Communicating Through Sound in Museums: A Genre-Based Framework

Abstract

Sound, often perceived as intangible, is now increasingly recognized as a tangible entity, sparking significant research interest. Museum practitioners and curators are particularly drawn to sound's interactional prospects, its expressive capabilities, and its ability to convey meaning, whether in representational, emotional, aesthetic/hedonistic, or sensorial terms. I initially proposed a typology that classifies multimodal museum practices centered on sound. This was the focal point of my article Museums as Sites for Displaying Sound Materials: A Five-Use Framework (Cortez 2022), where I delineated five categories—each pinpointing a distinct area of practice. The present article introduces two revisions. Firstly, it expands this theoretical framework by introducing two additional categories. Secondly, it further solidifies the entire framework by adopting a genre-based approach, inspired by Michael Halliday's functional grammar. My insights into each category are illustrated with real-world-examples from the 104 exhibitions I have visited, showcasing sound in various creative ways.