No need to be quiet in this gallery

It is one of the world’s biggest interior art spaces, and American artist Bruce Nauman has filled it with nothing -- nothing, that is, except noise.

Nauman, 62, who says his sound works are inspired by avant-garde composer John Cage, has created what amounts to a sonic shower in the cathedral-sized Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern art gallery.

The work, which opens to the public today for six months, is a cacophony of 21 different voice tapes all running at the same time, filling the entrance hall of the former power station with noise. Apart from 34 black loudspeakers hanging from the walls and ceiling, there is nothing to see.

The sound tapes -- all taken from Nauman’s previous works but never before all played together -- include disembodied voices repeatedly telling the listener to “think,” another screaming “no, no, no” and yet another repeating “live and die.”

Curator Emma Dexter said the installation captured the essence of life. “We have every range of human existence here,” she told a news conference. “All human life is here.”