Silence reigns at the City of Sciences

Paris. No room text punctuates the course of the exhibition “Silence” or any cartel: there are indeed no works on display or documents to read. It is a choice of the Bern Communication Museum which designed the exhibition, as explained by the Commissioner of the City of Sciences, Mark Read. Visitors must therefore carry an audio -guy to browse the exhibition, and be guided also by their eyes: Mark Read specifies that the graphics of the floors and the walls indicates the places for which mediation content is provided in the audioguide. Most of the route is in a large room with a minimalist decor, framed by two introductory rooms and two conclusion rooms. According to the Commissioner “ The full route takes an hour if we listen to all the contents ”. Note that the technology used is based on position sensors scattered in the rooms, and that the device is therefore triggered in fixed places on the route. If the spatialized sound is of good quality and the general atmosphere fairly calm, the helmet does not prevent hearing the voices of other visitors, including those outside the exhibition: it should undoubtedly have to insulate the spaces more tightly, because in the corridor adjacent to the exhibition are rooms for mediation for schoolchildren.

Non -scientific exhibition

Although the exhibition is held in a science museum, the subject is not scientific: visitors will not learn much about the physical characteristics of sound and silence, apart from some information on decibels and sounds in space. Mark Read suggests being guided by the lights and geometric shapes on the floor or on the walls, black stripes on the wall, squares on the floor, colorful curves in the 1970s aesthetics which invite to peck the content. The exhibition is therefore not covered with the analytical part of the brain unlike a documentary exhibition. The situations staged in the rooms and in the contents of the audioguide alternate the archetypes (snowy landscape which stifles the noises) and personal stories (testimony of a military doctor in Verdun in 1917 on trauma -related trauma). Each visitor reacts to these stories according to their personal experience, but the text tries to remain accessible for an adult and young audience: the adolescents seem to be fairly attentive because of having to listen to several stories and anecdotes without visual support. Mark Read notes that “Visitors are browsing the exhibition alone in general, and they internalize their trips more than in other exhibitions to the City of Sciences and Industry”. It is indeed necessary to provide an effort of concentration, even of adaptation, faced with an exhibition which is traveled especially with the ears and without speaking. Especially since the stories and anecdotes contain literary or philosophical references that encourage reflection (Seneca, Goethe, Kierkegaard). Finally, certain themes addressed are quite serious, in particular the use of silence as a means of torture (white torture), illustrated by a scary story and a gray wall photograph.

Some stories may seem anecdotal, like that of a author who has made a silent spiritual retreat, but they illustrate sociological aspects of silence in modern societies: Mark Read insists on “The psychological and sociological dimension” of the exhibition. Because this apparently futile story is counterbalanced by another who mocks Western tourists looking for calm in exotic destinations. Humor is indeed present in several stories, a humor necessary to lighten the sound atmosphere punctually quite heavy (noise of bombs, grinks, metal background noises). The exhibition therefore alternates the points of view, and ends with a pirouette since one of the last rooms broadcasts the work of John Cage, 4’33. In the helmet, visitors hear a commentary on the female voice and then applause and the instruments of an orchestra that agrees, while looking at a great photograph of a classic orchestra. Then, four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence, punctuated by some coughs and glowing comments whispered by the voice. If this work synthesizes several aspects of silence in a social context, the absence of a cartel harms its understanding by a non -specialist audience: the adolescents present on the day of our visit laughed and did not make the physical effort to stay on four minutes. Going out, visitors are going through an almost empty room that encourages meditation thanks to the text of the audioguide, but few dwell on it after the John Cage experience. This original exhibition raises the question of the impossibility of absolute silence, since it always remains the sound of human breath as pointed out in the last story of the audioguide.