Not long ago, on the occasion of the 111th anniversary of Tsinghua University, a tide play IP called "Linglong One" was born. This purple "squirrel" combines technology and history, and also contains the integration of today's digital trend culture and traditional Chinese culture, which is also the characteristic of the current "national tide". In the past decade, the national tide has gradually developed in China and entered different areas of life. What is National Tide? How can digitalization be used to pass on culture? Recently, The Paper interviewed several teachers from Tsinghua University, who explored these issues from their respective participation and perspectives.
"Young" national tide
Recently, coinciding with the 111th anniversary of Tsinghua University, the Tsinghua All Things Digital Intangible Cultural Heritage International Innovation Workshop launched the first "Peer Ambassador", from the "Meta-Universe" digital tide play - Linglong One. The purple squirrel was designed by Zhu Hui, an associate professor at Tsinghua University's School of Fine Arts, whose inspiration came from squirrels living in the evergreen woods of Tsinghua Garden, whose digital tail records one historical node after another in Tsinghua, and whose name is linked to the new species "Linglong Immortal Beast" named by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2014.
According to the introduction, Linglong One will act as a bridge between intangible cultural heritage and contemporary life, and in addition to telling a long history of more than a hundred years, its birth also reflects the development of the national tide, which is still relatively "young" today. A few days ago, Hang Min, head of the Tsinghua Guochao Cultural Economic Development and Communication Project and deputy dean of the School of Journalism of Tsinghua University, introduced in an interview with the surging news reporter that the national tide is to integrate The Chinese cultural elements with high public recognition into goods or services and gain the recognition of a wider range of consumers; the national tide has been carried out to the present, more is the combination of traditional culture and consumption concepts.
Tsinghua Digital Intangible Cultural Heritage International Innovation Workshop For All Things Ambassador Official Announcement
In Hang Min's view, the popularity of the national tide benefits from the promotion of the government and the public's emphasis on traditional culture, at the same time, the consumption concept and consumption habits of the younger generation are fundamentally changing the entire market structure. From the perspective of popular culture, the popularity of the national tide in China can get some inspiration from Japan. "As the first country in Asia to touch Western culture, Japan has become an indispensable part of absorbing and integrating different regional cultures, creating its own cultural system, and then exporting it worldwide." Hang Min said, "Japanese designers Such as Kawakubo Suzu, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, the reason why they can shock the Western fashion industry and influence the global fashion trend is that they not only absorb different European and American cultures, but also integrate these contents with their own culture, and the shock that Japanese fashion culture brings to the world is not only the design itself, but also the bearer of culture, which is the content we have always missed." ”
Speaking of the future development direction of the national tide, Hang Min said that what is important is how to make good use of cultural symbols. "Culture itself is a very nihilistic concept that needs a certain carrier to present and express." She frankly said that many of the designs of cultural images and cultural symbols in the current national tide are superficial and very scattered, lacking systematic and large-scale development and utilization, and these designs do not well complete the mission of carrying culture. At the same time, "at this stage, we still lack the creation of immersive cultural spaces. People are more spectators of cultural elements than participants and interactors, our way of conveying culture is too simple, and the future national tide must be integrated into the daily life of the public as a way of life. ”
From the "Gobi Desert" to everyday life
At the beginning of 2021, the Tsinghua Guochao Cultural Economy Development and Communication Research Project Group launched a series of cooperation with the cultural and artistic institutions Wanwu Daji. The project team members and artists jointly visited Dunhuang, the city of intangible cultural heritage, to explore and study, and to find creative inspiration on the ancient Silk Road. Some of these works later appeared at art021 Shanghai 21 Contemporary Art Fair in November, covering painting, sculpture, digital art and limited edition art.
