Sydney Living Museums
Hyde Park Barracks Exhibition – Surveillance

Photo. Andrew van der Westhuyzen

Bringing history to life, the Hyde Park Barracks Museum renewal project centres on telling a significant part of Australia’s convict story, its impact on First Nations people and the site’s early contribution to immigration.

Collider was engaged to create three distinctive displays as part of the exhibition experience.

One of three displays is the Surveillance animation. Designed to mimic the Hyde Park Barracks’ original ‘Squint’ holes from the 1800s, which allowed the overseers to check up on convicts, the installation is viewed through an intimate peep-hole style viewing device, looking through to a digital screen.

The physical installation, coupled with a screen-based 3d animation, with camera angles within the screen sequences that were designed to feel voyeuristic and observational, gives a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ feeling to the observer.

The animation was created in Unity as a real-time, game engine style world. Surveillance was also created to have changeability and dynamic variation between viewings so if the viewer watched a number of times or came back they may notice different elements.

Town settings and character and costume designs were meticulously designed to represent the personality of the historically accurate people represented in paintings and documentation from the 1800s.

Character performances and movement were created using motion capture techniques giving nuances and realistic human movement to the characters.

Photo. Andrew van der Westhuyzen

Medium. Experience
Client. Sydney Living Museums
Title. Hyde Park Barracks Exhibition – Surveillance

Bringing history to life, the Hyde Park Barracks Museum renewal project centres on telling a significant part of Australia’s convict story, its impact on First Nations people and the site’s early contribution to immigration.

The Hyde Park Barracks was built to house and control male convicts. These men had enjoyed the run of the town. Convicts were accommodated in rows of hammocks two feet in breadth and seven feet in length with each row separated by three feet. During the next 30 years, the barracks came to represent the horrors and drudgery of convict life.

In 1848 the building became temporary accommodation and a hiring office for thousands of girls and women seeking a new life in the colony. From the 1860s it was also a place of care and refuge in the flourishing city for older, sick and poor women.

Almost 100,000 people – convicts, immigrants and asylum inmates – passed through the Hyde Park Barracks. Between 1979 and 1984, archaeologists uncovered a treasure trove of over 120,000 artefacts that had been trapped beneath the floors and below the ground for up to 160 years.

Collider was engaged to create three distinctive displays as part of the exhibition experience.

One of three displays is the Surveillance animation. Designed to mimic the Hyde Park Barracks’ original ‘Squint’ holes from the 1800s, which allowed the overseers to check up on convicts, the installation is viewed through an intimate peep-hole style viewing device, looking through to a digital screen.

The physical installation, coupled with a screen-based 3d animation, with camera angles within the screen sequences that were designed to feel voyeuristic and observational, gives a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ feeling to the observer.

The animation was created in Unity as a real-time, game engine style world. Surveillance was also created to have changeability and dynamic variation between viewings so if the viewer watched a number of times or came back they may notice different elements. Whilst the individual stories unfold, small details randomly change, such as the numbers and movement of rats or different props on display; to more noticeable visual elements such as the weather being wet and stormy or dry.

Town settings and character and costume designs were meticulously designed to represent the personality of the historically accurate people represented in paintings and documentation from the 1800s.

Character performances and movement were created using motion capture techniques giving nuances and realistic human movement to the characters. This draws the viewer into the scene as if they are there and makes a personal connection with the characters, who fight, escape, steal, get drunk and end up locked back up in the harsh conditions of the Barracks.