Music, Noise and Silence: Building Engagement in the Culture of Science and Music

The Science Museum has identified the theme of science, technology and music as an ideal subject for a future touring temporary exhibition. This is on the grounds that music is an excellent exemplification of the interaction of science and technology with the broader culture; it also has the benefit of being the focus for passionate concern and enthusiasm amongst many of the Museum's potential visitors. Equally, recent years have seen extensive work in relevant academic fields, and this has the potential to suggest new narratives for museum displays.

An initial research project with our partners, the Royal College of Music, has established that the subject territory is indeed very fertile. It also showed that our relevant collections are rich and complementary; the RCM's is a strong conservatoire collection of musical instruments, whereas the Science Museum's collections represent sound recording and reproduction, the science of acoustics and music technology. At this stage of the project (perhaps three years ahead of any display opening), we wish to work intensively with relevant scholars, musicians and other colleagues to explore the relevance of the new field of 'sound studies', a rich new academic field, alongside musicology and history of technology to develop exhibition ideas around how the history of music relates to industrial modernity. The idea is that the exhibition can express some of the fresh thinking in sound studies and other relevant fields, thus helping the museum to a deeply satisfying exhibition at the same time as giving this scholarship a welcome and lively public presence.

2015 will be the 80th anniversary of a highly unusual exhibition at the Science Museum, on the theme of noise abatement. Here the concern was with the harm caused by the noise of industrial modernity, the importance of quiet, and the technological means available to ameliorate the din of the modern age. This string of three research workshops will not only celebrate this anniversary, but take it as the stimulus for our investigation, concentrating on music in modernity, probing how scientists, technologists and musicians have been stimulated by, and have responded to, the noise of modernity. As a test bed for and microcosm of the proposed exhibition, the workshops will be accompanied by public events: concerts, performances and talks.

This workshop series is the latest stage in a multi-strand programme devoted to music and technology that has already included two music commissions / concerts with Icebreaker, the contemporary music group ('Apollo' in 2009 and 'Kraftwerk Uncovered' in 2014); 'Oramics to Electronica', a small temporary exhibition on the history of Electronic music (2011+); and the essay collection 'Material Culture and Electronic Sound' (Weium and Boon 2013).

Cultural impact is pivotal to the proposed project: it explores how narratives about sonic modernity can be constructed to produce the underlying structure for a compelling exhibition / events programme. Its outcomes will also encompass areas of social and economic impact. It has been designed to be of benefit to all museums with significant collections in sound and music - eg the Horniman, Bate Collection - by increasing their effectiveness (as measured by social, cultural, and economic factors). There is a significant underused cache of sound- and music-related objects in museum and gallery collections across the world, representing underused intellectual capital. Museums that hold them variously operate under the auspices and funding of national and regional government, or as independent businesses; they are frequently embedded participants within the Third Sector. Benefits from partaking in public displays and programming accrue to both visitors (in terms of enhanced quality of life) and to the individuals and organisations whose work is represented (in terms of social and indirect economic factors).

In the short term (1 year), the project's beneficiaries will mainly be amongst the core participants. Apart from the HEI-based members discussed under 'academic beneficiaries', these include the curators and other museum professional staff, who will be invited to attend and contribute. They, and their institutions, will benefit from meeting diverse academic researchers in relevant fields and the expansive discussions that the meetings will generate. The benefit may be felt, eg, in how they consider their collections and begin to conceive of how differently they might be deployed.

The public who attend the three public events, all of which will be preceded by brief expositions of the project's concerns, will gain in cultural capital, leading to enhanced quality of life. Many of them will have strong interests in music; it is reasonable to expect that the events will inflect these listeners' tastes and lead to economic impact in terms of downloads, CD purchases and further concert attendance. Some will be active as amateur, and professional, musicians, and the stimulation from the project's public outputs may well enhance their creative musical activity, reinforcing the economic benefit ascribed to listeners. Similarly, Audialsense, the sound artists and architects, will have gained impact for their creative work.

In the medium term (3 years), the circle of impact will become significantly wider. We can expect influence of the kinds noted above to continue to broaden. Furthermore, at the Science Museum, it is intended that the network's synthetic findings will have delivered an active project for the proposed touring temporary exhibition on science, technology and music, and that fundraising will have delivered the financial support necessary for this (not less than £1 million). The project will have funded early career and established researchers to develop detailed exhibition content. Audialsense can be expected to have gained further commissions for their very distinctive work. Museum professionals from within and beyond the Science Museum Group can be expected to have displayed and presented relevant artefacts and have presented events inspired in part by the concerns of the network. This effect will be amplified by the network's publications, promoted via social media, that will make the project known in relevant museum and gallery circles. In the commercial sector, providers of audio-visual installations will benefit from enhanced levels of interest in the sonic aspects of display.

In the longer term (5-10 years), in addition to the widening circle of engagement and impact described, the touring exhibition will have visited at least three venues in the UK and mainland Europe, and its catalogue will have taken the content and philosophy of the show to a global audience, reinforcing all the impacts described.