Bin Jiang, All Things . Cave Universe Series - Mechanical West King, Digital Art, 2021
Bin Jiang, All Things . Cave Universe Series - Satellite Deer, Digital Art, 2021
Artist Jiang Bin's "All Things. The Cave Universe Series was born on this trip to Dunhuang. Inspired by the fire in the murals of the Mogao Grottoes, he combines the traditional images of the Western Heavenly King and the Nine-Colored Deer with elements of modern aerospace technology. In his view, the core of the national tide is "traditional re-innovation", showing the traditional image in a way that is more acceptable to the current public. The artist Dong Shubing, a professor at the Sculpture Department of the Academy of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University, completed the "Children of the Earth" series earlier. In 2016, he completed this large-scale sculpture on the Gobi Desert in Guazhou, Gansu Province, depicting a baby lying on the body of Mother Earth, the artist used red sandstone as the main material, used 3D scanning to obtain model data, and then 3D carving in blocks, and finally carved and installed piece by block. Dong Shubing said that in the vast northwest space, he hopes to use nature as a medium to make people resonate with the land.
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes
Dong Shubing, "Children of the Earth", Red Sandstone, 2016.
"Dunhuang art is a rich historical and cultural heritage, which reflects the history and society of Dunhuang in various eras." Dong Shubing said, "The Buddhist art of dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is the culmination of Buddhist culture and art in the mainland, especially the Tang Dynasty sculptures have given me a lot of inspiration... These statues are not imagined and fabricated out of thin air, but based on real people, using fantasies of Gods to express praise for human life, and the weakening of religion has further secularized such statue art, and the result of secularization is to accelerate the exchange and circulation of culture. At ART021, Dong Shubing presented another version of "Children of the Earth": he used fiberglass material and nano-spraying technology, combined with various traditional colors, to complete a series of miniature sculptures. In his view, public art needs to evoke people's thinking about reality and life, and the works that appear in the exhibition try to enter the daily life of urban residents. Nowadays, the connotation of cultural image has entered people's hearts, and also provides a lot of nourishment for the art field, and the artist's re-creation needs to consider people's acceptance, "For example, for Dunhuang culture, we need to find some representative elements with inheritance and rich connotations in the various elements, so that the public will not have a sense of cultural alienation, and will naturally accept the content you recreate." Dong Shubing said to the surging news.
Digitize intangible cultural heritage
With the rise of forms such as NFT art, traditional culture and art have also been swept up in the wave of digital art. In the article "Digital Application in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Display Space", Zhang Lie, associate professor of the School of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, and Yang Hong, associate professor of the School of Cultural Industry Management of the Communication University of China, wrote, "Intangible cultural heritage is different from tangible cultural heritage, and its related material existence such as manufactured products, raw materials, tools, places, props, costumes, texts, etc., is not the core of intangible cultural heritage protection, nor is it the core of display, and the performance and production process of its inheritors is the main body of intangible cultural heritage projects and the core content of display and dissemination." "Therefore, digital display has the potential to convey the form and charm of intangible cultural heritage.
Recently, tsinghua university Sino-Italian base and all things set jointly launched the "Tsinghua All Things Digital Intangible Cultural Heritage International Innovation Workshop", will launch the "Oriental Contemporary Lifestyle: 100x100 Plan", respectively, inviting 100 famous artists and 100 non-genetic inheritors, as well as people who have made achievements in different fields to deeply experience intangible cultural heritage, reach cross-border cooperation with non-genetic inheritors and fashion designers, and use design to make intangible cultural heritage into contemporary life.
Tsinghua Guochao Cultural Economic Development and Dissemination Research Project, Dunhuang
Wang Xudong, project leader of Tsinghua Digital Intangible Cultural Heritage International Innovation Workshop, introduced that the plan will guide non-hereditary inheritors to participate in the digital process of intangible cultural heritage, give intangible cultural heritage enthusiasts a personal experience with the help of intelligent technology, and attract more contemporary young people to participate in the protection of intangible cultural heritage. In addition, Tsinghua Sino-Italian Base and All Things Collection will also establish a "Digital Intangible Cultural Heritage City Atlas": through the collection, integration and recording of intangible cultural heritage classic patterns in different regions, the problem of the decline of intangible cultural heritage core skills from generation to generation will be solved digitally, and the ancient culture will be revitalized through traditional re-creation.
"In recent years, the digitization of intangible cultural heritage has become an important task in the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has actively promoted the digital work of intangible cultural heritage, used digitalization to record representative projects and representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage, strengthened the construction of intangible cultural heritage archives and intangible cultural heritage databases, and promoted the social utilization of intangible cultural heritage archives and data resources, creating a new situation for the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage." Wang Xudong said.