What does new media mean?

It is the network media, also known as the fourth media.

According to different media, people divide the development of news media into different stages-traditional newspapers with paper as the media, broadcasting with radio waves as the media and television based on TV images, which are called the first media, the second media and the third media respectively.

1In May, 1998, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed at the UN Committee on Information that the Internet, the most advanced fourth media, should be used while strengthening the traditional means of written and audio-visual communication. Since then, the concept of "the fourth media" has been formally used.

Network media is called "the fourth media" to emphasize that it is the fourth largest news media that can deliver news information in time and widely, just like newspapers, radio and television. Broadly speaking, "the fourth media" usually refers to the Internet. However, the Internet is not only a media function to disseminate information, but also has the unique advantages of digitalization, multimedia, real-time and interactive dissemination of news information. Therefore, the narrow sense of "the fourth media" refers to the internet-based communication platform to spread news information network. The "fourth media" can be divided into two parts, one is the digitalization of traditional media, such as the electronic version of People's Daily, and the other is the "new media" born due to the convenience provided by the network, such as Sina.

Every technological progress of mankind will bring about great changes in art, for example, the development of perspective and geometry has influenced painting in the Renaissance; The development of mineral and oil purification technology has influenced the clear and rich oil painting style in northern Europe; The research results of machine-produced pigments and optics have promoted the development of external light sketching and impressionism. In the 20th century, the greatest development between art and technology was the special influence of image technology on artistic language.

Art should not only create visual wealth for society, but also think about social culture visually. Only in this way can art truly realize its function. Since this century, with the development of popular culture and the popularity of commercial TV programs, artists have begun to think about the visual acceptance and lifestyle of images. On the other hand, they have begun to engage in this kind of thinking and creation with various practical imaging technologies including photography and film and television. Since futurism, photography and collage of ready-made images have become an important way of artistic creation; Since NamJune Paik of Surfing School, TV, as a new visual technology, has been widely used in personalized visual creation.

Throughout the 20th century, photography, television and even movies have changed from popular culture to artistic creation media. Photography was originally a tool for recording and commemorating, but artists took away posing and collage from it, and combined with the objectivity of the image itself, it developed into a unique personal narrative way, resulting in surreal photography, Cindy Sherman's fake "movie stills" and jeff wall's fake "reality". In the art of video recording, artists combined the electronic media characteristics of television to create artistic television programs different from popular television programs, resulting in NamJune Paik's "TV Electronic Painting" and Douglas's "Extended Film".

Second, just as photography and film are the main visual technology development at the turn of the last century, digital technology is the visual technology development at the turn of the new century. Similarly, it will inevitably affect the development of visual arts.

Collage and traditional darkroom technology with multiple exposures and multiple backgrounds have been replaced by more convenient and powerful digital images in technology. Digital processing is the splicing of graphics, which is more mature and perfect in technology than darkroom work in the manual age. The power of photography comes from people's trust in its objectivity (although in fact its objectivity is questionable). The digital montage of the fantasy world has gained trust because it seems objective, but at the same time, it has buried countless organs and attracted repeated attention for a long time. The sense of crisis in the objective image brings strong tension between truth and falsehood. Digital image is the processing of pictures after shooting. Digital image makes the volume of the picture infinite, which makes it go further than traditional photography, so photo devices appear. In fact, the overwhelming huge graphic space created by Barbara Kugger has always been a device "field".

In the art of video recording, digital technology makes it easy for video clips to share many achievements of film aesthetics ―― all kinds of classic film time processing methods are suitable for video recording. Such as "flashback" as a flashback technique to reverse time and activate memory inventory; Slow mirror delays time and highlights the drama of subtle details; Switching time splicing changes narrative flow, cancels causality and even prompts simultaneity; Fast mirroring compactly compresses the time reduction event process to enhance its symbolic significance. The time processing of video has greater flexibility in digital mode: the overlapping, crossing and parallel relationship of various time dimensions created by various digital stunts such as picture-in-picture and multi-layer painting greatly enriches the traditional film language, and the intervention of three-dimensional animation modeling makes any whimsy possible to become a visual reality.

With the emergence of video and video equipment, interactivity has become the advantage of video art over other traditional art media. The development of digital technology has created compact discs and networks, and at the same time, it has made it easier to interact with several TV screens or expensive projection equipment.

