Haus des Glockenspiels – reimagined via Tripadvisor

Why are we increasingly having the same mediated tourism experiences, wherever we go in the world – and are review sites like Tripadvisor to blame?

Bremen, Germany – on the hour in a beautiful backstreet of the old city, the Haus des Glockenspiels offers a display of 20 porcelain bells performing a nine-minute sound display.

A series of pretty tunes ring out across the rooftops, while rotating panels in the walls change around to tell various stories from the city’s history, like famous seafarers and aviators.

It’s a genuine sonic tourist attraction, so a must for field recording.

City version:

The reimagined Haus des Glockenspiels looks at this famous tourist attraction through the prism of its Tripadvisor reviews – from the positive to the negative, to the utterly banal, and even reviews from people who never even visited, it’s all in here.

Our experiences as tourists are increasingly influenced by review sites like Tripadvisor (as well as the tourism curse that is Instagram), and it means more and more of us are having the same homogeneous experience, wherever we travel.

Surrounded by tourists and the ghost of Tripadvisor, it’s as if you can hear the voices of tourists past writing their reviews in the very air around you – and that’s how you visit the Haus der Tripadvisor.

Memory version: