Characteristics and trends of new media copywriting

It is the online media, also called the fourth media

People divide the development of news media into different stages according to the different media of communication-traditional newspapers using paper as the medium, Broadcasting, which uses radio waves as a medium, and television, which is based on television image transmission, are called the first media, the second media, and the third media respectively.

In May 1998, United Nations Secretary-General Annan proposed at the United Nations Information Committee that while strengthening traditional text and audio and video communication methods, the most advanced fourth media-the Internet (Internet) should be used . Since then, the concept of "fourth media" has been officially used.

The purpose of calling online media the "fourth media" is to emphasize that, like newspapers, radio, television and other news media, it is the fourth largest news media that can deliver news information in a timely and extensive manner. Broadly speaking, the "fourth media" usually refers to the Internet. However, the Internet is not only the media function of disseminating information. It also has the unique advantages of digitalization, multimedia, real-time and interactive transmission of news information. Therefore, in a narrow sense, the "fourth media" refers to the network that disseminates news and information based on the Internet as a transmission platform. The "fourth media" can be divided into two parts. One is the digitization of traditional media, such as the electronic version of the People's Daily, and the other is the "new media" born due to the convenient conditions provided by the Internet, such as Sina.

Every technological advancement of mankind will bring about huge changes in art. For example, the development of perspective and geometry affected Renaissance painting; the development of mineral and oil purification technology affected northern Europe. The clear and layered oil painting style shaped the style; the results of machine-produced pigments and optical research contributed to the development of plein air sketching and impressionism. In the 20th century, the biggest development between art and science and technology was the special influence of image technology on artistic language.

Art must not only create visual wealth for society, but also must visually think about social culture. Only in this way can art truly realize its functions. Since the beginning of this century, with the development of pop culture and the popularity of commercial television programs, artists have begun to think about visual acceptance and lifestyle of images. On the other hand, they have begun to use practical methods including photography, film, and television in Various image technologies are used to engage in this kind of thinking and creation. Starting from Futurism, photography and collage of ready-made images have become important ways of artistic creation; starting from Fluxus’s Nam June Paik, television has begun to be widely used as a new visual technology in personalized visual creation. application.

Throughout the 20th century, photography and television and even film stock were transformed from popular culture into artistic creation media. Photography is originally a tool for recording and commemoration, but the artist has abstracted away the technical techniques of posing and collage, combined it with the objectivity of the image itself, and developed it into a unique personal narrative method, resulting in the emergence of transcendence. Realistic photography, Cindy Sherman’s fake “movie stills” and Jeff Wall’s fake “realness” to name a few. In video art, artists combine the electronic media characteristics of television to create "artistic television programs" that are different from popular television programs, resulting in the emergence of Nam June Paik's "Television Electronic Painting" and Douglas's "Extended Film". wait.

2 Just as photography and film were major visual technology developments at the turn of the last century, digital technology is a visual technology development at the turn of the new century. Likewise, it will inevitably affect the development of visual art.

Collage and the multiple exposures and composites of traditional darkroom techniques have been technically replaced by digital imaging that is more convenient and powerful. Digital processing is a platter of graphics, which is technically more mature and perfect than the darkroom work of the manual era. The power of photography comes from people's trust in its objectivity (despite the fact that its objectivity is questionable). While digital montage in a fantasy world gains trust because of its seemingly objective nature, it also lays down countless mechanisms and attracts people. The long and repeated gaze and the sense of crisis of the shaky objective image bring about a strong tension between truth and falsehood. Digital imaging is the processing of pictures after shooting. Digital imaging makes the volume of pictures infinite, which makes it go further than traditional photography, so photo installation appeared. In fact, the overwhelming and huge picture and text space created by Barbara Kuger is already a kind of installation "field".

In video art, digital technology allows video short films to easily share many achievements in film aesthetics - various classic film time processing methods are applicable to video. For example, "flashback" is a flashback technique that reverses time and activates memory inventory; slow motion delays time to highlight the drama of subtle details; time splicing during switching changes the narrative flow, cancels causality and even suggests simultaneity; intensive fast motion Compress time and shorten the event process to enhance its symbolic meaning. However, the time processing of video has greater flexibility in digital methods: the various overlapping and parallel relationships of multiple time dimensions created by various digital special effects such as picture-in-picture and multi-layer superimposed pictures have greatly enriched the traditional film language. The intervention of animation modeling makes any fantasy possible to become a visual reality.

With the emergence of video and video installations, interactivity has begun to become the advantage of video art over other traditional art media.

