Paper short abstract:

Since sound is not only able to capture the temporal and thus serve as storage of culture, playful actions can reveal this knowledge through its temporality. In the exhibition context audio exhibits can therefore give new access to collective meanings.

Paper long abstract:

Playful engagements in museums are currently in its prime, endeavoring to fulfill the challenging task to communicate historical and cultural knowledge to visitors. At the same time the implementation of sound is on its way. But while these new approaches often center on the creation of immersive and engaging spaces, sound has a hard time in an ocular-centered world where the visual plays a major role in the storage of knowledge and collective memory. As a consequence sound still remains in its role as support of the visual or as background noise.

However, sound contains a decisive intersection with play: being a time-dependent medium, sound gives access to time. Whereas the toy preserves the historical that was stored therein, the human temporality reveals itself in the reproduction of its (acoustic) recording. As Agamben points out: ‚The immediate result of [the] invasion of life by play is a change and acceleration of time' (Agamben, In Playland, p. 67) and ‚the essence of the toy […] is, then, an eminently historical thing' (ibid., p. 71). Therefore, it would be more than worthwhile to combine sound and play. New technologies and insights into the relevance of sound for our cognitive abilities create new forms of playfulness that can be used in a museum context such as concepts of situated play. Taking into account the qualities of the ephemeral, this paper discusses new approaches of more engaging museum experiences that integrate tangible and adaptive audio exhibits.