Author: admin

“While boating on the emerald waves, I feel as if I were wandering inside of the painting.” 

Wang Wei(701-761), a revered Tang Dynasty(618-907) Chinese poet and painter in the eighth century, wrote this verse in his poem entitled “Zhou Zhuang River.” The essence and spirit of this artistic realm are most aptly demonstrated in a series of interactive works called “Dance With Ink,” created by Ming Ren, an artist in San Francisco, and completed with the cooperation of Dr. Hansong Zhang, a computer scientist in Silicon Valley. Presently on display at the Ackland Art Museum in the United States, this work is a new model of contemporary art that transforms abstract ink painting into virtual ink art and interacts with the audience in real time by using technology of fluid dynamic interaction. The debut of “Dance with Ink” in Western museums provides us with an opportunity to explore the aesthetic way and artistic value of Chinese black and white ink painting, and also creates a new path for the contemporary and global development of ink art.

Chinese ink painting has been inherited and practiced for thousands of years, and it continues to play a pivotal role in the world of Chinese contemporary art today as “ink is the topmost among all painting methods.” What is so unique about the partnership between water and ink? And why is it difficult for westerners to appreciate the charm of Chinese black and white ink painting?

Chinese aesthetic tradition is based on the philosophy of Taoism masters Lao Tzu(approx. late 5th-early 4th century BCE) and Chuang Tzu(active late 5th-early 4th century BCE), and therefore choosing water and ink as the tools for Chinese painting is the crystallization of the Taoist understanding of formal beauty. In Taoist belief, water was described by Lao Tzu as the closest substance to the realm of Tao itself. “True goodness is like water; it nurtures everything and harms nothing. Like water, it ever seeks the lowest place, the place that all others avoid.” Because water has no shape, it can take the shape of its surroundings. Because water has no color, it can blend with and morph into all colors. Everyone strives upward, yet water flows downward. In the lower reaches, it never stops self-sublimation (evaporation). When the clouds rise, they float high into the sky (white clouds). This is the special position of water from the perspective of Taoist philosophy — it can nourish everything on the ground, while also transform into clouds in the sky.

“This unity is the mystery of mysteries, and the gateway to spirituality.” In Tao Te Ching, “xuan”(mystery) manifests the way of Tao, representing everything and nothing, presence and absence. In the etymological development of Chinese characters, xuan as a color is associated with black, therefore black was considered the most beautiful and important color in Chinese paintings. However, the blackness of ink is not just one single color. Changing the ratio of ink and water, results in endless shades of black: from charred black, thick and heavy, to pale and light. Ink is beyond a pigment, variable intensity in the ink level results in gradient levels of color. When shapeless water is mixed with the unadorned ink, an infinite of colors result, and it represents a world of endless possibilities. This is why this combination is considered to be the closest art form to Tao: it is a return to simplicity and to nature. The profound influence of traditional Chinese philosophy on ink painting is obvious. The importance of ink in Chinese painting does not just come from its beautiful visual effect – it lies in the fact that, over all other artistic expressions, it best reflects the spirit of Tao.

Given the strong Christian traditions in the West, one might think that there is an insurmountable cultural gap between Tao and God. For Westerners, viewing a Chinese ink painting may be an ambiguous experience – similar to admiring flowers while it is foggy. However, Cai Yuanpei(1868-1940), a former president of Peking University, believed that if there was one thing which can replace religion to elevate a person’s spirit, it is art. We saw this possibility with the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Fourteen large black paintings installed inside the church and the church structure itself became one complete work of art as well as a spiritual place. This dark church, which stirred the emotions of tens of thousands of people, delivers the possibility of mutual understandings between different religions and cultures, therefore it shows unlimited vitality. Mark Rothko’s gamut painting, by repeated processing superposition of 20 or 30 times at the edge of junction of blocks, injects spiritual connotation and depth into the work. The combination of simple and large black paintings with the church space provides a bridge across the cultural divides.

Dr. Roger Mandle, the former Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art, used “No Room For Form” from Rumi’s 13^th century poem as the title for an exhibition of Ming Ren’s abstract works. He commented that Ming Ren’s ink works were “a gazing room”. What is a room? Professor Eckhart Tolle of Cambridge University described the essence of room on his book of The Power of Now: “The furniture, pictures, and so on are in the room, but they are not the room. The floor, walls, and ceiling define the boundary of the room, but they are not room either. So what is the essence of the room? Space, of course, empty space. There would be no ‘room’ without it. Since space is ‘nothing’, we can say that what is not there is more important than what is there.” Then how can a Chinese artist establish intangible space on a piece of paper? He use a technique called “liu bai” or the retained blank. Considered to be as important as the placement of black ink on a painting, the Chinese ink painter elaborately arranges a series of blank spaces cooperated with ink strokes.

