When Luke Shaw’s grandfather was working on the construction of the radio and television transmission tower atop Te Heru-o-Kahukura Sugarloaf hill in the 1960s, he would flash Morse code messages to his wife at their home in Aranui using steel offcuts, and she would reply with the reflections from a mirror. This narrative was the starting point for SUN TURN (Sugarloaf towards Lyndhurst), prompting Luke to look at forms of communication: as a way of locating ourselves, how the transmission of a signal might operate, and the potential for that signal to be received or intercepted.

Luke had this analogue reverb plate constructed from steel. The sound we hear is the reverberation of an audio signal retelling this story in Morse code that Luke then treated as a musical composition, words as notes, tempo elongated into sustained drones. He asks us to listen beyond this private language; to reflect on what the historical messages might have been – most likely sweet, domestic expressions of love – and tests their resonance for us today in an era of accelerated, overwhelming and constant communication.

(Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa, 2023)