Tabea Rude

Tabea Rude is the curator and conservator of clocks, watches and automata at the Vienna Clock Museum (part of the Vienna City Museum Group WIENMUSEUM). In her dual role she enjoys to share not just the intricacies of clockmaking, watchmaking and the conservation of timepieces, but also the wider historical background of the history of technology relating to the fields of timekeeping. Her greatest interests are in 19^th and 20^th century electrical clocks and networked time, the basis of us knowing the time wherever we go today. Together with the public education team all her work focusses on sharing her excitement about timekeeping history with the public and encourages to engage all senses to explore what clocks and watches were and are all about.

During a period of self-employment she worked for The Clockworks, a museum of electrical horology in London, and enjoyed all the facets of museum work. Previously, Tabea trained as a watchmaker at the Pforzheim Watchmaking School in Germany, she then earned her MA in clock and dynamic object conservation at the University of Sussex.

Tabea Rude will be speaking at the Museums, Games & Play Summit 2024 :

A Shared Secret – The Clock Museum’s AR Escape Game

Time measurement is a central human activity. We are so used to this invisible task that we rarely think about it or the tools we use to carry it out. The Vienna Clock Museum houses one of the biggest clock collections in Europe. In order to explore the hidden world beyond the beautiful cases and make it tangible, we created an interactive escape game using augmented reality to interact with objects that are normally static, behind glass or hidden in a clock case.

Photo: Michael Goldrei