01961nas a2200229   4500000000100000000000100001000000100002008004100003260000800044653002400052653001100076653001100087653002000098653001200118100001800130245017500148856014900323300001200472490000700484520122000491022002001711       2017                            d  cjun10aintangible heritage10amuseum10abridge10abody techniques10agesture1 aArnaud Dubois00aHow to understand engineering sciences with the techniques of the body: The case of the bridges collection of the Musee des Arts et Metiers explained by circus acrobatics  uhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85018761193&doi=10.1177%2f0539018417697387&partnerID=40&md5=4b33d0e69840a7d57339ffbd3e70a823  a254-2690 v563 aIn this article, I will examine an experimental mediation performed by acrobats at the Paris Musée des Arts et Métiers in May 2016. I will ask if body techniques can facilitate the public’s understanding of the abstract engineering sciences exhibited in a science and technology museum. Using the ethnographic study of this performance, I will ask if this new type of museum mediation opens up new research issues about technical gestures and helps us to blur boundaries between tangible and intangible heritage in the museum context. In doing so I try to redeploy the methods of analysis of museum collections and to contribute to the theoretical and methodological renewal of the history of technology. I show that this new way to mediate science and technology museum collections using body techniques and gestures produces a methodological indistinctness between intentionality and contingency that often marks the epistemological break between art, technology and science in western culture. This anthropological way of looking at museums of science and technology opens up new research issues not only for the museum’s scientific and technical heritage but also for the history of science and techniques  a05390184 (ISSN)