Ed: This item is posted under the new Category, Creative Tasmania. If you know of innovative ideas happening now, about to happen, (or suggestions like reader/writer Pete Godfrey’s Tasmania the Organic Isle: Ideas for a Creative Future), tell us about them …
A major new tourism project in New Zealand will feature installations of Tasmanian-produced Barking Owl Audio Players.
In this project, a cycle trail being developed along an historic tramway near Auckland will include audio soundscapes, stories and local Maori poetry at several points, providing a welcome rest-stop for cyclists. Other current Barking Owl Audio projects being completed in NZ include audio interpretation hidden within furniture in the historic Couldry House, Auckland, and outside an old whaling station in the Marlborough Sounds, only accessible by water.
Barking Owl Audio is headed by business partners Fiona Brine, interpretive designer and Mike Manion, electronics engineer, both based in southern Tasmania. Fiona explains “the Barking Owl, also called Winking Owl or Screaming Woman, are real birds found in all Australian states except Tasmania. This bird produces a chorus of barking, growling and an occasional scream when intruders approach its nest. Likewise, our Barking Owl Audio Players can automatically create all kinds of sounds when they sense visitors approaching, then switch off when they leave.”
“Back in 1999, when I was designing displays for the Hastings Caves Visitor Centre, the existing audio display options available to designers were unwieldy, short-lived and were at times unpleasant for both staff and visitors, so Mike and I decided to create our own audio technology to deal with those problems. Since then, we have been developing and installing audio displays in museums, zoos, visitor centres, wine rooms and outdoor trails across Australia and New Zealand. An artist has used our technology to create a new public art installation in Adelaide and we’re being included in the current Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery re-development project as well.”
Fiona and Mike creatively work together to continually keep new ideas being incorporated into their audio products. “It’s been really important to us to respond to our clients’ ideas and concerns as that is how we develop new technology, so based on that feedback, our Barking Owls have evolved over that time to the robust, low-cost, high-quality hardware we supply today,” Fiona says.
In an unusual development their most recent hardware upgrade, the small ‘Elf Owl’, includes a magnet-induced remote volume control – instead of usual RF remote controller (as for TV), it uses a simple magnet moved in certain directions to adjust volume up or down. “We thought that in 15 to 20 years’ time, a normal remote control would be lost or fallen in someone’s coffee,” Fiona explains, “so we opted for a remote control system using a simple magnet, which can be re-purchased anywhere. You can use it to pick up paper clips as well”.
Further Information & Images:
• See www.barkingowl.com.au (audio)
• also www.brine.com.au (communication & interpretive design)