Today, the multimedia art that people talk about is much stronger than the linear evolution of film narrative. Hypertext combined with video, sound and text can not only link to endless other texts, but also enter from various paths, which has made hypertext a maze, and the interactivity it provides is almost endless. Judging from the concept of digital multimedia conceived by people at present, today's multimedia art is only a rough embryo, and we have more possibilities to explore.

Multimedia means a comprehensive revival for art. We know that modernism is a platform for self-purification of various art categories. Painting should exclude literariness and even objects become a certain color on canvas, and finally come to abstract painting. Music should be the pure tone of surfing school, and photography has appeared the pure shadow school. In ancient art, such as cathedral, mural, sculpture, organ and architectural space, it seems that the working mode of "field" rendering psychological atmosphere may be reproduced in multimedia. Just as the altar paintings in the church are no longer mysterious when they are moved to the spotlight of the museum, multimedia will re-bind all kinds of arts together and create a comprehensive experience that cannot be reduced to combined elements.

As far as multimedia creative ability is concerned, the traditional professional art training in different disciplines is far from enough. This makes creation a collaboration of multi-disciplinary talents. In addition, we have realized that digital works have been reprocessed many times in communication, and multimedia has also intensified the anonymity of individual authors, just as Homer's epic is not Homer's personal writing. We see the power of collective creation in the long subtitles at the end of the film. On the other hand, it may also provide space for the emergence of Da Vinci-style generalists. Multimedia art is a new kind of digital art, which absorbs the advantages of many previous art forms, integrates pictures, characters, images, sounds and interactivity, can be described in a single line, laid out in a straight line and deepened in a straight line, and has extremely rich possibilities. What we are exposed to today is just the tip of the iceberg, and its potential needs to be developed through more imaginative practice. Once interactive digital multimedia works are put on the Internet and become network art, it will greatly improve the audience's sense of participation and greatly change our traditional artistic concept. The vast majority of works of art appearing on the Internet today are still behind the Internet itself. When you open art-related websites and homepages on the Internet, you still see oil paintings, Chinese paintings and sculptures. But these things are not really art that matches the network. Of course, network art needs multimedia, interaction and endless things.

Daniel bell, a famous American cultural theorist, once said that since the second half of the 20th century, people have changed from reading and writing as the main way to receiving knowledge by watching and listening. Although daniel bell, as a representative of neo-conservatism, is skeptical and critical of listening and listening culture, it is an indisputable fact that he obviously turned from text reading to image reading. The appearance of television, movies, Internet and e-books that integrate sound, image and text will undoubtedly have a great impact on human knowledge structure, cognitive style and behavior style. With the inevitable trend of globalization, since the reform and opening up in China, the cultural communication mode of the whole society has also accelerated to visual development.

The social function of culture and art requires us to respond to this trend of image reading. No wonder there are two ways to respond, one is to explore technology and visual style, and the other is to think about the characteristics of image reading in an artistic way and the theory of visual art, and to convey this thinking in a way that is in line with the visual acceptance of this era. Therefore, it is of special significance to introduce digital video art into contemporary art. Artists' participation in digital media often depends on rich artistic resources, which can provide new possibilities for the application of digital technology in pure art and applied art. Their times are bound to have positive complementary significance with commercial digital technology companies. Compared with commercial digital technology companies restricted by the market, it is forward-looking, exploratory and academic in the artist era. The existing artistic resources in art history can make digital technology create richer and more peculiar visual achievements, meet the growing social spiritual needs and enrich our social life. On the other hand, as an artistic expression, digital technology is applied between visual art and practical art. Therefore, bringing digital influence into artistic time is undoubtedly a communication channel between them. It can effectively transform pure personal visual creation into social visual products, and at the same time, it can systematically and effectively transform visual phenomena that have appeared in society into personal visual creation resources.

The high-tech we are talking about today is actually a relative concept, that is, every era has its own high-tech. Neolithic is high-tech to paleolithic; Bronzes are high-tech for stone tools; Coal and iron were high-tech in the past; Industrialization was high-tech for its previous era; Information technology is a kind of high technology for any previous historical era. Therefore, the so-called high technology is the technology that human beings constantly discover and invent in the process of development, which is superior and more practical than before.

● Is the new media art in Europe and America mature?

