The Yi Jing in The Berlin Oracle:

The I Ching supplies the answers in the Game Of Wisdom of The Berlin Oracle. With it, the visitor is empowered to develop personal visions and begin a voyage of self-discovery.

The I Ching in the installation serves to ask questions, or in other words to sharpen our own personal circumspection. The I Ching gives the visitor an answer to a question, lending advice or inspiration. Like a mirror, it reflects both the inner and outer world of the diviner.
The concept of reflection is one of the main tenants of the I Ching and in integrating the principles of Chinese wisdom, The Berlin Oracle invites one to pause, play, and reflect.

This “return to the inner-self” is similarly reflected in the lingering architecture of the Mehringplatz Square.

The I Ching is the oldest book about communication and wisdom. It translates as “The Book of Changes”. In China it became the basis of the two great schools of Confucianism and Taoism. Moreover, it formed the basic principles of all Chinese science and art forms.

In the beginning, the Yi Jing was not a book, but rather a numerical system arranged in sixty-four signs, each with six lines. These were known as hexagrames. The hexagrames were then divided into eight principle groups (trigagrames). The geometry of the Mehringplatz Square corresponds exactly to the arithmetic of the Yi Jing and is a natural framework for a bridge between East and West; Western architecture and Asian wisdom.

The wisdom of the Yi Jing was set in written form as early as the eleventh century B.C. The Evangelical missionary organisation of Berlin assigned the theologian Richard Wihlem the task of translating the Chinese scripts in 1899. The translation led to the book’s wider accessibility in Western Europe.