Keywords

1 Introduction

Art is a miracle blooming in human civilization. Works of art concocts various cultural and historical features of different time and space. In the course of history, continuity and innovation have never stopped. New media art combines artistic creation, media dissemination and real-time interaction together. It is both an art carrier and a media for communication. Apart from the traditional forms of expression, interactive works of art with the utilization of digital technology can simultaneously stimulate people’s senses of vision, hearing and touch as well as other feelings, which significantly enhance people’s aesthetic experience. This new media art, with this dramatic distinction from traditional art, offers new opportunities for expanding the inheritance and continuation of traditional Chinese culture.

2 Art Features of New Media

New media art usually refers to all works of art created using media and technical means [1]. In the 1960s, contributed by the rapid development of technology and media, new media art came into being. Today, under the background of global information technology, the new media art presents new features in terms of creation methods, communication carrier, exchange display, etc.

2.1 Highly Convenient Reproduction of Art Works

The uniqueness of a work of art determines the difficulty of its reproduction. The early human reproduction can hardly ever present the artistic value of the original work. The advent of photographic techniques has greatly increased the convenience of reproduction … moreover, more and more works of art are precisely designed for being duplicated. And digital technology is a powerful assist in the promotion of works of art. For example, the reproduction of video is pretty convenient, which can be played in the medias such as cinema, television and the Internet, greatly enhancing the visibility and influence of the work and obtaining more business value. Another example is the 3D printing technology, with which the high-precision reproduction of three-dimensional works of art is realized.

2.2 The Wide Range of Art Media Material

New media art has broadened the scope of art media, of which any material can be used for art creation. Combine different media materials to create and express concept, thereby generating new connotation. As early as 1996, the CAVE, a work of new media interaction, is created by Jeffrey Shaw, a professor of media art from the City University of Hong Kong, of which the artist manipulated wood figures and images as mediums to control the interaction between the projection of the surroundings images and the virtual world.

2.3 The Improved Aesthetic Appreciation of the Public

Traditional works of art are often caviar to the general. Viewers tend to keep a certain distance, which is inconvenient for close contact and feeling the art. The new media art are different, which eliminates the gully between viewers and creators. In direct and real-time communication, the interaction between viewers and works of art has even become an integral part of the artwork.

3 The Integration of New Media Art and Chinese Traditional Culture

We are in an era of rapid information dissemination. The key to integrate the new media art into the cultural perspective and aesthetic thinking of Chinese people lies in the artistic creators’ interpretation of Chinese traditional culture. As one of the four ancient civilizations passed down from ancient times, the traditional Chinese concepts, symbols, languages, art styles and performances are all precious sources of creativity. The core of the creation of new media art integrating modern science, technology and communication features sources from the author’s creativity; media and technology are considered as the carrier and means of realizing new media art work. In the course of college new media art teaching in recent years, the author has been trying to guide students to pay attention to Chinese traditional culture and help students explore and establish art language independently. Instruct students to follow the creative process of “creativity - media - expression - feedback” step by step. The source of creativity can be directly derived from all aspects of Chinese traditional culture. However, the creation in real sense is not to apply or copy mechanically, but to think independently on the basis of proper interpretation. For example, the reflection on the spirit of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in China; and the comparison study of certain characteristics of Chinese and Western culture and so forth are by no means isolated cases. After the initial formation of the concept of creativity, the carrier of the work of the media can be determined; encourage students to diversify their perception of the media, and to repeatedly compare the related similarities and differences. Such as the sense of vision, sound, smell, touch and so on. The perception of expression is the key to artistic creation. With regard to the integration of new media art and traditional Chinese cultural factors, there are several creative angles to consider:

3.1 Fusion of Chinese Traditional Culture

Confucianism, Taoism, and the Buddhism introduced during the Han Dynasty into China these three schools of traditional Chinese culture formed a unique ideological system of ethics and morality in Chinese religions, which interprets the relationship between Chinese and nature, and embodies the uniqueness of Chinese philosophy and world view. One of the most remarkable is the philosophical thought of “harmony between man and nature”.

The concept of “harmony between man and nature” stems from the religious belief totem of ancient human beings and wishes to be blessed by gods. At the same time, as a country dominated by farming civilization, the forerunners of China are full of admiration and gratitude for nature. This psychological expectation has been tempered in the precipitation of a long history and developed into a unique psychological and cultural characteristic of Chinese nation. As stated in Chuang Tzu’s Qi Wu Lun (Equality of All Substances): “Heaven, earth and I exist together,everything and me are in unity.”. This is the concept of integration of man and heaven. The idea of “harmony between man and nature” holds that man is a part of nature and that man and nature should maintain a harmonious and unified state. For thousands of years, this kind of appeal has being running through Chines’ blood and has penetrated into the essence of traditional Chinese culture and various fields.

Among the student graduation works in 2016, some students applied digital techniques to create a series of quite interesting interactive works in the form of Chinese ink paintings, which is called “Meditation” (Fig. 1). The viewer, sitting on the particular futon, contemplates his life from the different ink figures produced in the flow of thought through a few minutes of meditation, which embodies the author’s reflection on the unity of heaven and man under the idea of “harmonious relationship between man and nature”.

