Interactive VR without the goggles

Since 2017 we have been developing 2D & 3D interactive technology that allows for a Virtual Reality type experience without the isolation and cumbersome goggles.

Our aim is to create a seamless participatory experience that allows hundreds of people to share a digitally interactive and performance environment, and to fully engage and play in that space with other participants.

 Initially conceived for a theatre environment, Box of Birds has potentially a raft of applications from play spaces for children, theme parks, learning environments, cultural tourism and entertainment.

Who we are

BOX OF BIRDS ARE A COLLECTIVE OF ARTISTS,Technologists AND ORGANISATIONS WHO WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A Digital Play SPACE WHERE THE WONDER of the world can be experienced anew.

WHERE THE IMPOSSIBLE IS POSSIBLE AND FANTASY BECOMES REALITY

SMALL BLUE THING

Currently in development in 2024 for presentation in 2026

Small Blue Thing is an immersive journey and experience about the beauty of our planet.

Travel from earth out into deep space and look back to experience the awe of our small blue planet floating in the depths of space and time.

Awe Inspiring vistas of the Earth and our Solar System sweep across the four walls of an incredible immersive interactive play space.

Utilising our unique interactive and augmented technologies with aerial performance and storytelling, we aim to create a powerful immersive experience that explores our relationship to our small blue planet.

“Small Blue Thing” will be part love letter to our endangered planet, part interactive exploration and joyful participatory audience experience.

We follow the journey of an urban young First Nations woman living in a distracted and disconnected world to a moment of realisation as she experiences the earth and her life on it anew.

Small Blue Thing asks us to revisit and revitalise our understanding of where we are in the larger universe and we invite the audience to play in the wonders of star fields, the reefs, the waters and the landscapes of our beautiful planet Earth.

Creature Interactions

 Mountain

Box of Birds and Stalker’s 25 minute production designed for festivals and family events.

Mountain: has been seen by over thirty thousand people in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. It was awarded the John Chataway Award for “Most Innovative Production” of the 2021 Adelaide Fringe.

Mountain has wowed the crowds with its innovative, physical and visual spectacle.

The performance combines aerial theatre with cutting edge interactive performance technology to explore society’s increasing dependence on technology and the effect it’s having on the world and biosphere around us. The four performers seamlessly meld acrobatics, dance and aerials to create a captivating spectacle.

Alongside the show, Mountain also features a projected 2D play space for young and old alike. Directly after the 25 minute performance, kids and adults are invited to rediscover the environment, wildlife and our relationship to it as the stage is transformed into an interactive Australian habitat. It’s the audience’s time to shine as the interactive projection system encourages everyone to be animated, get moving and play along with our giant interactive play wall on the stage.

 Space Play

Space Play enables children and adults alike to experience a joyful sense of interstellar wonderment.

You wave your hands, and a cloud of asteroids surrounds you – triggered by Box of Birds’ unique interactive technology. You see, hear and play with a range of stellar objects in the room.

You fly down to the moons of Jupiter and pass by the rings of Saturn.

Teaming up with with friends, you run around the space, and delight in moving the planets and the stars.

Space Play is an interactive installation launched by the Box of Birds team. It is designed for large auditoriums for up to 300 people to play in.It recently played the Science Alive Festival in Adelaide S.A.- but it will be coming to a city near you shortly…….

Space Play……. the adventure awaits you……..

Shipwreck Odyssey

Voyage beneath the turquoise waves and coral cays of Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef as the ghost ship Jenny Lind leads you on an adventure into the wild wonders and mysteries of our oceans.

Part theatre show - part playspace immersive installation, Shipwreck Odyssey combines live storytelling and performance with a state-of-the-art responsive projection playscape- inviting audiences to come alive to their love for our blue planet.

Shipwreck Odyssey was first presented at the Australian National Maritime Museum as part of 2023 Sydney Festival. We performed over 100 shows.

My House Your House Me Casa Tu Casa

My House Your House - Me Casa Tu Casa

A live mixed reality transglobal dance party.

My House Your House was a trans-global party featuring Box of Birds (Australia) and Lux Boreal (Mexico).

We worked with some of Sydney’s best underground electronic musicians, live mixed-reality exchanges with dancers in Sydney and Tijuana, interactive audio-visual installations, and aerial performance artists.

All set in our exciting pop-up venue on Sydney Harbour at the atmospheric Australian National Maritime Museum.

Live dancers in Tijuana (Mexico) and Sydney (Australia) captured with 3D LiDAR cameras and dancing in real time with each other across the globe. All to some great sounds from some of Sydney’s leading DJ’s.

