Working with the curatorial team at the Yelde Hall in Chippenham, Heritage Multimedia Limited has designed and installed an exhibition that reconstructs a meeting of the town council during the 14th century.

The exhibition uses audio and lighting to recreate a debate between five different characters. Using a series of buttons mounted on an engraved steel panel, the visitor can choose to listen to individual introductions to each of the characters or to a debate between all of them recreated from the minutes of an actual historical meeting. The system is programmed to light the button that the visitor has selected during playback of the audio and trigger a light to illuminate the character that is speaking.

The Yelde hall is a listed building and the exhibition space is in a first floor location. Due to restrictions on alterations to the building, the exhibition also includes the innovative use of camera systems, augmented with interpretive content, to enable disabled visitors to access the exhibition space.

From the ground floor, the visitor is able to access a high definition colour CCTV camera located within the council chamber. The visitor can manipulate the movement of the camera to explore all aspects of the chamber. The quality of the camera enables visitors to access higher levels of detail than they would in the viewing space itself. However, the key benefit of the system is the software’s ability to track where the visitor is looking and to automatically provide interpretive information based on the objects, characters and area of the room that the visitor is studying. This information is provided in a variety of formats, including text, images and audio, also provided through an induction loop.

Visitors can also access the audio from the chamber from the kiosk. They can also watch a dramatised version of the debate created using pre-programmed movements of the camera synchronised to the audio soundtrack. The exhibit has proved incredibly popular with all visitors and has become a key interpretive resource for the chamber.

Heritage Multimedia managed the production of all graphics, audiovisual displays and interpretive content alongside the team from the council. The exhibition was designed, built and installed within a tightly controlled budget and was opened to coincide with a major publicity drive with the council visitor services.