While the development of digital technology has created CD-ROM and the Internet, it has also made it easier to realize the interactivity that was originally created with several TV screens or expensive projection equipment.

The multimedia art people are talking about today is much more powerful than the linear evolution of film narratives. Hypertext that combines video, sound, and text can not only be linked to endless other texts, but also Accessed by multiple paths, hypertext has become a maze, and the interactivity it provides is almost endless. Judging from the current concept of digital multimedia conceived by people, today's multimedia art is only a rough embryo, and we still have more possibilities to explore.

Multimedia means a comprehensive revival of art. We know that the modernist period was an arena for self-purification of various art categories. Painting had to exclude literary qualities and even objects and became some colors on the canvas, and finally reached abstract painting. Music wanted to become the pure sound of Fluxus, and pure shadow school appeared in photography. In ancient art, such as cathedrals, murals, sculptures, pipe organs and architectural spaces work together, and the working method of "field" to render psychological atmosphere seems likely to reappear in multimedia. Just as an altarpiece in a church loses its mystery when it is placed under the spotlight of a museum, multimedia will bind various arts together again to create a comprehensive experience that cannot be reduced to combined elements.

For the abilities required for multimedia creation, professional art training in traditional disciplines is far from enough. This makes creation a collaboration between multidisciplinary talents. Coupled with the fact that digital works are reprocessed many times during dissemination, we have already realized that multimedia also intensifies the anonymity of individual authors, just as Homer's epic poems are not Homer's personal writing. We have already seen the power of this collective creation in the long credits at the end of the movie. On the other hand, this may also provide space for the emergence of Leonardo da Vinci-style generalists. Multimedia art is an emerging type of digital art. It absorbs the strengths of many previous art methods and integrates pictures, texts, images, sounds and interactivity. It can be described, discussed, laid out in a straight line, or can be in-depth in a single line. , the possibilities are extremely rich. What we are exposed to today is just the tip of the emerging iceberg, and its potential has yet to be developed through more imaginative practices. Once interactive digital multimedia works are placed online and become network art, the degree of audience participation will be greatly enhanced and our traditional concept of art will be greatly changed. Most of the artworks that appear on the Internet today still lag behind the Internet itself. When you open art-related websites and homepages on the Internet, you will see oil paintings, Chinese paintings, and sculptures. But these things are not art that truly matches the Internet. Internet art should of course be multimedia, and of course it must be interactive, linking endless things.

The famous American cultural theorist Daniel Bell once said that since the second half of the 20th century, humans have changed from reading and writing as the main way of receiving knowledge to watching and listening as the main way of receiving knowledge. way. Although as a representative figure of neoconservatism, Daniel Bell holds a skeptical and critical attitude towards the culture of seeing and listening, it is obvious that the shift from text reading to image reading is an indisputable fact. The emergence of television, movies, the Internet, and electronic reading materials that integrate sound, images, and text will undoubtedly have a significant impact on human knowledge structure, cognitive methods, and behavioral methods. Along with the inevitable trend of globalization, the cultural communication method of China's entire society has also been developing at an accelerated pace in the aspect of imagery since the reform and opening up.

The social functions of culture and art require us to respond to this trend of image reading. No wonder there are two ways to respond. One is to develop technology and visual styles, and the other is to use artistic methods and visual art theories to think about the characteristics of the times of image reading, and use this thinking in a way that is consistent with this era. conveyed through visual reception. Therefore, it is of special significance to introduce digital imaging art into contemporary art. Artists' participation in digital media often relies on rich artistic resources, all of which can provide new possibilities for the application of digital technology in pure art and applied art. Their time must be of positive complementary significance to commercial digital technology companies. Compared with commercial digital technology companies that are restricted by the market, artists have a certain forward-looking, exploratory and academic nature. The existing artistic resources in art history can enable digital technology to create richer and more unique visual results, satisfy the growing social spiritual needs, and enrich our social life. On the other hand, digital technology, as a method of artistic expression, is used between visual art and practical art at the same time. Therefore, incorporating digital influence into artistic time is undoubtedly an exchange channel between the two. It can effectively convert purely personal visual creation into social visual products, and at the same time, it can systematically and effectively convert visual phenomena that have appeared in society into personal visual creation resources.

What we call high-tech today is actually a relative concept, that is, every era has its own high-tech.

The Neolithic is high and new technology to the Paleolithic; the bronze is high and new to stone; coal and iron are high and new to the past; industrialization is high and new to previous eras; and information technology is high and new to the past. Compared with any previous historical era, it was a high-tech technology. Therefore, the so-called high-tech refers to technologies that humans continue to discover and invent in the process of development, and are superior and more practical than before.

