Undercurrent, a twenty-foot-tall stainless-steel sculpture by Beijing-based artist Zheng Lu, is    1    display until August 2024 in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza,     2     is just outside the United Nations complex (建筑群) in New York. The sculpture,     3     (weigh) nearly 2.5 tons, was more than two years in the making. Zheng is the first Chinese artist     4     (have) his work exhibited there.

The public art project, initiated by Sundaram Tagore, is supported by the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations, a nonprofit organization     5     (found) in Europe after World War II, which is dedicated to facilitating international partnerships that promote awareness and implementation of UN goals.

The sculpture is created     6     (specific) for the site and relates to the United Nations’ recent action initiatives on clean water and climate change. Part of the     7     (artist) acclaimed Water in Dripping series, Undercurrent emphasizes the     8     (significant) of water. As a student of Chinese philosophy, Zheng views water as symbolic of change, the passage of time     9     self-reflection.

Zheng Lu’s sculptures     10     (exhibit) around the world in the past few years, including, most recently, in Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions at the Asia Society Texas.

Wei Chunrong has built a reputation as a leading actress of Kunqu Opera,     1     oldest traditional Chinese opera with a history of about 600 years, which, performed in the Suzhou dialect,     2     (know) for graceful body movements, rhythmic singing and exquisite costumes.

She started learning at 10 and     3     (perform) with the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre since she was 16. Wei performed at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2001     4     the organization listed it as one of the masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity (人类口头和非物质遗产). Now in her 50s, Wei has found a new role. In the     5     (origin) Kunqu Opera production, titled Guo Feng, Wei plays the role of Lady Xu Mu,who was the first female poet     6     (record) in Chinese history.

“I played different roles during the past four decades. For Lady Xu Mu, I have to put aside all my experiences and start afresh     7     (comprehend) and perform the role,” said Wei,     8     (sit) in the dressing room of Tianqiao Theatre a day before the show started on June 19.

“The role, Lady Xu Mu, was written for Wei Chunrong     9     particular. Though she has played many classic roles, she needs one which could represent her     10     (specific) and take her career to the next level,” says Luo, the playwright (剧作家).

Paper cutting is one of the most popular Chinese traditions. We can see paper cutting works     1     walls, windows, doors, mirrors and so on. It is popular because it is cheap and easy     2     (make). Paper cutting works are usually made of red paper. Red is the most popular color in Chinese culture.     3     we need is simply a piece of paper and a knife or a pair of scissors.     4     to be good at this art is not easy at all because it needs much practice and imagination.

Think “art”. What comes to your mind? The artworks created by Janet Echelman look     1     colourful floating clouds when they are lit up at night. People could interact with one of these. Exhibits such as these are certainly new and     2    (excite), but people have different ideas on     3     they are really art or not.

People have been expressing their thoughts and ideas through art for a long time.     4    (do) this, they have used a variety of tools and technologies. Yet Michelangelo and others     5    (label) as “artists”rather than “technicians”. This means that art and technology have always been seen as two very separate things.

Today, however,     6    (technology) advances have led to a combination of art and technology. So more and more people are able to experience a digital version of the artwork. Not only can people interact with art,     7     also take part in its creation, which has also raised questions over its overall quality. And such developments are making the line between art and technology less distinct. Perhaps these advances     8    (bring) us closer to a time when computers rather than humans create art.

    9     technology will take art next is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure—with so many artists     10    (explore) new possibilities, we can definitely expect the unexpected.

Hanson, is one of many professional artists whose work was included in the data set used to train Stable Diffusion, a popular     1     publicly available open-source AI image generation tool. She’s one of several artists interviewed     2     were unhappy to learn that pictures of their work were used without someone     3     (inform) them, asking for consent, or paying for their use.

Once available only to a select group of tech insiders, text-to-image AI systems are becoming increasingly popular and     4     (power). These systems include Stable Diffusion, from a company that recently raised more than $100 million in funding, and DALL-E, from a company that has raised $1 billion     5     now.

In just months, millions of people     6     (enter) text-to-image AI systems and they are already being used to create experimental films, magazine covers and images to illustrate news stories. An image     7     (generate) with an AI system called Midjourney recently won an art competition at the Colorado State Fair, and caused     8     uproar (怨愤) among artists.

But as artists like Hanson have discovered that their work is being used to train AI, it raises an even more fundamental concern: that their own art is     9     (effective) being used to train a computer program that could one day cut into their livelihoods. Anyone who generates images with systems such as Stable Diffusion or DALL-E can then sell them.

“I don’t want to participate at all in the machine that’s going to     10     (cheap) what I do,” said Daniel Danger, an illustrator and print maker who learned a number of his works were used to train Stable Diffusion.