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“We are surrounded by a cacophony of sounds, and the intensity of decibels often exceeds the limits of pain. Noise pollution is almost as dangerous to the human body as the contamination of air.”

As part of the POLISH SOUNDSCAPES exhibition, we’d like to invite you to the screening of the film “In Pursuit of Silence,” which will be a great opportunity to discuss everyday sound experience and acoustic ecology. Which urban sounds are pleasant to us and which ones irritate us? What do we listen to carefully, and what do we ignore? Is it possible to design a sound landscape?

After the film, will invite you to stay over for a discussion with Marcin Dymiter, one of the curators of the exhibition presented at WRO, and Robert Losiak, a musicologist, founder of the Soundscape Research Studio (Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wroclaw), academic lecturer focused around the issue of audiosphere, with particular emphasis on research on the city soundscape.

“The protagonists of the film are those who remind us of the importance of silence in our lives: writers whose books are beneficial for the psyche; scientists who study impact of the decibel level on our well-being; Zen monks who practice the tea ceremony; priests who take vows of silence in monasteries; guardians in the national park who find pleasure in listening to the cracking ice floes; a wanderer who travels for 12 months in absolute silence, and – of course – John Cage, author of the memorable 4’33”, during which no sound is played. It is a film about the need for loneliness, sometimes you just have to dip.”

dir. Patrick Shen / USA, Belgium, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Taiwan, UK, 2015, 81 min.

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