Audio/visual is so much a part of the modus operandi of so many exhibit designers that it might sometimes seem usual. It could be that it’s become a signature approach to solving an exhibit problem – you see and hear a certain kind of A/V and you’ve got a good idea whose shop it came from. Or it could be that clients just want lights and sound to feel like they’ve got an exhibit that will really stand out.

But what about using audio/visual technology to enhance design flexibility? That’s where an exhibit’s effectiveness can really be enhanced.

“The best [A/V] applications are ... far less blatant and more supportive,” said Don Mackenzie, president of Stop & Listen, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which manufactures message repeating and handset equipment used in exhibits.

“In the case of a museum, if it provides context, audio can transform whole settings because audio has an impact. I can only think on one track. Some people don’t mind all kinds of things going on.”

It is important, he said, to use audio with care. He gave two examples, one that was not effective and one that was effective in point-of-purchase displays. In the first instance, a company used message repeaters with the voice of Foghorn Leghorn, the rooster from the Bugs Bunny cartoons, at its gas pumps to tell them about the $29.99 brake special. “What happened was that [most] people pumping their gas liked it; you’d watch them laugh. All it took [to doom the approach] was a couple of irate people who came in and ... almost grabbed the person by the collar to stop it because it interrupted them.”

The more effective approach was both simpler and more subtle. A repeater was used in a beer display. The marketing of the beer was tied to auto racing. When a customer would open the door to get a pack of beer, the sound of a race car whizzing past played. It was, he said, very effective. “But if you have a message that says, ‘Be sure to buy ...’ you’ll lose them.”

The approach was subtle and didn’t interrupt the buyer from the task at hand.

“It almost clouds the experience if there’s too much there. In a retail setting you want to condition a consumer that when they look at [for example] jeans they experience this rose scented air and salt air in the breeze,” Mackenzie said.

He notes that the style of the viewer/listener is important in the audio/visual approach that is used. For example, he posits that there are three types of visitors to a zoo or museum: the streaker, the stroller and the scholar. The streaker, he explained, is interested in the visual and wants to see as much content as possible. It’s the person who moves quickly through a gallery, absorbing as many items as possible.

Strollers will spend a lot of time in one area and will read what is interesting and skip quite a bit.

Scholars spend the most time, reading and seeing everything – as in reading every word and studying every object.

The solution to serving the needs of such diverse visitors, he said, is for exhibits and their audio/visual to have a kind of menu available so visitors with different learning styles can get what they want.

“It takes pretty good programming,” he said. “If you can send those streakers home with two or three interesting points [you’ve succeeded]. They just want to skim the menu and don’t even want to try the meal.”

The technical approach to audio/visual can be critical in its effectiveness, he said. Nowadays that frequently means visitors need to have some control over their audio/visual experience.

For example, in a retail environment that uses a display with audio/visual and, “God forbid, has a motion sensor that starts with some message, you’ll be surprised how quickly people will back away. We tried it on a golf course. We had a sign that said to press a button to hear a message from the greens’ keeper and only a couple would touch it and then they’d back away.

“The programming is it,” he said. “With things like hand-held tours and antennae programming, people don’t have to care about the technology as long as the content is appropriate.”

Mark Fowle with Signal-Innova, Signal Hill, CA, an interactive exhibit specialist, said that adding audio/visual to an exhibit makes it more dynamic and interesting, but adding interactivity to A/V can take the exhibit to a higher level.

“Interactivity engages visitors,” he said, “thus converting them from passive to active participants. Interactivity at its most basic level involves choice.”

And that’s in line with Mackenzie’s view.

Signal-Innova’s Exhibits Alive! line with interactive audio/visual (IAV) technology, gives visitors choice. The line’s most popular unit, the FlashAudio 16M, provides for up to eight input devices such as pushbuttons or sensors for triggering up to eight sound segments. A similar stereo unit further enhances such capabilities.

Cylde Peeling’s Reptiland, a zoo in Allenwood, PA, specializing in reptiles and amphibians, had Signal-Innova set its unit to play different animal sounds when a visitor pushed the respective buttons. In addition, the visitor was also allowed to conduct an animal chorus – probably both fun and educational.

