Focus on VR: First Digital Art Salon of Literary and Art Resource Center of CFLAC
Technological Development
Never Changes Idea
but Brings Idea into Reality
In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has become a most popular topic of the industry and in the meanwhile has significantly impacted upon art circles. Then what impact on earth will VR exert on the interaction and integration between such arts as film, theatre and animation? What kind of new art forms will VR bring about in the future? Lately, an art salon concerning VR under the theme “VR’s Potential and Possibility in Art” was held at Literary and Art Resources Center of CFLAC where experts and scholars in related industry, study and research gathered for exchange and discussion about the current situation, future prospect and actual application of VR art.
VR Development Demands Technological Guarantee
“As far as visual sense, artistic sense and visual impact are concerned, VR has surpassed any other conventional audio-video measure of Internet. Such new technology occurring and intervening in our life will exert an inestimable impact upon various aspects of society including arts. Will arts meet an end or restart with VR? There are many other questions for us to examine and answer. For example, aesthetics is a study of senses, but VR brings another virtual sense based upon human sensual experience and will bring about a subversive change over our outlook on life and the world. What kind of influence will such a subversive technology of human senses exert on our true life? This still remains unknown before a profound thinking is given in the circumstance of philosophy, aesthetics and art study.” Xiang Yunju, head of Literary and Art Resources Center of CFLAC and China Art News, said. As he observed, the technological development of VR has provided lots of possibilities for film and theatre, but is still in the process of evolving and yet to be matured at all. Therefore he suggested that technological work be fulfilled in the three aspects of Big-data development platform, knowledge base and knowledge tree, and human-computer interaction. “Without the guarantee of technology, it would be more difficult to advance further. Also about visual standard, any audio-video product without high-definition quality will turn out to be mediocre.” he concluded.
As Zhai Zhenming, professor of philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University and director general of Human-computer Interaction Lab viewed, VR technology, different from artificial intelligence, is blessed with a seamless link between virtuality and reality, capable of erasing the genuine feeling arising from human vision and acoustics, and prone to arouse great changes over human ways of living. As to the future development of VR, “it is quite possible that our next generation should live universally in virtual space as naturally as we use smart phones now.” Zhai predicted.
Out of Old Conventions, VR Changes Artistic Creation and Appreciation
In face of such a subversive technology, how to apply VR in artistic creation has become particularly important. For this issue, Zhang Zhiyi, senior engineer at Science and Art Center of Automation Institute of China Academy of Sciences, pointed out that all sensual technologies make it necessary to address the issue of human service issue of so as to realize the interaction between production, expression and medium. Though VR seems to be a changed way of appreciation, it is, as a matter of fact, a novel way of cognition about arts. Currently, VR has fulfilled amazing applications in various domains of arts: the live broadcast of VR in the concert provides an all-weather live experience for music fans; the VR movie in the 360 degrees panorama audio-visual circumstance poses a challenge of new narration; “Tilt Brush”, an exclusive VR painting software by Google, makes it possible for anyone to make a 3D painting; VR promotes “remote attendance” and expands the traditional theatre into “new horizons”; VR art gallery breaks limitation of time and space and constructs a new semantic dimension for exhibition…All those above are just specific influence at each discipline, and moreover VR can bring about interaction and integration of various art forms and will lead to more new art forms in the future, among which digital art museum is a typical example.
As Zhou Na, project manager of digital art museum at Literary and Art Resources Center of CFLAC, introduced, in the Chinese Digital Art Museum, audiences can build a 3D model by taking pictures through hardware and view an 'eternal' exhibition, that is to say, to view the exhibition at various times and locations. Currently dialogue can be made at PC, and in the future the on-time interaction can be realized by portable voice equipment. 'Beyond the limitation of time and space, VR has not only expanded the traditional exhibition space in a digital way, but also created a new future of art museum as a comprehensive manifestation of front edge of modern technology.' Zhou Na said.
“Art is always ready to break down habits and conventions, and I expect more new art forms take place starting from this digital art museum. Besides those avant-garde and experimental concepts and schools in arts, artists can make full use of these technologies and organize effective resources for their creation, which is indeed a combination of virtuality and reality.” Ran Maojin, deputy director general of Literary and Art Resources Center of CFLAC remarked. In response, Wang Chunchen, curator and professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts, followed, “for viewers, digital art museum can enrich, complement and perfect what the actual art museum fail to achieve and even deconstruct exhibits once again for viewers to appreciate in a new perspective. On the other hand, instead of simply interacting with viewers, more artists and their teams will make trials to apply VR into their creation. The idea change cannot rely merely on hi-tech, but technology will probably innovate ideas and bring boundless imagination into reality. For example, our dreams, though invisible and untouchable, will someday be restored by VR technology and change into an interesting art form”.
