In March 2020, Covid severely attacked New York City, with schools closing their main buildings, the city set in pause and the death numbers climbing the new heights everyday. We moved the classes online, only essential businesses are allowed, and nurses and doctors continuously working on the front line.
The world ‘front line’ always reminds me of the war. It might be, and it is a war. It might not be the war that uses weapons. But during this situation, something has been destroyed and something needs to be rebuilt, whether it is the stock index or the unemployment rate. But what I am most concerned, is the confidence and trust among people. With what happened recently in the united state, asians being bullied on the street, black people lost their justice, a lot of things come from, fear. The new normal with fear, that shouldn’t be our future.
At the beginning of march, when we decided to move our instruction online, our theory teacher Dr Reiko emailed us:
In addition, I would like to approach this new scenario as a project, as an opportunity. There is a lot of potential in any change, and we have now the possibility to view many things from a different perspective. We will have to question many aspects of life, if not all, which will make this a special time that you will always remember.
I strongly feel that we will never return to life as we knew it. The current situation will pass, but the new “normal” will not be the “old normal”. This pandemic, in addition with dynamic social and economic changes as well as the climate crisis, will change society in essential ways. As much as we are thinking about the current situation, I would like to think about the new “normal”: now is the time to envision it, to define it, to shape it. And I strongly feel that artists with their visions and idealism will be more necessary than ever.
There are lots of things to be adjusted, as people can see – what works in the past might be tricky in the present. For my online study and teaching, methods like sharing screens definitely provide us lots of possibilities; We use less time in commuting; The meetings can be recorded online etc. But the challenge is that, we need to face ourselves, whether you have more time due to the current situation, or you get totally occupied with family in the house, new problems occur. People feel fear when they don’t have a choice, but being pushed to function in a limited circumstance.
Luckily, all the online classes went well, we were able to successfully hold all the lectures, presentations and our own compositions. And honestly, online methods can have a better outcome when it comes to ppt presentation and share documents so we were able to keep track, download and save in the cloud. When it comes to the end of the final exam, we face another challenge. Apparently, the usual final exam setting, where we sit in the class with distance and fill out the blanks on the sheet won’t function properly any more. Instead, our professor decided to hold a project. – it is the end of the semester, but also a brand new beginning.
He gave an excerpt of Lachenmann’s opinion on what’s beauty and ask us to think how do we see our lives as an artist in the future and how can we contribute to the society, to this particular society,
Art, is a form of magic broken in and with sprit, broken in the name of a creative will that is increasingly realizing its autonomous purpose, and accordingly reacting to the reality it constantly recognizes anew. – Lachenmann
It reminds me Taiwanese autho, Jiang Xunr’s book <Six chapters of solitude>, one of the chapters talks about the solitude of revolutions. He mentioned the Paris Revolution, to him, that’s a kind of romanticism and beauty.
Tolstoy let us see that revolution is a revolution against ourselves. What he wants to subvert is not the external system or class, but the inherent moral insecurity of the talent.
When I started to write this, I was planning to talk about an artist’s mission, but I cannot help to talk about the future. Not the future of me, but the future of the human race.
When we think about the future, we always say it as a brand new start. In the book Will power doesn’t work, it mentioned that if you want to change an old habit, you need to replace it with a new habit instead of trying to erase it.
It resonates with me so much. Especially I tried so hard in piano performance where my old technique problems will always come up unconsciously. Due to the memory of human muscles. You can’t really change it because that’s how you were trained, but you can kindly remind yourself by inserting a new habit, or link a new thought to your existing ritual. For example, if I want to start getting up early, instead of just getting up early, we can think about what we want to do in the next morning, in other words, what will make you excited to get up everyday?
We all have a history that might be weird, embarrassed, maybe one is embarrassed with one’s presence now. But, these are the unique experiences that have built us. It is what you are going through, what you are doing, and your interpretation of them that makes you unique. After your fully acceptance of yourself, the good and the bad, In order to bring the power of you, you need constantly redefine, reflect your current situation, as the dots will be connected to a line and hence creates a latitude with time, but in order to make it meaningful and mildly, you want to fully absorb its with the acknowledgement that you are responsible for every step that you are going through, the wise way to see it is that you don’t want to be driven by the people, you want to drive yourself，be your own advisor.
Tianyu TINA DENG 