Archive for the 'Opinion' Category

New Museum is Hell… Yes?

Published on 2008-07-07 in Architecture, Art, Field Trips, New York and Opinion. 0 Comments Tags: deviant, museum.

New Museum is literally a new museum located in Bowery, which is supposed to be one of the new cool hip neighborhoods in New York city. I imagined New Museum to be sub-cultural, much more modern than the MoMA. I was expecting this trip to New Museum would be something exciting and inspiring. However, it turned out rather gloomy and distant, besides the fact that it was unlike a museum, but a large gallery with a couple of average, minor exhibitions. In other words, the context of the museum gave me the impression much like the exterior of the museum: squared, inflexible, unstable, or unearthly suffocating, with a mocking twist. In Paul Chan’s The 7 Lights, silhouette images of “life” through a windowpane are projected on a wall and floor. The images were not changing fast and it seemed as though time had stopped like in the surrealist paintings of Chirico. The captions read something like. “the 3rd Light” and that’s about it. I couldn’t figure out what the artist’s intention was, in the concrete surrounded closed space with only lights and shadows. I felt uneasy. Perhaps, intellectual patient introverts would have found the exhibition more stimulating. In Double Album by Daniel Guzman and Steven Shearer, there were paintings, installations, and some art pieces. All I remember was a colorful skull sitting on a column with some element tormenting it, and obscene words such as, “molestations” and “necrovomit” as a part of their works. There also were images of exposed genitals, suicide, and a noose…

I thought the whole experience in New Museum was weird and absurd, but perhaps that is just me. I think New Museum offers personal experiences rather than homogenized ideas. In the end, I still hope to visit New Museum again in the near future. Maybe.

Make it Hot!

Published on 2006-07-18 in Entertainment, Highlights, Opinion and Society. 0 Comments

What is a Job?

Published on 2006-07-15 in Music, Opinion and Society. 0 Comments

People have to work for making their lives. I think almost people do that so now here is a question.What is job? How do you decide border line between job and not job? I’ll give you an example.

What is pro-musician? I think about street musicians. They play songs on the street and sometimes they get some money. Of course they play songs they like but sometimes they receive requests from people. In other words they have their clients because there is a business between them. So, are they pro-musicians? I think there are some factors to decide the border line. If we focus on money, the answer is NO because I don’t think they get enough money on the street to make their lives. I think it’s true that money is useful to decide it and it is even for everyone but I think there are some other ways to decide it. Of course it depends on people and thinking about the border line has very strong connection with how we choose our jobs.

Some people choose their job they don’t like but because of money and other people choose job with a few money but they love, I know some people say that they don’t want to think their lives are only working when they are going to die. Do you agree with them? Is it unhappy? I don’t think so. They think their jobs are things which they must do and they don’t like them. If I take a job I hate, I will think so too but now, I want to take a job I really want to do and I want to think that I did a lot of work and I want to proud them when I’m going to die. It has very big meaning for me and It will become one of the most important reasons why I’m living and they give us our roles in this world. Now we are under education but someday we will have our own jobs. I hope all of us take jobs really want to do. I know sometime there’s no conclusion but it’s a kind of conclusion to keep thinking about it. I just give you an example and opportunities to think about them. How do we do? It depends on you. The answer is in your mind and it keeps changing at your age, surroundings and thinking.

“There’s No Place Like Home!”

Published on 2006-07-15 in Highlights, Opinion and Society. 0 Comments

Over the rainbow…

Dorothy lives in Kansas where things look in all gray. Aunt and uncle who she lives with are so tired of their lives as they almost forget the way to laugh. So in a little uneasy situation, Dorothy wonders “Is there any place where isn’t any trouble.” The story of Oz starts with just about the reality. When a real tornado hits the land of Kansas, her house floats in the air, and arrive at a beautiful, mysterious world. She flew to the bright shiny colored world from dark grayish world. After she saw the world of Oz, did she think the Oz as the place with no troubles?

The Wizard of Oz, said to be the utopia.

Oz, the land where the wonderful Wizard of Oz and witches govern, is the place with full of various bright colors. People in there are very satisfying and happy with their lives. The contrast of sepia and colorful seems big. Of course the world of colorful looks more exciting than the world of all gray. So Dorothy smiles when she first saw the world of Oz. And the emerald is the gem of jewelry, which represents the beauty. The colorfulness and excitement of Oz was just the right image of west coast, California, where people at the time yearned very much for.
But there are characters that have complexes, flashy sovereign who doesn’t keep his words, system that alter easily… The Oz where Dorothy travels seems very bright but somehow it looks inharmonious and restless. There were problems that make us feel it reality.

If the Oz still can be utopia even it has some dystopian essence, is there any chance for our society to be the utopia?

Let’s see our society— Some parts look all gray with business buildings, exhaust fumes, and garbage. But most of the cities are full of colors that is glow out from the city itself and the people there. Also we have art and entertainment to show beauty and excitements. People are able to feel happiness with those. The negativities of our society would be the big quantity of crime, or fighting. And people tend to think that money is everything, which causes a lot of stress.

It sounds like our society is far from utopia. But even in this world, love and hope are filled!

Dorothy said about Oz as “ Some of it wasn’t very nice, but most of it was beautiful. But just the same, all I kept saying to everyone was ‘I want to go home.’“ Dorothy knew that the oz is the utopia, but her home –where aunt and uncle who love her and she loves—was more the utopia for her.

People tend to hope for non-existing good place as utopia, but if you take a look at reality, is it so bad? Maybe you’ll feel “ There’s no place like home!”