The Mirror of the Philosopher King

This is a room where the light automatically changes between purple and white. The entire space is filled with stories and poems written by the artist Qiu Zhijie using special pigments. As the light alternate, the hidden text appears and disappears. The artist has written stories on different plaster statues.The text on the front is written normally, while the text on the back is in reverse. When you shine a flashlight on the statues, you can see different segments of the stories and various poems.

The entire piece tells three stories about "The Philosopher King and the Mirror." The first story is about a Philosopher King constantly pursuing absolute reason and truth. He was seeking a genuine mirror to understand his actions.

The Philosopher King tried many methods to craft the perfect mirror. He dug numerous circular ponds in The Republic. He found that wind would create ripples on the ponds, so he built high walls next to the ponds to prevent the wind from interfering the clarity of the reflections.

He also recruited craftsmen who could make the smoothest mirror surfaces and assembled a research team of mathematicians, scientists, alchemists, and painters, determined to create the world's most perfect mirror. His kingdom became filled with all kinds of reflective materials, and there were mirrors everywhere.

He then organized another research team to install various lights throughout the kingdom. However, as more lights were added, the number of shadows increased, sometimes resulting in a single object casting multiple shadows. The Philosopher King was deeply fearful of this because his entire life had been a battle against illusions and shadows. So, he formed another team to research lights that would cast no shadows at all.

At the final moment when the power was turned on, the experiment succeeded. For the first time in his life, he saw a reality with no shadows—everything was true and certain. Then he went blind. Strangely, after he became blind, all illusions disappeared, and he never saw shadows again.

He muttered to himself, "With a heart full of light, what more could one ask for?" This was actually a phrase spoken by Wang Yangming before his death, and it opened the door to another story of the Philosopher King.

The Philosopher King finally had a mirror that revealed the truth.One day, he looked into the mirror and discovered that his reflection showed him as an extremely greedy, selfish, and shameless person. He was deeply depressed and terrified. After much contemplation, he decided to have the entire kingdom come and look into the mirror. He found that everyone else was even worse than him—more selfish and cowardly. At the end, he finally learned to accept his own imperfections. This is the Philosopher King's second story.

This version of the Philosopher King comes from the poet Homer. Homer was blind, and in his view, the Philosopher King believed that mathematics was the language of music, while Homer thought music was the purpose of mathematics. Why is it necessary to become blind? In a world without circles or geometry, mathematics could be used to support music.