科学求真,艺术求美,两者皆深层次地追求着永恒、卓越与和谐,源于生活而臻于至善。诺贝尔物理学奖获得者李政道先生提出:艺术与科学是一枚硬币的两面,它们源于人类活动最高尚的部分,都追求着深刻性、普遍性、永恒性。科学是对自然现象的准确抽象,在求真中求美臻善;艺术是以创新的方法对个体意识与情感的唤起,在求美中求真臻善。正因为如此,法国作家福楼拜曾说,“两者在塔底分手,在塔顶会合”,共同描绘人类的灿烂文明。值此中华人民共和国成立70周年之际,中国国家博物馆与清华大学依据2018年双方签署的战略合作框架协议,联袂主办“第五届艺术与科学国际作品展”,主要目的就是通过系统展示国内外艺术与科学前沿探索的最新成果,深入探讨艺术与科学的内在关系,不断推动国际艺术与科学的创新,促进艺术与科学的和谐发展。
自近代科学兴起以来,求真之科学进入求美之艺术,已经走过几个世纪的艰辛探索。文艺复兴时期的艺术家采用透视法,使平面上呈现的空间变得更加真实;当解剖学知识得到应用,昔日程式化的人体被刻画得分毫毕现。认识到光的色系,印象派第一次展现出日光下的丰富世界,艺术的色彩随之明亮起来。摄影术产生后,19世纪的艺术不再追求对外在事物的再现,而转向对内心世界的表达。随着互联网、大数据、云计算的应用,人工智能作为一个新时代开启的标志,预示着划时代的艺术变革。本次展览以“AS-Helix:人工智能时代的艺术与科学融合”为主题,展示人类需要共同面对的人工智能课题,深入探讨人类认知的边界、技术创新的艺术范式、技术与艺术的协同创新问题,其意义也正在于此。
早在20世纪初,本雅明的《机械复制时代的艺术》就引发了人们对艺术在“现代”这个场域内的深层思考,促使艺术家们认真探讨机器时代产生大量复制品的背景下,艺术原作的价值。继纳米技术、生物技术、信息技术和认知科学之后,人工智能、人机融合、3D打印、基因工程等复杂技术将更加广泛地融入人们的生活,延长我们的预期寿命,创新艺术作品呈现形式,由此引发的知识产权、社会伦理等问题也日益凸显。本次展览邀请了来自不同学科、不同研究领域的艺术与科学界人士共同参与,深入探讨人工智能背景下艺术与科学如何深度融合、创新协同发展,探讨艺术与科学的深度融合将会如何以及在何种程度上对我们的生产生活方式带来根本性变革。
中华人民共和国成立70年来,我们的国家经历了从站起来到富起来再到强起来的伟大历史进程,科学技术的飞速进步在给人们的生活带来了巨大便利的同时,也深刻改变了人们的价值观念、思维方式和行为模式,变革了人们的生产生活方式,而这些正是“文化”的本质内涵。我们的文化和艺术,都随着科学与技术的发展而改变。中国国家博物馆作为国家最高历史文化艺术殿堂,在守护历史、传承经典、弘扬文化的同时,也要展望未来,期待新的艺术形式、更多元的艺术表达,期待科学和艺术的融合结出更加丰硕的成果,引领更加美好的未来。衷心希望本次展览能够进一步促进科学与艺术领域的深入交流,引导观众领略艺术与科学融合产生的求真求美的强大魅力,体会艺术与科学为人类文明走向至善带来的推动力。
王春法
中国国家博物馆馆长
FOREWORD
Science seeks truth; art seeks beauty, yet they both pursue eternity, excellence, and harmony in the most profound sense. They absorb inspirations from life; yet they transcend inspiration into perfection. As the Nobel Prize winner Tsung-Dao Lee once put it: art and science are the two sides of a coin, originating from the most sacred activities of mankind and pursuing profound, universal, and timeless values in life. Science is accurate abstraction of natural phenomena, trying to find truth while seeking perfection; while art, on the other hand, inspires people in a creative way, trying to find beauty while seeking perfection. Thus, the French writer Gustave Flaubert declared that, “art and science...the two broke up at the bottom of the tower and met at the top of the tower” to jointly depict the splendid civilization of mankind. To mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the National Museum of China and Tsinghua University jointly hold the 5th Art and Science International Exhibition, following the strategic cooperation framework agreement signed by the two parties in 2018. The event aims to reveal the inner relations between art and science through exhibitions of the advanced achievements, Chinese and international, in art and science. It also aims to foster creation and harmonious development in art and science.
Since the time when the modern truth-seeking science came about and entered the world of beauty-seeking art, artists have gone through centuries of relentless artistic exploration. When Renaissance artists presented perspective drawing, space on a flat surface took on a three-dimensional and real-life look; when anatomy was applied to art, human bodies in paintings expressed more vitality; with the newly acquired knowledge of the colors of light, Impressionist artists were the first to show a colorful world under the sun, adding brilliant colors to the work of art. Following the invention of photography, the 19th-century art was no longer pursuing simple reproduction of the external world; instead, it turned inward to express the inner world. With the application of the Internet, big data, and cloud computing, artificial intelligence signifies the beginning of a new era and heralds an epoch-making revolution in art. The 5th Art and Science International Exhibition centered around the theme of AS-Helix: The Integration of Art and Science in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, clearly demonstrating that mankind must face together the various aspects of artificial intelligence and explore human cognitive potentials, artistic paradigm amid technological innovations, and collaborative creation in technology and art.
Early in the beginning of the 20th century, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin had inspired profound thinking in the world of modern art, inviting artists to rethink seriously the value of original work of art in an age of machines, where replicates were made in large quantities. Following the new technologies of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC), complex technologies such as artificial intelligence, human-machine integration, 3D printing, and genetic engineering, among others, will be more widely integrated into people’s lives, extending people’s life expectancy and creating new ways to present artworks. Nonetheless, the resulting intellectual property rights and social ethics issues have become increasingly prominent. This exhibition invites people from different academic disciplines and research fields in art and science to participate in the in-depth study of how art and science can be deeply integrated and developed in an collaborative manner in the age of AI, and how and to what extent such profound integration can bring fundamental changes to the way we work and live.
In the 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, our country has been through a great historical process from regaining dignity to becoming prosperous and to becoming strong. While it has made our life much easier, rapid progress in science and technology has also profoundly changed people’s moral values, way of thinking, behavior patterns, and the way we work and live, features that make up the core of a culture. Our culture and art have evolved with the progress in science and technology. The National Museum of China, as the nation’s most prestigious temple of history, culture, and art, not only bears the responsibility of preserving history, carrying on traditions, and foster cultures, but it must also look forward to the future, to new art forms, to diverse artistic expressions, to more fruitful results from integrating science and art, and showing a better future. I sincerely hope that this exhibition will further promote the in-depth exchanges between science and art and guide audiences to gain a deeper understanding of the wonder of beauty and truth seeking as generated by the integration of art and science and to feel the driving force of art and science behind the progress of human civilization.
Wang Chunfa
Director of the National Museum of China