Immersive and interactive cultural consumption emerges as a new trend

Against the backdrop of the deep integration of the digital and real economies, the convergence of culture and technology has become a driving force for innovation.

Amid that, immersive and interactive cultural consumption is emerging as a new trend, while the "culture plus technology" model represents a systemic restructuring of the factors of production, with the key lying in building a two-way cycle in which technology empowers culture and culture, in turn, feeds back into technology.

Technology can revitalize existing cultural resources, and iterative innovation can spawn new business forms, opening up new tracks for the high-quality development of culture, according to experts.

Advanced technologies such as digital media are being widely applied across cultural sectors, while the large-scale development of the industry also provides effective testing grounds for such technologies, they said.

Trillium: Transcultural and Sensual Alchemy of Healing — an immersive installation, showcased at the Oriental Odyssey Digital Art Exhibition at Outernet London, is one example. It reconstructs a dialogue with nature through bioaesthetic innovation by Cai Xintong, a Chinese-born, Toronto-based multimedia artist.

Cai has worked closely with musicians, naturalists, computer engineers and biologists, constantly pushing the boundaries of her work — conveying emotional resonance through immersive experiences, translating creative ideas into reality via programming, and enriching the artistic narrative with life sciences.

"This multidisciplinary foundation has crystallized into the distinctive cross-media language of artistic aesthetics and technological poetics," she said.

Integrating digital techniques into immersive storytelling, Cai creates fresh multisensory experiences through audiovisual design and programming, drawing audiences into the world of science and art.

Cai's installation Trillium — inspired by Ontario's provincial flower and interwoven with the Chinese legend of Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs and the oral traditions of the Ojibwe people — went on to win the 2025 ROCA Design Award in Spain.

The effective integration of culture and technology will further enhance the aesthetic appeal of Chinese stories and strengthen the reach and influence of Chinese civilization, experts said.

As culture and technology increasingly converge, the two are reinforcing and empowering each other, driving the high-quality development of the cultural industry, according to Zhong Jun, director of the Hunan Academy of Social Sciences.

In this era of rapid technological development, Cai said: "Technology is not a means to escape reality or distance ourselves from nature. Instead, it helps humanity see, understand and love ourselves, nature and everything around us from new perspectives."

She hopes that within the worldview and artistic context she creates, science can shed its rigid armor and reveal a softer warmth, and that the vision of a sustainable ecology can take root firmly in reality rather than remain an unreachable ideal.

yinmingyue@chinadaily.com.cn