Ecsite 2021 Conference Appearance

Earlier today our Director & Chief Curator appeared as part of The Power of Sound, a panel session that took place at the Ecsite European Network of Science Centres & Museums 2021 conference.

The session was convened by Michèle Antoine of Universcience in Paris, and also featured presentations about sound-based exhibitions by Mark Read of Universcience and Christian Rohr of Museum für Kommunikation in Bern, Switzerland.

The Power of Sound was attended by an impressive crowd of 115 people from Ecsite’s extensive network of science and technology professionals – breaking our record for the most number of visitors to our museum in a single day!

Our Director’s 10-minute presentation – which includes a short guided tour of our museum – is available to watch for a short time on our YouTube channel:

Remembering George Floyd Silent Online Memorial Archived

More than 150 people gathered last night to memorialise George Floyd and all victims of racial intolerance in an online silent tribute organised by Marcus Ryder MBE on the one year anniversary of Floyd’s murder at the hands of police. The group remained silent for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, the length of time Floyd’s murderer knelt on his neck.

Participants were asked to keep their microphones turned on, and the ensuing collective ‘silence’ was recorded. This recording will become part of our museum’s Permanent Collection. We will announce details on how the recording will be exhibited soon.

Soundscape™ Barbie Online Exhibition Now Open

Soundscape™ Barbie: The Exhibition is a FREE online exhibition exploring the complex and contentious history of public reaction to our contribution to the 60th anniversary celebration of Barbie® in 2019.

In 2019, we unleashed Soundscape™ Barbie onto an unsuspecting world. Now we’ve created an online exhibition exploring the complex public reactions to this controversial curio!

Enter the Exhibition

Online Visit Review in Museum Mutterings Blog

"I don’t think I have ever met a more passionate museum director. John is funny, knowledgeable and tells brilliant stories about the sounds in his museum and how they were collected." – Museum Mutterings

The Museum Mutterings blog has posted a review of their resident critic’s recent Online Visit to the Museum of Portable Sound, and they had some wonderful things to say – we are immensely grateful for the kind words!

Read the Review!

We’re Featured in the New York Times!

Photograph of the New York Times 'At Home' calendar entry featuring the Museum of Portable Sound

On 26 December 2020, the New York Times featured our museum – specifically our current temporary exhibition, SOUNDS OF EARTH – The Record That Went To Space – in their At Home calendar, a selection of online activities to help their readers get the most out of lockdown life. You can see it in their print edition above (thanks to a photo provided by MOPS Board Member Philip von Zweck) or view it online (scroll down to ‘Saturday’).

Announcing the Museum of Portable Sound Conference – Abstracts Due 1 Nov!

We’re having a Sound Studies conference – and you’re invited to submit a proposal for it!

In November 2021, we will host the inaugural Museum of Portable Sound Conference – an online conference featuring traditional conference papers, audio papers, and essay films – about areas of Sound Studies beyond music and ‘sound art’!

Be sure to watch our Conference Infomercial above, and check out the requirements on the conference’s page. Then make sure to submit your entry to museumofportablesound [AT] gmail [DOT] com by 12 midnight GMT on 1 November!

Announcing Our First Ever Online Exhibition: MP3@25, A Celebration Of A Quarter Century Of Worldwide Compressed Digital Audio

MP3@25 is our first-ever FREE Online Exhibition!

MP3@25: The Anniversary Exhibition, 1995–2020
Opens Online 14 July 2020

What is an MP3? What is the history of the MP3? What is the legacy of the MP3?

We’ll be investigating these questions and more in this provocative free online exhibition which explores how a file type can change the world.

Features work by Suzanne Vega, Ryan Maguire, Thomas Edison National Historic Park, and the Fraunhofer Institute. Special appearances by Bruce Willis, Metallica, and Karlheinz Brandenburg.

More information soon. Contact our Director and Chief Curator for any enquiries.

Our Adult Colouring-In Book Now Available

Now available! Get your own copy.

Relax, learn, and create! The Museum of Portable Sound Adult Colouring-In Book tells a mini-history of portable sound technologies through a series of patent drawings suitable for colouring in! Includes drawings of the first transistor radio, the ‘Miami Vice’ mobile phone, the Walkman, the iPod, and much more! Each drawing includes a descriptive object label, so you can learn while you colour! Plus there are waveforms of sounds in our Permanent Collection for you to test out your synaesthetic impulses upon! Suitable for colouring in with coloured pencils, crayons, markers, and even watercolours (since every other page is text) – tho we’d recommend placing a sheet of paper underneath your colouring page if using wet media.

INSTAGRAM LIVE EVENT

Hear the entire text of our Colouring-In Book!

Our Director (and the author of the book) did a live reading of all the book’s object labels on Saturday, 13 June at our Instagram page – watch it again in the video above!

Purchase our Adult Colouring-In Book at Blurb.com