Focused on both domestic and international terrorism, The CELL engages the public, educators, students, and the public safety community in cutting-edge discussions about the myths, realities, and the future of terrorism, public safety, and national security issues that affect us all. Armed with this knowledge, visitors are invited to join efforts to protect their communities in a media experience where they learn to identify signs of suspicious activity, and how to concurrently observe civil rights.

Ravenswood Studio fabricated and installed multiple immersive environments including graphic installations, interactives, reproductions, and contextualized stories of terrorism throughout history that paint a picture of the past, present, and future.

One of the more complex exhibit elements was the intro media experience. The media is projected around the room onto a ‘forest’ of layered large-scale, vertically oriented scrim structures. The media ‘seeps’ between these layers, creating a dimensional and softened, or ephemeral, look that balances the harshness and shock of the messaging in the media and allows visitors to consider what they are hearing.

Ravenswood also developed a “You Be the Judge” interactive, using one of our custom AV grey box systems. The preceding gallery explores four case studies of issues in which civil liberties are balanced with security in modern counter-terrorism: privacy in biometrics, data privacy, targeted killings and due process, and hate speech online. The voting interactive acts as a conclusion and moment of reflection, reinforcing the idea that these are difficult questions that we should continue discussing as a society.