For the memories of our generation, neon lights are mostly from the old Shanghai and Hong Kong TV stations that come from all kinds of night market signs, singing and dancing venues. This kind of artificial light source that slowly disappeared around us did not belong to us at that time, some people said it was cold and beautiful, some people said it was erosive. It's just such a glowing tube, which has been synonymous with countless buttons.

From drilling wood to make fire in primitive society to the gorgeous and colorful neon lights of the present, it is a kind of transformation of people's social consciousness. Although the fire can heat and shine, it is short-lived. The arbitrary control of neon lights makes the natural luminous body less natural. This subtle and delicate gas touches an electric current to create a modern element that evokes a variety of emotions. Joy because it can be freely shaped, rich in color, and manipulated at will, and lost, because of its unique coldness, the cost of maintenance, and the loneliness of people's hearts in the night. It's been a century since the birth of this artificial light source, from the accidental experiments of the British chemist William Ramsay to the dazzling neon advertisements on the streets. Not only did it act as a beautician for the city, but it also moved from the streets to the art gallery in the fifties. In recent years, the medium of neon has always attracted the attention and pursuit of artists.

From the discovery of neon signs to commercial applications, the identity of neon signs has also been experiencing ups and downs, when neon signs from Europe to the world, but also due to war, policy, and technological development at the same time by new materials to replace. However, neon signs were appropriated by artists because neon lights emit a unique light, which meets the artist's needs for visual expression. The artist's use of neon as an expression of ideas is also particularly prominent. The various exhibitions and comments of art critics that followed gradually attracted people's attention to this artistic phenomenon.

However, after my cursory investigation, due to many factors, the application of neon art in conceptual art is more mature in foreign countries than in China, and some typical neon art works have also appeared. At the same time, the development of this material has led to the establishment of museums abroad. For example, in 1996 the Neon Museum was founded as a non-profit organization in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and in Europe, some collectors have set up art workshops for neon lights.

In China, Shanghai and Hong Kong are the two places where neon signs are most prevalent, but with the problems of energy conservation and safety, neon signs are gradually disappearing, and neon masters are also decreasing. With the influence of conceptual art on Chinese artists, there are also a few artists who use neon lights to create art. Chan Pak-hong, Tobias Berger, Wang Lei and Zhou Laishan from Hong Kong co-curated an interactive online exhibition of neon signs in Hong Kong http://. HK) is the first interactive online exhibition at M Museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District, which explores, connects and documents Hong Kong's neon signs, and invites the public to upload their favourite photos of Hong Kong's neon signs to the online platform to showcase Hong Kong's unique cityscape.

American inventor Daniel McFarlan Moore[1] invented the Moore Lamp, the ancestor of neon and fluorescent lamps, based on the Geissler tube[2] and other early inventions. This vacuum glass tube filled with nitrogen or carbon dioxide has a chemical reaction that emits white light when an electric current is injected into the vacuum glass tube. William Ramsay, a British chemist and later Nobel laureate, [3] discovered in his London laboratory that neon gas produces a reddish glow. Ramsay also discovered other noble gases—argon, helium, krypton, and xenon—which were later used in the production of neon signs. However, Ramsay is only studying these gases from a scientific point of view, and has no commercial purpose. It was more than a decade before someone applied its scientific principles to neon making. In the early 20th century, the Moore tube was first used in commerce for a hardware store in Newark, New Jersey, USA. But the high price of moore tubes has hindered its popularity.

Georges Claude, a French chemist and engineer, created the first neon sign by injecting precious gases, including neon, into glass tubes. At the Paris Motor Show, the main attraction was the neon sign made by Claude, which illuminated one of the columns of the Grand Palais in Paris, which caused a huge sensation at the time.

Claude's assistant, Jacques Fonséque, saw the potential of neon signs for advertising and began to bend neon tubes into letters and symbols. CLAUDE'S FIRST COMMERCIAL NEON SIGN WAS ERECTED IN 1912 OUTSIDE A BARBERSHOP ON BOULEVARD MONTMARTRE IN PARIS, WITH THE WORDS "PALAIS COIFFEUR". In the same year in Hong Kong, the British government enacted the Publicity Materials Regulations Ordinance to regulate the management of promotional advertising. "Any promotional material that destroys natural scenery or harmlessly affects the pleasantness of any area" is an offence.

After that, Claude began to promote neon fluorescent tubes overseas and applied for a patent in the United States, ushering in a new era in the American advertising and signage industry. In the 20s of the 20th century, Claude almost monopolized the technology and production of neon signs, and successively established Claude Neon Light Inc. to expand its territory. He has since sold franchises to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, Casablanca and Shanghai. China's first neon sign appeared at Evans Books on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, a window advertisement for the Royal typewriter. In 1929, a neon sign made in China was erected at the Central Hotel in Shanghai [4].

