The Pink Palace's 'Making Memphis: 200 Years of Community' Features ReMix Memphis

Above: Pink Palace preparator George Henderson’s early design for the ReMix Memphis console.

History buffs visiting the Pink Palace Museum's Making Memphis: 200 Years of Community exhibit, opening March 2nd, might be surprised to see a video game console. But it’s all part of bringing the multi-layered and intricate bicentennial presentation into the present. It may be retro, but the level of community interaction in the entire exhibit is cutting edge.

As Steve Masler, Pink Palace manager of exhibits, recently told the Memphis Flyer, “In the museum world, there's a lot of thought going into what community involvement really means. With our exhibit — and we have never designed and built from scratch, in house, an exhibit this complicated — the word cloud you enter through is totally done by what people said.”

”To that end,” the article explains further, “nearly thirty pop events were held last year, either at the museum itself or in different communities, where people could note what Memphis meant to them, and, if they wished, be photographed and even recorded on audio.”

This was right in sync with what ReMix Memphis was already doing: asking people to add their own word(s) to “The sound of ___ is so Memphis.” Those words, gathered at dozens of events, helped ReMix collect an important snapshot of the city’s sonic identity, and the resulting word clouds are fascinating. At the same events, Alex Greene played audiences the sounds he’d collected in field recordings, to gather their opinions on different noises.

So now, as Memphis begins its third century, museum-goers can approach a video game console and actually hear that sonic snapshot. A tablet featuring the app Loopy HD allows visitors to play a whole palette of sounds, choosing and mixing their favorites. Then they can pick up a card reading, “The sound of ___ is so Memphis,” jot down their answer, and drop it in the box.