The Ringling Circus Museum

Exploring 50 years of the Feld family era that reinvented the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

We worked with exhibition designers, Cultural Innovations to design the AV software interventions in the gallery. This included developing the AV software concepts from inception to a fully realised visual and content narrative spilt across 4 thematic zones in the gallery.

Zone 1 introduces visitors to the Feld family where a linear film using archive material shows significant changes the family made to the circus up to the closure in 2017. An ambient soundscape gives the impression of arrival.

Zone 2 has media on overhead screens that reveal behind-the-scenes preparation and rehearsal.

4 gesture-based interactives using Leap Motion devices allow visitors to explore a database of images of acts from the entire 50-year Feld era.

On the home screen, visitors part the Ringling red entrance curtain to reveal a carousel of 4 themes in a 3D circus ring setting.

When visitors select a theme, they get a fun and playful 3D interaction of a famous act from that category before accessing a menu of content.

Visitors can scroll through decades and content by swiping left to right to select acts they’re interested in to reveal photographs, short video clips and contextual information.

In Zone 3, ‘The Show’ is an immersive and abstract recreation of acts from the Ringling Circus. It is 10m wide and 4m high on a curve around the back of the gallery wall and incorporates lighting, setworks, projection and 3D sound to recreate a circus show in an abstract form. 

Footage from some of the final shows from the Feld Archive are projection mapped onto the 180-degree gauze projection screen. Behind the gauze are 5 mannequins wearing iconic costumes related to each act.

One at a time, the individual costumes are lit for a few moments, lighting slowly fades as a projection of a performer in that costume appears, and the projection takes over the entire screen to show the performance related to that act.

The projection builds from the intimate to awe-inspiring, showcasing the detail, drama and elegance of a particular individual performance, revealing the scale and grandeur of major parts of the show, and finally reveals all the costumes at the end.

A 3D soundscape plays out of 12 speakers, and creates an immersive atmosphere as though the visitor is actually in a real circus performance.  The visitor can’t see the audience but feels as if they’re in it; a cheering crowd can be heard all around them, and they can be heard chatting, cheering, clapping and gasping.

Zone 4 displays merchandise along with a soundscape that evokes the sounds of leaving the circus.