‘Intelligence Centre’ is an interactive themed as a military command and control desk designed to elicit visitors’ personal responses to the artworks on display.

‘Intelligence Centre’ holds no predetermined interpretive content, instead a series of questions are designed to guide visitors through an exploration of conflict and resolution inspired by the two artworks in the gallery.

‘Intelligence Centre’ reads each question to the visitor using text to speech software deliberately chosen to deliver the audio in a robotic computer generated voice, representative of the Rock Drill (on display in the gallery). Using text to speech software also enabled questions to be easily trialled and modified over time.

The visitor then responds to the question by writing directly onto a screen. The response is analysed by handwriting recognition software and read back to the visitor, using the text to speech software, to confirm their entry. The questions are designed so that as the visitor answers them the interactive builds up a structured personal response to the artworks.

Having completed the questions the visitor is asked for ‘Permission to Fire’. The visitor presses the fire button and their words are ejected, in rapid succession, over a tannoy system into the gallery; recreating the vitriolic nature of the Tracy Emin artwork (on display in the gallery). During this broadcast ‘Intelligence Centre’ produces a printout providing the visitor with a record of their response in the context of each question and in relation to the work of the artists.

The responses of all visitors giving ‘Permission to Fire’ are stored in a database and displayed as objects on the radar screen. Selecting an object allows visitors to listen to their entry again, or experience the perspective of another visitor.

Heritage Multimedia is working in partnership with the Tate at a range of art galleries around England supporting the Visual Dialogues project. Visual Dialogues is funded by the Government Department of Culture Media and Sport under their Strategic Commissioning programme, which is designed to facilitate partnership working between national and regional museums and galleries in order to enrich educational experiences for children and young people and encourage the involvement of new audiences.

'Fantastic project, really professional interactive and display – well done!'

'I enjoyed the interactive thing – it did encourage us to think about connections and the vulnerability inherent in the Rock Drill piece. I also saw the blanket in a different way when asked to think about it representing Emin’s shouts – rather than a piece about hate dressed up as ‘pretty’.'

'Volatile visual display of thoughts, great impact.'

'Very cool, makes you think about your life.'