On the evening of February 4, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics held at the National Stadium amazed the world once again after the Summer Olympics in 2008. The perfect combination of new scientific and technological aesthetics and Chinese traditional culture created a simple yet sophisticated, ethereal and spectacular, warm and romantic visual feast, showing the leap of Chinese digital art.

A series of astonishing scientific and technological experiences and visual scenes were created by Wang zhiou, the visual effect director of the opening ceremony, and the visual effect team. Wang zhiou is also the deputy director of CAAI Art and Artificial Intelligence Committee. The Blackbow he founded is committed to combining AI, AR, 5G and other leading digital technologies with art to bring digital experience upgrading to the public in various fields.

Digital technology deduces Chinese cultural confidence

In the preparation for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Wang zhiou and his team worked closely with director Zhang Yimou, mainly responsible for the three parts of visual creativity, visual effect design and video production of the opening ceremony. From the preparation to the final performance, they created for more than two years, and experienced thousands of versions of scheme modifications, technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, AR, auto stereoscopy, cloud computing, 16K display, digital twin and simulation are widely used.

For example, in the creation process of the impressive "waterfall", Wang zhiou's team used image processing algorithms to study a large number of traditional Chinese ink paintings and establish ink texture feature models, to create the artistic conception of "the Yellow River comes from heaven". The visual effect of the "snowflake" shaped main torch platform adopts computer vision, motion capture technology and AI real-time video special effect technology.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games also created the first light and shadow screen with 16K picture quality in Olympic history. The stage ground of the opening ceremony adopted the largest 8K ultra-high definition ground display system, setting a Guinness world record.

In Wang zhiou's view, although all creativity is displayed with scientific and technological aesthetics, there is actually a Chinese cultural heritage in it. The main goal is to find the confidence of Oriental Culture in the light and shadow content. Each picture and program has a unique aesthetic concept and Chinese cultural heritage.

Continue to explore the mutual growth of art and technology

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics is not the first time that Wang zhiou's team partnered with director Zhang Yimou. Previously, they had cooperated in activities such as the 70th anniversary ceremony of the national day and the Beijing 8-minutes of the Pingchang Winter Olympics to jointly explore and practice the way of mutual growth of art and technology.

In the celebration ofthe 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC in 2019, Wang zhiou led the team to complete the first thousand person light and shadow screen mobile performance, offering a spiritual impact of the perfect combination of culture and technology to the global audience.

In the "Beijing 8-minutes" performance of the closing ceremony of the Pingchang Winter Olympic Games, Wang zhiou and his team broke through the extremely cold conditions and the difficulty of rehearsal. Using the subtle creativity of light and shadow + man-machine performance, they completed the unforgettable man-machine dance performance in the history of the Olympic games with the least number of performers and the slightest venue support.

Promote the integrated development of artificial intelligence and art

Since 2010, Wang zhiou and his team have applied the concept of "Art + Technology" to live performance, tourism experience, new media interactive marketing and other fields.

Last year, Wang zhiou served as deputy director of CAAI Art and Artificial Intelligence Committee, participated in broader academic research and industrial cooperation, and jointly explored the integrated development of artificial intelligence and art with colleagues in the industry, to enhance the height and influence of China's science, technology and art.

Wang zhiou firmly believes that the integration of artificial intelligence and art will be more vivid and imaginative in the future. Human and machine, technology and art will leave food for mind worth cherishing for this era under the extraordinary creativity.