Eureka Touchtables

Overview
This ten-screen multitouch interactive portrays the events surrounding the Eureka Stockade and its impact on the idea of democracy in Australia. It forms an important part of the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka in Ballarat.

A seamless, gradually-changing landscape extends across all the screens, incorporating a series of animated collages constructed from a combination of historical and architectural images, portraits, objects, and collection management photographs.

Visitors can interact with the collages to find out more, read about what it was like on the Ballarat goldfields, examine historical documents and diaries, and play with interactive elements such as darting flocks of birds and waving grass.

Lightwell also created a 'Twitter ball' on the final touchscreen, where visitors can use an onscreen keyboard to respond to a question about the Stockade posed by the curator of the museum, and see their response become part of a browsable ball of responses by other guests. Each response is then pushed to a Twitter account created and maintained by M.A.D.E.