Is AI-generated Art an Enemy or a Friend to Artist? | AI生成艺术对艺术家是敌是友？
    The essay argues that AI-generated art is not the enemy of artists. The development of AI technology will free artists from repetitive and mechanical labor and encourage creativity, intelligence and humanity implied in man-made art. It contains three sections. The first section introduces Portrait of Edmond Belamy, a proclaimed AI-generated painting created with an open-source algorithm called GAN (Generative Adversarial Network). It was sold for an unexpected price of $432,500 during a Christie’s auction in 2018. The second section reviews the history of AI-generated art by focusing on some key inventions, such as AARON, the first computer program able to produce basic shape in 1968 and Google’s Deep Dream Program in 2014. The third section categorizes art-related AI into three types according to impact. The first type includes software that benefit artists in general, such as image recognition, color specification, and auto 3D construction. The second type are programs that generate new image according to selected style, which will eventually outperform the beginner level designer in terms of speed and quality, only preserving art jobs that require true creativity. The third type is represented by GAN algorithm, which generates its own subject by learning from the fed data, removing human’s critical role of consenting the subject. It is now limited by the “catastrophic forgetting” trait of GAN system.

    本文论证AI生成艺术并非艺术家的敌人。AI技术的发展可以把艺术家从重复而机械的苦力中解放，并激发艺术家创作蕴含创新、智慧及博爱的作品。本文由三部分组成。第一部分介绍一幅被宣称为AI生成艺术的油画《爱德蒙.贝拉米肖像》。这副画由源代码开放的GAN算法生成，在2018年Christie拍卖会上售出了惊人的432,500美元价格（约合三百零五万人民币）。第二部分回顾AI相关艺术的发展历史。介绍1968年第一个能生成基本形状的软件AARON与2014年的谷歌Deep Dream计划等关键发明。第三部分将与艺术相关的AI按照其影响分为三类：第一类是惠及全体艺术家的软件，例如图像识别、颜色细化及3D自动构建等；第二类包含可以依据已选风格生成新图像的程序。这些程序将在生成图像的速度与质量方面超越新手设计师，进而仅保留需要真正创新能力的艺术岗位。第三类是以GAN算法为代表、可通过学习数据自行生成内容的AI。它们移除了人类在创造艺术中决定内容的关键职责，但目前被GAN系统“灾难性遗忘”特质所限制。

Religions Aspects in the Mechanism of Asian Idol-Fan Pop Culture | 亚洲偶像-粉丝文化机制中的宗教因素
    Kevin Schilbrack defines religion as an intersection between the features of functionalist and substantive, namely, ‘the social practices authorized by reference to a superempirical reality’. Using Schilbrack's definition as framework, the essay aims at analyzing the idol-fan culture in Asia satisfies the functionalist standard of religion but fails to meet its substantive aspect. The idol industry in Asia functions religiously in psychological and social perspectives: it benefits the practitioners psychologically by improving self-identification through the cultivation of idol-fan relationship; it also develops comradeship and community cooperation through fan-fan relationship. The consumption of idol-centered commodity strengthens the bonding between fan community, a similar mode with religious consumption. However, the appreciation is limited within the empirical factors of the idol (face, body, etc.). and nonempirical values (hard-working, talents, etc.). The absence of belief in superempirical being (independent from human, able to transcend the impermanent boundary) fails the idol culture to meet the substantive standard, thus cannot be categorized as religion under Shilbrack's definition.
 
