ACMI’s Wonderland Exhibition’s tech win
The ‘Wonderland’ exhibition was a big hit for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in 2018. The spectacular experience took visitors on a journey of Alice’s adventures in the story with the aid of ground-breaking special effects and animation, thanks to the latest technology from Panasonic and creative expertise from several partners.
The entirely original experiential exhibition charts the cultural, technological and societal shifts that have compelled artists, filmmakers and fans to return to these tales again and again since the birth of cinema.
Katrina Sedgwick, CEO and Director of ACMI, said: “We wanted to bring to life the way that CGI is built layer upon layer, and decided the best way to do this would be to create a blank canvas of a ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ and projection map an entire room – slowly building up images to create a unique experience.”
ACMI partnered with Panasonic to create tailored technology solutions which would complement Wonderland’s multi-channel video synchronised immersive experience. The exhibition illustrates ACMI’s ongoing fascination with new visual technologies and the role of the moving image to make the impossible seem possible.
TEA TIME
The ‘Tea Party’ room was always going to be the standout for ACMI and its visitors, and Panasonic was tasked with providing solutions to enable the room to be fully projected and provide visitors with unexpected content and an unforgettable experience. Many visitors already knew the story of Alice in Wonderland, so it was crucial for ACMI to provide a visual phenomenon to create a ‘digital twist’ on this old classic.
Glen Willey, Senior Exhibition Technician, ACMI said: “We used Panasonic because their equipment is so reliable and we know exactly what we’re getting when we get it out of the box. Even in the early design stages, they provided us with testing equipment that we hadn’t used before and it meant the whole process was seamless.”
Wonderland was a huge hit in no small part to the reliability and performance of the technology, something ACMI curator Jess Bram is more than happy to acknowledge: “Working with Panasonic has been incredible and they have really helped us bring our ideas to life. They have offered every visitor the unique opportunity to sit at the ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Table’, and our fully-projected room has defied expectations for a museum.”
ACMI: acmi.net.au
Panasonic: panasonic.com.au