8 December 2003
Blockbuster films on a dozen big screens, a new website, interactive games and a do-it-yourself movie studio all help visitors to the National Museum of Australia's new Outlawed! exhibition achieve the ultimate museum multimedia experience.
Outlawed! builds on the National Museum's reputation as a multimedia leader, exploring the stories of the world's rebels, revolutionaries and bushrangers through interactives and the latest X-box game.
The exhibition boasts fully integrated multimedia using more than 150 devices over a dedicated network. The centrepiece studio has four green screens, where visitors star in a film on different outlaw sets.
'We're taking visitors on a journey beyond the basic museum experience, encouraging them to explore their own areas of interest, as well as taking home their own movie as an Aussie bushranger, Mexican revolutionary, a Wild West train robber or a Japanese ninja,' says the Museum's Information and Communications Technology director Darren Peacock.
Vision from more than 35 films is used in the exhibition to illustrate our obsession with the world's outlaws and to show how their legends have been made by popular culture.
In keeping with the Federal Government's Backing Australia's Ability initiative to support Australia's innovative digital content producers, the Museum worked with companies across Australia to develop exhibition interactives also accessible beyond Canberra via the web.
Visitors are asked to make their verdict on the guilt of six outlaws after considering cases for the prosecution and defence, and historic witness statements, in a unique interactive developed by Kaleidio Interactive in Melbourne.
Other features developed by Canberra-based Zoo Communication and Isnt Media on the Gold Coast allow visitors and web users to read and hear the 40-page transcription of Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter; and to access detailed information on the exhibition's 22 outlaws.
The exhibition also includes a teen zone with three X-box consoles running the new video game, Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown; and a 3D analysis of armour belonging to Kelly Gang member Joe Byrne. The detailed reconstruction puts visitors inside the virtual armour.
Outlawed!, presented by Lockwood, also includes more than 500 objects sourced from nine countries. The exhibition is on show at the National Museum in Canberra until 26 April 2004, before travelling to Melbourne and Brisbane later next year.
For interviews and more information please contact Public Affairs Director Martin Portus on (02) 6208 5351, 0409 916 481 or m.portus@nma.gov.au
The National Museum of Australia is an Australian Government Agency