How could a civilization continue to change and still recognize itself?

The life of a civilization endures through each generation’s renewed understanding of the past. Objects, texts and sounds carry memory while leaving room for new interpretations. What humanity passes on is the capacity to discern meaning within change, establish relationships and keep new creations connected to the histories from which they emerge. Transmission thus carries creation within it, entrusting those who follow with the freedom to make meaning anew.

As artificial intelligence expands the horizons of creation, this enduring question acquires a new urgency. At Harvard University’s CAMLab Cave, Resonant Interval: Beyond Seven Strings and Tablature, jointly created by Youdi Wang and Bing Wei, opens an inquiry into civilizational continuity through interactive, immersive digital art.

The history of the guqin, the Chinese zither, reflects the wisdom through which a civilization sustains itself amid change. Its tablature preserves fingering while leaving rhythm and expressive proportion to the performer. Each interpretation allows the past to happen anew through another body. Three thousand years of transmission reveal how openness can sustain continuity, and how change can keep a civilization alive.

The exhibition brings ancient tablature, historical interpretation, contemporary performance and AI generation into dialogue within layers of sound and moving image. Footsteps awaken the strings; stillness allows resonance to unfold. As familiar sounds venture into unfamiliar territory, visitors encounter the boundary between continuity and rupture through the act of listening.

Resonant Interval: Beyond Seven Strings and Tablature opens meaning to the encounter between people. Your pauses and choices leave a new “score” that becomes the next visitor’s starting point. Civilizational continuity resides in this interval, continually reinterpreted and always open to the future.