(Reported by Shen Ting; photo by Liu Xiaoyu) At 19:00 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2023, the 49th lecture of the School of Arts and Communication with the theme of “New Paradigm and New Challenge: Red Visual Design and Poetic Animation in Humanistic AI Art Creation” was held in the Lecture Hall C106 of the East Teaching Building. The lecture was hosted by Professor He Qingjun, Dean of the School of Arts and Communication, and the speaker was Professor Ye Youtian.
Guest speaker
Ye Youtian is a professor/master supervisor at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, a doctoral supervisor at the University of Malaysia (animation and design theory), a young “visual poet”, an art theorist, and the founder of the Yiyetang Cross Media Art Creation Research Center.
Viewpoints of the Lecture
The lecture mainly focused on red visual design, leading students to explore the charms of red visual design, poetic animation and humanistic AI art, as well as the relationship between the three and their mutual achievements. He emphasized the valuable value of red culture in the times, advocated the injection of poetry and creativity into animation design, and called for the use of humanistic AI art to enhance the humanistic expression of the works. During the lecture, Prof. Ye Youtian repeatedly emphasized that design works should be sincere, and only works of truth, goodness and beauty can move people’s hearts, which greatly helped students to understand the expression of red visual design.
Contents of the Lecture:
Part 1—Introduction
At the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Ye Youtian firstly introduced the topic through video and interacted with the students actively. Prof. Ye Youtian analyzed the prevailing problems of mediocrity and laziness in the current design profession from the examples of the earlier award-winning red art animation works and the red cultural posters during the epidemic period, and reflected on the inadequacies in the expression of red cultural forms, which led to the theme of this lecture - red visual design and poetic animation in humanistic AI art creation.
Part 2 — Realistic expression of red visual design
Prof. Ye Youtian pointed out that red culture, as a precious treasure of the new era, its connotation and power are not only rooted in historical memory, but also the essence of contemporary red visual design. Moreover, the creation of red cultural works should take the classics as the cornerstone, forge ahead, carry forward the main theme, and be committed to creating more excellent works for the people, the nation and the times.
Based on Xi Jinping’s expectations for literary and art workers, Prof. Ye Youtian proposed that the red cultural and artistic works created by contemporary designers should maintain the pure heart, but also rely on artistic ideas to expand their horizons. And the contemporary art design major should get rid of utopian fantasies and take pragmatism as a career orientation.
Part 3 — The latest exploration of poetic animation
As the founder of Poetic Animation, Prof. Ye Youtian pointed out that Poetic Animation is an art form that seeks for the beauty of life, which uses the language and imagery of poetry to create a visual world beyond reality, and expresses a kind of profound emotion and thought.
Taking the time works of his animation studio Yiyetang as an example, Prof. Ye Youtian showed us the diversified forms of poetic animation in the artistic expression of red culture in works. Here, Prof. Ye Youtian proposed that the animation form should break through the ancient and vulgar mode, and visualize the red visual art, put forward the poetic animation and red art works should take a different approach, and encouraged students to integrate thoughts, artistic conception and emotions into design to create the artistic red art works.
Part 4 — Humanistic AI Art Creation
Prof. Ye Youtian stated that AI art creation is an art creation that endows artificial intelligence with humanized thinking, emotion, value and creativity, which can serve as a common foundation for both red design and poetic animation, as well as their common goal.
Prof. Ye had a heated discussion with the students by taking practical works and students’ works as examples, encouraging them to keep abreast of the times, make full use of AI to create humanized art works, and also to maintain innovative thinking. Prof. Ye Youtian proposed that in the future, red visual design, poetic animation and humanistic AI art creation will inevitably form a synergy and achieve a “mutual interaction” relationship. Humanistic AI art creation will visual expression of the beauty of life, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of intelligence, and the wisdom of beauty for red visual design and poetic animation, incorporate the elements and spirits of excellent traditional Chinese culture, demonstrate the creativity and wisdom of the Chinese nation, reflect the theme of the times and social issues, spread positive energy and values, and display China’s image and its international influence.
Part 5 — Summing Up
Finally, Prof. He Qingjun summarized the content of Prof. Ye Youtian’s lecture, highly agreed with the design ideas of Prof. Ye Youtian, and encouraged students to learn the red visual diversity of artistic expression, and implement the “truth, goodness and beauty” in art works. He hoped that the lecture would help and inspire our teachers and students to explore new paths and make new progress in their teaching and creative practice.