Liu bai is the quintessence of ink art and the best method to convey an artist’s sensibility in traditional Chinese painting. For example, Ni Zan(1301-1374), one of four masters of Yuan Dynasty in 14^th century, was the best practitioner of liu bai. He usually left one third or even more space of blank in his landscape paintings(see Fig. 1), representing the lake water between the foreground and distant land. Before him, most Chinese artists pursued landscape painting that featured dominating mountains that were precipitous and mysterious. However, Ni created a new artistic discipline of simple and indigenous style by cleverly managing liu bai, his works displayed “the combination of nihilism and realism, the places without the touch of ink become wonderland.” Liu bai could be water, wind, sky, fog, cloud or the endless space of universe. The intangible elegant and diffused realm in Ni Zan’s paintings has become a model of Chinese literati landscape painting ever since. Even now, this pursuit of “spirituality” expression within ink paintings is still admired and diligently sought after by many contemporary Chinese artists.

In keeping with Dr. Roger Mandle’s words, we can clearly see momentum and space created through liu bai in Ming Ren’s abstract ink works(see Fig.2). Ming transformed the relationship of solids and voids in traditional Chinese landscape painting, by using the “assuming blank as inked” approach for abstract ink art. This technique originally raised by Deng Shiru(1739-1805), a calligrapher in Qing Dynasty(1644-1911), describes the importance of modeling and arrangement in Chinese calligraphic art. The brush stroke and blank in calligraphy is mutually dependent and restrictive with ” impletion” and “emptiness” in ink painting. The blank area has the same aesthetic value as the brush strokes. The art of this arrangement is to achieve spaciousness without feeling empty, or to hold the pictorial reality without feeling congested, thus the wellspring of the mysterious is achieved. Similar to the superposition at the edges of color in Rothko’s paintings, the blank area in ink painting is the result which is deliberately retained by artist. Well composed liu bai brings the artistic conceptualization and spirituality into art works, and displays the relationship between the concept and brush strokes from emptiness and entity in the painting. The connotation and value of liu bai is the emphasis in Chinese ink art: The meaning appears without the aid of brushwork.

It was at the 2015 exhibition of “No Room For Form” in Fremont, California, Ming Ren’s works caught the attention of Dr. Hansong Zhang, a computer scientist based in Silicon Valley. During the dinner conversation, they discussed the possibility of collaboration between ink art and technology. In order to realize the animation conception from artistic creation on paper, Dr. Zhang spent nearly eight months to develop a series of computer programs especially for Ming Ren’s work, with the idea of allowing the ink works to constantly fluctuate following the body gestures and movements. When Dr. Zhang invited Ming Ren to his home to test his first version of “IACFD”—–Interactive Art of Computational Fluid Dynamics, their excitement at the results were beyond words. After numerous testing and improvement, Dr. Zhang’s hydrodynamic interaction program becomes more stable and mature, and Ming Ren’s ink work was endowed with new life.

The “Interactive Art of Computational Fluid Dynamics” converts Ming Ren’s two-dimensional ink work on paper into a virtual ink mixture in the computer by means of computational fluid dynamics. The virtual works are projected onto a background wall (or ground) with the help of projection equipment. When a viewers walk through (or steps into) the virtual ink painting, sensors automatically capture the viewer’s every movement, and the energy generated by different people and movements stirs the virtual ink mixture inside the computer to varying degrees. Once energized by the body gestures of the audiences, the fluctuation of the liquid is constantly propagated and evolved based on vector-field differential equations, which mathematically explains why and how fluids move as gracefully as they do – that cause movements of ink particles in the fluid. In other words, the viewers inject their own energy into the work, thus creating and developing new ink patterns and dynamic condition based on Ming Ren’s work. While the virtual interaction is taking place, the original painting will always be on the other side of the projection, allowing visitors to compare and feel the similarities and differences between viewing the original painting and experiencing the interactive component of the artwork(see Fig.3). 

