Western Australia: Land and People - bringing an existing award winning exhibition to the internet.

This is the largest (over 25GB processed down to 20Mb), and dare we say the best exhibition site you will find on the internet, created entirely in Flash MX.

Created for the Western Australian Museum, this project included many of Flash MX’s new features, delivering audio, video, animation, text, and sharing resources between multiple SWF files.

The crowning glory of the product is the inclusion of commentary by the curators themselves, giving an insight into the exhibition that can’t be found anywhere else.

Go see it!

Behind the scenes

The Western Australian Museum and the Glasson Murray Group have reinterpreted the award-winning Western Australia: Land and People exhibition especially for internet delivery to remote and regional visitors, also providing additional complimentary material not otherwise available.

“One of the best things about the Land and People project was for the first time people from across the Museum came together to work on a single gallery,” said Mathew Trinca, Virtual Exhibition Co-ordinator.

The exhibition covered nine themes ranging from pre-history to the future of the state, and drew on the expertise of the Museum staff from the social and natural sciences. The diversity of media and artefacts displayed within the exhibition offered plenty of opportunity to play with the interactive presentation of elements.

Special treatment was given to key elements: “Tjukurrpa” in “First Peoples” interactively zooms to key details within the shelter; “Carnotaurus sastrei” in “Origins” is accompanied by a cretaceous soundtrack; “The Gallery Wall” in “Swan River Colony” is an active panorama that presents high resolution images of specimens and pictures. There are small surprises dotted throughout the exhibition.

“When we started this project,” Paul Glasson, GMG co-founder, recalls, “we were given a personal tour of the exhibition by Mat. His excitement for the material was so infectious that we wanted to capture it, from each of the curators, for the multimedia version.” The virtual exhibition contains over 40 minutes of commentary from six of the Museum’s curators.

Other digital media was specially captured by Darren Mok, the Western Australian Museum’s Web Project Manager, enabling visitors to explore artefacts that were otherwise protected behind glass. Key new media include object VR studies and photography of dioramas from the physical exhibition.

As the virtual exhibition was nearing completion, there was still something missing from the physical experience of a museum visit: where were the Museum’s experienced Guides?

“In developing the Guided Tour,” explains Tim Murray, GMG co-founder, “we wanted the visitor to sit back, relax, and enjoy the exhibition without forcing them to interact with it. This has proven to be a popular introduction because people may pause the tour at any time to go exploring, and the tour will still be waiting for them when they get back!”

Developed entirely in Macromedia’s Flash MX, this project utilised many of Flash MX’s best features, delivering audio, video, animation, and text in an engaging and educational presentation. Sharing resources between 360 Flash Movie files enabled the delivery of 19 megabytes of content without significant delays – even over a modem.

The virtual exhibition was officially launched 25 July 2003 by The Hon. Sheila McHale MLA, Minister for Community Development, Women’s Interests, Seniors and Youth; Disability Services; Culture and the Arts, and was made possible with the generous support of Lotterywest.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2003 at 7:47 am and is filed under News, Website. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.