Returning Materiality
In recent years the engagement with materiality has gained increasing attention in history education in German speaking countries, surpassing the level of interest observed several decades ago. Notably, this development extends beyond the mere integration of material sources to history education in schools or museums (Must/Buchsteiner 2021). It also includes previously overlooked forms of historical representation and appropriation through objects as part of historical culture (Barsch/van Norden 2020; Mathis/Barsch 2022; Kühberger 2024a). In this context, ‘Geschichtsdinge’ (“materialized history”; literally “history things”) have come into sharper focus. These are understood as “various manifestations of historical culture that are inscribed either with a reference to the past or an interpretation of the past” (Kühberger 2023, 64). Examples include plastic Viking figurines, board games about the Ottoman Empire, toy sabers, or children’s books about Baroque princesses. In recent years, research in history education on the integration of such ‘Geschichtsdinge’ into the everyday lives of children and adolescents has prompted not only the exploration of various categories of toys (Kühberger 2021a; Erhard 2021), but also ethnographic studies on their availability and use in children’s play spaces (Kühberger 2021b; Kühberger 2024b; Kühberger 2025).

Playing with History
Within the framework of an ethnographic project in a kindergarten that aimed to observe children engaging with a medieval-themed toy castle, diverse forms of play involving the figurines provided in the set were observed (Kühberger/Karl 2021). Mounted knight figures, in particular, held a distinct fascination for the boys in the group. It was frequently observed that some children had their knight-clad figures ride around the castle, within its walls, and even through the air—using flight as a means to bridge the distance between themselves and other children. Although the play was clearly purposeful, its underlying intentions remained elusive, even when approached through the data collection methods employed in the study. What became visible was merely the connection between the child and the artefacts, which, through playful interaction, seemed to evoke and stimulate something within the child. Yet the exact nature of this dynamic resisted interpretation. Even brief interactions with other figurines or peers offered only limited insight into the underlying meanings at play.
Virtuality as the Entanglement of Objects and Humans
When observing a child playing with toy figures from a play set (e.g. PLAYMOBIL®, LEGO®) portraying medieval knights, it quickly becomes evident that a clear-cut distinction between material objects and the human players provides little insight into the actual interactions developing. The traditionally assigned object status of the toys and subject status of the child dissolve within the act of play, as network-like action relationships emerge among interactive participants—’actants’ in the sense of Bruno Latour (2007). Moreover, the visible actions should not be hastily interpreted as a historical knightly play, since, at first glance, one merely observes a child who, typically prompted by play utensils, chases a rider on a horse across the floor while performing manipulative actions on the toy figures. The fact that the rider wears what appears to be a medieval knight’s armor could easily mislead an observing adult. However, the situation that unfolds between the actants is capable, under certain play configurations, of generating a form of virtuality. Typically, such situations are described in terms of emerging mental representations (imagination), yet this only partially captures the cognitive processes at play. The cognitive achievement of the individual child is inherently tied to its entanglement with objects and does not arise as mere fantasy. At the same time, it should be noted that the resulting virtuality remains only partially observable within the play itself. It is characterized by an absence within the observational situation and is accessible to the child only through performance or as a later memory. Ethnographic observations of children’s play with such figures, as well as interviews with children about play situations and play behavior, indicate that while elements from familiar narratives are indeed reenacted (‘playing history’), there is also a strong tendency to further develop the played past itself (‘playing in history’). This process may involve losing oneself in the emerging historical situation or, triggered by the expanded possibilities within the entanglement of actants, creating entirely new scenarios (Kühberger 2024, 194). Such a form of virtuality is characterized by the fact that many of the material aspects emerging within the play do not exist in reality. While the incorporation of wooden blocks or fabric scraps, which take on new meanings in play, may still be observable, the ‘transformation’ of materiality itself—such as cotton becoming silk or brocade—escapes the observer’s eye. Yet, within virtuality, it takes shape, just like other absent elements that virtually expand the scenario. Thus, materiality and virtuality mutually refer to each other even within play, each being essential to the play experience and supporting one another in a productive relationship.
Drawing on the concept of ‘double distance’ by art historian David Summer (2003, 338), one can assume that the historical and pop-cultural engagement with knight play figures—referred to in English as small world figures—can be understood as a network of relationships in which the abstraction and materiality of the concrete objects implicitly influence the player, ‘to respond to them both as material objects in actual space and as representations of a virtual world’ (Plotz 2018, 9). As Jochen Lange notes, ‘objects do not stand in an authoritarian relationship to humans, but neither are they arbitrarily open to reinterpretation.’ (Lange 2017, 11) In James J. Gibson’s (1977) terms, the affordance inscribed in the objects underpins both perception and the available action possibilities within play, predisposing particular modes of entanglement within virtuality. However, it is likely the not-yet-fully-determined interstitial space between human and object (Heuer 2021, 49) that ultimately creates some room for the construction of virtuality as a conceptual functional entity. This virtuality typically unfolds through a narrative, generating a seemingly existent world within the play experience.
On the Practice of ‘Virtualization’ in Historical Culture
In the early 21st century, the concept of virtuality has been so profoundly absorbed by the realm of digitalization that its relevance to history education—particularly in relation to engagements with Geschichtsdinge—is often overlooked. By drawing on earlier discourses in the humanities (Weber 2024), it becomes possible to describe and explain contemporary phenomena that unfold beyond the influence of the digital world. It is evident that such interactions between objects and humans occur not only in the context of children’s play but also in the everyday lives of adults—for example, when they surround themselves with memorabilia from their youth, heirlooms from relatives, or purchased antiques. The virtuality generated in these encounters inevitably contributes to the formation of ideas about the past. However, this phenomenon remains largely unexplored, as it predominantly takes place in informal, often private settings. By turning our attention to encounters with objects in our world—objects that both invite interaction and simultaneously trigger self-willed constructions of the past as virtuality—we can open new perspectives on a largely overlooked dimension of historical culture within society.
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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Christoph Kühberger (June 26, 2025). Entangled in Virtuality – The Triggering Effect of Materialized History. VIRMA. Retrieved July 19, 2025 from https://virma.hypotheses.org/1569