whitlam institute 2013

whitlam institute, university of western sydney

Whitlam Instutute, University of Western Sydney
Exhibition designers Freeman Ryan Design invited me to work with them to develop and deliver multimedia elements for a permanent exhibition about former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam.

Projection Screen
The main gallery space features a 3.3m wide projection screen for display of a looping 20 minute montage of archival film and photography. The sequence presents documentary footage relating to the themes of the exhibition and helps to create a sense of the important social changes of the Whitlam Government era (1972-75).

iPad Interactives
Working with longtime collaborator Robert St Clair (software developer), I created five different iPad interactives for the exhibition. The iPads are mounted alongside showcase displays of objects and documents, providing visitors a means to expore hundreds of documents including speeches, letters, reports, memos and photographs.

I designed the interface, created the content elements and populated the interactives, and Robert developed the custom html/css/jquery software engine backend.

Speeches Selector
We created an interactive audio project where teachers and gallery staff can use a handheld bluetooth device to select and play various important speeches made by Gough Whitlam.

In ‘default’ mode, a camera watches for motion in the gallery space, and commences playback of a speech when a visitor enters the room.