Me, Museum, Poetry, and Music

Our “Age of Anxiety” is, in great part,

the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools -

with yesterday’s concepts. 

--- McLuhan, p.9    

    Even after about 50 years of the publication of The Medium is The Massage, we have not get out of from such “age of anxiety”. We are still “crossing barriers, erasing the old categories…”(McLuhan, 10) 

    It is anxious to change my academic focus from psychology to museums in the third year, and it is anxious to reconsider the nature of museums. It is always hard to cross barriers, to say goodbye to yesterdays. From today’s views, museums must be yesterday’s things. For me, a museum is more than a physical collection of artifacts, but an interactive space where thoughts, aesthetics, and emotions at different times blend and connect with the mind of visitors, constituting an inspiring journey in search of beauty and meanings in life.

    Fred Wilson's museum intervetions

Fred Wilson enlightens me to look at exhibits in a critical way, and it leads me to reconsider the meanings of the East Asian collection in Wriston Galleries, which is the project I am working on. 

    Doing research on the Buddha statue and ukiyo-e prints in Wriston

                                                                                        Eight Immortal ivory statues in Wriston

The extensionof any one sense alters 

the way we think and act -

the way we percieve the world.

--- McLuhan, p. 41

    We approach the world differently. I prefer poetry and music. One keeps me solitary, and one keeps me connected. 

    My poems know how low I can go. Some like to talk with somebody else about their feelings, while I like to talk to myself flowing out in the poems. They give me energy when I write them and make me contemplate when I read them. I enjoy reading others' poems as well, because it feels like walking into their minds to see how they perceive the world. 

 A poem I worte during the trip in Sri Lanka

    Music has the magic. What I mean here is not listening to music, but playing, singing, and performing. Once you've enjoyed playing with someone else in an ensemble, it's hard to do it alone again. Music is like a catalyst, a call to interact, to embrace, and to feel the moment . As a vocalist in a band, I have never felt more alive than when I'm doing my best to finish a song.

Filming a song video at the beach