A virtual fly through video, released today, gives a sneak peek of the Victorian Government's $34.8 million investment into ACMI. One of the country's most progressive cultural icons, Australia's museum of film, TV, videogames, digital culture and video art is the most visited moving image museum in the world.

As part of the new design, the interior of ACMI's Fed Square home has been stripped back to reveal a spacious, light-filled interior. Designed by Melbourne architectural firm BKK Architects, construction company Built has begun work on the new spaces. Inside the building, emerging technologies and transformative architecture will combine to create a globally connected museum of the future.

Filled with warm and inviting public spaces, visitors entering from Fed Square plaza will be welcomed by a light-filled foyer that opens to a staircase leading up to the cinemas. The museum's escalators will be replaced with an urban staircase – a comfortable dwell space that acts as both a meeting spot and the main connection between Fed Square and lower Flinders Street gallery levels. 

The sneak preview also includes a look inside the new permanent moving image exhibition currently being curated by ACMI staff and designed by experiential design studio Second Story. The free exhibition celebrates the moving image in all its forms, from the earliest days of film to mixed reality and beyond. The exhibition is will entertain hundreds of thousands of local, national and international visitors each year.

A prominent feature of the new exhibition will be a tribute to the Australian road movie: a car that is half Mad Max Interceptor, half Bush Mechanics ingenuity. Created in Newcastle by Fury Road car designer, Cameron Manewell, the Interceptor highlights Mad Max director George Miller's contribution to Australian film. In stark contrast, the stunning Bush Mechanics car, created by Melbourne based production house Rebel Films and painted onsite in the Northern Territory by Yuendumu artists Thomas Jangala Rice and Francis Jupurrula Kelly, represents the hit reality TV series of the same name. Together, the two opposing halves of the car contrast a dystopian fictional world with the ingenuity and creativity of Indigenous Australia and the reality of life in Aboriginal Central Australia. 

The new ACMI will debut the Lens, a world-first piece of technology that will provide a deeper level of engagement for visitors. The Lens is a portable device that visitors can use to collect information throughout the exhibition. Based on the classic Viewmaster design, the Lens also activates a large-scale digital activation within the exhibition called the Constellation.

Another key interactive moment of the new exhibition is the Foley room, where visitors can create their own soundtrack and sound effects. Elsewhere in the building the Media Preservation Lab will provide a window into ACMI's previously unseen film and digital media preservation process, highlighting ACMI's vast archive of film, videogames and digital art and allowing visitors to see the preservation team at work.

The video also previews the state-of-the-art Gandel Digital Future Labs, designed to increase digital literacy in a time of fake news and equip the next generation of moving image makers with hands-on learning experiences. 

The new ACMI will open mid-2020.

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLDNQTHjlOo&feature=youtu.be

Quotes attributable to ACMI Director & CEO Katrina Sedgwick:

“This renewal will enable ACMI to deliver a visitor experience that is immersive, interactive and illuminating. We will challenge and delight our visitors with a journey through the moving images that define our age.”

“We are thrilled that the Victorian Government is acknowledging ACMI's role in driving Victoria's reputation as the home of innovation and creativity through this important investment.”