Digital Enchantment of Drottningholm

How can we relate to a historical playing culture? In this essay, a counter-factual visit to thepalaces and parks of Drottningholm outside Stockholm is presented. By means of digitaltechnologies, this World Heritage Site could be animated with historical figures from theeighteenth century, thus giving a living picture of past playing. Even though such an encounterwith the past is fully possible from a technical point of view, the realization of this projectposes a number of practical and theoretical questions: How can the picture ofeighteenth-century court life be broadened to include social perspectives of class, gender andethnicity? What artistic decisions have to be taken to visualize the activities around the parkand in the palace? What forms of interactions provided by the technology are suitable forvarious groups of visitors? Some answers to these questions are hinted at in this essay, but thegeneral question of a poetics of playing remains in the abyss between the historical period andthe contemporary access to it. Neither Friedrich von Schiller's treatise on the aestheticeducation of man nor Emanuel Kant's rational view of judgment bridge the gap of historicaldistance. Could Hans-Georg Gadamer's idea of the melting of historical horizons ever becomea reality in the experiences of future visitors? Eventually, this project might only provide somepleasures of a poetry of playing.