Study both internally and externally to create a common homeland of network art
Create a clear and healthy cyberspace, allowing "users" to gain aesthetic experience and community experience by appreciating online literary and artistic works.
Photo by Ruan Xuefeng/Guangming Picture
On February 20th, Guangming Daily’s "Network Literature and Art" section published an article by Professor Zhao Lijin, "Readers Become Users, Don’t Fall into the "Trap" of Algorithms". The value pursuit is explained in depth.
On this basis, I would like to make a few comments on this topic.
I remember that in 1995, Bill Gates participated in the talk show of the well-known American host David Letterman, during which he pointed out that the Internet means the burst of massive information, "it is a brand new thing."
Letterman asked, I heard that there has been a major breakthrough in network technology not long ago, and people can finally listen to baseball games online-but isn't that just the radio!
Gates laughed and replied, there is a big difference between the two, and online ball games can be listened to repeatedly.
So Letterman asked naturally: "So is the Internet a tape recorder?"
Today, we can easily enumerate how the Internet has profoundly and significantly changed the production and life of mankind.
How witty the "Letterman Question" seemed back then, how smart it sounds now.
We are very concerned about this. If we are not immersed in the scene, who can imagine the situation of today's online world?
Even 26 years ago, Gates had preached the wonderful prospects of the Internet, but he had no confidence to claim that compared with other uses of the Internet, the function of listening to the ball game is not worth mentioning.
He believes that the Internet will greatly change the world, but it is difficult to describe the specific richness of the form; even if you say one or two, it may not be more understood by the public than the example of listening to the ball game.
It is precisely because of the comprehensiveness and fundamental nature of the Internet that changes the face of life that it is particularly unimaginable: when you try to outline its overall outline, people will think that this is just a grand science fiction, and when it comes to a certain application of it, people I feel that this is just a fancy way to implement an old function.
When paper media, radio, and TV programs are challenged by new media, live webcasts, and short videos, the latter certainly realizes the functions of the former, but with additional new features—immediateness, interactivity, and precise positioning. Especially the huge amount and easy access are enough to make traditional literary carriers face brand-new challenges.
"Users" of online literature and art use the Internet to participate in the practice of literature and art, either as creators or audiences
At present, the "production-reception" method of literary works, that is, what we mean as creators and audiences (readers, listeners, audiences), has undergone tremendous changes.
Relying on the Internet, the identities and functions of creators and audiences have become fluid and indeterminate. The commentators have noticed that the traditional patterns of "agent-recipient" and "producer-consumer" are no longer applicable, so they propose to The word "user" was replaced.
"User" means a computer or Internet user.
In the context of analyzing network literature and art, he is a person who uses the network to participate in the practice of literature and art. He can be a creator or an audience.
This concept moved into literary criticism or began at the turn of the century in Western academic circles' analysis of the practice of "hypertext literature" and "interactive digital literature" since the 1980s.
In the predecessors of these online literature and art, the final formation of works relies on the designer's top-down instruction design and the "user" bottom-up information input.
"Users" replace authors and readers, and the classic topic about the author's creative responsibility and the reader's appreciative responsibility has been turned into the question of "what is a good and qualified user".
Before discussing this issue, it is necessary to put the concept of "user" back into the real environment of online literature and art.
It was also in 1994, which was regarded by many as the "first year" of China's Internet.
Since then, China's Internet has been fully open to the society for access services.
The creation and dissemination of online literature and art began immediately: in 1995, the first Chinese online poetry magazine was founded; in 1998, the first batch of recognized online novels in mainland China came out; in 2000, Flash web animation works appeared in mainland China; in 2001, the Internet The song became popular all over the country for the first time.
Today, online literature and art have long penetrated into people's cultural life, and even seized people's spiritual space in a more profound sense.
From electronic bulletin boards, forums, blogs, to social networks, official accounts, and live webcasts, online art carriers have undergone several generations; articles, pictures, animations, videos, games, etc., all kinds of online art works are produced and disseminated in huge quantities, and used as materials Enter the re-creation.
Among them, the most intuitive and important change is not the lowering of the threshold of creation, but the dissemination of works and opinions has become extremely convenient, extensive and rapid; coupled with the application of search engines, a huge amount of works and opinions can appear on the Internet, and there are Feedback and re-creation become instantaneous, and information and groups are gathered in categories.
In the first decade of this century, with the advancement of data capture technology and the development of social networks, the Internet has officially entered the era of big data, which is also the era of big capital on the Internet.
The proliferation of Internet capital requires continuous growth in traffic, more "users" influx into the network, and the need to maintain sufficient "user" viscosity.
Therefore, the flow and capitalization of online literature and art production may make the "creation-acceptance" relationship of online literature and art tend to be fixed, that is, to form a more scarce, stable, and high-quality creator group to attract audiences; or further Taking time out of the ideological and artistic quality of literary and artistic creation, making it more short and homogeneous, simple copying, stimulating the senses of the audience, and immediately lost in the ocean of information, people can always catch a glimpse of the basic cookie-cutter and the same taste, but it is somewhat irritating s things.
These two approaches are not opposed.
In fact, commercially mature online platforms often have both of the above: top "users", that is, "net celebrities" and "top streamers", are creators with outstanding talents and distinctive styles; non-head "users" include There are a large number of creators whose works are unattractive, or are simple and rough imitations that follow the trend, or casually create occasionally. In general, their interest is precisely positioned by the platform algorithm.
Strengthen the constraints of laws and regulations and the guidance of value concepts, so that "users" can gain aesthetic experience and community experience by appreciating online literary and artistic works
What is a good and qualified "user"?
It depends on the meaning of "user".
When people try to cite the Western hypertext literature experiments in the 1980s and the theoretical conclusions at the turn of the century to analyze the "user" problem of Chinese online literature and art, the differences in the times and fields cannot be ignored.
Hypertext literary experiments predate the popularization of the Internet in the West. Although in a sense, the latter inherits the interactivity of the former, access to the Internet is not a necessary condition for "users" to interact with hypertext.
These early experiments were very avant-garde, using the "user" as an active pole against the established command design, and they have been successful in recent commercial video games.
Some commentators have pointed out that this "metagame" technique has demonstrated a stronger narrative possibility of "breaking the fourth wall" than "differentiation".
However, these experiments are far from the actual production of online literature and art. In the former, the expectations of the “user” in the experiment are highly elitist, and it is hoped that the “user” will fully mobilize and integrate creativity and reflection in the process of completing the text. ; But in the actual production of online literature and art, the "users" are not faced with interactive texts for the realization of elite aesthetic activities, but with capital-led platforms and algorithms aimed at monetization.
When we talk about the "user" concept of online literature and art in this way, the "user" is highly desubjected.
"Users" that can continue to drive traffic growth and capital proliferation are "good" users.
Between aesthetic ideals and economic reality, "users" are in an awkward position.
Therefore, to highlight the new connotation of the "user" of online literature and art, it is necessary to appeal to a space outside of aesthetics and the market.
Good online literature and art "users" need to work hard inward, cultivate good personal ethics, knowledge and media literacy, and also have strong external support, have a clear and healthy Internet ecology, that is, national cultural governance and network Space governance provides "users" with a good mechanism guarantee, and its purpose is to build a community of cyberspace.
Through the constraints of laws and regulations and the guidance of value concepts, the realization of "internal and external repairs" enables the effective adjustment of the power imbalance between Internet capital and "users", and "users" can treat online literature and art more freely and obtain aesthetics from it. Experience and community experience to create a common homeland of network art.
(Author: Wang Xi, the Department of Fudan University Institute of Marxist doctrine Youth Research Associate)