Against the backdrop of China's national strategy promoting the "creative transformation and innovative development" of its outstanding traditional culture, developing new quality productive forces and strengthening aesthetic education in universities have become imperative contemporary tasks. In this context, deeply exploring the innovative transformation of traditional cultural IP and its pathways for dissemination through aesthetic education is not only a proactive response to the national top-level design but also a practical need to activate the contemporary vitality of traditional culture and empower the construction of a new-era aesthetic education system. To define the scope of this research, the core concepts are delineated as follows:
- Traditional Cultural IP: Refers to cultural symbols and intellectual assets rooted in China's outstanding traditional culture, possessing specific cultural connotations, high recognizability, a certain audience base, and development potential.
- Innovative Transformation: Refers to the process of re-creating and re-utilizing traditional cultural IP through modern technology, creative design, industrial integration, and other means, to rejuvenate it with new vitality.
- Aesthetic Education Communication: Emphasizes conveying cultural values through aesthetic experiences and educational practices, aiming to enhance the public's aesthetic literacy and cultural identity.
The Aesthetic Education Value and Driving Forces for Transformation of Traditional Cultural IP
Traditional cultural IP condenses the aesthetic essence and humanistic spirit of Chinese civilization, possessing multi-layered, three-dimensional value for aesthetic education. Firstly, they serve as vivid aesthetic carriers; the traditional craftsmanship, techniques, and classical artistic conceptions they embody can directly enhance the audience's aesthetic perception and appreciation skills. Secondly, the historical memories, philosophical ideas, and ethical concepts carried by IP help deepen the audience's understanding of national culture, strengthening cultural identity and pride. Furthermore, the creative wisdom inherent in traditional cultural IP itself and its transformation process in a modern context are conducive to stimulating the audience's imagination and innovative thinking.
Promoting the innovative transformation of traditional cultural IP is driven by both practical needs and technological development. To align traditional culture with contemporary society, it must be integrated into modern life and the aesthetic context, paying particular attention to conforming to the cultural consumption habits of younger groups who prefer interactive and immersive experiences. The rapid development of digital technology provides key support for transformation; technologies such as VR/AR and artificial intelligence greatly expand the forms of presentation, communication channels, and preservation methods of IP. Meanwhile, the guidance of the national cultural digitalization strategy, the ongoing promotion of the "Two Creations" policy, and the market potential unleashed by the rise of "Guochao" (China-Chic) collectively constitute a favorable environment for the current innovative transformation of traditional cultural IP.
In terms of content form, traditional cultural IP first seeks breakthroughs, shifting from static, unidirectional presentation to dynamic, multi-dimensional narratives to enhance its appeal and influence. Cinematic adaptation is one of the ways with the broadest audience reach. For instance, the animated film Ne Zha (2019) injected modern values such as "self-identity" and "defying fate" into the traditional story, achieving both artistic expression and commercial success.
To align with contemporary public aesthetics, particularly to resonate with young audiences, the forms of expression for traditional cultural IP are constantly breaking original boundaries, showing a trend of "appealing to both refined and popular tastes." Artistic crossover integration has become an important direction of exploration, breaking the boundaries between art forms to create new aesthetic experiences. The dance poem The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Paintingis a successful case, transforming the imagery and techniques of the famous Song Dynasty painting A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountainsinto an expressive stage language, achieving a contemporary translation of classical aesthetics.
Mature IP operations focus not only on the development of a single product but also on building an industrial ecosystem with multi-sector linkage to fully release IP value. "IP+" and industrial integration are core pathways for building this ecosystem. For example, in the "IP + cultural tourism" sector, the TV series The Longest Day in Chang'aneffectively boosted tourism consumption in Xi'an, and its derived theme streets provide tourists with an immersive experience of the Tang Dynasty scene.
As the main venue for aesthetic education practice, universities should systematically incorporate high-quality outcomes of traditional cultural IP transformation into curriculum teaching and artistic practice activities. Simultaneously, in the digital communication environment, it is essential to make good use of integrated media platforms to broaden the reach of aesthetic education. Short video and social platforms, with their strong visual immediacy and convenient interaction, have become key channels to connect with young groups. For instance, Douyin (TikTok) already covers the vast majority of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, with related videos garnering staggering view counts. Encouraging inheritors, artists, and even the general public to participate in content creation and dissemination can achieve widespread penetration of aesthetic education in a way that is close to daily life.
The deeper goal of aesthetic education lies in "cultivating people through culture," which requires breaking the campus boundaries and creating an atmosphere of whole-society participation in aesthetic education. Among these, the role of public cultural spaces is particularly critical. Institutions such as museums, art galleries, and theaters should actively leverage their functions as aesthetic education platforms, not only displaying the outcomes of innovative transformation but also guiding the public to participate deeply through curation, workshops, lectures, and other forms. Furthermore, integrating aesthetic education into the urban fabric and community life is crucial—by embedding elements of traditional cultural IP into urban landscapes, public art, and community renovations, and organizing aesthetic education activities for multiple age groups (such as public experience classes, intangible cultural heritage markets, etc.), aesthetic education can become a "perceivable landscape," achieving the living inheritance of "seeing people, seeing objects, seeing life" .
In the practice of innovative transformation of traditional cultural IP and its dissemination through aesthetic education, several challenges remain. The primary issue is the potential misinterpretation of cultural connotations or excessive commercialization during the transformation process. If the pursuit of online traffic and market benefits is one-sided, it may lead to a superficial use of cultural symbols, weakening their spiritual core. Secondly, the evaluation mechanism for the effectiveness of aesthetic education is still underdeveloped, lacking recognized standards and tools to measure the actual improvement of public aesthetic literacy and cultural identity by IP projects. Furthermore, the digital divide between urban and rural areas, and among different regions, may lead to uneven distribution of aesthetic education resources, affecting the fairness of cultural communication, urgently requiring coordinated responses through policy and technology.
Facing the above challenges, future efforts should adhere to the cultural foundation while promoting innovative exploration. The fundamental principle is to respect the essence of traditional culture and encourage creative expressions that suit the contemporary context. The application of technology should always serve humanistic goals, using VR/AR, AI, big data, etc., to enhance the depth of experience, avoiding the pitfall of "technology for technology's sake." Additionally, the construction of a scientific aesthetic education evaluation system should be accelerated, and intellectual property protection mechanisms should be improved, thereby incentivizing more high-quality original transformation practices and forming a virtuous cycle of cultural heritage and aesthetic education popularization.
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