Museum Sounds
/
During the month of December, four New York museums invite you to explore their sound-related exhibitions. Learn more about each below and unlock special offers from all of our institutions.
RUBIN MUSEUM
June 16, 2017–January 8, 2018
Learn to listen with your whole body. Visitors will explore how sound and our sense of hearing shape our daily lives, our traditions, our history, and all of existence. The World Is Sound employs sound in new ways to animate and intensify the experience of art in the Rubin’s collection. Organized cyclically—from creation to death to rebirth—the exhibition explores different dimensions of sound and listening and its many functions in Tibetan Buddhism.
MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN (MAD)
Sonic Arcade: Shaping Space with Sound
September 14, 2017–February 25, 2018
Sonic Arcade: Shaping Space with Sound is a multi-component exhibition featuring interactive installations, immersive environments, and performing objects that explore how the ephemeral and abstract nature of sound is made material. At a time when so much visual information is being dispatched, consumed, and digested, the auditory provides a compelling sensory experience that is capable of reorienting the body to consider spatial and interpersonal relationships anew.
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
Hear, See, Play: Designing with Sound
October 13, 2017–July 29, 2018
On view in Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s Process Lab, explores how sound impacts and enhances our daily lives, from digital devices and household products to public transit and urban environments. The exhibition includes a hands-on design activity, inviting visitors to create sounds for a street-cleaning service, as well as a section on how graphic designers express sound visually.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound
November 10, 2017–January 6, 2019
Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound presents the work of ten artists who use light, digital projection, and experimental media to reflect on their place in and between traditional and dominant cultures. Through video projections in and outside the galleries, innovative sound art, interactive digital media, performance, and installation, the exhibition demonstrates the continuity of indigenous cultures and creativity in the digital age. The artists use nontraditional media and colorful and dynamic forms to draw viewers into a world of indigenous experience, insight, and invention that is at once ancient and adapted to the moment.
