Overview

Undersight was a twelve-hour performance by artist Cassils that used powerful light beams and Morse code to transmit words into the night sky. Created in collaboration with lighting artist Christopher Kuhl and curated by Renata Azevedo Moreira for Toronto's Nuit Blanche, the performance broadcast words being systematically removed from US government documents and websites: terms like diversity, equity, climate change, gender, and other concepts now deemed suspect by federal agencies. The work addressed the quiet erasure of language and the communities it represents.

The Challenge

Light pulses in Morse code meant nothing without translation. The performance needed a way for audiences across the city to decode the messages—a solution that worked in real time, across all devices, and was simple enough for anyone to use instantly.

Our Solution

We built the Undersight app, a free smartphone application that decoded Morse code in real time using your device's camera. Users pointed their phones at the light beams and the app detected the dots and dashes, translating the messages on screen as they appeared across the sky.

What We Built

Heroic served as Digital Director and Producing Partner. We built the app for iOS and Android, developing the camera detection algorithms and translation interface.