In the 1960s, the information revolution made personal computers the main form of computers. Artists who mastered portable photography and video equipment began to use this media for artistic expression, and new media art began. In the early 1970s, many European and American mass TV stations set up experimental TV programs in succession, trying to accept experimental works of art in the mass TV network, providing experimental places for the combination of new technologies and artistic ideas. These experimental TV centers provide artists with the latest equipment and opportunities to cooperate with technicians, which directly promotes many refreshing electronic vision, creates the first generation of video artists, and stimulates the creative application of new technologies. For example, in 1973, video artist NamJune Paik cooperated with engineer Abby to develop a synchronous mixer, which has become one of the basic functions of today's TV editors. At the end of 1970s, the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation in the United States reduced their funding for mass television experimental projects and directly subsidized artists. The National Arts Foundation also began to sponsor non-profit media arts centers. These media centers provide a more democratic way than TV stations and are more accessible to new digital technologies. The video works created by these centers are rarely broadcast on TV networks, but are exhibited in museums and galleries. As a result, artists began to consider the combination of electronic media and traditional visual art space, which contributed to the maturity of video equipment.

Since 1980s, video art has caused a sensation in various international art exhibitions. With the powerful power of new technology, the sensitivity, comprehensiveness, interactivity and strong sense of existence that traditional media can't compete with have frequently appeared in international art exhibitions, becoming the main art media that keeps pace with shelf art and installation art. Since the 1990s, major art galleries around the world have not only held thematic image exhibitions, but also set up image departments or made image planning. Art institutions around the world hold video festivals regularly to promote the spread and exchange of new media art. In recent years, due to the maturity of personal computers, many works appear in the form of interactive multimedia CDs. 1998 Bonn Video Festival has specially set up awards for multimedia works, and Internet works are also booming.

Today, new media art has developed into a big family of single-frequency video works, video installation works, multimedia CDs and network art, and various training, service and research institutions have emerged. European training centers such as EDA, French Pierre Schaefer International Film and Television Creation Center, British LUX CENTER, German ZKM and other research institutions. In addition, there are many semi-profit production centers that are open to artists at a level lower than commercial prices. For new media art, a lot of cultural funds come from high-tech companies, such as Berlin Film Festival sponsored by Apple Computer, Hamburg Film Festival sponsored by Siemens, and the technical part of Kassel Literature Exhibition sponsored by IBM and Sony. The support for new media art has enhanced the company's cultural image, demonstrated the artistic charm and technical potential of new media, and formed a virtuous circle relationship between new media art and new technology.

With the support of the media industry and relevant government agencies, many media art utopias have been established one after another, the most famous of which are ZKM (Art and Media Center) in Karstu, Germany, AEC (Electronic Art Troupe Center) in Linz, Austria, ICC (Interchange Center) in Tokyo, Japan, etc. To promote the dialogue between contemporary art and science. ZKM was established in 1990, and officially started operation in June. It is the first and only museum in the world with the theme of "interactive art". Its purpose is to create a large laboratory and media city that combines art and technology, and a "new Bauhaus" that will set off a new visual movement. ZKM is a typical German enterprise management model. Under the ideas of crozet, the founder of Siemens, and other large enterprises, we hope to continue the ideas of Bauhaus period and continue to become an art palace combined with industry to confirm the so-called "second modernity" concept. The idea of establishing ZKM originated from the idea of a local German politician, Losa Speth. He hopes to set up a research and development institution of art and media technology, especially visual images and music news, and chooses crozet, the former founder of Frankfurt National Architecture Museum, as the project host and curator. The main purpose of this museum is to develop the media creation, collection, display and promotion of German science and culture. 65438-0992 held the "Multimedia" Multimedia Art Biennale to show its media art collection and the works of internationally renowned media artists and central artists.

From the development of new media art in Europe and America, we can clearly see that the appearance of this art form is closely related to commercial interests from the beginning. Therefore, it is more about showing new scientific and technological products than art. Visiting this new media art exhibition gives people the feeling of visiting a commodity fair.

Are we ready?

It is human nature to like the new and hate the old. It is inevitable for human society to create and use new technologies. Under the double impact of China's IT industry and new media art in Europe and America, the new media art in China started in an almost hazy state.

