The Lost Remittance Letters

Artists: Gao Muyuan, Chen Jiazi, Wei Wenwen (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Tan Bin, Zhang Ting, Li Shiqi

As one of the earliest coastal trading ports in China, the Shantou Small Park has witnessed the development of Shantou as a thriving century-old commercial hub. The opening of the port ushered in a new era of Nanyang trade, entwining the Shantou Small Park in the history of foreign trade in the Pearl River Delta. With a focus on the space of the Shantou Small Park, this artwork traces the port's rise and fall throughout its 200-year history. It weaves together narratives of overseas Chinese communities and "going to Nanyang", encompassing narratives of the times, homeland, and individual experiences. Through the structure of "Remittance Letters" (family and memory) - "Local Chronicles" (space and narrative) - "Oral History" (individual and recollection), it forms a narrative expression that comprises different scales of content.

The Palace in Space

Artists: Yu Qingtian, Dong Junyan, Wang Maoxiang (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Mao Xue, Xing Zhiqiang

Centuries later, humanity possesses the power to collect and reconstruct rocket debris, thus embarking on a story of fulfilling the dream of space. By recycling and merging the remnants of the rocket used in the launch of the Chang'e 3 lunar probe, a new aerospace brand is created, embodying the charm of the East as well as the futuristic space attributes. Taking scene-based narrative in aerospace as a starting point, a future-oriented worldview is constructed, seamlessly blending Chinese aerospace culture with the future world and fashionable trends. Through innovative appearance and structural designs, a series of aerospace-inspired trendy cultural and creative products with both digital and physical attributes are produced, offering a fresh experience of aerospace digital art.

Bio-Turing

Artists: Ma Songtao, He Chenghao, Zhan Shuoyu (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Cheng Bin, Yu Tongzhou, Guo Lei

This artwork is a smart installation driven by programmable proteins and operates on the algorithm in which the winner takes all. The carbon-based smart engine is able to assess whether audio recordings are generated by silicon-based AI and thus enables the possible exploration of the commonalities and differences between carbon-based and silicon-based intelligence while showcasing a future in which programmable proteins exhibit smart computing power. Programmable proteins can achieve smart computing through a neural network. In essence, programmable proteins are smart, carbon-based entities. The juxtaposition between carbon-based and silicon-based entities, the latter formed via a completely different model of construction, presents the fundamental logical differences and contradictions between two different kinds of intelligence.

E-Mythical Beasts

Artists: Hu Yueming, Ji Huanhuan, Lin Yuxin (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Ma Chuan, Xiang Yi

Humanity has entered the era of algorithms. On the one hand, smart technologies like deep learning have led to the development of "algorithmic justice" in society and expanded human cultural awareness. On the other, a digitally immersive lifestyle has widened the divide between humans and nature. People pay less attention to their natural environment while environmental degradation worsens. In this artwork, the creators integrate algorithms and mythical beasts, cultural entities rich with visual imagery and cultural symbolism, and reimagines mythical beasts in spirit, image, and purpose in an age of algorithms and rapid social and environmental changes. The creative team aims to provoke thoughts on algorithms' impact on culture and the environment and create a framework integrating culture, technology, and nature in the age of algorithms.

The Hundred Faces of Glazed Porcelain

Artists: Fang Yuxuan, Chen Yuting, Chen Wanying (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Hu Xiaochen, Gu Wenjia, Chen Tianyi

This artwork explores the application of the new inclusive design process in the glazing process of traditional porcelain handicrafts. NeRF technology is employed in the creation of a database of hi-res scanned images of glazed porcelain at a low cost. Through AI model training, digital previews of high-quality glaze samples and data on raw glazing are filtered. The traditional design process is further optimized with the aid of an open-source database and a platform for previewing glaze mixes. This artwork incorporates neural rendering technology into digital manufacturing of traditional porcelain and adopts a high-quality, digitized glaze preview and analysis system to optimize the traditional process of glaze mixing, lower the costs of ceramic manufacturing and digitization, reinvent digitization systems' role in traditional handicrafts, and offer new smart solutions for other traditional handicrafts.

Invisible Cities

Artists: Dong Kedi, Wang Siqing, Lin Xiaoyu (School of Design & Innovation)

Instructors: Liu Yihong, Gu Wenjia, Zhang Binbin, Huang Guai'er

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino tells the stories of 55 imaginary cities – all named after women.  Based on the descriptions of cities in the book, the artists used artificial intelligence to train models and produced a series of still images and iterative videos to present, in the form of video, what these cities mean to the audience after reading the book.

Invisible Cities, a video presented by a team of graduates from the School of Design & Innovation, is inspired by Italo Calvino's novel. With the help of AI, the artists reveal the fictitious cities from the readers' perspective.

About BRAIN GARDEN

Brain Garden – The 5th Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival 2023 & CAA Graduation Season kicked off online and offline concurrently on June 1. This edition of Youth Art Festival is co-hosted by Zhejiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Publicity Department of the CPC Hangzhou Municipal Committee, China Academy of Art (CAA), and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music under the guidance of the Publicity Department of CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and Hangzhou Municipal People's Government. The festival features a wide variety of online and offline artistic shows and activities centered on the future and the youth. It is a grand city-wide artistic feast in Hangzhou.

The Youth Art Festival is presented online on CAACOSMOS and West Lake Sky Screen and offline at six venues, namely Zhejiang Exhibition Hall, West Lake Art Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum, World Tourism Museum (1368 Xiangxi Road), Quan Shanshi Art Center, and Yichuang Town, with a total exhibition area of nearly 70,000 square meters. Over 3,000 works from more than 2,500 Class of 2023 graduates (including 1,766 undergraduates, 688 masters, and 97 doctors) are showcased. Over 2,000 young artists, designers, writers, and scholars have gathered online for this youthful art event.

Related news: https://en.caa.edu.cn/news/1039.html