 Augmented

Experiments with augmented reality and dance. Undertaken at Critical Path in Sydney late 2022.

Two dancers in real time dancing with their real time virtual selves.

Contact Us

Box of Birds

Child Safe Policy

Commitment to Child Safety

All children engaged by Box of Birds have a right to feel and be safe, respected and protected from harm.  Children should be made aware of and feel confident in their rights and responsibilities.

Box of Birds is strongly committed to the safety and well-being of all children that interact with our organisation as audience members and participants or otherwise, by creating and maintaining a child safe environment.

Box of Birds will take all necessary steps to prevent and protect children from abuse and neglect including:

·      Physical abuse: purposefully injuring or threatening to injure a child

·       Emotional abuse: an attack on a child’s self-esteem e.g., through bullying, threatening, ridiculing, intimidating, or isolating the child

·      Sexual abuse: any sexual act or sexual threat imposed upon a child

·      Neglect: harming a child by failing to provide basic physical or emotional necessities.

·      Child grooming: befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child with the objective of sexual abuse.

Scope
This policy applies to any adult person (over the age of 18) engaged by Box of Birds that may work or interact with children at any time including:

Employees (permanent and casual):

·       Leadership and management roles

·       Administration

·       Education instructors and youth workshop facilitators

·       Production and venue personnel (actors, stage management, chaperones, technical crew, front-of-house staff / ushers, etc.)

·       Volunteers

·      Contractors and sub-contractors

·      Work experience students/interns/secondments/ student placements

·      Any other individual in the organisation that may deal with children

(Note: In this Policy, the term “employee” is used to cover all persons occupying any position listed above.)
A child includes children and young people up to the age of 18 (unless otherwise specified).

Supporting Children’s Participation and Satisfaction

Box of Birds is committed to support, enable, and promote the active participation of children by:

·  Encouraging expression of and respecting the views of children and parents (including carers or legal guardians)

·  Encouraging and empowering children and parents to raise any concerns or complaints

·  Listening to and acting upon any concerns raised by children and parents, carers, or legal guardians

·  Ensuring children understand their rights and the appropriate behaviour expected of both adults and children

·  Teaching children what they can do and who they can turn to if they feel unsafe

·  Survey and talk to Young People about Child Safe matters in workshops

·  Inform Young People about government and non-government services to aid in matters of child safety

·  Ensuring employees dealing with children are skilful in facilitating their participation

·  Valuing diversity and not tolerating any discriminatory practices

Box of Birds aims to create an environment where children gain satisfaction from their interaction with our organisation as participants in a class/program/workshop, or other activity by:

·  Supporting children to feel respected and free to express themselves

·  Ensuring children enjoy the overall experience of being engaged with a production or other organisational activity by conducting regular surveys

·  Offering opportunities for children to derive personal satisfaction and creative freedom throughout their experience

Recruitment Practices

Box of Birds will take all reasonable steps to ensure we engage the most suitable and appropriate people to work with children.
This involves maintaining a rigorous and consistent recruitment, screening, and selection process.

It is Box of Birds Policy to:

·  Interview and conduct thorough referee checks on all employees (with their most recent supervisors)

·  Develop clear duty statements and job descriptions for roles that involve work with children that state clearly our commitment to providing safe environments for children

·  Attain, check, and keep a record of Working with Children Check and/or National criminal history/police checks for anyone with direct and unsupervised contact with children, such as employees designated to supervise or chaperone children / workshop facilitators

·  Ensure supervisors and artist-facilitators recruited are suitably experienced and qualified to care for the safety and well-being of children in accordance with their age and needs

·  Ensure prospective staff speak of their practice and experience being child-safe

Support for Employees

Box of Birds seeks/is committed to support employees by:

·  inducting new employees to our Child Safe Policy, Code of Conduct and other relevant policies and procedures

·  encouraging relevant employees to attend periodical information sessions as they become available, to remain up to date with knowledge of child protection, nature and signs of child abuse, cultural competency, regulation updates and other matters that affect children

·  providing Child Safe refresher courses at least once a year for all relevant employees

·  appointing a Child Safety Officer to be the first point of contact to provide advice and support to employees on the safety and well-being of children engaged with the organisation

·  providing additional specialised support and training opportunities for child safety officers and mandatory reporters

·  ensuring employees feel encouraged and empowered to report any complaints, concerns, or perceived risks to child safety to the Child Safety Officer or other relevant management position

·  ensuring designated supervisors and chaperones of children that are new to the role work with experienced supervisors sufficiently before working on productions or programs requiring single supervisors.