New media art is not only unknown to the public in China, but also not fully understood and recognized by artists in China. However, new media art is just like the occurrence and development of everything in the world. Only after you fully understand and accept it will it enter your world. Whether you like it or not, it always breaks into houses according to its own rules. The development of new media art in China began in the late 1980s, and by the mid-1990s, a number of outstanding works and mature artists began to appear. In September, 1996, the first video art exhibition in China was held in the Art Museum of China Academy of Fine Arts. This exhibition includes more than a dozen pieces of video equipment and several pieces of video works, focusing on the pioneers of the first generation of video art in China. The exhibition received a great response at home and abroad, and the local media reported it in a large space. Moreover, Wenyi Bao rated this event as the top ten news of China fine arts in that year. This exhibition is regarded by many critics as an important milestone of contemporary art in China.

From 65438 to 0997, several solo exhibitions composed entirely of video art appeared in Beijing, such as Wang's solo exhibition, his video art exhibition and Luo Ji: Five Video Installations. This indicates that China new media artists not only become the focus as a creative group, but also begin to collide with the contemporary China art market in a personal way. More artists affected by this began to devote themselves to the creation of video art, and their achievements were reflected in "97 China Video Art Exhibition". At this point, the image art has become a hot spot in China art world. In 1990s, China Art Yearbook had a special chapter to describe the rise of video art. At the same time, the active video art in China attracted the attention of international art circles, and the works of China new media artists began to appear frequently in important media art festivals around the world. With the development of IT industry, editing equipment on personal computers is cheap and popular, not only video art is further prosperous, but also more artists are exploring interactive multimedia art and network art. ..

In China, the new media art has only a history of more than ten years, but IT has developed at an amazing speed, just like new media, including sound, light, electricity and IT industries, which is the basis of its existence. Barbara Langdon, director of MOMA's video department, said: "The activity of video art in China is the starting point of a new circle drawn after the closure of western new media art circles." Although we don't know how to define new media art more accurately, and no matter what different views we have now, we don't have to worry about how history will review the development of new media art in China. In order to draw a circle that has just started, new media art in China is making efforts and progress.

● How should we define new media art?

ROY ASCOTT, the pioneer of new media art, said: The most striking features of new media art are connectivity and interactivity. Understanding the artistic creation of new media needs to go through five stages: connection, integration, interaction, transformation and emergence. First of all, we must connect and immerse ourselves in it (instead of just watching from a distance) and interact with the system and others, which will lead to the transformation of works and consciousness, and finally a brand-new image, relationship, thinking and experience will appear. What we generally call new media art mainly refers to circuit transmission and computer creation. However, this medium based on silicon crystals and electrons is currently being combined with biological systems and concepts from molecular science and genetics. The most novel new media art will be the combination of "dry" silicon crystal computer science and "wet" biology. This emerging new media art is called "wet media" by Roy ascot.

There are many forms of new media art, but there is only one thing in common, that is, users participate in changing the image, form and even meaning of works through direct interaction with them. They trigger the transformation of works in different ways-touching, moving in space, making sounds, etc. Whether the interface with the work is keyboard, mouse, optical or acoustic sensor, or other more complex and precise or even invisible "triggers", the relationship between the viewer and the work is mainly interaction. Interconnection is a barrier across time and space, connecting people all over the world. In these cyberspace, users can play different identities at any time, search distant databases and information files, learn about foreign cultures and create new communities.

BENJAMIN WEIL, director of the new media department of the British Center for Contemporary Art Research, planned the 1998 Shanghai Digital Art New Media Exhibition. He believes that works of art need to put forward the concept of artist first, and then the most ingenious and ingenious solutions are put forward by technology to complete them. Works of art are related to everyone's way of thinking. The creation driven by ideas is artistic creation, but the creation realized only by technology cannot be called artistic creation. This just shows the relationship between artistic creation and technical application in new media art. ETIME magazine discussed the conceptual difference between network art and network art in 1996. Firstly, it depends on the concept of technology or artist to effectively determine and influence artistic creation. The former is technical, while the latter emphasizes the humanistic concept of creation, just as there was a similar argument in the early days of video art, whether to use technology by concept or to use technology as the pure standard of art classification.