Fig.3: Ming Ren, Hansong Zhang, Mysterious Ink World (one of the series works: Dance With Ink), 142x359cm, 2017, Canvas, Ink on paper, Exhibiting at the Ackland Art Museum from 2021-2022

Advances in science and technology have transformed art presentation. Static paintings on paper can be presented as a dynamic and ever-changing realm, in which the audiences has evolved from bystanders to participants and creators. But the meaning of this work does not stop there. There are several other things are enhance our understanding of this work: 

First, from the perspective of water and ink, its original state is flowing rather than static. With the aid of technology, the water and ink marks affixed on rice paper become animated and flowing once again. But in this second iteration, due to the participation of viewers, the digital ink art is no longer restricted by the artist’s original intention and composition. The more water and ink are back to original state of form and character, the more clearly, we can truly perceive its uniqueness and charm. In the interactive ink artworks, water and ink are no longer materials or mediums, and their inherent beauty and vitality bring us to a new mysterious world of ink.

Second, the artistic application of Computational Fluid Dynamics may not applicable to all forms of artistic work. In other words, as a branch of mechanics, hydromechanics itself deals with fluids. Its subject nature determines the suitable object for its artistic application — same as the fluid painting medium. Although art works made of solid or semi-solid materials can also be converted into virtual works for audience-interaction by applying this principle, the inconsistency between the motion mode and the material nature of the medium will make the interaction slightly stiff, without the sense of naturalness and effortlessness. Furthermore, the abstract works are more suitable to apply fluid technology compared to representational paintings. Realistic or freehand painting is restricted by the shape of the object, therefore a freedom of movement is limited, which means it may be difficult to produce higher artistic value and aesthetic experience when digitizes in this way. However, Ming Ren’s abstract ink works not only have the fluid ink nature and the possibility of change after abstraction, but more importantly, the sense of space and the charm of ink spirit contained in his works are a perfect match with the principle of Fluid Dynamics. Liu bai provides space for interaction, space creates opportunities for movement, and the cooperation of ink and space leads to the changes of ink marks. These were the reasons why Dr. Hansong Zhang developed a fluid interactive application for Ming Ren’s work. The relation between solids and voids in Ming’s work resembles musical movements, it provides the best artistic foundation for the simulation of fluid dynamic interaction(see Fig. 3). The original intangible sense of breathability in the picture fluctuating with the dancing posture of the participants, beautifully recalls wang wei’s poetic line from 1400 years ago, “wandering inside of the painting” — dancing with ink. Within the interactive ink art of Ming Ren, art and technology merge as one, inseparable and complementary to each other.

Third, Rothko Chapel shows us good art can inspire the spirit. When the abstract ink painting and the technology of fluid interaction work cooperatively, this series of works “Dance with Ink” is no longer just an art work, but a spiritual space, a “palace of ink painting” integrating Eastern and Western cultures. Here, we are not only interacting with the works of an artist and the picturesque scene of ink, but also interacting with our own energy. For most of us, it is precious to meet and to discover the energy we carry with ourselves. Each day we see ourselves in the mirror, think about ourselves in our minds, and feel ourselves through our emotions. But we have little knowledge or experience about the individual energy that keeps our body functioning, to learn and discover the source of such energy is even less discussed. In recent years, the science and technology community has been enthusiastic about how to make humans immortal, and pointed out the potential possibilities of uploading consciousness from the mind, testing cryogenic freezing, and making DNA backups. Perhaps all of these assumptions are based on a basic cognitive premise that people = body + brain, and human beings can achieve immortality by storing and downloading the cloud of consciousness and memory into any body (or machine). One of Elon Musk’s goals in establishing the company of Neuralink is to make humans a new species combined with Artificial intelligence before AI overtakes and dominates mankind. When combining with machines becomes the possible direction of human development in the future, where is our uniqueness and irreplaceability as human beings? Under such technological development and social context, perhaps it is time for us to reexamine ourselves. When the age of high artificial intelligence comes and it seems mankind will not have any way to compete with it, where will we go if we only think of ourselves as body + brain? 

From the artistic point of view, the interactive ink has changed our traditional way of pictorial art appreciation. It integrates viewing, experiencing, interacting and communicating, and it has broadened the scope and boundary of ink painting. This is an important attempt in the process of the contemporary transformation and globalization of ink art. At the level of implication, the interactive ink can be a door of exploration. Through it, we can discover the wisdom in Chinese philosophy, which spans thousands of years but remains fresh; through it, we perceive a vivid world of ink which is seemingly simple but contains endless changes; through it, we dissolve cultural boundaries and explore the subtle energy that energizes cells and organs in every human body at the present moment, and move toward a reality that can never be replaced by machines.

Shuo Feng

Curator, Shandong Art Museum

February 19, 2021