● Has new media art matured in Europe and the United States?

In the 1960s, the information revolution made personal computers the main form of computers. Artists who had mastered portable photography and video equipment began to use this medium for artistic expression, and new media art began. In the early 1970s, many popular TV stations in Europe and the United States set up experimental TV programs one after another, trying to accept experimental artistic works in popular TV networks and provide experimental venues for combining new technologies with artistic trends. These experimental television centers provided artists with the latest equipment and opportunities to collaborate with technicians, which directly contributed to many refreshing electronic visions, created the first generation of masters of video art, and also stimulated the creative use of new technologies. For example, in 1973, video artist NAN JUN PAIK collaborated with engineer Abby to develop a sync mixer, which today has become one of the basic functions of television editing. In the late 1970s, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States reduced their funding for experimental popular television programs and instead directly funded artists. The National Endowment for the Arts also began to sponsor non-profit media arts centers. These media centers offer a more democratic approach than television stations and easier access to new digital technologies, creating video works that are less often broadcast on television networks and are instead displayed in museums and galleries. As a result, artists began to consider combining electronic media with the space of traditional visual art, which led to the maturity of video installations.

Since the 1980s, video art has dominated various international art exhibitions. It uses the powerful power of new technologies and the sensitivity, comprehensiveness, interactivity and intensity that traditional media cannot compete with. It has a sense of presence and has frequently appeared in international art exhibitions, becoming a major art medium that keeps pace with easel art and installation art. After the 1990s, major art museums around the world not only held special video exhibitions, but also established video departments or formulated video plans. Art institutions around the world regularly hold video festivals to promote the dissemination and exchange of new media art. In recent years, as personal computers have become increasingly mature, many works have appeared in the form of interactive multimedia discs. In 1998, the Bonn Video Festival established a special award for multimedia works, and Internet works are also booming.

Today, new media art has developed into a large family of single-channel video tape works, video installation works, multimedia discs and Internet art. Various supporting training, service and research institutions have also emerged. Training centers such as EDA in Europe, research institutions such as the Pierre Chalfit International Film and Television Creation Center in France, LUX CENTER in the UK, ZKM in Germany, etc. There are also many semi-profit production centers open to artists at below-commercial prices. Funding for new media art comes largely from cultural funds from high-tech companies. For example, the Berlin Video Festival is funded by Apple Computer, the Hamburg Video Festival is funded by Siemens, and the technology part of Kassel Documenta is sponsored by IBM and SONY. Support for new media art enhances the company's cultural image, demonstrates the artistic charm and technical potential of new media, and forms a virtuous cycle between new media art and new technologies.

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 is the "ZKM" (CENTER FOR ART AND MEDIA) located in KARLSTUHE, Germany. ), "AEC" (ARS ELECTRONICA CENTER) in Linz, Austria, and "ICC" (INTER COMMUNICATION CENTER) in Tokyo, Japan, etc., with the purpose of promoting dialogue between contemporary art and science. ZKM was established in 1990 and officially started operations in October 1997. 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, a "New Bauhaus" that will set off a new visual movement. ZKM is a typical German enterprise management method. Under the concept of large enterprises such as Siemens sponsor and founding curator HEINRICH KLOTZ, it hopes to continue the concept of the Bauhaus period and continue to become an art combined with industry. Palace, to confirm the so-called "second modernity" concept. The idea of ??establishing ZKM originated from the idea of ??LOTHAR SPAETH, a local politician in Germany. He hoped to establish a research and development institution for art and media technology, especially visual imaging and music journalism, and chose Kreuz, the former founder of the National Architecture Museum in Frankfurt. As program host and curator.

The museum mainly develops media creation, collection, display and promotion of German science and culture. It has held the "MULTIMEDIALE" multimedia art biennial exhibition since 1992 to display its media art collection, internationally renowned media artists and the works of central artists.

From the development of new media art in Europe and the United States, we can clearly see that the emergence of this art form has been closely linked to commercial interests from the beginning, so it is more than a display Instead of art, it displays new technology products. Visiting this new media art exhibition feels more like visiting a product fair.

● Are we ready?

It is human nature to like the new and dislike the old. Creating new technologies and utilizing new technologies are inevitable for the progress of human society. Under the dual impact of China's IT industry and European and American new media art, China's new media art began to start in an almost hazy state.

