The Traveling Sound Museum is a narrative driven, faux-historical installation that purports to be a collection of “sound jars” going back over one thousand years. Each sound jar contains a sound from a different place and time in history and the public are encouraged to approach the museum wagon, pick up a jar, and listen to the sounds from the past. The project is inspired heavily by the Wunderkammer of the 16th and 17th centuries, and explores notions of institutional trust, wonder, and historical impossibilities.

The project is one part narrative, one part interactive technology. In order to give a sense of an authentic, historical collection of artifacts, I created an extremely detailed history of the Traveling Sound Museum that explains how the jars first came into being in the 7th century in Syria, and how they traveled and survived the centuries, first being taken by the Rashidan Caliphate, then by the Mongols in the 13th century, making their way to the new world during the Age of Discovery, and coming into the posession of a traveling salesman in the American southeast during the late 19th century. This historical context is woven into various presentations of the project, both as a standalone faux-historical Powerpoint presentation given by the supposed curator of the museum as well as on the Traveling Sound Museum website (www.thetravelingsoundmuseum.com).