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Hey Len. Hey Asami. How was your holiday? It was really nice. I much needed holiday. I
was in London and then Paris like I just sandwiched this Paris trip in between because
between London and Paris it's like it's like going to Osaka. It's really not that far
from Tokyo. That's nice. Yeah. But that also meant that I went with a friend who was visiting me
from Japan. Well, we weren't visiting. She wasn't visiting me. We met. We decided to meet halfway
across the world from different locations and what that meant is that when two of us get together
our trip's priorities are perhaps different from most other people's trip priorities. The way
you're setting this up makes it sound super sketchy but like yeah continue. Well, so we were
there for um eight days-ish altogether and take off the days that we were traveling in and out.
It's like effectively six days. Yeah. And in six days we went to 12 museums and three ballets
in the evening. That was that was 12 museums and three ballets just for everyone listening.
Okay. In how many days was that? Six days. Six days. Okay. Anybody else exhausted? There were days that we
didn't go to museums so like on average. So you're saying there were more days. So there were it was
more like 2.5 a day. Okay. On average. All right. Fine. Museums. Yep. Yep. Totally normal. Which is
in my opinion what you should do when you are in Paris or in London. Okay. All right. But
I know that's not everyone's cup of tea. And yeah not even for the yeah anyway yeah. Yeah I know from
from from the look of your face you look super enthused. Don't give away my face. Trying to hide
you're trying to hide like Jesus saw me. You went to London and Paris and all you did was lock
yourself up in some indoor space. Well now hold on. Hold on. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm not gonna go that
far. I'm mostly just blown away by how many of them you like. Because when I hear this it sounds
like you sprinted right like through museums. So is that a fair interpretation or is that an unfair
03:04
interpretation? It's it's fair for some cases. Okay. Like you know if you count museums like
the Louvre the British Museum which in funny story we were only in British Museum for about
half an hour to 40 minutes. Until you got kicked out. Because we got kicked out. Oh my god I was kidding.
We we got kicked out with a fire alarm. Thankfully it sounded like it was a false fire alarm. Yeah. But all
people like all however many thousands of people who were in that building at that time all got
shuffled out. And they were like not telling us what's happening or how long this was going to
take to recover. Almost certainly sure that it was like a false fire alarm. But I well we were like
okay let's not wait around and figure out. Let's just go somewhere else. And so but if you go to
those like massive museums like there is just no way you can see every room every gallery.
So in that sense I sprinted. But for the smaller museums like one of my favorites this time it was
the first time going Rodin Museum. Or this was I it was a repeat from my previous Paris trip.
I went to Gustave Moreau Museum. And that was a small place. You know it's essentially some
the artist's house or like an estate that just turned into a museum. So it's really not that big
of a room. There's you know maybe a hundred a couple hundred artworks in there. So much more
accessible to look around. And yeah so sprinting yes in some sense. But in some of the smaller ones
we spent just as much time on it. And honestly I would prefer that. I would prefer going to
smaller museums. It's like the conclusion from my museum sprinting holiday.
Is that you would prefer the smaller museums right? If you're going to spend time in.
I could be just very spoiled being in the profession that I am. I have been able to go to museums
after hours or like before opening many times because I work there. And it's just so much
more pleasant experience to be in a gallery when there's no one around trying to snap a photo
of something. Or like worst take a fucking selfie with an artwork. Like no you don't need a photographic
evidence that you were looking at this artwork. You don't need to be in this like composition
06:04
with the artwork. Unless I don't know maybe there's some like weird contemporary art exhibit that
like invites your participation. But yeah. I'm now sort of imagining I mean what
happens there is that you get the people taking pictures of the artwork not for the art but as a
presentation of where they are. Like it's sort of to like represent something for them.
I have no shades taking pictures of the artwork because if you do what I do and go to like 12 museums
in six days you do kind of forget you know what you looked at or what moved you. So as a record
I would like to keep a quick snap of the artwork so that I can remember what I saw and what made
me think about certain things. But for the most part I my policy and this extends to not just
museum but like daily work. Like if my brain cannot retain it it was not important enough
is like how I go about it. So I mean other than like scheduling and stuff like I really cannot
mess up. Sure. You know I if I don't think about it multiple times in my head it was probably not
that memorable or like it was probably not that good of an idea if I couldn't remember it after
some time you know. But like yeah when you when you do these like hyper marathon crunch of a museum
ride like you want to remember what artwork you saw in what museums and having a phone camera
is nice because it keeps a time stamp and you know sort of chronological order on which you saw. So
like it helps you with like external memory device. Yeah well it's definitely doing that
right where you mentioned the external memory device right. We offload some of the cognitive
load. Exactly. Right. I'm going to connect this to what we talked about just before right. But
I I'm sitting with that idea of like offloading you know the sort of remembering ability and I'm
considering that that is something that I do. I take pictures of things. I take pictures of food
right things that I make and there's sort of a habit of doing so. And this does require maybe
doesn't require it but if you're going to get the benefit or perhaps the experience of being
able to look back on it you have to actually look back on it right. Yes. This this idea of like
yeah and you mentioned the idea of you know if it was super important if it made an impact like you
will kind of remember it sort of piece. And I think that's fair. There's a lot of stuff we
will automatically hold on to if it has like greater relevance to us. Yeah. Or if it has
09:04
like a greater impact. And at the same time I think I think it becomes harder for us
to maybe even recognize the things that are relevant or to take relevance from something if
we assign it solely to taking a picture right. Because like there's stuff I just do not remember
that I might actually want to remember because I have decided that like well I'll put it down here
and like then I'll I'll just forget about it. Right. Yeah. I do find the importance of revisiting
which is why I think especially for things like travel I prefer to bring along my
actual camera. If you know my aversion to single purpose appliance this is very rare.