New media art is not only unfamiliar to the Chinese public, but also Chinese artists do not fully understand and agree with it. However, just like the occurrence and development of everything in the world, new media art does not wait for you to fully understand and accept it before it enters your world. Whether you like it or not, it always breaks in according to its own rules. The development of new media art in China began in the late 1980s. By the mid-1990s, a number of outstanding works and mature artists began to appear. In September 1996, China's first video art exhibition titled "Phenomena and Image" was held at the China Academy of Art Gallery in Hangzhou. This exhibition includes more than a dozen video installations and several videotape works, focusing on the first generation of video art pioneers in China. The exhibition received a huge response at home and abroad. Media outlets across the country reported it in large formats. The Literary and Art News even named the event one of the top ten news stories about Chinese art that year. The exhibition has been positioned by many critics as an important milestone in Chinese contemporary art.

In 1997, several solo exhibitions purely composed of video art appeared in Beijing, such as "Wang Gongxin Solo Exhibition", Song Dong's "Looking" video art exhibition, Qiu Zhijie's "Luo Ji: Five Videos" Installation" solo exhibition. This marks that Chinese new media artists have not only become the focus as a creative community, but have also begun to impact the contemporary Chinese art market in an individual way. More artists affected by this began to devote themselves to video art creation, and their achievements were reflected in the "97 China Video Art Observation Exhibition". At this point, video art has become a hot topic in the Chinese art world. The "China Art Yearbook of the 1990s" has a special chapter describing the rise of video art. At the same time, the activity of Chinese video art has attracted the attention of the international art world, and the works of Chinese new media artists have begun to appear frequently in important media art festivals around the world. With the development of the IT industry, editing equipment on personal computers has become cheap and popular. Not only has video art further prospered, but more artists have begun to explore interactive multimedia art and network art.

New media art in China is only a dozen years old. However, it is the same as the basis for its creation - new media, including sound, light, electricity and IT industries. Develop and grow rapidly. Barbara Langdon, Director of MOMA’s Video Department, believes: “The activity of video art in China is the starting point of a new circle drawn after the circle of Western new media art is closed.” Although we don’t yet know how to be more accurate. When it comes to defining new media art, no matter what opinions there are now, there is no need to worry about how history will look back on the development of China's new media art. China's new media art is working hard and moving forward in order to draw the circle that has just started.

● How should new media art be defined?

ROY ASCOTT, the pioneer of new media art, said: The most distinctive characteristics of new media art are connectivity and interactivity. Understand that new media art creation requires five stages: connection, integration, interaction, transformation, and emergence. First of all, you must connect and immerse yourself in it (rather than just watching from a distance), interact with the system and others, which will lead to the transformation of works and consciousness, and finally the emergence of new images, relationships, thinking and experiences. What we generally call new media art mainly refers to circuit transmission and creation combined with computers. However, this silicon- and electronics-based media is now being integrated with biological systems and concepts derived from molecular science and genetics. The most novel new media art will be the combination of "dry" silicon computer science and "wet" biology. This newly emerging new media art is called "wet media" (MOIST MEDIA) by Roy Ascot.

There are many forms of expression of new media art, but they have only one commonality, and that is - users participate in changing the image, shape, and appearance of the work through direct interaction with the work. Even meaning. They trigger the transformation of the work in different ways - touch, spatial movement, sound, etc. Regardless of whether the interface with the work is a keyboard, mouse, light or sound sensor, or other more complex and sophisticated or even invisible "trigger", the relationship between the viewer and the work is mainly interactive. Connectivity transcends the barriers of time and space and connects people all over the world. In these cyberspaces, users can assume various identities at any time, search for distant databases and information files, learn about foreign cultures, and create new communities.

BENJAMIN WEIL, director of the New Media Department of the British Contemporary Art Research Center, planned the "Digital Art New Media Exhibition" in Shanghai in 1998. He believes that: the artistic work first needs to put forward the artist's concept, and then Technology comes up with the most ingenious and clever solutions to get it done. Art works are related to everyone's way of thinking. Creations driven by concepts are artistic creations, but creations that are only realized through technology cannot be called artistic creations. This just illustrates the relationship between artistic creation and technology application in new media art. In 1996, "ETIME" magazine once discussed the difference between the concepts of NETART and ART IN NET. It first depends on whether technology or the artist's concept effectively determines and affects the creation of art. The former is technical, while the latter emphasizes the humanistic conceptual nature of creation. This is just like a similar debate that occurred in the early days of the emergence of video art (VIDEO ART), whether to use technology with concepts or use technology as art. Pure criteria for classification.

