Art Processors, the experiential design consultancy, has provided insight into the work and design ethics behind Decoded: 75 Years of the Australian Signals Directorate, its latest exhibition to open at the National Museum of Australia.
The new display about the Australian Signals Directorate, or ASD, coincides with its anniversary and growing presence in the country, as it works for the first time directly with individuals and businesses to counter cyber threats and not just officials such as the government.
Senior content developer at Art Processors, Kate Chmiel says: “It is amazing that you can call this top-secret organisation for advice because your emails have been hacked.”
The ASD has to deal with a wide range of technology in the modern age, whether they operate on 3G, 4G, 5G or wi-fi, are a phone, watch, key fob or medical device. Chmiel details the dilemma: “It’s a cacophony of sound, and with so much of it being encrypted, even my dinner plans, how can the agency focus on what to decode?” The Decoded exhibition aims to answer just some of these questions.
Team effort
Art Processors’ team consisting of designers, developers, directors and project managers embarked on end-to-end development for the exhibition, including design, build, content development and software production. “In the concept phase, we worked together to look at the whole experience very holistically, taking into account the entire visitor journey,” says Art Processors project director, Jamie Houge.
The concept and content were curated to match the organisation’s motto of Reveal their secrets. Protect our own.
Houge adds: “To match that vision, we wanted to create a process of investigation, discovery and decoding.” The result is an exhibition that doesn’t follow a status quo of text paragraphs and static displays – instead, visitors are given an interactive and immersive experience that engages them in the agency’s work, as they actively reveal every piece of information throughout the space.
“It’s very subtle – move your body or step into a symbol projected on the floor and it activates audio narratives and videos or lights up objects displayed within darkened showcases.
“…and it’s theatrical,” adds colleague and senior exhibition designer Jax Plumley, “When you intercept, content comes alive.”
Immersive experience
From the second visitors enter the gallery, they are immersed in the world of spies through a glowing red-to-green airlock. The immersion is continuous, throughout the monochromatic space, which is primarily black and uses primary colours sparingly for emphasis. Getting the balance right was of key importance: “We didn’t want it to feel scary and otherworldly – It’s mysterious rather than intimidating,” notes Plumley.
A lot of history has been curated into a small space, starting with ASD’s origins in World War II, to the Cold War, the Five Eyes partnership, post-9/11, and the most up-to-date challenges such as cybercrimes.
At the exhibition’s heart, a ceiling-height digital cipher wheel towers over guests with codewords trickling down. The clear setup means people can move around the gallery at their leisure without missing any crucial information.
“We didn’t want people to walk in and see everything at once like you might if the gallery was bright and painted white. The colour palette and lighting draw visitors’ attention to objects and information at the right moments as they move through the gallery and uncover content.”
Game on
To help immerse visitors into the ASD environment, Art Processors developed a multiplayer game for Decoded. The firm was responsible for all aspects of the activity including ideation, testing, logic construction, UI and installation.
Houge says: “We wanted to create an accessible way of conveying a sense of the complexity of the intelligence work, but we also had to keep in mind the diversity of visitors. We are talking about everyone from highly knowledgeable intelligence agents to regular museumgoers with little prior understanding of the ASD.
“The game is really accurate and incorporates details and jargon for the experts, but it works for everyone else, too, by involving them in an action-packed story.”
Keeping secrets safe
Three-quarters of a century in, the ASD is finally celebrated with the opening of this unique exhibition. “Naturally, there is lots of sign off and checks with everything, but the challenge was to make sure we still made each story really rich,” Houge comments.
With an exhibition of this nature, not everything is privy to public knowledge: “There is a moment we kept in the video edit, where an interviewee says, ‘Oh, I’d like to talk about that but I can’t.’ It sparks curiosity of course, but what it really demonstrates is quite how privileged the exhibition information is.”
Chmiel carried out many of the interviews displayed at Decoded, and concludes: “Operatives are so used to being behind the scenes but all the interviewees revealed who they are as well as what they do, which is so important in engaging storytelling.”
Last year, Art Processors worked on another project celebrating Australian heritage, leading the $15m creative transformation of the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame at the Outback Visitor Centre.