In the '30s, New York's Broadway and Times Square were densely populated with neon signs, the most iconic of which were made by advertising manager and lighting designer Douglas Leigh. A dazzling array of neon signs fill the "crossroads" of this world civilization, and at the same time, neon signs in Hong Kong and Shanghai are also developing day by day. But with the outbreak of World War II, China's neon industry fell into a slump because of the war. Chinese officials have also implemented light control to prevent enemy air strikes at night.

The political turmoil of the thirties reversed the neon imagery of Hollywood films, making it gradually turn from a positive image to a dark one, and by the fifties, Hong Kong's neon industry was in a booming period, and the market economy was in full bloom. In the United States, while neon signs are declining everywhere, Las Vegas is being "completely neonized". Notable neon installations include giant riding boots at the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, and a neon wall at the Mint Casino on Ferremon Street, where a 15-metre-tall neon cowboy "A-Domain" stands on the neon façade. Japan's post-war economic boom led to the establishment of the Neon Organizations Association,[5] and the famous graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura designed a horse-like neon sign for Milliontext Wool Cloth in Tokyo. It attracted other designers to invest in the design of neon signs.

In the sixties and seventies, the neon sign was facing decline and at the same time, a small spring appeared. Abroad, the middle class is gradually moving from urban areas to suburban areas, and urban areas where the neon sign industry is declining have become bleak. New technologies such as light boxes and signboards are gradually replacing neon signs.

In the eighties and nineties, when the economic development of the mainland entered its heyday, the China Lighting Society held the first national neon science and technology seminar, and at the same time established a national neon academic organization to promote the development of the neon industry, but the emergence of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) accelerated the decline of the neon industry. At the same time, other advertising media such as digital airbrushing began to be widely used, so that neon signs gradually became interior decoration.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the problem of light pollution and energy problems has attracted more and more attention, and the safety problems caused by neon signs are also increasing, so local governments have implemented a plan to remove fake and shoddy signs, according to statistics, in Hong Kong, in 2009 alone, more than 5,000 neon signs were removed.

The application of neon signs has undergone different periods of change from discovery to commercial signage, from accidental discovery to rise, but it cannot avoid the fate of being updated and replaced. As a product of science, neon signs have brought prosperity to cities around the world, and the application of commercial signs is not only a tool to solicit business, but also carries more of the unique cultural connotation of the market. Although the products of industry will face the possibility of being replaced, neon lights are regarded as "Maxima" by artists who act as "Bole". The unique artistic charm of neon can always evoke people's inner resonance, and neon signs have changed their identity from the signs of the streets and alleys to wearing gorgeous clothes.

The shift from neon signs to artwork is a unique transformation in the development of neon signs. The various expressions of neon in macro visual culture, the reproduction of neon lights in movies and the actual use of neon tubes, seem to reflect the medium of neon more than visual art. Directed by Fritz Lang in 1927, Metropolis [6] is an unprecedented use of neon lights to imagine the city of the future, with a ring of light waving up and down to project the silhouette of a female robot, creating the stage effect of a robot incarnating as Maria. The urban neon presented in the film more or less echoes the cityscapes of Paris, New York and Shanghai in the 1920s, symbolizing the growing cosmopolitanism and market economy. On the one hand, the film explores the impact of industrialization and the emergence of capitalism through the underground city in which the protagonist Freder finds himself and the workers who move through complex mechanical structures. Metropolis further establishes the imagery of neon, making neon a visual vocabulary for cinema, symbolizing worker, futuristic, and even imitation human anatomy.

In addition to the use of neon in films, some artists have also adopted neon as part of their paintings. For example, Edward Hopper [7] was the first artist to paint neon signs in his work. In 1936, the Czech artist Zdenek Pesanek created a sculpture entitled "Mineral Springs" in 1936, which was exhibited in the Czech Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. The fibreglass sculpture of the human body is pierced with neon tubes, fully responding to the theme of the exhibition, "Art and Technology in Modern Life". In 1949, Italian artist Lucio Fontana exhibited an innovative installation, Ambiente Spaziale a Luce Nera, at the Galerie Navigli in Milan. In the pitch-black space, a bug-shaped neon light tube is hung, creating a space of doubt and suspicion. In the fifties and sixties of the last century, foreign artists began to pay attention to the material of neon sign and used it as a creative medium for visual art, such as DanFlavin and Bruce Nauman. In the 70s, Rudi Stern founded the influential art gallery "Let There Be Neon" in New York to promote neon signs through the arts. In 1981, artist Lili Lakich founded the Neon Art Museum in Los Angeles to celebrate the art of neon and the craft of neon signs.