Galactic Sweeper: Creating an Immersive Ride Experience for Our Moon: Then, Now & Beyond

Project: Galactic Sweeper
Exhibition: Our Moon: Then, Now & Beyond
Location: Puke Ariki Museum, New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand
Dates: 7 December 2024 – 4 May 2025
Role: Digital lead, creative direction, video production, compositing, animation, interactive media, technical delivery
Curator: Lucy MacFarlane
Collaborators: Lucy MacFarlane, Rosie Moyes, Callum Williamson, Puke Ariki curatorial and exhibitions teams
Media: Multi-screen video installation, voiceover, spatial audio, haptic seat effects, exhibition interactives
Methods / Tools: Script development, digital compositing, animation, sound editing, multi-screen media design, exhibition technology, rapid prototyping

Immersive multi-screen video, spatial audio, haptic effects, and exhibition storytelling for a family-focused “space ride” experience developed as a site-specific enhancement to Puke Ariki’s major summer exhibition.

As part of Puke Ariki Museum’s presentation of Our Moon: Then, Now & Beyond, I worked with the exhibition and curatorial teams to develop additional digital and interactive content that would expand the visitor experience for the museum’s temporary gallery. The touring exhibition, originally developed by Nelson Provincial Museum, explored humanity’s relationship with the Moon across past, present, and future perspectives, with a four-metre illuminated lunar orb by British artist Luke Jerram as its major centrepiece. At Puke Ariki, the exhibition ran from 7 December 2024 to 4 May 2025 in the Downstairs Gallery.

Because this was Puke Ariki’s major summer exhibition, the team wanted to create an additional experience that would capture the imagination of families and younger visitors while complementing the existing exhibition. This led to a collaborative brainstorming process involving front-of-house staff, exhibitions, curators, and digital. It was one of the first times the museum had approached an exhibition enhancement in such a holistic way, drawing on different areas of staff expertise to develop ideas around audience engagement, flow, interpretation, and play.

The most ambitious concept to emerge from this process was Galactic Sweeper, an immersive “space ride” experience inspired by the theatrical language of theme park attractions, particularly Disney’s Star Tours. The idea was to create a short, self-contained journey that would make visitors feel as though they were boarding a spacecraft and travelling through a playful, cinematic lunar adventure. It was an intentionally bold concept for a museum gallery: part digital installation, part ride simulator, part family-friendly storytelling experience.

I acted as the digital lead and director for the project, working closely with Lucy Macfarlane and the exhibitions team to shape the concept, script, story structure, production workflow, and final visitor experience. The project had an unusually compressed production window of around two weeks, which required rapid decision-making, clear creative direction, and a practical workflow that could move from idea to installed experience very quickly

The production process involved developing the narrative concept, drafting and testing the script, recording a temporary voice read, then arranging a professional voiceover recording for the final experience. I created the video content, compositing, animation, and digital effects, building a multi-screen visual sequence designed to play across four separate displays inside the Galactic Sweeper structure. The visual language needed to feel dynamic, playful, and immersive while staying achievable within the timeframe and technical constraints of the installation.

Storyboard concept artwork for Galactic Sweeper

A key challenge was synchronisation. The experience combined video across four screens, professionally recorded narration, music and sound effects, multiple speaker outputs, and seat vibration units that created a haptic response for visitors. The final media needed to be timed so the visual effects, audio cues, spatial sound, and physical vibration worked together as a single experience. This required careful editing, testing, export preparation, and coordination with the exhibition build.

The result was a fast-turnaround digital installation that became one of the most memorable and popular features of the exhibition. Galactic Sweeper gave the gallery a high-energy centrepiece for families and children, helping extend the touring exhibition into something more site-specific, playful, and immersive for Puke Ariki audiences.

This project reflects my ability to work across creative direction, digital production, storytelling, exhibition technology, and project delivery under pressure. It also demonstrates a recurring focus in my museum work: using digital media not as an add-on, but as a way to create memorable visitor experiences that connect interpretation, emotion, play, and technical execution.