Special Topics • Evolution of Aesthetics in the Digital-Intelligent Age (II)

■Algorithms and Aura: The Cultural Logic and Humanistic Boundaries of Digital-Intelligence Aesthetics (Chen Dingjia)

Abstract: The iterative advancement of digital-intelligence technologies is propelling contemporary aesthetics toward an ontological transformation in which "algorithms" dissolve "aura." This transformation not only reshapes the instrumental forms of aesthetics but also reconstructs the fundamental logic governing aesthetic subjects, objects, and judgments. All the "symptoms", such as the consumption of instant-gratification found in "feel-good fiction" and "feel-good dramas," the aesthetic discipline imposed by algorithmic distribution, the identity controversies surrounding AI-generated art, and the frenzy over virtual idols, collectively signal a historic shift in aesthetic paradigms. Virtual reality and generative artificial-intelligence have blurred the boundaries between author and tool, and between reality and simulacrum, casting fundamental doubt on the concept of originality. Meanwhile, aesthetic activity is increasingly mired in the dilemma of hedonistic consumption and value imbalance, and the authority to make aesthetic judgments has shifted from critics and academic institutions to algorithmic recommendations, traffic data, and community consensus. The deep-seated crisis within this logic of alienation lies in the fact that technological rationality constantly squeezes out humanistic values. In this context, how will art producers and consumers embrace technology without abandoning the essence of aesthetics? How will they uphold tradition without rejecting change? The pressing priority is to cultivate aesthetically aware individuals with critical consciousness, standardize aesthetic creation, reconstruct a pluralistic evaluation system, and foster an immersive framework for comprehensive aesthetic education, thus embracing the wave of technological advancement without losing sight of the humanistic principles, preserving the lingering glow of "aura" amidst algorithmic structures, and ensuring that technological innovation truly serves the comprehensive development of the individual.

Keywords: digital-intelligent age, aesthetic transformation, algorithmic discipline, AI-generated art, reconstruction of aesthetic education

■Walking Alongside Machines: Artistic Creativity in the Digital-Intelligent Age (Li Tian)

Abstract: The relationship between artists and their creative tools has historically evolved through three stages: the ready-to-hand mode in the handicraft era, the displacement of technical agency in the age of industrialization, and the collaborative partnership mode in the digital-intelligence era, with each stage corresponding to a distinctive form of creativity. In this latest form of partnership, the creativity of artists is grounded not only in the computational capacity of technological systems, but, more importantly, in their capacity to interpret and make judgments about the world. In the mode of human-machine collaboration, digital-intelligence art responds to the realities of a technologized society by creating objects of perception, thereby fulfilling the unique aspirations of artistic creation.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, creativity, digital-intelligence art

■The Proposition of Aesthetic Education in the Age of Intelligence: Reshaping Sensibility (Yi Xiaoming)

Abstract: While artificial intelligence has promoted the democratization of aesthetics and the equalization of artistic creation, the underlying logic of its algorithms has also given rise to a profound crisis of human sensibility, including the erosion of human sensuous experience and the alienation of aesthetic experience. The encroachment of algorithms upon materiality dissolves the embodied connection between humans and the physical world, leading to the superficialization and homogenization of aesthetic experience, and ultimately jeopardizing human knowledge creation and the meaning of human existence. Consequently, aesthetic education in the digital-intelligent age urgently needs to transcend the singular focus on “technological empowerment” and return to its essential mission of cultivating human sensibility. Centered on the harmonious unity of sensibility and rationality, it should seek to reshape human capabilities for sensibility within the symbiotic relationship between humans and technology. The systematic cultivation of embodied perception, intuition, imagination, critical aesthetic judgment, and aesthetic praxis is precisely the key to enable aesthetic education to respond to the demands of the digital-intelligent age and realize its educational value.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, crisis of human sensibility, aesthetic experience, aesthetic education, human sensibility

■Bi-subjectivities and High-dimensional Mediocrity: A Reflection on and Reconstruction of the Aesthetic Education Subjectivity in the Digital-intelligent Age (Wang Deyan)

Abstract: The accelerating evolution of digital-intelligent civilization is profoundly reshaping the form and essence of aesthetic education. This article examines the issue of the aesthetic education subjectivity in the digital-intelligent age, focusing on the dual dimensions of technological empowerment and subject-centered risks. The study finds that digital technologies have greatly expanded the accessibility, experiential richness, and interdisciplinary nature of aesthetic education, yet they also give rise to a "high-dimensional mediocrity" — manifested in the weakening of aesthetic judgment, the blunting of embodied perception, and the decline of creative subjectivity. Confronted with the emerging pattern of "bi-subjectivities" in human-machine interaction, the subjectivity of aesthetic education must be reshaped through interactive expansion, capacity building, and the adherence to core values. Teachers, as key actors, should have a transition from knowledge transmitters to human-machine collaborative designers and value guides. This article argues that the fundamental mission of aesthetic education in the digital-intelligent age is to cultivate a new type of subject — endowed with independent personality, aesthetic autonomy, and creative vitality — within the tension between technology and the humanities. This exploration not only responds to the tradition of Chinese aesthetic spirit, which emphasizes "using things without being used by them," but also provides theoretical reference for aesthetic education practices in the context of deep integration between new technology and art.

