The invitation of the World is Sound is to listen with your whole body. It integrates science with spirituality, analyzing the way various cultures and religious practitioners relate to sound—guided by the belief that “sound and our sense of hearing shape our daily lives, our traditions, our history, and all of existence.” Adding the aspect of sound gives a new way to be immersed in art. The usual heavy muffling silence that hangs over museums is removed, and visitors are given an added sensory medium of learning, experiencing, and connecting to what they are viewing.

The Sound of Obsessing by Christine Sun Kim

Although far from being the first exhibit to use audio components, the World is Sound uses a unique instrument: the architecture of the building itself. The main feature of the exhibit, Le Corps Sonore, 2017, is visible upon entry to the museum. A spiral staircase, leading all the way up to the Rubin’s six floors, leads visitors through a “sonic labyrinth.” It is meant to invoke the Buddhist principles of interconnectedness and impermanence. Noise comes from a large mirrored bowl on the floor at the center of the spiral, and as visitors move upwards, the sounds shift and build:

Beginning on the lower level, faint ambience mixes with noises from the cafe above. Standing directly beside the “resonate bowl”, the ambience is joined by sounds of dripping water. Halfway up the stairs to the second floor, a humming noise begins fading in and out. The dripping water now sounds as if it is being poured in a thin stream. The chorus builds: On the third floor, there is a high pitched noise reminiscent of dragonfly wings. On the fourth, an infrequent chirp that could be birdsong or the elevator arriving. By the fifth floor, the sounds become identifiable—the playing of chimes, and very faintly, voices in prayer or song.

Le Corps Sonore, image courtesy of the Rubin Museum website.

Walking along Le Corps Sonore is not the only way visitors can immerse themselves in the exhibit experience. The fourth floor houses a Deep Listening Room, meant to “embrace all the sounds in a museum environment and not intended to be a silent space,” in which visitors can practice meditation. On the sixth floor, visitors approach Tibetan Buddhist statues to listen to their associated rites, or go into the Collective Om space and are invited to use their own voices to join in with the recordings. Artists who use writing to express emotion and sound, like John Giorno and Christine Sun Kim, are featured on the lower level. A discussion between the creators of the exhibit plays in the elevator, and even the women’s bathroom is playing an audio composition, Into India, 2002.

The World is Sound represents the synthesis of sound and religion. Some debate the cultural appropriateness of the museum, but the merit of the exhibit’s merging of visual art and audio remains the same. It presents sound as a way to access culture. It is an immersive, beautifully aesthetic experience—but also an educational one.