Moving images are made from decisions
A film or game can feel seamless while it is being experienced. The choices behind it—image, sound, timing, performance and interaction—become harder to separate. ACMI’s The Story of the Moving Image offers a way to look at those choices more closely.
The museum describes the exhibition at Federation Square as free and ongoing. Its scope connects the origins and future of moving images with production, Australian stories, games and the influence of screens.
Objects alongside processes
Costumes, props and production material can make a screen work tangible. Interactive elements add another route into the subject by asking the visitor to try a process.
ACMI describes opportunities involving shadows, optical toys, assembling scenes and Foley sound. These are useful entry points because each isolates a decision that normally sits inside a larger finished work. Changing a sound or sequence makes the act of construction more apparent.
Follow one question through the exhibition
A broad exhibition can become a blur if every display receives the same brief attention. Choose a question that interests you: how does sound change a scene, how does a character become recognisable, or what changes when an audience can interact?
Then follow that question across different media. A film costume, a game character and an animated figure may approach a similar problem through quite different tools. The comparison can be more productive than trying to absorb the whole history in one pass.
Carry a thread beyond the visit
ACMI’s Lens allows visitors to collect selected exhibition content digitally. That creates an opportunity to return to a few objects or ideas after leaving, rather than depending on a large set of hurried phone photographs.
For a creative practitioner, a useful response might be a small experiment: change the order of three images, make a sound for an ordinary action or sketch how an interaction guides attention. The value is in noticing the effect of a decision, not imitating a finished work.
Plan around the actual visit
Check the exhibition page for current access information and visitor resources, including support for different sensory and communication needs. A free ongoing exhibition can still sit within a venue whose opening arrangements and special programmes change.
This is a guide based on ACMI’s published exhibition information, checked in September 2026. The cover shows Federation Square for location context; it does not depict the exhibition interior or document a visit by this publication.
