To keep the exhibition rooms quiet.
So that every visitor may meet the displays in calm, the Archives maintains a small number of house rules. The Archives has no physical exhibition rooms. The care that keeps an exhibition room quiet, however, is still required.
The rules below are not meant to restrict your viewing. They exist so that a courteous distance may be kept — between you and the works, the characters, the sounds, the silences, and whatever is moving slowly in the depths of the screen.
- 1. Please do not hurry the works.
- Works, characters, and onomatopoeia appear, each at its own speed.
Should display or movement take a little time, kindly wait. - 2. Look at a character’s shape before its meaning.
- Hiragana are signs to be read, and at the same time exhibits possessed of shape.
Before you touch one, gaze a little. - 3. Should an onomatopoeia approach you, wait calmly.
- Words such as sara-sara, kira-kira, and yura-yura may drift about the visitor.
Pursue them too far, and their meaning may recede. - 4. Gazing at a work at length is welcome.
- You may, however, be gazed back at.
This, too, is usually not a problem. - 5. In the exhibition room, please do not demand explanations in a loud voice.
- Some works are still in the middle of considering what they are.
Explanations appear in the necessary amount, at the necessary distance. - 6. The darkness of the screen is part of the display.
- Raise the brightness too far, and the silence of the works may thin.
When something is hard to see, please view the difficulty as well. - 7. Screenshots are permitted.
- Should you publish them, however, please be mindful of the credit line: the work, its maker, the holding institution, and the Archives.
Works wish to be handled quietly outside the screen as well. - 8. Should you witness an unexplained occurrence, record it.
- Flickering of the screen, hesitation in a character, excessive drifting of onomatopoeia: should any of these be observed, please record the circumstances as far as you are able.
If necessary, inform us through the contact form. - 9. Should you see the Director or the staff, please offer a quiet bow.
- Even if there is no reply, they are on duty.
- 10. After your visit, words may look slightly different.
- This is not a malfunction.
Observe the condition in daily life for a while.
The Shibuya Higashi Archives does not deal only in what can be seen.
Please take your time.
Things in a hurry are, as a rule, not yet part of the collection.