Introduction
This exhibition, co-curated by the National Palace Museum (NPM) and the Taichung City Seaport Art Center, reinterprets precious artifacts from the NPM collection using a combination of multimedia installations, 4K high resolution films, and virtual reality technology. Interpreting art through technology, crossing technological disciplines with aesthetic concepts, and using contemporary exhibition display methods to open a dialogue between the public and museum artworks, this exhibition creates the opportunity for audience members to experience the affinity between humanity and nature.
Through new media art, this exhibition expounds on the imperceptible connection and mutual reliance between humankind, and between humanity and nature. The centerpiece of this exhibition actualizes the visual feast of flowers and ironic Zen humor featured in Huang T'ing-chien's seven character verse poem, "Besotted by Flower Vapors." In the Spirit of Autobiography calligraphy VR installation, audience members morph into the Tang dynasty cursive script master, Huai-su, and viscerally explore his creative world. In the Roaming through Fantasy Land painting VR installation, audience members enter into the natural landscape, which Zhao Mengfu painted for his friend. 4K high resolution films and high quality replicas of museum artworks interweave into a space, which embodies the Chinese landscape painting aesthetic capacity "to behold, to wander, and to abide,"allowing audience members to appreciate painting and calligraphic works much as ancient scholars would at literary gatherings. Audience members become artists, designing and composing their inner natural ideal through the interactive installation, Stamps of Landscapes. Finally, the immersive installation, Summer Lotus, allows audience members to admire the natural scenery of a lotus pond.
A Literary Gathering in Qingshui—NPM Painting and Calligraphy New Media Art Exhibition invites each audience member to become an honored guest of a contemporary literary festival. Through new media technology, any person can enter the world of painting and calligraphy to engage in a dialogue with ancient artworks, building from personal experience to recreate a new ideal of nature within the exhibition space.