Technology X Art
Today, in the 21st century, the development of science and technology has provided artists with unprecedented new ways, and the continuous exhibition of science and technology art has proved this. When we walk into these science and technology art exhibitions, we will have this question: Is this a science and technology popularization experience exhibition cloaked in art, or a contemporary art exhibition that expands the scope of art through scientific and technological means? What is the primary relationship between art and technology, or can the two already be integrated?
Below, Phoenix Art brings you a review article from young curator Li Guohua.
Technology is not the "savior" of art
/ Li Guohua
Today, in the 21st century, the development of science and technology has provided artists with unprecedented new ways, not only diversified materials and scientific and technological creative means, but also conceptual changes, especially artificial intelligence, AI technology, big data, and biotechnology.
This is evidenced by the continuous science and technology art exhibitions: in August 2015, the "Imagined Future", which is said to explore the most avant-garde and futuristic spatial concept of the museum, was held at Today Art Museum in Beijing; The 2018 Beijing Media Art Biennale was held at the CAFA Art Museum, and although the theme of the exhibition is "Post-Life", it focuses on the artist's interdisciplinary artistic experiments in the field of art and technology. In the same year, another exhibition emphasizing the combination of art and technology, "As You Think: An Accelerated Future", was held at the Guangdong Museum of Art. In April 2019, in the "Flyover - Interdisciplinary Experience" hosted by Wuhan Art Museum, a large number of artistic creations related to science and technology also appeared; A large number of scientific and technological art works also appeared at the 2021 Chengdu Biennale, such as Holler's "Decimal Clock", Eliasson's "You are happening, has happened, will soon happen"...
And when we walk into these science and technology art exhibition sites, if it is not in the specific art venue of the art museum, we will mistakenly think that we have broken into a certain science and technology product exhibition: electronic instruments, tubular inexplicable objects, rotating cylinders, and strange sounds made by machines from time to time, do not let us feel the atmosphere of the museum and the scene that art exhibitions should have in the usual sense, but these scenes are indeed art museum sites with art exhibitions. So we have this question:
Is this an exhibition of science and technology popularization experience cloaked in art, or a contemporary art exhibition that expands the scope of art through scientific and technological means? What is the primary relationship between art and technology, or can the two already be integrated?
798 Korea Hyundai Motor Culture Center Science and Technology Exhibition
The scene of the 2021 Chengdu Biennale
The future exhibition site of the Guangzhou Triennale accelerated
Of course, the relationship between art and technology is not new to today. In fact, every major progress in science and technology in history will have an important impact on the development of art, especially the enrichment of the means of contemporary art creation and dissemination. From the invention of photography, the birth of video recorders, the global application of Internet technology, to the current artificial intelligence and ecological technology, every time soon after the advancement of scientific and technological means, in the field of art, especially in the field of contemporary art, some artists will quickly use it in their own creations. It can be said that science and technology have affected the course of human destiny, and it is also affecting the development of art history. Moreover, after Duchamp directly applied readymade products to the creation of works, the direct appearance of scientific and technological products in art exhibitions was even more commonplace. Domestic artists have also begun to try to use technology to complete their own creations.
Korean artist Nam Joon Paik created Electronic Highways: The Continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii in 1995, in which television replaced traditional media as the main source of information, especially image information, after the rise of television. But are these TV messages more trustworthy than paper media? Obviously very doubtful. It brings more information and easy communication, but it also brings lies, anxiety and insecurity.
Nam Jun Paik, Electronic Highways: The Continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii
"Identity" is a work completed by artist Hu Yinping based on Internet technology. On the Internet, she saw the image of an ordinary woman that can be seen everywhere, but when this image was transmitted to her through the artist's friend, the friend said that the photo was very similar to the artist himself, and then the artist had an impulse to this photo by repeatedly watching, that is, she wanted to be the image of the girl in this photo, so she did the following actions, she was infinitely close to this image by dressing up, by gaining weight, by changing her hairstyle, customizing the same clothing. In this work, the artist explores the transformational relationship between image and reality, as well as the evolution and dislocation of body, identity and social relations through his own actions.
Hu Yiping, "Identity"
The artist is Liang Ban, an artist who likes to explore the various relationships between reality and virtual technology. He often uses the mobile Internet as a medium to start his creations, and is also good at using the intertextual relationship between intertwined images and reality and the scattered symbolic genes in various post-network arts to weave and reassemble new plots outside of reality, which are humorous, ridiculed, poetic, and interspersed with criticism. For example, his work "Man on the Moon": a man (the artist himself) holding a selfie stick and being struck by lightning the moment he presses the shutter, which is both a spoof and a joke, but also an accurate description of the typical images of this era, and releasing a sense of humor and poetry, but also to explore some of the relationship between artificial intelligence and us today. It seems that the more technologically technological the medium, the more insistent it is to lead to a poetic expression, which more or less acknowledges the cooling phenomenon of technology, and artificially creating poetry is precious.
Liang Ban, "The Man on the Moon"
……
Of course, there are many works that can be called scientific and technological art, and there are similar to the recent rise of digital art and biological art, which can be summarized within the scope of science and technology. It can be said that technology has had a profound impact on the current art form.
Just through the author's list of creations, it is not difficult to find that the use of technology in artistic creation has not replaced art. Although these creations are completed through technology, the Internet or machines, they eventually return to the real society and people. That is to say, technology has not achieved the status of being directly displayed without the artist's reproduction. Perhaps in the future, technology will be able to express everything and become the master of all fields. But at least for now, despite the impact of artificial intelligence, the main body of art is still the artist. The themes that art, especially contemporary art, need to express should still be issues and events that are closely related to society. It can be social problems and events brought about by the development of science and technology, such as the ethical problems caused by the editing of children's genes not long ago or the impact of uncertainty caused by artificial intelligence on the future fate of mankind, but the use of science and technology itself in the field of art cannot directly become the object of display, it can only be a means. And although compared with art, the rapid development of science and technology has changed the way most people live, but in the field of art, technology is only a means or a form of art, and cannot make itself a theme, after all, the core of art is still the artist, not the scientist. Viewers have the following concerns:
While AI can help humans achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in numerous fields, it may also surpass humans and in turn control and even enslave humans.
Therefore, technology cannot solve some other problems facing Chinese contemporary art, and the core of art problems is still related to people. This is also when Chinese contemporary art entered the fortieth year of its birth, although it has more advanced science and technology, richer knowledge resources and a better economic environment than in the past, it is still facing a more complex and difficult development dilemma than before.
Because this dilemma comes from both the external ecological environment and the lack of activity and motivation of the internal creative vitality.
To sum up, this is not only because today's art world no longer has the conceptual edifice that symbolizes the times or the "panacea" that can be grasped at once, but also because Chinese art in the second decade of the new century has entered a more complex new stage: the diversity of artistic phenomena and the chaos of values, the multiplicity of positions, views and strategies of the critical circle, almost every art phenomenon targets very different problems, and all have various subversive characteristics that change history, and these cannot be solved by science and technology.
So, while today's contemporary art scene still looks busy and diverse, the problems it faces may be more difficult than in the past. At the same time, the current turn in the political context of globalization and the decline of the economy have intensified the complexity and multiplicity of the forms and structures of cultural and artistic development. Faced with such a future, we can only say:
People will face a more confused world! Technology may provide more possibilities for the presentation of art, but it cannot become the "savior" of art.
(Phoenix Art Exclusive Report Written by Li Guohua / Xie Yaqi Responsible Editor / DBK)
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