New permanent exhibition
SNM, Forum of Swiss History Schwyz

The highlight at the end of the tour of the exhibition "Entstehung Schweiz. Unterwegs vom 12. ins 14. Jahrhundert" is the interactive photo room "The little knight". Two sets of knight's armour and two ladies' costumes, set in front of a green wall are available to the public for the enactment. Immediately after, the photographs are being embossed on two designated digital background images that show the knight on horseback and the damsel behind the balustrade of a castle window. And the photos are ready to be sent instantly to family and friends via e-mail.

There are also various listening stations. At the station "Dictation at the Scriptorium" the visitors can listen to a monk, who is dictating a text to a scribe in either Latin, Greek, Arabic or Hebrew. The visitors can choose the language via the respective switches. The audio station "University" recounts tales about people's daily routines at a university, continuing with a description of how the Swiss universities came into being. These audio files are accessible on headphones in four languages (D, F, I, E).

How it felt to cross the Alps, which was of utmost importance in regards to trade and exchange of goods, can be physically relived on a step machine. In front of the person who is working out on this machine a film is played, showing a point-of-view shot of the ascend to the mountain pass. The faster the people climb on the workout machine the sooner they reach the summit of the pass in this virtual world.

How did the cambists count and calculate in the epoch from the 13th to the 16th century? That is illustrated in the room "Exchange Office". As a visitor you can learn this kind of calculating by shifting lines and reckoning pennies on a touch screen. This computer station also contains an introduction to the subject "Abacus", arithmetics in medieval times. Weights and measures are another main topic of the exhibtion, and the visitors soon learn how to find out what they could buy on a medieval market with 100 grammes of silver. That is another application of a touch screen programming.

Tweaklab also installed the films "Datini", "Fibonacci", "Die Italienischen Stadtrepubliken" and "Aussicht Hospitz".

Concept: SNM, Pia Schubiger, Denise Tonella
Exhibition design: SNM, Alex Harb

10/2011