Les Immatériaux: a tour of the exhibition with headphones

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This article focuses on the exhibition Les Immatériaux curated by the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard and Thierry Chaput at the Centre Pompidou in 1985, and more particularly on its soundtrack. The exhibition was devised around the question of “postmodernity”, and aimed to reflect an era where the question of intangibility was becoming more and more present with the development of new technologies. Visitors were given wireless headphones to wear as they wandered around the exhibit, so that they could listen to a specially recorded soundtrack. However, the soundtrack, which broadcast texts of writers and philosophers but also recorded sounds – music and various noises – that had been chosen to resonate with the developed themes in the exhibition, led to much confusion among visitors. In this article, we will examine the initial intentions of the exhibition team concerning the soundtrack and its broadcasting system by comparing them with the visitors’ experience.