Keywords: digital-intelligent age, subjectivity of aesthetic education, bi-subjectivities, high-dimensional mediocrity, teacher role transformation

Criticism and Contention

■Theoretical Reflections on "Artificial Intelligence and the Arts": Toward a Normative Framework (Liu Fangxi)

Abstract: Developing "Artificial Intelligence (AI) + the Arts" is essential to implementing the national "AI+" initiative and represents an inevitable outcome of the ongoing transition in artistic production from digitization to intelligentization. By overcoming extreme and one-sided tendencies — such as the binary opposition between humans and machines and the tendency to either overestimate or underestimate the value of AI — and by promoting, guiding, and regulating the orderly development of AI and the arts, human-machine collaboration can be embedded throughout the entire creation process and across all artistic genres. This will foster broader public participation in the arts and contribute to their continued development thereby advancing the holistic development of individuals through aesthetic education. The mutually reinforcing relationship between the arts and AI will further strengthen cultural subjectivity and contribute to national development.

Keywords: artificial intelligence + the arts, digitization, intelligentization, human-machine collaboration, mutual reinforcement

Diverse and Extensive Art Phenomena

■From Experimental Dance to AI Dance: The Reconfiguration of Embodiment, Creativity, and Subjectivity (Xu Jie)

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) dance represents an extension of the "decentralization" logic of experimental dance into the digital age, driving a profound reconfiguration of the body, creation, and subjectivity. At the bodily level, algorithmic generation diminishes the body's pre-reflective experience and tacit knowledge, placing the body in a state of digital suspension. However, "Performative Body Mapping" and embodied intelligence practices challenge the anthropocentrism of human experience, replacing it with an "in-between" corporeal human-machine relationship. In terms of creative mechanisms, random generation extends the logic of contingency, yet an over-reliance on preset rules gives rise to a new problem of "formulaic stylization," whereas the glitch aesthetics and real-time human-machine interaction activate heterogeneity and indeterminacy. Within the structure of subjectivity, AI dance deconstructs "choreographer-centrism," forming a symbiotic co-construction through the presentation of intelligent dance notation and human-machine interaction. Thus, AI dance not only reshapes the media form and production logic of dance, but also opens up new problem domains and possibilities for re-examining bodily experience, artistic creation, and human-machine relations.

Keywords: experimental dance, artificial intelligence dance, re-embodiment, reconfiguration of subjectivity

■On the Bodily Agency in VR Image Creation (Qin Lanjun)

Abstract: VR images are often regarded as the latest development in visual culture. However, bodily actions in human-computer interaction serve as the anchor of meaning. This implies that, in terms of creation, bodily interaction constitutes the "language" of expression for VR images. In terms of reception, the mechanisms of identification and empathy in VR images can only function effectively through embodied reconstruction. Ultimately, on an ethical level, VR images possess the capacity to fulfill art's mission of connecting "you" and "me" in a more fundamental way, at the level of the body's sensorimotor processes. This elevates the bodily "language" of VR images beyond mere aesthetic concerns, revealing significant social potential. Although China's VR imagery has developed within the framework of traditional image art systems, sustained growth can only be achieved by breaking free from the constraints of conventional image-based thinking.

Keywords: virtual reality, cinema, body, identification mechanisms, empathy mechanisms

■Setting, Meme-Playing, and Story Weaving: On the "Qugan" Aesthetics of Internet Literature (Xu Yaoyi)

Abstract: Given the maturation of the "Shuanggan" model, it is necessary to explore other potential modes of emotional experience within internet literature. Both classical Chinese literary theory and contemporary Western aesthetics have engaged in aesthetic constructions that elevate "Qu" from an aesthetic concept to an aesthetic category. Drawing on these two theoretical resources while attending to the internal development of internet literature, one can discover the contemporary manifestation and renewal of "Qu" across different levels of internet literary phenomena, revealing the generative operation of the "Qugan" aesthetics. The "incompleteness" of "setting" in internet literature, the "identity game" of readers' "meme-playing," and the "asynchronous sharing" of story weaving each represent a different dimension of the "Qugan" experience in network literature. To gain a deeper understanding of the intricate and intertwined emotional patterns within today's internet literature, and to thereby engage with its developmental trends, it is necessary for us to incorporate "Qugan" into the current research horizon, so as to expand the critical perspectives and theoretical resources of related studies.

Keywords: Qu, internet literature, setting, meme-playing

Creation Discussions

■One Bridge, Two Worlds: Reflections on Portraying Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Ding Liuyuan)

Interview with Renowned Experts

■Life Is Like a Play — Be Genuine, and a Play Should Be Sincere Like Life: An Interview with Performing Artist You Benchang (Interviewed by Hu Yanlin)

An Interview with Performing Artist You Benchang

Inside Front Cover

Chinese Literary and Art Critics: Xue Jinwen

Inside Back Cover

Recommendation of Literary and Art Critics Associations in Sub-Provincial Cities: Hangzhou Literary and Art Critics Association

Back Cover

New Book Recommendation: Art Insights: Opinionated Criticism (2020–2025)