Fig. 1.
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Meditation

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3.2 Fusion of Aesthetic Taste of Chinese Art

China’s artistic field has a wide range, whose aesthetic core is the expression of artistic conception. Artistic conception is a category of aesthetics combining “meaning” and “state”. It is a kind of art form with meaning and state exceeding the original objects that is achieved through the external image in art work. “Meaning” is the artist’s subjective creation, and “state t” is an objective reflection of life; the harmonization of the two aspects achieves artistic conception. “When there is a scene, there is mood state”. This opinion points out the two basic elements that constitute the artistic conception: mood and scene, of which the mood is subjective, and the scene is objective. When mood and scene blend together, the two are united and inseparable. From the perspective of aesthetic activities, “artistic conception” is a spiritual sphere obtained by transcending the limitation, concretes, and environment, from which certain philosophical enlightenment can be perceived. In terms of the creation of artistic conception, Zong Baihua once said: “It is an important area for understanding the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese nation.” How to express the far-reaching artistic conception through the use of technical means and media at the moment is the point that we should think about. In addition to displaying unique oriental aesthetic and taste from the aspects of traditional Chinese art forms such as paintings, calligraphy, music, dance, ancient gardens, arts and crafts, it is also possible to implant modern concepts and thereby creating new media art works with artistic conception. Such as the student work “Sound Polaroid” (Fig. 2) under my guide, it is a sound visualization interaction device combining physical device with computer programming. The experimenter presses the button to activate the device, which will collect sound through the “lens” to interact, therefrom visualizing the abstract sound. And then, in accordance with the sound fluctuations from experience, corresponding Chinese radical will be generated and scattered on paper, which will be printed out as souvenirs for those who participated the experience. This interactive device expressed two aspects of meanings: First, “spread is misreading”; Second, “all things are numbers.” The final presentation of the work breaks down people’s perception of normal things and delivers them unexpected experience.

Fig. 2.
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Sound polaroid

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There is another student work called “The City in Eyes,” which collects various types of wastes of urban life as a creative element, and then put them together into a physical model. At first glance, it is rather like a bunch of chaotic waste in ballistic shape. However, when people enter the interactive area, the light media will be activated. Under the illumination of light, a silhouette image of a classic woman of ancient time looking up to the Air City is casted on the wall, showing the different aspects of article from different perspective and under minor changes (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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The city in eyes

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This art work, with the utilization of “butterfly effect”, attempts to explore the harm and beauty brought about by the development to the earth and human beings, thereby pondering about the sentimental relationship between humans and cities, so as to seek commonalities that have been passed through thousands of years in the unique aesthetic of Chinese.

3.3 Collision Between Eastern and Western Cultures Under the Context of Globalization

In the trend of the gradual convergence of global economy and cultures, as well as information globalization, traditional cultures and art creations in every country are inevitably affected by foreign cultures. How to promote the innovation of new media arts positively is a topic worth to be discussed. Some art creators, on the one hand, neglect, negate or even destroy their own traditional artistic heritage. On the other hand, they go all out to worship and imitate the external art forms, thus reflecting the “lack of proper self-confidence.” In fact, both the passionate and straightforward western expression, and the subtle and euphemistic Eastern metaphor are indispensable in artistic creation. Sometimes the collision between the two will create new and exciting sparks. For example, a student uses digital technology to create a series of graphic works, whose contents are westerners who arrange funeral in Chinese style, which have given rise to the thinking on various issues encountered by Chinese traditional customs in the course of globalization. Among the installations works created by students, the visual elements of Chinese, European, American, and African cultures are all fit into a square dark box; the audience can see the contents of the dark box through a square hole, showing the phenomenon of cultural integration in the context of globalization. In another piece of student installation art, the roles of Chinese shadow play are introduced in a Gothic-style European building; through the windows of the building, looming shadow-play figures can be seen. The thought-provoking work led the audience to concern about the demise of Chinese tradition culture.

4 Conclusion

President Xi Jinping, during his visit to Europe, emphasized: “We must maintain our confidence, endurance, and determination to our own culture.” “Cultural confidence” can be considered as “cultural consciousness.” The well-known sociologist Fei Xiaotong holds that: cultural confidence refers to a person’s perception to his cultural the specific source, development process and future under specific environment; it is self-awakening and self-creation of culture.”

China’s cultural confidence stems from the splendid history of civilization created by the Chinese nation in 5,000 years, and its cultural elements have deeply rooted in the soul of the nation. So when talk about the ancient Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors, the Silk Road or the new “Four Great Inventions” (HSR, Alipay, bike sharing and online shopping), people are full of confidence in their own country’s culture. This is the proudness generated spontaneity. It also determines that on the basis of “cultural confidence,” under the background of globalization, the collision and integration of Eastern and Western cultures will be an inevitable path for the development of Chinese new media art in the future.