Sound scenography is the practice of designing space through listening. It is not something added but something already there: a presence that contours movement, inflects perception, and colors memory. Sound is not separate from the environments we create. It emerges with them, through them, as part of how meaning takes form. Every surface, every volume, every pause has its sound. Recognizing sound as integral to space does not complicate the design but sharpens it. This is the essence of sound scenography: recognizing sound as space. It marks a shift from treating sound as an addition to understanding it as a structuring condition of spatial experience.

What Is Sound Scenography?

Sound scenography is the practice of designing space with sound as an integral medium. It does not simply layer sound onto a pre-existing space but acknowledges that sound emerges as part of the spatial experience. Sound scenography is not about designing sound per se. It is not the soundtrack added to an environment. It is about designing the conditions in which sound appears as space, how it moves, fades, and carries meaning. Sound scenography considers sound as a spatial medium — not just a sensory one. It shapes how a space speaks, how it is heard, how it becomes known. It repositions listening as a method of spatial thinking through space, time, and sound. Beyond museums, it belongs to any space that comes into being through perception — architecture, installation, theater, film, virtual worlds. Wherever space is staged, sound is already present. To design with sound is not to add, but to reveal.

Every Space Sounds

Perception is not segmented. It is fluid, interwoven, and responsive. Sound is never isolated and never absent. The ambient breath of a room, the resonance of footsteps, the hush between voices — these are the currents through which space reveals itself.

So-called “silence” is not the absence of sound but a particular configuration of auditory relations. These relations are shaped by architectural form, material surfaces, social expectations, and the listener’s disposition. Thus, the auditory experience of space is not optional. It is intrinsic, meaning that it is an essential and unavoidable part of how we perceive our environment. Whether we are aware of it or not, sound continuously shapes our understanding of the spaces we inhabit. This constant flow of auditory information influences our perception and interaction with the world around us. And because it is intrinsic, sound is always already communicating.

Scenography as the Staging of Perception

As theorist Rachel Hann notes, scenography is a practice of worlding, not decorating. It’s an invitation into embodied, affective experiences that unfold in real time. It is how space appears—how it becomes known, felt, remembered. It is the orchestration of perception. It operates across modalities and addresses all our senses.

Sound, in this sense, is not illustrative or ambient but a scenographic force—not supplementary, but constitutive. It shapes the spatial and temporal unfolding of experience, modulates attention, conditions atmosphere, and supports or disrupts interpretive processes. It unfolds meaning before meaning is thought. It doesn’t just frame the message, the artifact, the artwork, but choreographs how we encounter it, moment by moment.

To practice scenography is to engage with how meaning is constructed in and through space. Sound scenography, then, is not about adding narrative or mood. It is about structuring the perceptual field — about staging the conditions under which sense is made.

Sound as Story

Sound is not merely a background element or an emotional trigger; it serves as a communicative medium in scenographic practice, actively shaping how visitors understand narratives and navigate spaces. Sound scenography is not merely about auditory information but also about conveying orientation, narrative, and contextual cues. For instance, in an exhibition space, subtle ambient sounds change as visitors move from one area to another, guiding movement and signalling transitions between thematic zones without visual prompts. This interaction between sound and listener, shaped by spatial context, personal experience, and perception dynamics, unfolds meaning within the experiential flow of the space, making sound a powerful scenographic tool.

Sound builds atmospheres, softens edges, or sharpens contrasts, influencing how we move, linger, and feel. A space without sound feels incomplete, while an exhibition with sound can feel alive, immediate, even urgent. Beyond creating a mood, sound carries stories, conveys knowledge, and preserves memory. Long before written language or museums, people shared histories through speaking and listening. Language was first a sound, a resonance between bodies, weaving communal memory through the air. Today, speaking and listening remain fundamental practices of knowledge-sharing and identity-making.

