'HELLOWORLD': global media art project encourages communication.

During the first-ever World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a ground-breaking art installation by Swiss digital media artist and web designer Johannes Gees publicized the event by projecting laser messages on the north facade of the UN Headquarters building in New York City, as well as on three other global landmarks in India, Brazil and Switzerland, and by making them simultaneously available worldwide through the Internet.

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"The idea was to allow people to get their message across", said Mr. Gees, who conceived and coordinated the HELLOWORLD project, which is similar to a smaller version he implemented at the 2001 World Economic Forum, "We speak about public space and that it belongs to everybody, but the use of public space is actually set into regimentation. You can buy the space for advertising, but that takes money. Or you can do graffiti, but that's illegal. With this project's intervention into public space, I give people who don't have money the power to be present in a big, visible way", he added.

Big and visible it was. The largest laser projection was set on Morro Dois Irmaos, a mountain at the southern tip of the Ipanema and Leblon Beach, which can be seen from Rio de Janeiro's main lagoon and beaches. The projection surface spanned 1,650 by 200 feet and each letter in Rio was 200 feet long by 200 feet wide, made visible by a four-lasers-in-one projector and viewable from up to 1.5 miles away.

The United Nations agreed with the Federal Office of Culture of Switzerland to feature on its building this innovative art installation, which utilized some of the information technologies discussed at the WSIS, held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003. The simplicity of HELLOWORLD was one of the major attractions of the project. While the Summit theme was about the digital divide, the concept of HELLOWORLD was about inclusion. According to the Federal Office Deputy Director. Marc Wehrlin: "Open to civil society, in line with the wish of the UN, we produced the interactive platform HELLOWORLD project, in collaboration with artist Johannes Gees, and presented it as a cultural gift of Switzerland to the World Summit. As part of its commitment to the promotion of culture, the Federal Office of Culture has over the last three years been following and studying the impact of new technologies on our society, in particular on cultural productions."

The idea of including the civil society to participate directly in WSIS, its artistic and geographical realization had convinced the Government that through it, the most important cultural topics of the Summit would be chosen: the digital divide and cultural diversity, he said.

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The project represents a new area of artistic creation. New media art will play a key role in the information society. "Artists show us what new possibilities are available with new technology, and one of their key themes is to connect people and expand the field of communication and interaction globally", Mr. Wehrlin said.

The HELLOWORLD project flashed thousands of laser-light messages onto the Geneva Jet d'Eau Fountain, the Air-India building in Mumbai, and the Rio de Janeiro's Morro Dois Irmaos. These messages also appeared concurrently in the six official languages of the United Nations on a video installation at the Summit. The project was conceived as a global interactive text installation to create a visual dialogue combining language, landscapes and communication technology. People from all over the world were invited to send messages, either through the Internet or by sending a short message service (SMS) with their mobile phones.

Incoming messages were not edited; however, they were screened by an editorial board based at Swissinfo in Bern for personal or religious insults, commercial content, racism or sexism. Within seconds, cleared messages were flashed on projectors up to 70 by 400 metres in size. The primary reason for screening messages was their sheer volume Twelve multilingual editors had to quickly review all incoming messages and decide which to send for projection. They also had to translate them into several languages, among them Hindi, Chinese, English, Arabic, French and Portuguese.

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On Human Rights Day, 10 December, HELLOWORLD projected UN messages about human rights onto the north facade of the UN Secretariat building. On 12 December, live messages and a selection of the best messages received were projected in New York, as well as at the other locations.

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Martina Volpe of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN, the HELLOWORLD project officer, declared: "We were delighted to get UN approval for this exceptional project, because it is extremely rare that the UN building is utilized for such purposes. After the organization of the UN Day Concert last October, this was the second largest cultural event organized by Switzerland since its accession to the UN in September 2002."

WSIS brought together more than 65 heads of State and Government to debate who should govern the Internet and how the digital divide, which denies poorer countries the opportunities that richer countries have to access technology and telecommunications, can be bridged.

The HELLOWORLD project provided a perfect platform to showcase and discuss global communication issues and, at the same time, to highlight two issues at the core of the WSIS discussions: opening up the digital divide between developing and developed nations, and the right to freedom of expression. This global media art project offered anyone with a mobile phone or Internet access the chance to see their message beamed onto a famous landmark in one of four major cities. And as HELLOWORLD received 38,000 messages from all over the world, the wish for peace emerged as the leading theme.

Karin Freudenthal is an Information Officer for the UN Department of Public Information. Her photographic work has been featured in exhibits in Europe, New York and at UN Headquarters.

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