Signal-Innova’s FlashAudio 16M is at the core of a modular IAV system which provides increasing levels of capabilities, complexity and flexibility. A relay option allows for the activation of external devices such as lamps or motors when the audio channels are triggered. At the next level, a show controller enables the exhibit designer to turn external devices on and off at designated points within sound segments. Next, Signal-Innova’s Sights & Sounds controller adds programmed interactivity to the FlashAudio unit to support game play and more complex functions.

The FlashAudio 16M with Sights & Sounds was recently selected by design/build firm Murphy Catton Inc. in Kentucky for a children’s museum project. Signal-Innova was asked to provide an audio interactive which would play nursery rhyme with the press of a button, then when the child switches a giant gear and presses the button again, the rhyme is read backwards or other ridiculous ways. The company has a demonstration at:

http://www.signal-innova.com/moreinfo/prtfolio/MCI/Ridiculous.html.

One advantage to this kind of technology is that audio content can be changed quickly and easily because it uses flash memory cards (the same types used in digital cameras) to store audio and video files. Digital A/V files are quickly transferred from computer to card via inexpensive reader/writers, then swapped out as exhibit needs change.

Catalina Island Museum, for example, uses this technique to update its interactive video exhibit, which runs on Signal-Innova’s FlashVideo PB unit. Following the devastating Catalina fires in May 2007, the Museum quickly assembled a video exhibit with news footage, photos by residents and thank you messages to firefighters, as shown at:

http://www.signal-innova.com/moreinfo/prtfolio /Catalina/CATALINA3.html.

The Los Angeles Maritime Museum, where a number of Signal-Innova’s interactive A/V units have been installed, uses this same process to change the ambient audio for each new special exhibit. Popular old surfing music set the mood for a special exhibit on surfing last year.

A recent application of IAV technology is its use in filling in for staff or even exhibit subjects when they are not present.

At the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, Signal-Innova’s FlashVideo PB units serve as “video docents” to tell stories relating to railroading exhibits. The video images play constantly, but the sound is off until motion sensors detect the presence of visitors. Upon activation, the video restarts with the audio turned on. This IAV set-up preserves the dynamics of video, reduces audio pollution for staff while creating a personalized viewing experience for the visitor.

At the Smithsonian National Zoo, a Signal-Innova FlashAudio unit speaks up for white-cheeked gibbons, whose sweet serenade bonds couples and establishes their territory. Although the gibbon call can last up to a half hour, the apes do not perform them on demand. Rather than have the visitor leave the ape habitat disappointed, the Zoo set up an interactive station where visitors can touch the weatherproof panel to start the serenade. A demonstration is located at:

http://www.signal-innova.com/moreinfo/prtfolio/ Smithsonian/NZooAudio.html.

Flash memory players, unlike CDs and DVDs, have no moving parts and are smaller and more easily accommodated in exhibit spaces that may be limited. As the technology becomes more widespread, IAV prices become more affordable even for the smallest museum, the company said.

Signal-Innova recently introduced what it said is its most economical and most compact audio player (FlashAudio SI), which offers single-input triggering and video player (FlashVideo DV), which can also be push button activated.

The company provides support to its clients not only in hardware systems planning but also in preparing audio and video files. Signal-Innova also offers exhibit graphic design and production services for clients when needed.

And every once in a while there’s an exhibit that truly affects lives. Martha Yaney of Vista Group International, Norwalk, CT, noted that many states and cities have “Heart Galleries” that help place hard-to-adopt children. The organizers have local photographers take portraits of the children and local framers frame them. The children are then recorded talking about what they would wish for in their “forever families.”

The Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, FL, installed the Vista Group International’s SoundStiks next to each photo with the children’s recordings played through the stick. “They reported to us that interest in becoming an adoptive family doubled. Every six months or so they refresh the exhibit and put new stories on the SoundStiks.”

In addition to SoundStiks, Vista Group International is a supplier of digital message repeaters, programmable logic controllers, audio guidance systems and FM tour guide systems, and provides scriptwriting, translation and recording services.

So while a client may just want audio/visual technology in an exhibit, the technology itself – along with the exhibit designer’s natural gifts and acquired knowledge – can really make it something the client needs to be effective. eb