Recently, the 2nd China-US Cultural Investment Forum, supported by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in New York and jointly organized by Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation and Asian Society in New York, took place in New York. A total of eighteen guests launched heated debates and exchanges over creative culture, science and technology, education, film, museum and investment through speeches, roundtable discussions and videos.
The digital technology allows visitors to have a virtual tour of the Mogao Grottoes as it showcases traditional Chinese culture through computer games and introduces Chinese movies to the world creatively through “soft and hard technology”. During the forum, many Chinese guests shared their successful cases and experience of boosting cultural development by virtue of technological innovation.
The Dunhuang Academy has put the project of “Digital Dunhuang” in place since the 1990s. The digital technology was adopted in collecting murals and statues in order to develop a panoramic virtual tour. Liu Qin, deputy-director of Cultural Transmission Department in Dunhuang Academy, said that visitors are able to have an immersive tour in rare caves through digital projects, VR technology and domed screen films. In addition to digital projects, the academy has searched in cultural innovation and transmission with various cultural creative products, such as Dunhuang calendar, tea wares, silk, as well as study programs for teenagers. They also brought up some new plans to let the static cultural relics alive, reserve treasured cultural heritages and tell Dunhuang story well.
In recent years, taking the cooperation with the Dunhuang Academy into account, Chinese tech giant Tencent has been fully exploring the potential in empowering culture with science and technology, and innovating the way of “going global” for cultural products including game, music, film and literature. For instance, the game Arena of Valor (an overseas version of Honor of Kings), which was released in more than 50 countries of Europe, North America, South America and Southeast Asia, has designed such many traditional Chinese figures, including Li Bu, Diao Chan, Zhao Yun, Niumowang and Monkey Sun, that gain much popularity of traditional Chinese history and culture among overseas players. “The new technology including internet has provided broad platform for traditional culture to present itself, offered abundant means to activate it, and promoted the evolution of cultural transmission. While game is a new interactive technology.” said Yao Xiaoguang, deputy head of the Tencent Company and chairman of the TIMI Studio Group. During the forum, he reviewed the changes of Chinese society and culture over the past 20 years from the game, and looked into the future based on cutting-edge technology of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, AR and VR. The audience were interested in new possibilities of traditional culture brought by the game.
In recent years, Chinese film market has registered a rapid development with less popularity overseas. On the forum, Ying Xujun, deputy head of the Chinese Culture Group, expressed that beside “hard and core technology”, such as 3D Imax, Virtual Reality(VR) and Augmented Reality(AR), it is expected to introduce Chinese movies to the world through “soft technology” in order to improve their popularity among foreign people. It is believed that cross-disciplinary, cross-culture and female perspective will become three trends of film innovation in the future. In her view, it is worthwhile to dig these stories out and tell them in light of China’s rich history and culture. Meanwhile, some film-making technology learned form other countries is still necessary to make great contributions to the film industry.
As the e-commerce has been rooted in Chinese people’s daily life, people have a larger need for life consumption, expecting better cultural products. Mao Mao, an investor of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), noted in his speech that Chinese young people is taking “going to art galleries and museums” as part of their life. The digitization offers unprecedented opportunity for arts to be fused into people’s daily life and to establish relations with audience in art sites.
It is obvious that a new round of technological development has not only changed our life, but also influenced cultural development and transmission. The new cases and experience of Chinese high-tech companies and cultural institutions in the synergy between technology and culture have come to the fore of the the 2nd China-US Cultural Investment Forum as well as spotlight of cultural development, exchanges and cooperation. In a golden period of technological explosion, countries are so closely intertwined. Only through generating a series of innovative ideas, culture will be developed and the unlimited vitality of cultural exchanges and cooperation will be unleashed.