Bill Fontana: Silent Echoes—Notre-Dame

Inaugurated on June 7, 2022 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Bill Fontana’s 10-channel sound installation Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame makes a hidden acoustic scene perceptible by allowing the ten mighty bells of Notre-Dame Cathedral, one of Paris’ most emblematic monuments, to resound once more after the fire that seemingly sentenced them to silence in 2019. With special permission granted by the French authorities, Fontana places accelerometers on each one of the cathedral’s ten bells so as to record their resonance while the building’s restoration is still under way until 2024. The work makes audible, in distinctive Fontana fashion, the slightest vibrations of the cathedral’s most ancient bell “Emmanuel”, along with its nine counterparts, as they respond to the ambient Parisian sounds, further conveying these mystical sounds from Paris to Istanbul through a live streaming infrastructure.

Exhibited in Istanbul after its unveiling during an inaugural event through a speaker system placed on the terrace of the Centre Pompidou, one of Paris’ iconic architectural landmarks, almost directly facing the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame intimately connects with John Cage’s idea that “music is permanent; only listening is intermittent,” and honours Arter with the privilege of being the first museum in the world to host the project outside Paris.

Visitors are granted the remarkable opportunity to experience the auditory environment laid out by Bill Fontana’s Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame through ten speakers placed on Arter’s -1 and -3 floors, concurrently with another work by the artist: Resounding Io, displayed in Arter’s performance hall Karbon. Fontana’s experimental video, produced in relation with Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame, will also be on display in Arter’s Sevgi Gönül Auditorium.

Commission: Ircam—Centre Pompidou
Production: Bill Fontana Studio, Stephanie Camu, Southern & Partners Artist Management
Co-production: Ircam, Centre Pompidou
In partnership with Établissement public chargé de la conservation et de la restauration de la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris
With the support of Hottinger Bruel & Kjaer, des Amis de Notre-Dame & Orange group
IRCAM computer music designer: Thomas Goepfer

Current exhibitions

Locus Solus
Until December 31, 2022
Curator: Selen Ansen

ThisPlay

Until April 9, 2023

Curator: Emre Baykal

Rounded by Sleep

Until January 29, 2023

Curator: Eda Berkmen

Ahmet Doğu İpek: A Halo of Blackness Upon Our Heads

Until January 29, 2023

Curator: Selen Ansen

Bill Fontana: Resounding Io

Until December 4, 2022

Curator: Melih Fereli OBE

Click here for Arter’s current events programme.

Press contact
: Senem Çelikörslü, senemc [​at​] arter.org.tr / T +90 212 708 58 45