She may be known as a Sydney installation artist now but Michaela Gleave is one of our own, a young woman from the North West Coast of Tasmania who dreamt dreams at Rocky Cape and metaphorically drew a cape over the universe capturing all of its beauty in one of the most original and vast art installations ever.
The ‘ethereal’ and ‘whimsical’ project encourages us to ponder perspective of our scale in the universe and to visualise the concept of ‘how far we can’t see’, following from this limitation is the limitation of the language we use to describe the universe that is ‘earth based’. Born out of Michaela’s time as an artist in residence at the CSIRO she sought to consider the possibility of creating a closer communion and a conversation with the stars themselves, listening to their language.
The live performance launches its digital smartphone app and interactive performance for Dark Mofo at Dark Park on June 10 and a sister performance with Bristol’s choir repeating the performance will feature at the UK’s Bristol Biennial in September.
While the concept may be a little challenging to get one’s mind around to put it simply the performance is ’the meeting of astronomy and music’ teamed with ’live performance and light displays’. The very stars themselves ‘will be transcribed into musical scores live, transferred to the app holder who will be able to play the stars where ever in the world they might be’. This uniting of the universe will come about by the following science. The 36 TSO choristers ‘accompanied by percussion and lighting’ will be delivered in real time by ‘microtonal sonic cues’ allowing the singers ’to sing the stars live’.
The Tasmanian symphony orchestra chorus will be joined by Michaela, Amanda Cole, the composer and the programmer Warren Armstrong, as well as Astronomer Dr Michael Fitzgerald available with advice.
Michaela loves the idea of what she calls bringing this ‘great beast’ to Tasmania and the fact it will reach out to rocky cape!
Perhaps another ‘cape’ is in Michaela’s mind for the future…Cape Canaveral. Michaela would dearly love to take her performance to NASA itself!
You can download the app (see link below) and experience Galaxy of Suns when it launches on Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th of June 5pm at Dark Park and 10th to 21st of June at locations around Tasmania.
http://darkmofo.net.au/lineup/a-galaxy-of-suns-michaela-gleave
Paula Xiberras