     凯文.希尔布莱克把宗教定义为功能性与实体性的交集，即“因参照某种超验存在而被认证的社会活动”。本文以希尔布莱克的定义为框架，论证亚洲的偶像-粉丝文化满足其宗教定义中功能性的标准，但未达到其实体性的标准。
即，偶像文化在心理及社交领域的功能类似宗教：在心理学方面，通过偶像-粉丝关系提升粉丝自我认同与自信；在社交方面，通过粉丝群发展友谊与群体合作。消费偶像周边产品巩固粉丝群，与宗教类消费有相似商业模型。然而，在实体性标准之下，偶像-粉丝文化的崇拜对象仅限于偶像的外在实证型特质（容貌、身材等）以及偶像的内在非实证型特质（勤奋、才华等），而非某种超验存在（独立于人的意志、可超越现世无常的存在），因而不能满足宗教的实体性定义，不能被归类为希尔布莱克定义下的宗教。
Forensis: Field and Forum of 'The Long Duration of a Split Second' | 法证：艺术展“一瞬的漫长持续”的现场与会场
    This essay reflects on the visit to Forensic Architecture's 'The Long Duration of a Split Second', the 2018 Turner Prize winner exhibited at the Tate Britain. The exhibition presents the team’s investigation on the deaths of a Palestinian Bedouin villager and an Israeli police during a violent demolition activity of local houses in the Negev/Naqab desert on January 18th, 2017. The minor section ‘Traces of Bedouin Inhabitation’ surveys the historical context behind the incident-- the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian disputation over the site’s ownership and residency right. The essay analyzes the exhibition from two perspectives: field and forum. “Field” corresponds to the on-site investigation of the case in south Israel, while “forum” is the presentation of it at Tate Britain. The methodology used in the investigation combines the traditional witness testimony and site re-enactment, digital technology (digital mapping, 3D modeling) and social media (Twitter, YouTube). The staging of the show invites the audience to actively interact with the content, constantly raising their head to read the texts printed on the wall and picking up the earphone to watch the videos. The evidence and the presentation put the audience in the role of judge in a courtroom.
The essay argues that the show challenges and broadens public’s definition of art. Regardless of being criticized for “pretentious methodology and excessive objectivity”, the team’s moths-long investigation reflects their ardent pursuit of truth and justice. They are the among the few resistant guarantees of human status by fighting for the ignored, the destroyed, and the forgotten.
    
    文章回顾了我在泰特英国馆中，对“法证建筑”团队2018年透纳奖获奖作品 “一瞬的漫长持续”的参观体验。作品展览了团队针对内盖夫/纳卡布沙漠村庄暴力拆迁事件的调查。事件发生于2017年1月18日，造成一名巴勒斯坦贝都因村民和一名以色列警察的死亡。副展区“循迹贝都因栖息地‘’调查了这次事件的历史背景——数十年就土地所属权与居住权的巴以冲突。本文从两方面分析展览：现场与会场。“现场”对应在以色列南部对本案的现场勘察，“会场”则指在泰特英国馆的展出设计。在勘察中应用的方法论结合了传统的目击证词与现场重演，数字技术（数码绘图法，三维建模）和社交媒体（推特，油管）。会展的设计邀请观众通过不断抬头阅读印在墙上的文字与戴上耳机观看视频来主动互动。物证与呈现方式将观众置于庭审中法官的角色。
    本文论证本次展览挑战并拓展了公众对于艺术的定义。尽管被批评为“做作的方法论与过度的客观性”，团队长达数月的调查反映了其对真相与正义的炽热求索。其团队是为数不多的对人权的顽固捍卫者，为那些被忽视的、被摧毁的、被遗忘的群体而战。
Analysis on Rear Window: A Triple-Dimensioned Voyeuristic Hierarchy | 影片《后窗》解析：三重维度的窥视层级
    The film endows the act of looking with a sense of power and control. The essay argues that throughout the development of the plot, Hitchcock gradually builds up an organic visual-power hierarchy, from top to bottom, the dimension of audience, the dimension of Jeff the voyeur, and the dimension of Lars and the neighbors who are peeped at.The essay focuses on the scene in which Lars Thorwald, the salesman who murders his wife, found out Jeff’s knowledge about his crime through Jeff’s voyeuristic POV. The scene serves as a turning point between the previous nine-tenths methodical construction of visual-power hierarchy and the latter one-tenth turbulent destruction. It is a perfect example of Hitchcock’s insightful understanding of psychology and ingenious manipulation of mise-en-scene. 

    《后窗》赋予观看行为一种权利感与控制感。文章论证随着剧情推进，希区柯克逐渐建立起一个有机的视觉权力层级，从上到下为，观众的维度，偷窥者Jeff的维度，被偷窥邻居与Lars的维度。文章重点分析谋杀妻子的销售员Lars发觉Jeff偷窥到他的罪行的一幕。这一幕通过Jeff视角传递给观众，是位于电影九分之十时长的转折点，颠覆前面对于视觉权力层级的井然有序的建立，承接影片高潮对于视觉权力层级的混乱的颠覆。体现了希区柯克对于心理学的洞见与巧妙的导演设计。