Sounding It Out
The voice of a human-centred museum
I have always been impressed by how much sound is caught in between the layered brushwork of impressionist pictures. It is not something that many understand on first impression (pun intended) and I did occasionally get puzzled looks and sneaky comments by colleagues who just happened to be standing with me infront of impressionist paintings. Impressionist painting and impressionist period music go hand in hand too. Indeed, the musical repertoire from this period is all about creating impression through building atmospheres, pictures, and sound worlds with music. Musical works by the likes of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel were at the forefront of this ground-breaking musical style exploring such new orchestral sounds too.
Spanish sound designer Javier Zumer has been recently experimenting with impressionist soundscapes which complement visual literacy approaches to both painting and works in this style. Zumer’s solution is simple — by creating an auditory complement to the visuals the soundcsape extends the world within the painting to a new sense. The proposed impressionist soundscape for Claude Monet’s Gare Saint Lazare is a good example of an aural emotive response to the painting.
The soundscapes of Monet’s Gare Saint Lazare may be easy to extract given that image and sound can be reconciled fairly easy. What is, perhaps, the bigger challenge is to read sound in images, albeit the equation can also work the other way round when reading sounds in visual terms, and build on the potential of works of art to convey information also through emotive experiences that can be generated by the simple act of viewing or looking at a painting.
Sound can, indeed, be a powerful interpretative tool for museums. I think these three projects I choose to comment here are, indeed, truly inspiring in their own right and hold potential to inspire an integrated use of sound in museum and exhibition display.
1. Before it’s Too Late — A Museum of Endangered Sounds
Yes! There is one such museum which deals with endangered sounds. It is a web-based museum rather than an institution within a building. The project deals with ephemeral material that can be captured and recorded and are still within the realm of living memory.
Created by American Brendan Chilcutt, the ‘museum of endangered sounds‘ is an online archive of the archaic noises of technology that are at risk of being lost due to constant technological advances. Some of these are already extinct but still within living memory. Once we never hear these sounds again, the museum would be the place to take you back in time or bring the past back to your present. The museum is a website proper, where you can actually listen to a curated selection of endangered and extinct sounds including operators of payphone, modems a skipping CD and others.
2. Soundscapes from the Past — Eeighteenth-Century Paris
What about lost soundscapes from a distant past that are beyond living memory?
French researcher Myléne Pardoen is the brains behind the interdisciplinary team working on a sonic reconstruction of Paris’ Grand Châtelet district dating back to mid-eighteenth century. The choice of district is not a coincidence. This area was known to have a high-concentration of crafts and trades which, when read in the context of the architecture of the time, would stand for a good case study of eighteenth-century soundscapes in European metropolis and cities of the time. The main source of information was a birds-eye view of the city, commissioned by the Mayor of Paris in 1739, which is so detailed that it gave plenty of clues on architecture and potential sounds to the team.
It may come across as a surprise but no sounds were computer-generated save for one exception. Indeed, these sounds may not be that lost albeit not within the boundaries of cityscapes any longer.
3. To Speak from the dead — The case of a 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy
I must admit that this is a very excited discovery which has much intrigued me! Technology has made the impossible possible by reconstructing the vocal chords of an Egyptian mummy. Nesyamun, the Egyptian priest resting in the mummy sarcophagus, has recently spoken a single syllable which could open the door to an entire chorus of voices from Ancient Egypt.
This exciting discovery holds huge potential for museum interpretation. Voices are unique, personal sounds determined not just by vocal chords but also by the shape of the vocal tract which have the purpose and function of an echo or amplification chamber. Skeletons do not retain the soft tissues that make up this tract but mummified bodies do! By using CT-scanning to create a digital model of Nesmayun’s vocal tract, the team could eventually print a 3-D model and reconstruct a relatively precise and detailed model.
These three examples suggest potential and possibilities for sound and its application for the purpose of human-centred museum experiences. Indeed, sound can be a powerful interpretative and non-formal educational tool besides filling in the missing jigsaw pieces of a museum experience that is never segregated into pigeon-boxed sensorial experiences but bridges and connects, complements and informs a more holistic understanding display narratives.
I consider all three of them as success stories in their own right and touch upon the need to preserve and document sounds (The Museum of Endangered Sounds), the need to create meaningful experiences (Lost soundscapes of eighteenth-century Paris) and the ambition to bring back to life lost voices that can share highly-personalised museum experiences (The lost voice of an Egyptian mummy).
But can a Museum have a voice? I mean literally …
A recent article by Anna Faherty publised on MuseumNext set me thinking about the prospect of actually assigning a voice to a museum. Much as we expect museums not to remain neutral and speak out, much as we talk about museum brand, style and personality there could be scope for a the museum to literally have a voice with which to speak out!
Faherty’s article speaks about tone of voice in text interpretation which, she claims ‘tells visitors something about who the organisation is and what it stands for.’ Indeed, the way information is conveyed defines the museum’s tone of voice which can go beyond the way content is presented.
Finding the right tone, pitch and style of voice through which to engage visitors through a museum’s interpretative strategy can strengthen the brand values that a museum represents, effectively communicate its mission and vision and literally ‘give voice’ to all that the museum stands for. As Faherty rightly points out ‘ …institutions may craft a tone of voice that expresses the views and values of a person conjured from their imagination.’
Sound has, indeed, been brought into the picture way back and museums have mde good use of it for the purpoise of a museum experience that is much more engaging and of relevance. It is, perhaps, its use in more novel and well-thought out ways that can maximise on its strengths when developing human-centred experiences.
