Face-to-face丨VR experience, holographic data archives, the Millennium Yungang Grottoes come to life like this
In March in Datong, Shanxi Province, the weather turns warm and cold, but tourists visiting the Yungang Grottoes remain enthusiastic.
Following Hang Kan, President of Yungang Research Institute, we look back at this history spanning more than 1,500 years.
The Yungang Grottoes were excavated during the Northern Wei Dynasty. They were the first grottoes excavated by the royal family after Buddhism was introduced to China.
There are 45 main caves, 209 subsidiary caves and more than 59,000 large and small statues in the Yungang Grottoes. In 2001, they were included in the World Heritage List by the United Nations.
The open-air Buddha in Cave 20 is the iconic landscape of Yungang Grottoes. However, we did not stay here too long. Hang Kan took us to another place that he was more interested in.
The third cave is the largest cave in Yungang Grottoes, and it is an unfinished cave.
A large number of traces of grotto excavation, stone removal, repair and use in later generations have been left in the cave. They are precious physical data for understanding the ancient grotto construction project.
The Yungang Grottoes are excavated on sandstone bodies. The geological conditions are very complex. In some places, there are more than ten layers of rock layers, and in some places there are weak rock layers. Over thousands of years, due to wind erosion, rain erosion and other erosion, the grottoes have faced cracks in the rock mass, Threats from various diseases such as flooding and weathering.
The fourth cave of the Yungang Grottoes is also an unfinished cave. Above the cave door on the south wall is the Zhengguang Chronicle of the Northern Wei Dynasty. This is the latest inscription in the Yungang Grottoes, but it has been completely eroded due to severe weathering.
This year is Hang Kan’s fourth year as the dean of Yungang Research Institute.
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress that just passed, as a representative of the National People's Congress, Hang Kan said in the first "Delegates Channel" when answering reporters' questions that he would continue to increase scientific and technological investment in cave disease research and development of protective materials in the future.
Reporter:
What is causing your headache?
When it comes to cultural preservation and restoration, what is most lacking at this time?
Hang Kan, President of Yungang Research Institute:
It should be said that the shortage of personnel and technology is still the greatest, because we always talked about funding issues in the past, but now that the country’s economy has developed, we have basically guaranteed funding.
But we now have very high technical requirements. In the past, we did some work that was relatively easy to deal with, such as the reinforcement of dangerous rock masses, but now we are left with problems such as weathering, which are a constant headache. And it’s not just our grotto, it’s a problem that everyone faces.
Before becoming the dean of the Yungang Research Institute, Hang Kan was a professor at the School of Archeology and Museology at Peking University. He majored in archeology and studied under Mr. Su Bai, a leading archaeologist. His main research areas focused on Song and Yuan archeology, Buddhist art, and ancient times. Architecture, museology and cultural heritage protection.
In 2021, Yungang Research Institute was officially established, and Hang Kan was appointed as the president.
The sixth cave of Yungang Grottoes is still under construction and maintenance.
Today, the preventive protection and meticulous maintenance of the grottoes have become the focus of Hangkan’s work.
The sixth cave of Yungang Grottoes is a central pillar cave. The entire cave is magnificent and exquisitely decorated. It is known as "Yungang's most magnificent sight". However, this miracle in the history of world sculpture art cannot withstand the erosion of more than 1,500 years.
It's a race against time.
Severe weathering has made the protection of this immovable stone cultural relic a global problem.
In recent years, Yungang Research Institute has cooperated with many domestic universities and colleges on the research of new materials for cultural relics protection, hoping to gradually apply the research results to the protection project of the grottoes themselves.
While protecting the cultural relics of the grottoes, digitization is the only way to achieve permanent preservation and sustainable use of cultural relics information.
In 2021, the Digital Yungang Advanced Computing Center will be completed. The holographic data archive created with 234 trillion calculations per second will leave this thousand-year-old grotto for the next thousand years.
Reporter:
Because we are now more familiar with Dunhuang and have done a relatively complete job of digitalization, what do you think you are still missing now?
Hang Kan:
Because Dunhuang started early, it is still an example for us to learn from.
But because Dunhuang started early, maybe our technology is iterating faster now.
So from the perspective of technology iteration, we are not lagging behind.
Our current accuracy has reached 0.03 mm, but that requires a lot of computing power.
We have a supercomputing center here. What is the concept of a supercomputing center?
The computing power of a cave you see is the same as that of a medium-sized city, which we call a smart city.
Yungang is a royal project, so the statues are very large. Many caves in Dunhuang are relatively small. In addition, the murals in Dunhuang are very exciting, but the murals are two-dimensional, so it is relatively easy to scan them. But in our place One is that it is big, and the other is that there are many carving techniques.
So like the sixth cave you saw, we still haven’t come up with a collection plan that everyone can agree on.
There are more than 59,000 large and small statues in Yungang Grottoes, and their structures are complex, resulting in a huge amount of data collected and a long time for digital processing.
This means that it will take some time to complete all data collection and digital processing of Yungang Grottoes.
Digital means can not only make cultural relics immortal, but also break through time and space constraints and provide the public with new ways to visit.
Movable 3D printing replica caves, Yungang Grottoes VR experience... In the digital age, the originally immovable grotto art "comes alive and moves" in a "young" presentation method.
Hang Kan once initiated the "Origin Movement" at the School of Archeology and Museology of Peking University and established the "Archaeology·Art·Design" exchange platform, with the intention of exploring designs that integrate tradition and modernity, liberating antiquities, awakening creativity, and returning traditional beauty to daily life.
After becoming the president of Yungang Research Institute, he also applied the concept of "origin" to the inheritance and innovation of Yungang Grottoes.
Hang Kan:
Source means facing the past, because we are facing a big treasure house, and flow means facing the future.
What is the relationship between the past and the present?
We just want to solve this problem.
What is expressed more now is how to make cultural relics come alive.
Reporter:
When you go inside the grotto and look at these exquisite and shocking statues, or the various artistic shapes on the walls, especially some beautiful buildings, you can stare into their eyes. , how would you feel?
Hang Kan:
Maybe it has something to do with age. I like silence more and more now, including being alone more and more.
I think maybe it's just a conversation, I want to know what it wants to say and what it wants to express.
On the other hand, if something is beautiful, you will think it is beautiful.
So another thing I am doing now is to hope that more people, not just me, can rediscover the beauty of Yungang by following the artist.
Producer丨Liu Bin Wang Huidong
Reporter丨Dong Qian
Planning丨Zhang Hongfei
Director丨Ding Fang
Main station reporters丨Wang Yuejun, Zhao Yingjie, Zhang Yujie
Photography丨Liu Hongbo Yang Fan