Crowds

"Crowds", the scientific exhibition on crowd phenomena

A crowd is a group of interacting individuals. How can we understand this singular phenomenon, which is much more than the simple sum of its parts? With "Crowds" the exhibition of the City of Science and Industry, proposes to deconstruct the numerous and complex mechanisms at play between individuals when a crowd is created.

• FOR WHOM for everyone from 10 years old
• WHEN until May 24, 2024
• WHERE at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Paris 19e)
• HOURS Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm - Sunday from 10am to 7pm
• CLOSE Monday, December 25, January 1

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The exhibition is organized around 7 key moments:

• In introduction, crowd samples: an installation made of 5 cabins of 1m2 studies the notion of density (number of people per m2). It is a question here of experimenting in a sensory way the notion of density
• Compact crowds On the wall, excerpts from concerts, religious and sports gatherings show the spread of waves of jostling. Individuals, within a very dense crowd, are like grains which, by pressing, can block each other: then how to avoid the worst and to leave in all serenity?

• Pedestrian crowds Why do pedestrians collide so little and almost always avoid each other?
  Collective behaviors are at work in many animal species. Which ones? The bee? The ants? This is what the collective quiz "Questions for sheep" tries to make guess. Further on, a multimedia game, "The eye of the foulologist", proposes to the public to exercise its eyes to spot the characteristic behaviors of pedestrians. Without knowing it, we use them almost systematically and thus make traffic flow more smoothly.

• Digital crowds : analysis of a less dense crowd at a distance. Even at a distance, we are in relation and form networks, called "small world". The visitor understands that rumors, which ensure the cohesion of a group, have existed for a long time and have not waited for social networks to manifest themselves

• Between Crowds and Groups How do we go from a crowd to a group? What are the differences?
• The bad reputation This last part of the exhibition aims to break down preconceived ideas about crowds, historically perceived as uncontrollable and dangerous. It is also an opportunity to question the notion of panic in a crowd situation.

• On the other side of the mirror the visitor is transformed for a moment into a real "foulologist".