Messages of Hope, Messages of Love
2021
Durational public artwork: custom software, publicly sourced messages, live video stream
Lead artist: Michaela Gleave
Original Concept and Lighting Design: Fausto Brusamolino
Web coding: Warren Armstrong
Live stream videographer: Ben Golotta, Repeater Productions
Messages of Hope, Messages of Love was broadcast over four evenings as part Illuminate Adelaide 2021. Initially planned as a lighting installation, a snap COVID-19 lockdown in the city necessitated a shift down the electromagnetic spectrum: Morse code audio signals replacing light to transmit each message.
Taking the form of a collaborative poem, the work was composed of messages submitted by the public via the Illuminate Adelaide website during an open call. From these submissions, the artists arranged the selected messages to form an intuitive and heartfelt collective tribute to the people of Adelaide to be beamed across physical and digital space.
Gleave and Brusamolino’s project – presented in conversation with The Avalanches – was a love letter to Adelaide. It was conceived as a timely and poetic response to the strange reality of the times and encouraged messages of love, hope, resilience, strength, and compassion.
The first iteration of this project was produced in partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2020. It was supported by the City of Sydney and the NSW Government through Create NSW.