Valuing Diversity

Box of Birds values diversity and we do not tolerate any discriminatory practices.  Our organisation is committed to protecting children engaged with our organisation from physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse, as well as neglect and contempt, ridicule, hatred, or negativity towards a child because of their race, culture, religion, gender (including transgender status), sexual orientation or disability.

In our activities with children, we will:

·      promote the cultural safety of Aboriginal children

·      promote the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds

·      promote the safety of children with a disability

·      promote the safety of LGTBIQA+ children and young people

Code of Conduct
Box of Birds has developed a Code of Conduct to provide guidance to our employees on expected behaviours when in direct contact with or working around children.

All employees must abide by the Code of Conduct.
We ask relevant employees to sign a written statement confirming they have read, understood, and will comply with the Code of Conduct. We retain a copy of all signed statements.

Communication

Box of Birds is committed to encouraging employees, children, and parents (including carers or legal guardians) to raise any concerns or provide their views on the well-being of children involved with our organisation.

Box of Birds keeps employees, parents (including carers or legal guardians) and children informed of our organisation’s child safe policies and procedures by:

·  ensuring that employees have read, understood, and are aware of their obligation under the Child Safe Policy, Code of Conduct, and any other relevant policies and procedures

·  making relevant documents easily accessible by displaying child safe materials in areas of common traffic, uploading relevant documents to our website, distributing documents to all relevant individuals, and having copies available upon request.

Code of Conduct – Employees

Box of Birds provides an open, safe and friendly environment for all children.

This Code of Conduct outlines appropriate standards of behaviour by adults toward children. The Code of Conduct aims to protect children and reduce any possibility that abuse, or harm could occur. It provides guidance to employees on how best to support children and prevent or better manage difficult situations.

Scope

All employees are required to comply with the Code of Conduct. This includes any adult person (over the age of 18) engaged by an organisation that may work directly with or around children at any time including:

·  employees (permanent and casual): leadership and management roles, administration, education instructors and youth workshop facilitators, production, and venue personnel (actors, stage management, chaperones, technical crew, ushers, etc.)

·  volunteers

·  contractors and sub-contractors

·  work experience students/interns/secondments/student placements

·  any other individual in the organisation that may deal with children

(Note: In this Code, the term “employee” is used to cover all persons occupying any position listed above.)
A child includes children and young people up to the age of 18 and vulnerable adults over the age of 18 who may be engaged by Shopfront in any capacity.

Box of Birds employees MUST NOT:

·   Discriminate against any child because of age, gender (including transgender status), cultural background, religion, vulnerability, disability, or sexuality

·    Commit any form of bullying towards children and young people

·    Engage in behaviour that is intended to shame, humiliate, oppress, belittle, or degrade children

·    Engage in any activity with a child that is likely to harm them physically or emotionally

·    Take photos or video of children without the explicit permission of the child (if 15 years of age or older) and their parent, carer or legal guardian, and relevant management

·    Share personal information or photos of children on social media without the informed consent of the child (if 15 years of age or older) and parent, carer or legal guardian, and relevant management

·    Work with children while under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs

·      Ignore or disregard any concerns, suspicions, or disclosures of child abuse

·      Show overly familiar physical affection towards children or any unnecessary physical contact with children

·     Marginalise or exclude specific children

·     Show favouritism towards specific children such as the offering of gifts, special thanks, special treatment, or inappropriate attention

·     Subject children to any form of physical punishment, social isolation, immobilisation, or any other conduct likely to humiliate or frighten children

·    Allow children to enter an adult’s dressing room or crew areas, unless accompanied by their supervisor and approval has been granted by those in the dressing room

·    Do things of a personal nature for children that they can do for themselves, such as assisting with going to the toilet or dressing

·    Gossip in the presence of children

·    Distress a child for the purpose of eliciting a dramatic reaction

·    Persuade a child or group of children that they have a ‘special relationship’. For example:

i.                Dedicate inappropriate special time with children

ii.              Inappropriately allow children to overstep the rules

iii.             Request the child to keep their relationship a secret

·    Inappropriately talk about sex

·    Have unauthorised contact with children online or by phone

Complaints and Reporting Procedure

We believe employees, parents (including carers or legal guardians), and children should feel enabled, empowered, and supported to safely raise any concerns or complaints about any perceived risks to a child’s safety or signs of abuse.

Box of Birds Mandatory Reporters are the Artistic Director and the Artistic Associate

All other staff members are inducted into Box of Birds Safe scaffold and understand how to identify potential child abuse and have a responsibility to report concerns to a mandatory reporter within the organisation. The mandatory reporter will complete an incident report and will externally report if required.

