Ink Spiral: Symbolic Transformation from The Thinker to the Four Gentlemen
For artists and cultural theorists, this work offers a novel artistic exploration of cross-cultural symbolism through AI, but it is primarily a creative project rather than a technical or scientific contribution.
This paper presents Ink Spiral, a video installation that uses AI-generated ink imagery to transform a rotating sculpture of The Thinker into the Four Gentlemen, creating a cross-cultural dialogue between Western and Eastern symbolic traditions.
Western art has regarded The Thinker as a symbol of rational contemplation, while Eastern aesthetics has taken the Four Gentlemen, namely plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, as symbols of moral and spiritual cultivation. This paper presents Ink Spiral, a video installation that links these traditions through AI generated ink imagery. By transforming a rotating sculpture of The Thinker into the Four Gentlemen across thousands of frames, the work shifts between three dimensional sculpture and two dimensional ink, human introspection and natural symbolism. Ink Spiral turns fixed cultural icons into a fluid dialogue, inviting audiences to perceive cross cultural connection as a living, ambiguous, and endlessly interpretable creative state.