The Poison Cabinet: Interactive Music
The Poison Cabinet is an escape room style game experience created for 16-18 year olds to introduce them to the State Library of Victoria and La Trobe University.
Produced by Stephanie Brotchie, this large-scale immersive experience combines narrative and adventure, suspense and fun in an educational experience geared towards young people, celebrating their agency and giving them ownership over a space that they may not have previously felt was accessible to them.
Andrew's sound design was integral to the experience, providing atmospheric background in some spaces, while other room-puzzles were based around sound and music. The 'magical objects' room used interactive sound design featuring bespoke electronics and coding to create a space that reacted sonically to participants' touch. Another puzzle required a melody played with glass objects filled with water to trigger events.
Interactive Audio Game 1:
A Gallery of Whispered Secrets
Participants walk into a gallery displaying various metal objects; some of them have voices whispering from under their plinths, filling the space with secrets. Getting close to a plinth makes it possible to decipher what they're saying: mostly general hints, but some are more instructive. When two of the right objects are touched at the same time, an unseen booming voice declares their success and urges them on, with ever-more tense atmospheric music adding to the whispers. By following new clues, holding hands to connect distant objects and listening carefully, they crack a code that lets them open a case at the centre of the room.
Interactive Audio Game 2:
Musical Flasks
Participants had to pour coloured liquid into glass objects, then follow a 'score' to create a melody by playing them. This triggered a score, then a different part of the room would light up.
Music for the Conclusion:
Opening the Cabinet
The final room (The Latrobe Reading Room, pictured) required an epic atmosphere for the conclusion, requiring sound design for an enormous space that drew the night's events to a climax. A quadrophonic speaker setup in the balconies made the music surround the participants as they undertook the last puzzle.