"Acoustic Memory" - an Obstacle on the Path to a Common European Collective Memory?

This project is purely devoted to research and draws on empirical evidence in order to explore the hypothesis that memory is influenced as much by acoustic impulses as it is by visual impulses. Whereas the meaning, effects and development of memorial icons, along with the visual memory of social groups, has already been researched in depth, relatively little attention has been paid to acoustic memory. Yet sound documents impinge on the human mind in such a way that it is similarly easy to remember them. This begs the question: Which spoken sounds do we associate with specific historical events? Unlike images, these sounds (presuming they are not musical sounds) are not universal and are therefore understood primarily by a specific speech community. One could thus assume that acoustic memory is largely a particularist memory, which poses a theoretical and practical problem for any attempt to "Europeanize" historical and political education.

Duration: 2008-2009

• Acoustic Clips:
  

  • „Switching channels“ by Jonas Grawert

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  • „Was bleibt“ by Lukas Fütterer

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• Publication:
  Robert Maier and Gennadij G. Slyškin (eds.): Pamjat' o Vtoroj mirovoj vojne v sovremennych kommunikativnych technologijach [Second World War Memory in Modern Communication Technologies]. Wolgograd: Paradigma 2009, 100 p.
  
  
• Empirical Survey:
  Survey on "Acoustic Memory" (carried out primarily by Nils Eckert)