When historical aesthetics meets AI: A new cultural economic vision behind a 'world-building' show

Currently, as the intellectual property industry — centered on film and television content — is undergoing a profound transformation, original intellectual property rooted in distinctive historical aesthetics and equipped with a complete visual-semiotic system possesses has far greater commercial expansion potential than a standalone artwork.

Chinese art creator Chai Yehhxin said the IP industry is transforming from "traffic-driven" to "value-driven" models, and from "single-asset development" to "ecosystem operation", and thus when AI tools significantly lower the costs of global distribution — including multilingual dubbing and subtitle translation — this visual language, grounded in Chinese cultural heritage yet possessing an internationally accessible aesthetic sensibility, gains the opportunity to command an emotional premium in global cultural trade.

Chai opened his solo exhibition titled Fragments of Begonia Leaves in New York's East Village this month. At first glance, it appeared to be an artistic exploration of traditional Chinese visual culture, but in reality, it revealed a new pathway for cultural IP to evolve from academic research into global commercialization.

"At its core, the exhibition is not about simple nostalgia, but rather a complete exercise in 'world-building' grounded in solid historical research and executed with modern tools including artificial intelligence — with economic potential that should not be underestimated," he said.

The starting point of the exhibition was years of architectural research for Chai, who has a background spanning theatrical stage design and computer art. He approaches creation as a process of "world-building", conducting in-depth studies of Art Deco architecture that once flourished in New York, Shanghai, and Wuhan during the 1920s and 1930s.

In Shanghai alone, for example, according to incomplete statistics, 31 high-rise buildings of 10 stories or more were constructed between 1929 and 1938, the vast majority of which were either Art Deco in style or bore its characteristic features.

"To this day, Shanghai remains the city with the second-largest collection of surviving Art Deco buildings in the world, after New York," Chai said, noting that these structures were not mere copies of Western styles but rather a unique visual language that Chinese architects and craftsmen absorbed, adapted, and transformed — a living testament to cultural fusion and innovation in their own right.

Through his study of these historical remains, Chai distilled a complete visual system encompassing architectural proportions, decorative motifs, and material languages.

After the visual system was established, digital technology and artificial intelligence were introduced into his creative workflow. According to the exhibition notes, they are clearly positioned as "production tools, not creative subjects" — a positioning that aligns with the current trend in the cultural industry where "aesthetic sensibility becomes the hardest currency".

When generative AI reduces the barrier to producing "polished" images to zero, historical depth and aesthetic judgment become scarce resources. Chai said the creative logic behind Fragments of Begonia Leaves is as follows: the artist first completes an original visual system based on historical research, and then leverages technological tools to efficiently render it into physical works such as silk scrolls and tarot cards, ensuring the uniqueness and cultural depth of the final output.

It has been learned that the exhibition itself is merely a starting point. The roadmap shows that the visual language developed in Fragments of Begonia Leaves will be extended to artist tarot decks, collectible playing cards, publications, future exhibitions, and long-form narrative projects across different media. This outlines a clear blueprint for the full-industry-chain development of a cultural IP.

Please contact the writer at hanjingyan@chinadaily.com.cn