined a vector comma at the coordinate origin (0,0,0) with an area of 35,547 square meters, its contour composed of three arcs of absolute circles. In the computational universe, vector images are constructed from points, lines, and planes. Their boundaries are determined by geometric relationships, not pixels. Unlike bitmaps that record discrete color values, vectors describe form through mathematical equations. Thus, a vector can be infinitely scaled without distortion—a manifestation of a mathematically “perfect” form. In this sense, WEI’s vector comma becomes an emblem of the ideal form, free from time, decay, and physical imperfection.
This vector comma belongs to no text and carries no semantic function. It simply exists. When viewers use a mouse wheel to zoom in or out before the LED screen, they enter a space without scale: they may see the entire comma, only a fragment of its edge, or perhaps nothing but emptiness or pure black. And yet, reason reminds us—within this coordinate system, the comma always remains. It is detached from language, unbound by proportion, and freed from the very definition of a symbol. Thus, it returns to the state of a form without representation, becoming a pure mode of existence.