Internet art can bring many different feelings to the audience. For example, some works use text and performance to interpret each other's works, and provide opportunities for the audience to produce and complete the work together. Unlike traditional art, online art allows works to communicate directly with a larger audience. In some international online art exhibitions, a method of displaying works called WEB ARCHITECTURE is provided. The audience looks at the works under the guidance and leadership of the artist, and the artist introduces the creative intention of the work. Art critics Comments can also be made at the same time. During the entire visit to the online building, the difference between the audience's online behavior and the actual situation will not be too big, just like when we usually visit other art exhibitions.

As far as art itself is concerned, new media art originates from the conceptual art of the 1960s, as well as from early futurist manifestos, Dada-style performances and contemporary performance art in the 1970s. Communication and cooperation have become the focus of artists in new media art creation. They constantly explore new behavior patterns and new media materials in an attempt to explore the possibility of creating new ideas, new human experiences, and even new worlds. Many artists are deeply interested in allowing the audience to participate in their works, and the definition of the artwork itself is no longer determined by its physical form, but more by the process of its formation. In short, the fascination with metaphors and models 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 the imagination of artists.

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

However, there are also some issues that are confusing and confusing. Whether Roy Ascot or BENJAMIN WEIL, they rarely talk about the artistic creation of artists, but more about the technical application and mastery of new media, as well as the market issues of new media art. This gives People have an illusion that the most important thing about new media art is not artistic creation, but how to guide art to use new technologies to occupy the market. Of course, this may be related to the indissoluble bond between new media art and commercialization since its birth. Roy Ascot believes that for artists in the 21st century, issues of construction are more important than issues of presentation. He said: "Interest in the Internet, bioelectronics, wireless networks, intelligent software, virtual reality, neural networks, genetic engineering, molecular electronics technology, robotics technology, etc. is not only related to the creation and circulation of our works, but also It is also related to the new definition of art, to the AESTHETIC OF APPARITION, and to interactivity, connection and transformation. The AESTHETIC OF APPEARANCE has replaced the old AESTHETIC OF APPEARANCE - Post- Those who only care about the appearance of objects and certain specific absolute values, however, the new 'emergence' or 'formation' aesthetics (AESTHETIC OF COMING-INTO-BEING) attempts to evolve technology through the transformation of technology and culture, and connect with the invisible world. "The power of interaction creates interaction."

He added: "The truly creative digital artist is not that he uses new technology, like choosing a cooking method from a recipe, but that he is expanded by new technology. Markets, testing the limits of technology, and thereby transforming it, we therefore seek intelligent machines and systems that are highly responsive, can even anticipate our needs, and exhibit a degree of self-awareness (but not artificial consciousness). ). Therefore, how do artists operate in a post-bioculture? We must expand and seek new sources of funding and supporters. The old market, dominated by art dealers and galleries, is not equipped to deal with such a phenomenon, even if it is not entirely short-lived. But art is constantly flowing, redefining and transforming itself. Compared with the tradition of art and the closed paradigm it has formed, we seem to be more receptive to new discoveries and attempts in science. At the same time, in the interactive communication system. , the intimate relationship between people and the interconnectedness of minds in the global Internet mean the emergence of a new form of spirituality.

We need to build meaningful alliances with scientists, technologists, and businesses—people who not only challenge and test our creativity and imagination, but also offer the possibility of weaving and even realizing our fantasies. If these companies don't exist yet, then we must invent them. After all, in terms of investing in pure ideas and innovative behaviors, Silicon Valley's new companies and IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) are very similar to culture and conceptual art! As we, digital and postbiological artists, invest intellectually and financially in our work, we will create new behavioral patterns, new social organizations, the relationship between the mind and technology, and the interplay between the body and bionics and telecommunications systems. relation. ”

From Roy Ascot’s above talk, we seem to get the impression that new media art will gradually be integrated into media technology; new media artists will be transformed into media technology experts, or be Media technology experts will be replaced; new media art will be more commercialized; new media art will exist for the existence of media technology and develop for the development of media technology. This is the reason why people are confused and confused. However, regardless of the future of new media art. It will inevitably exist and develop with the development of the IT industry and INTERNET. We don’t have to rush to draw conclusions about new media art.

New technologies will continue to develop rapidly. , the influence and participation in art and design will become more and more profound. Art and science will play a simultaneous role in our lives. In other words, the boundaries between art and science will become more and more blurred. This may be an inevitable problem. However, we cannot equate art with science and think that new technologies will turn art into science, or science will become art, because only in this way can it be consistent with the trend of industrialization. Mass production; art pursues individuality, originality, and differentiation, because only in this way can it satisfy human aesthetic taste. We can use a new technology as a means of creating art, but we cannot regard a new art as a technological invention. method.