Communicating scientific knowledge

By the end of the sixties of the XX Century the science centers movement established a new way to solve the pre-existing crisis of the relation between science and society, by overturning the basis of communication. Thus, science centers inverted the canons of traditional museography and became an exploration means more similar to a scientific device, rather than a communication device. The Exploratorium of San Francisco, set in 1969, represents the first attempt to apply this approach: the visitor becomes the main protagonist of the scene, he is asked to cross space interacting with a series of happenings, interactive experiments and playful scenarios, amplifying at the same time the cognitive processes of scientific communication. If the science center gets in a strict relation with the research infrastructure, where the visitor has the chance to explore several aspects of scientific research, then it can also introduce some perturbation and contamination elements, coming from art and culture, in order to trigger a new way of conceiving an open, shared and public research. The exhibit becomes hands-on and the same time it attracts the emotional and cultural backgrounds of visitors, who are involved with their previous experiences which can be implemented through an open and no deterministic process. Performative art and theatre represent some of the main languages introduced to design a perceptual experience able to communicate information, processes and goals of scientific investigation. According to this premise, great research infrastructures need to share knowledge with society, through an innovative and contemporary approach. An example is given by the Globe of Science and Innovation of CERN in Geneva, or the Supernova of ESO in Munich. “Exhibit as exploration”, “active participation”, “shared construction” and “narrative exhibits” are the funding concepts of the most recent experiences in the design of science centers, according to a social concern investigating virtual and physical spaces where they are turned into cultural mediators and exchange forum. The topic of the active involvement of the public, historically investigated by the artistic avant-gardes of the XX century, later included in the theory of art by Ernst Gombrich, is the basis of the contemporary conception of science centers: the search for interaction with the public, whose active perception is called to process mental projections on different scenarios, within a subjective dimension.