Can new media art in public spaces have a positive impact on people’s lifestyle and wellbeing? Research from China published in the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology tackles this question.
Zhigang Wang and Ye Wang of the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University in Haidian, Beijing, and Yu Sun of the College of Arts and Design at Beijing Forestry University also in Haidian, suggest that public art can have an impact on art communication and appreciation as well as having commercial benefits for business in the public spaces where the art is installed. The evolution of new media art, of course, adds new dimensions to the traditional conception of art as static and non-interactive. Engaging new media artworks have the advantages of giving the people enjoying the art novel ways to experience it and interact with it.
In some senses new media art offers a new form of mass communication, combining as it does experience design and display design. It brings together our cultural lives and the technological world and can be inspirational, enjoyable, and even informative. Moreover, it allows the public consciousness to evolve in the public spaces in which installations are placed in a way that conventional art in galleries and exhibition halls may not.
The team reports that there are many novel and diverse ways in which artistic culture, design, and technology are now being brought together in new media artworks in public spaces. “The ultimate significance is to enhance the cultural communication ability of commercial space, and promote people’s cultural consumption level,” the team writes. We can perceive new media art in commercial public spaces as an upgrade to those spaces in terms of cultural and artistic communication.
Indeed, the team adds, the development of commercial public spaces is critical to the evolution of cities and their citizens. New media art design fits precisely with the futuristic view we could have for the development of commercial public spaces that benefit those citizens and the commercial concerns that use them.
Wang, Z., Wang, Y. and Sun, Y. (2021) ‘New media art design in commercial public space’, Int. J. Computer Applications in Technology, Vol. 67, Nos. 2/3, pp.244–251.