Sound scenography draws on this deep tradition, presenting the voices of history through archival speeches, oral testimonies, and historical field recordings, allowing them to inhabit the space anew. It can stage spoken word, music, and soundscapes that connect visitors directly to the emotional and factual layers of the past. In this sense, sound is not only atmosphere but also heritage, evidence, and presence. An exhibition about the industrial revolution, for example, might come alive not only through objects and visuals but through the authentic sound of 19th-century textile machines. A memorial installation might carry the actual voices of survivors, echoing in carefully designed sonic spaces that respect their fragility and strength.

Listening as Design Practice

Wherever perceptual spaces are created — physical, virtual, or imagined — sound is not an accessory. It is a co-creator of experience, working alongside light, form, and movement to shape how we perceive, understand, and inhabit the spaces around us. Sound scenography is the practice of spatial design through listening. Not as metaphor, but as orientation. To listen is to surrender to what emerges, to move at the pace of unfolding.

Sound is not material. It is movement, tension, release — a dynamic presence unfolding in time. It is space, coming into being in time. The designer who listens is not a controller of signals but a cultivator of resonances. Sound scenography is not merely a skillset; it is a scenographic perspective — a cultivated sensibility. In practice, this means approaching spatial design with an acute awareness of how sound inherently shapes perception.

Rather than encountering space as abstract concepts, visitors experience it through immediate physical and sensory conditions. These conditions – whether they’re soft echoes, layered murmurs, verbal presence, or sudden quiet – don’t just describe the space; they immerse visitors in it, creating a direct, embodied experience. They shape the felt logic of movement, attention, and response.

Understanding begins in experience. It begins in the body. Analysis of sound in exhibitions must trace this embodied arc: not what sound is, but what it does — how it enters, resonates, shifts.

Designing Space Means Designing Sound

Sound scenography begins here: in the recognition that we cannot not design sound. Every space already speaks. Neglecting sound in spatial design is not just a missed opportunity; it risks creating environments that are unintentionally confusing or overwhelming. An ignored soundscape does not fall silent. It becomes confusion, fatigue, exclusion. When sound is left to chance, chance becomes the message. Designing with sound in mind restores clarity, subtlety, and care, and it ensures that the space communicates as intended. To hear is to be within. To design for hearing is to design from within.

To think scenographically with sound does not require one to become a sound engineer or composer. It requires something much simpler, and much more profound: to listen. By listening attentively to a space — to its existing resonances, to its imagined atmospheres, to its narrative possibilities — we design more holistically. Sound scenography is not a toolkit. It is a way of noticing. By listening differently, we design differently.

The Sound Scenographer

While everyone can think scenographically with sound, some designers do specialize in sound scenography. Engaging with sound scenographically means working both with what already exists and with what can be deliberately introduced. Every space carries its own sonic character — the acoustics shaped by architecture, the ambient presence of visitors, the interplay between quiet and lively zones. Building upon this existing soundscape, designers can weave additional auditory layers: narration, composed soundscapes, field recordings, or musical interventions, each orchestrated to support and deepen the scenographic and curatorial narrative. Sound scenography is a deeply relational practice. It engages with the material qualities of architecture and acoustics, the aesthetic dramaturgy of space, the technologies that mediate auditory experiences, and the cultural practices of storytelling, accessibility, and inclusion.

A sound scenographer treats sound not as a layer to be added after the visual design is complete, but as a constitutive element—an active, shaping force considered from the very beginning of the design process. For good reasons. Staging sound as space deepens emotional engagement, connecting directly to the body, to cultural memory, and to feeling. It expands the narrative possibilities of a space, enabling stories to unfold with a complexity and immediacy that visuals alone cannot achieve. Thoughtful sound design also enhances accessibility, supporting diverse ways of perceiving and navigating space. And it shapes atmospheres in ways that are often more immediate and visceral than any other medium, giving spaces their particular tone, rhythm, and resonance.

Designing space means designing sound. Forgetting this is to forfeit part of the medium. Remembering this is to listen again and design with the fullness of our perception. When we hear this, our work as curators, designers, and scenographers deepens — and the spaces we create begin to speak in ways words alone never could.

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Written by Johannes Scherzer