Tag: Academic

During our time off from school, I decided to go with my friends to the American Museum of Natural History. I have never been there before and always really wanted to go. My interest in it was sparked at young age from watching the movie, Night At The Museum. History has always been something that I was interested in and when I found out that we could go to a museum for one blog post, I knew immediately that I wanted to go there. I also had go here for an Ecology project so I got to kill two bird with one stone.

When we got to the museum, I didn’t realize how big it was. We kept getting lost around the exhibits and had a hard time finding our way around at first. We walked around the animal exhibits and I immediately wondered if the animals in the displays were made from once living animals. So I looked it up and it said that they were indeed taxidermy. Finding this out both intrigued and disturbed me. We walked around all the floors and basically went through all the exhibits. We spent the most time in the exhibits I needed for my Ecology project. I learned about the current issues and importance of biodiversity and also the environment of New York. Those exhibits weren’t what I expected to find in the museum, but it was definitely interesting to learn about. Aside from that we also went to the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific People exhibit to see one of the famous statues from the movie, Night At the Museum. My favorite exhibits though, were the dinosaur sections. I was really excited to go there after we found out the mummy exhibit wasn’t open. I have never seen any dinosaur fossils before and I was amazed at them. There were so many fossils of all different dinosaurs, as well as other extinct animals. I think that was the best part of it all. We stayed in the museum for over 3 hours and it was actually really fascinating and fun. I would definitely go there again.

This past Friday, I visited the Museum of Modern Art with my friends. Despite living in New York, this was actually my first time going to the museum. I am someone that actually enjoys a good stroll within a museum and will not find it boring. It was particularly crowded on this day due to it being a Friday afternoon and the free tickets MOMA was giving out at this time. Fortunately, I was able to skip the line and get in free anyways due to being a CUNY student. The building and interior design of the MOMA itself is quite unique. It was definitely aesthetically pleasing and a good place to simply enjoy the scenery.

One particular piece that stood out to me was Lullaby by Louise Bourgeois, located in the Louise Bourgeois exhibit. From the description next to the artwork I learned several facts. Created in 2006, this piece resembles shapes by turning and tracing common household objects. Some objects include: scissors, a knife, and a candy dish. To be honest, it was hard for me to tell what these objects were at first. What stood out to be was that this was abstract art. I personally find abstract art to be interesting due to its’ uniqueness and simplicity. It is said that abstract art could be calming, expressing emotion, and showing tension. Best said by Bourgeois herself, “It is not an image I am seeking. It’s not an idea. It is an emotion that you want to recreate.” Upon seeing Lullaby, I was able to connect with her words. The piece was clean cut and seemed to embody a sense of serenity.

All in all, it was a great experience to do something different for a change. To take a break within my schedule and explore the MOMA. 

Located at Central Park West & 79th St, the American Museum of Natural History is easily one of the largest museums in the world. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to the Natural History Museum and my recent trip there did not disappoint me.

Over the summer I’ve started getting into wildlife documentaries, especially fish. In the Irma and Paul Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life hangs a museum treasure: a ninety-four feet long, twenty-one thousand pound fiberglass model of a blue whale. The model is based off of a blue whale found along the southern tip of South America in 1925. The big whale in the room hangs as a reminder that ocean life is rapidly decreasing because of us and it is solely up to us to protect ocean life.

Another highlight of my day was the astronomy exhibit. The lower level had the entrance to the planetarium (which, unfortunately, I didn’t get to go to) and the upper level circling the planetarium were models of our solar system and the astronomy gift shop. It was interesting to see how all the planets’ and stars’ sizes compared to each other.

The third and last highlight of my visit were the dinosaurs. Unlike other museums, the Natural History Museum is extremely child friendly, they actually encourage families to bring children along. Taking their advice, I had brought along my toddler cousin, who is obsessed with dinosaurs at the moment, to the museum that day. Although I didn’t have time to read a lot of the descriptions of each display, I did learn a lot from my cousin’s rants about each dinosaur he dragged me past.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the American Museum of Natural History. I highly recommend to everyone  to visit if they have the chance.

Last weekend I visited the New York Hall of Science with my family and a friend. The New York Hall of Science is a museum located in Queens and established in 1964. The museum offered many great indoor and outdoor exhibits that explored many different areas within the study of science. There was an abundance of variety amongst these exhibits as well, which allowed me, my father, and my three year old nephew to enjoy them alike.

The group of exhibits I enjoyed in particular were the ‘Seeing the Light’ exhibits. This series included optical illusions, reflections, refractions, and more. One of these exhibits had a motion tracking camera that output real-time colorful silhouettes in intervals, which proved to be most entertaining to me. Other parts of the series involved casting shadows and, at least what seemed to be, endless mirrors. However, my favorite part was the optical illusion section because the illusions are confusing. I’m incredibly intrigued by the fact that I can deceive myself through my own perception, and I believe there’s a real-life lesson to be learned there. This applies to my first semester at Baruch because it helped me understand perception, and how perception affects my peer’s opinions and my own. It also taught me why discipline is necessary by demonstrating how easily perception can be deluded.

Another exhibit worth noting is the ‘Connected Worlds’ exhibit in the Great Hall. Using projectors, the designers created immersive environments that show how your actions impact the ecosystem. These environments are designed to be interactive to exemplify how our decisions can have effects ranging from small to large scale, and short to long term. This experience helps me understand just how connected the world is, which pushes me closer to deciding what profession will allow me to benefit it the most.

In my spare time, I like to visit various art galleries and museums in New York City.  I decided to visit the MoMA PS1 in Long Island City this past Friday.  As a CUNY student, you can get a ticket for free, which you should definitely take full advantage of, considering people from out of state would come and pay full price to view these exhibitions.  

Out of the many exhibitions on display right now, my favorite was Ian Cheng’s Emissaries, which is there until September 25th.  Essentially, it’s a trilogy of “live simulations” created through the use of a video game engine.  Cheng explains it as “a video game that plays itself,” in which the characters and their environment create their own narratives in real time.  The stories that are generated are endless.  The only reason I know this is because I did some research and read the information on the wall before entering the room.  So the room is divided into three sections.  The first one is called Emissary in the Squat of Gods.  There’s a bench that you can sit on while you observe the narratives that unfold.  From what I recall, there was a bunch of distorted human beings interacting with each other and performing different tasks.  Upon research, they’re considered to be “an ancient community living under the threat of a volcanic eruption” and I thought it was interesting that within this story, there’s a young emissary who is trying to lead this community away from this danger.  Before I forget, an emissary is someone who is given a special assignment on behalf of someone else.  The second section is titled Emissary Forks at Perfection, which takes place after the volcano has become fertile.  There’s a Shiba emissary, which is absolutely amazing, because I love dogs and seeing this one interact with other Shibas and mankind was fascinating.  The final section is called Emissary Sunsets the Self.  There’s a whole story behind this one, but from what I saw, it appeared to be a group of AI (artificial intelligence) set on fire.  This one actually has a live stream online at https://www.twitch.tv/moma.  There were other cool exhibitions at the MoMA PS1, but I was particularly drawn to the peculiarity of Emissaries, since I’ve never seen anything like it before.