From "Non-Solid" To "Non-Material"

As a practitioner in the field of public art for a long time,the author spends many years exploring and researching the expansion of creat.ive media.As the material foundation of art creation,media materials enjoy a prominent and objective status throughout the history of art development.With the pace of human’ s civilization and the increase of our productivity,an increasing number of materials have been discovered and applied.Our art activities,therefore,are becoming diverse.Application of certain media material in certain period gives a distinctive characteristic of times to art works.Public art plays a vital role in human’ s system of society and culture,the media materials applied by which have bright characteristic of times.However,most of the medium in the field of public art are solid.The fast development of technology nowadays provided the public art.with a broader room for the selection of media materials,enabling us to precisely control“non-solid" materials such as water,light,sound and even odour in a digital way.The unique and dynamic charms brought by these non-solid materials greatly enrich our languages for art creation.Not only does the development of technology expand our media materials for creation but also digital technology has drove art from reality to virtuality.Our descriptions towards gods and our imitation of"Holography",the legendary and scientific visual experience,have revealed our longing to the "non-material" virtuality,though we can only create the "non-material" visual effect with material media right now.The emergence of Virtual Real1ty(VR),Augmented Reality(AR)and Mixed Reality(MR)in recently years has greatly prompted us to think about art behaviours between virtuality and reality.Besides,the relationship among artists,the "subject" of art creation,works,the "object" of art creation,and viewers,the“visitors" of art creation,has changed.There is an unprecedented diversity in terms of ways of creation,work formations and ways of experience,especially when it comes to the characteristic of "non-material" Philosophically,from "void" and"emptiness" by Heidegger and "what has not a positive existence for actual usefulness" by Lao Zi,to "Anwesen" as a presenting way for art behaviours and“white space" in our traditional art,what does the"non-materialization" present on earth?This question leads me to consider the change from material media to more expanded media or from"non-solid" to "non-material”.According to author’ s decades-long practices in the field,this paper will discuss the expansion of media in public art with two parts.Part I:the analysis to the "state" and "power" of non-solid media in a bid to discuss multiple possibilities and ways of expression for them in the art field.Part II:the systematic discussion of the"non-materialization" in traditional and contemporary art from the perspective of western and eastern philosophies,social psychology,etc.for purpose of exploring a multiple modal that combines art and technology for public art against the backdrop of multimedia.The research on this topic aims to build an art construction in public space with non-solid materials and non-material media.With the research,the author hopes to provide preliminary theoretic basis for the expansion of media in public art in the digital era,exploring new ways that combines art and technology for art creation in public space.