Box of Birds has developed a procedure to respond to any complaint of abuse or conduct not in keeping with this Policy and Code of Conduct, including means to take disciplinary action or rectify issues when necessary.

Risk Management

Box of Birds takes a preventative and proactive approach to minimising the risk of harm to children. As part of our organisation’s WH&S risk management process we periodically conduct reviews to identify potential risks to the safety and well-being of children.

Implementation and Review Process.

The Artistic Director/CEO and Artistic Associate are responsible for being the first point of contact to provide advice and support to children, parents (including carers or legal guardians) and employees regarding the safety and well-being of children engaged with the organisation.

This includes being the first point of contact for dealing with any complaint of abuse or conduct not in keeping with this Policy and Code of Conduct.  The Box of Birds CEO and Artistic Associate shall determine the resolution of complaints.

Our Child Safe Policy will be reviewed every year and we will undertake to incorporate feedback from children, parents (including carers and legal guardians), employees and any other relevant personnel. Staff members will also make a commitment to attend Child Safe refresher course at least once a year.

Box of Birds are responsible for promoting the safety and well-being of children by complying with the following:

·   Adhere to our child safe policies and procedures

·  Act as a positive role model in conduct with children

·  Develop positive relationships with children and parents (including carers and legal guardians) based on mutual trust and open communication

·  Be professional in actions through use of language, presentation, and manner

·  Respect the privacy of children and parents (including carers and legal

guardians), and only disclose information to people who have a need to know

·  Be aware of risks with communication and behaviour between children

(Including online and mobile)

·  Refrain from ‘tagging’ children and young people under 18 on online social media

platforms (eg. Facebook, Instagram)

·  Aim to ensure children understand they are valued members of the production,

program, audience, or other experience

·  Acknowledge the uniqueness and potential of all children, in recognition that

enjoying their childhood without undue pressure is important

·  Take all reasonable steps to protect children from the risk of abuse and neglect including:

-       Physical abuse: purposefully injuring or threatening to injure a child

-       Emotional abuse: an attack on a child’s self-esteem e.g., through bullying, threatening, ridiculing, intimidating, or isolating the

-       Bullying: words or actions that are intentionally and repeatedly directed towards someone, or a group of people, to cause distress or risk to wellbeing e.g., discrimination, intentionally hurting someone, excluding someone, and cyberbullying

-       Sexual abuse: any sexual act or sexual threat imposed upon a child

-       Neglect: harming a child by failing to provide basic physical or emotional necessities.

-       Child grooming: befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child with the objective of sexual abuse.

·  Listen to and value the ideas and opinions of children

Part 2 - Co·  If by chance any children are found unsupervised, direct and accompany children to their supervisor or relevant management immediately

·  Report any breaches of these standards of behaviour to the Child Safety Officer or relevant management promptly

Definitions

Child/Children

Includes children and young people up to the age of 18 (unless otherwise specified in this Guide or by law).

Child Participant

Includes children and young people up to the age of 18 (unless otherwise specified in this Guide or by law) that participate in works made by the organisation

Employee

Any adult (over the age of 18) engaged by Box of Birds that may work with children at any time including:

Employees (permanent and casual)

·       Leadership and management

·       Administration

·       Performers and youth workshop facilitators

·       Production and venue personnel (actors, stage management, chaperones, technical crew, etc.)

·       Volunteers

·       Contractors and sub-contractors

·       Work experience students/interns/secondments/student placements

·       Any other individual in the organisation that may deal with children.

Employer/Organisation

Organisation in the creative arts industry that employs or engages children as part of their business activities.
An organisation may employ or engage children in several ways (including but not limited to):

·  Attendance of and interacting with child audience members

·  Providing instruction to children as part of a class/program/workshop

·  Using photos of children for media and promotion

·  Using children for professional promotional material (photography, voice-overs, film commercials)

·  Providing internships or work experience

·  Any other form of direct interaction with children performed as part of the organisation’s business activities.

Industry

Refers to organisations in the creative arts industry. This includes any live entertainment involving a performance art form including (but not limited to) dance, opera, music, circus, musical theatre, and theatre. Organisations may be (but not limited to) performing arts companies, festivals, concert promoters or venues.

Parent/Carer

Includes any parent, legal guardian, carer, or family member responsible for a child.

Supervisor

Qualified employee appointed to supervise or chaperone children (e.g., child performers, education program participants, work experience students). For the purposes of this Guide the definition of supervisor includes chaperones unless otherwise indicated.