Network art can bring many different feelings to the audience. For example, some works use a combination of words and performances to explain each other's works, providing the audience with opportunities to jointly produce and complete the works. Different from traditional art, online art allows works to communicate directly with more audiences. In some international online art exhibitions, a way of displaying works called WEB ARCHITECTURE is provided. The audience watches the work under the guidance of the artist, the artist introduces the creative intention of the work, and the art critic can also comment at the same time. During the visit of the whole network building, the difference between the audience's online behavior and the actual situation will not be too big, just like we usually visit other art exhibitions.

As far as art itself is concerned, the new media art originated from the conceptual art in the 1960s, manifested in the early futuristic manifesto, Dada-style behavior and representative art in the 1970s. Communication and cooperation have become the focus of artists' attention in new media art creation. They are constantly exploring new behavior patterns and new media materials, trying to explore the possibility of creating new thinking, new human experience and even a new world. Many artists are deeply interested in involving the audience in their works. The definition of a work of art itself no longer depends on its physical form, but more on its formation process. In a word, the fascination with metaphors and patterns of new science throughout the 20th century, especially quantum physics at the beginning of the century and neuroscience and biology at the end of the century, greatly stimulated artists' imagination.

● Is art integrated into technology, or are both integrated into commercialization?

However, there are also some problems that make people feel confused and confused. Roy ascot and BENJAMIN WEIL seldom talk about artists' artistic creation, but more about the technical application and mastery of new media and the market problems of new media art, giving people an illusion that the most important thing of new media art is not artistic creation, but how to guide art to apply new technologies to occupy the market. Of course, this may be related to the indissoluble bond between new media art and commercialization as soon as it was born. Roy ascot believes that for artists in the 2nd/kloc-0th century, the problem of construction is more important than the problem of presentation. He said: "Interest in Internet, bioelectronics, wireless network, intelligent software, virtual reality, neural network, genetic engineering, molecular electronic technology, robotics and so on is not only related to the creation and circulation of our works, but also to the new definition of art, the aesthetics of appearance, and the interaction, connection and transformation. Appearance aesthetics has replaced the old appearance aesthetics that only cares about the appearance of objects and some specific absolute values. However, the new aesthetics tries to interact with the invisible forces in the world through the transformation and evolution of technology and culture. "

He added: "The truly creative digital artist is not that he can use new technology, just like choosing a cooking method from a menu, but that new technology will expand the market, test the limits of technology, and then promote its transformation. Therefore, we are looking for intelligent machines and systems with high responsiveness, which can even predict our needs and show a certain degree of self-awareness (but not artificial awareness). So, how do artists who are exposed to post-biological culture operate? We must expand and seek new sources of funds and supporters. The old market dominated by art dealers and galleries can't treat such an art that is constantly flowing, constantly redefining itself and constantly transforming itself, even if it is not all a flash in the pan. Compared with the tradition of art and its closed mode, we seem to be more receptive to new scientific discoveries and attempts. At the same time, in the interactive communication system, the close relationship between people and the central wisdom of the global Internet means the emergence of a new spiritual form. We need to build meaningful alliances with scientists, high-tech personnel and enterprises-they not only challenge and test our creativity and imagination, but also provide us with the possibility of weaving and even realizing our fantasies. If these enterprises don't exist, then we must invent them. After all, in terms of investing in pure ideas and innovative behaviors, the initial public offering of start-ups in Silicon Valley is very similar to culture and conceptual art! When we digital and post-biological artists invest in our work intellectually and financially, we will create new behavior patterns, new social organizations, the relationship between ideas and technology, and the relationship between the body and bionics and telecommunications systems. "

From Roy ascot's talk above, we seem to get the impression that new media art will gradually integrate into media technology; New media artists will be transformed into or replaced by media technology experts; New media art will be more commercialized; New media art will exist because of the existence and development of media technology. This is why people are confused and confused. However, regardless of the future trend of new media art, IT will inevitably exist and develop with the development of IT industry and Internet. We don't have to rush to any conclusions about new media art.

New technology will continue to develop rapidly, and its influence and participation in art design will be deeper and deeper. Art and science will work together in our life, or the boundary between art and science will become more and more blurred, which may be an unavoidable reality. However, we can't equate art with science, and think that new technology will turn art into science, or science into art, and technology pursues unity, standardization and stereotypes, because only in this way can it conform to industrial production; Art pursues individuality, originality and heterosexuality, because only in this way can it satisfy human aesthetic taste. We can use a new technology as a means to create art, but we cannot use a new art as a method of technological invention.