2026 Beijing 798 Art Festival Double Exhibition Opens: Exploring Digital Art in the Pre-AI Era and Deep Involvement of AI

China News Service, Beijing, September 5 (Reporter Ying Ni)’s game equipment that has been out of production for many years has regained its voice, and the microscopic life under the microscope has generated a world of infinite imagination; AI broadcasts the swimming of goldfish into a boxing match, and people’s expressions turn into an "emotional cloud" above the head... 2026 Beijing 798 opened in Beijing on the 4th. The theme exhibition of the art festival "Uncertain Land I: Research on Chinese Digital Art in the Pre-artificial Intelligence Era" brings the focus back to the "pre-artificial intelligence era", while the parallel exhibition "Unpredictable Land II: An Exhibition of Thirty Artists in Chinese Artificial Intelligence Art" brings the focus to the present moment where artificial intelligence is deeply involved in creation.

Double exhibition poster. Photo provided by the organizer

The theme exhibition "Uncertain Land I" goes back to before generative artificial intelligence entered creation on a large scale. At that time, artists were coding, making animations, building equipment, and repeatedly working with immature technologies. This process is full of chance and naive attempts, and it also truly records how people's judgment, perception and experience participate in creation. "Cat" and "Life of Love" created by Bu Hua were born in the early Flash era. Every line, every movement and every rhythm were repeatedly selected by the artist. "Walking Art·Natural Man" created by Fei Jun is driven by the audience's pace, using gold, wood, water, fire and earth to create digital clones. "Lone Sound and Echo: Listening to the Qin and Hearing the Heart" created by Jin Jun is taken from Song Huizong's "Listening to the Qin Picture". The life and perceptual experience of ancient literati are re-opened in the digital space.

Exhibition site. Photo provided by the organizer

Artificial intelligence is deeply involved in creation, inspiring new creative methods and languages for artists. The parallel exhibition "Unknown Land II" brings together artists and teams active in the fields of artificial intelligence art and digital media creation. The convergence of different knowledge backgrounds and creative methods here also allows the exhibition to present the various possibilities of AI art. Noh Ying-ying's "Emotional Cloud" transforms facial expressions into visible "clouds"; Liu Sihan's "AI Rorschach Mental Image" translates inner states into images and poetic language by reading brain electrical signals. Huang Enqi and Wang Xintong's "Glass Room" allows AI to broadcast the swimming of goldfish into a boxing match, while Chen Baoyang's "The Legend of God" is like a real-life "scripted killing" involving nine AI agents.

As the curator of the double exhibition, Wang Boqiao, the founder of the organizer Digital Art China (DAC), said that through the works and documents on site, the aim is to allow the audience to see those repeated creative processes again, identify the "human" perception and creativity in it, and also provide a historical coordinate for today's re-understanding of AI art. In the current era of rapid emergence of AI images, the double exhibition also asks: How can people maintain the initiative of perception, judgment and imagination when technology continues to reshape the boundaries of art. He hopes that technology will retreat behind experience, leaving behind a more direct and softer connection between people and works.

Exhibition site. Photo provided by the organizer

It is understood that "Unpredicted Realm I" will be on display at the 798 International Art Exchange Center until September 26, and "Unpredicted Realm II" will continue to be exhibited at the Digital Art China Duojue Workshop in Beijing's 798 Art District until December 31. (over)