Camera only takes pictures. You can say it can also take a movie but for the most part I only
really take pictures. It doesn't do anything other than that. But it requires me to take a
photo and after the trip import it to some kind of my device you know and share it with the people
who are in the same travel with me. I will try also. I'm very behind on this. I'm like two or
three trips behind on this but I also started to try and make a photo book of all my trips so that
that editing process. Sure. Yep. Gives me time and opportunity to revisit my trip and sort of
reorganize. I think that coupled with my now almost daily habit of journaling has helped me
in terms of retaining the information or impression of a museum exhibit that I go to.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's good and I also try to buy postcards of the artwork that spoke to me
especially because there's usually one or two per museum that especially spoke to me at least.
Like I sometimes walk away with way more than one or two and or sometimes like you know
like what moved you is not merchandised yet and or the museum doesn't recognize it as a
merchandise worthy item. So you don't always find it but it's nice sometimes when you have it
because it's like you're professionally taking an image of an artwork or a sculpture or something
and you know it's like a little keepsake for yourself. Usually also the cheapest thing in a
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merch shop you know. That's true. Yeah. If you're gonna get something it's probably gonna be like
a postcard or the equivalent. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something I do but I think yeah it's not
I think that's why though people find museums to be somewhat of an off-putting activity because
it kind of can be overwhelming. You're just like bombarded with information whether you're
going to art museums or like natural history museums. Like you might go in with the curiosity
but then you get bombarded with all these information and you like walk away and like a day
later you can't even remember what you saw most of the time. And also I need to find this
article somewhere but I've read a journal article saying that museums or like gallery walk
where it's like you walk a little bit and stop in front of something and then walk again. Like that
walk stop walk stop action apparently is way more tiring than continuously walking the same amount
of distance and that's why people also find museums to be like extremely tiring event
where you were just walking around indoors but you feel super tired because you were doing
walk stop walk stop for like a couple hours. And especially if you are trying to like
fend your ways in the crowd that's especially true. That's another thing like at the Louvre
I mean we were at the holiday time so like not surprising. But truly I feel like I saw
more people than artworks at the museum like Louvre and I mean what do you expect it's the Louvre
but still I truly wished that it was a little bit different situation because
I don't get to have a space to like stand in front of an artwork and kind of absorb
what they have to offer without feeling like I'm in a way of somebody you know and yeah
yeah I want to like sort of summarize what you've said unless do you want to do you want to add some
more before we no no please summarize yeah I tend to just this is this is the problem with any PhD
or I think we just sort of get off on something and then the rest of the ideas continue to spout
out it doesn't mean they're yeah good but we we will continue I'm very thinking out loud person
yeah yeah because otherwise the inside of your brain is too loud and like that's just you know
15:02
it's got to come out somehow yeah um so I like I like what you have come to which is kind of
observing the spaces that are museums right so so it's not as much as perhaps the first thought of
a museum maybe maybe not for everyone but the first thought of a museum being you have a work
of art you can see the work of art right that's maybe the starting point for a museum what it
really translates into especially now or especially during holiday periods is that you have an almost
um sort of excessive amount of things that are art with their own contexts and and meanings and
mediums sort of within the same spaces with a lot of other people trying to do the same
looking that you are doing of which you are now just kind of pressured to to continue moving
right not only for the what I'm going to call the inertial like sort of energy loss right of
stopping and starting and stopping and starting and it's actually easier to just keep walking
so that you never actually stop in front of an artwork if you want to stay like sort of on the
move or sort of a deficiency but also because you feel like the people behind you are coming up
behind you they are they're in motion right you you are moving with the crowd of people through the
museum and it can feel kind of overwhelming right for you to have to move through at the pace that
everybody is moving depending yeah you know context whatnot so I think there's a lot of that to be
observed there that the space and the way that it's maybe I don't know maybe being used or the
way that it's kind of evolved in some of the larger spaces especially not conducive to just
uber popular museums there is kind of no other way you know um sure yeah that's what can you do
right like you what you're gonna limit to a certain number of people every day for an entry
right that doesn't sound right that does that sounds like a stupid business decision
and um but see business it's like for some rooms you can do that but like it's not very conducive
to do that for every room and and like what do you do like of course like in in a place
like the Louvre I keep bringing that up because that was like the most crowded experience of
this time sure but um yeah I mean in in any space really but like I think you have the huge
distribution of what kind of people um like how they interact with artworks right like some people
18:05
want to sketch uh in a gallery yeah yeah that requires sitting there standing there for a
pretty long period of time um some people just want to walk by and say yeah I saw the Mona Lisa
and then like go away right right yeah and that's fine also so like it's it's it's hard to sort of
have a space for all of these kinds of people so as a museum you kind of sort of take the center
of the Gaussian curve and be like all right like you know let's let's just shuffle people around
that's kind of what ends up happening um but yeah I mean how about we like record another episode on
like how to bypass this like yeah yeah I think this museum thing yeah you've made some great
points about the idea of like people's purposes differ museums are kind of catering to this idea
of trying to stay functional right business wise for this stuff and it means that you get this
kind of not really necessarily sitting with the art unless you're going out of your way to do so
right to like break that sort of flow like sketching or something so yeah let's let's do let's do
another one continue okay that's it for the show today thanks for listening and find us on x at
egode science that is e-i-g-o-t-e s-c-i-e-n-c see you next time
