PROJECTS

EcoLocated

2009-08-04T18:09:12+00:00

M.A.R.I.N. will make a debut at ISEA2009 Belfast in August 2009. This first expedition, the “Irish Sea EcoLocated Residency”, will focus on Littoral cultures: how marine ecologies close to human settlements are perceived by scientists and local communities, and how our art & science research team will introduce new cultural strategies to interlace them.

The MARIN vessel in Belfast harbour.

This first collaborative residency aboard the MARIN craft, entitled Ecolocated: Littoral Lives will be realized by three artists, Nigel Helyer (AU), Tapio Mäkelä (FI), and Andreas Siagian (ID), supported by Daniel Woo and Michael Lake from University of North-South Wales, Sydney.

The Firth of Inverness.

The team will run water quality tests, make field recordings, interviews, and geotag information to create a location based immersive, surround-sound installation, technically based upon AudioNomad software.

Entering Inverness harbour.

EcoLocated will extend beyond the gallery context by initiating a range of local community workshops. Stage one of the installation will open at the Catalyst Arts gallery in Belfast on August 6th with stage two opening for the ISEA symposium which takes place between August 23rd and September 1st 2009.

Ben Nevis.

Tapio taking a water quality sample.

We have arrive safe and sound, albeit a little damp after a thirteen day yoyage across the North Sea, though the Caledonian Canal (that bisects Scotland from Inverness to Fort William) and then past the isles of Jura and Islay, across the North Channel to Ulster. Now the work begins!

Belfast Port.

The AudioNomad interface for the Stage 2 Ecolocated exhibition, Catalyst Arts, Belfast ISEA2009.

The following audio snippets are sample files that form the ‘raw material’ of the AudioNomad 3D spatial audio composition ~ better than nothing but the only way to experience the real thing is to experience the real thing!

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_01

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_02

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_03

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_04

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_05

Listen to a sonification of water quality data_06

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_01

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_02

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_03

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_04

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_05

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_06

Listen to a stereo sample from the project_07

12.2 surround rig with triple projection showing water quality data visualisation.

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Adrift

2009-09-07T09:59:51+00:00

I’m a Nomad not a Drifter, being Adrift is of course a different kettle of fish, as it implies an active surrender to the vagaries of the elements, be they maritime or psychological ~ I usually go for both!

The Adrift project was conceived and realised for the Memory Flows exhibition at the CarriageWorks in Sydney and comprised of two sounding vessels. My trusty sea kayak “Siika” pressed into sonic-service, equipped with a “Solid-Drive” transducer that transformed the entire hull into a speaker diaphragm ~ relaying a hydrophone recording of ship’s propeller rumble and SONAR.

The Ark, captive in a trawler net releasing a medley of fish names in English and Latin, whilst below a primitive Voltaic Cell composed of Zinc and Copper fish shaped electrodes appear to supply a mysterious power source.

Listen to a stereo sample from the project

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Zephyr

2008-12-10T00:07:43+00:00

Project Descriptor.
The principal metaphorical drivers in the conceptualization of the design are based upon C19 maritime technologies that relied upon harnessing the natural forces of wind and water, with sail, simple mechanical purchase and balance and ballast. “Zephyr” establishes strong links with the maritime and industrial history of the Geraldton site with the ancient technology of Æolian music to form a suite of passive, kinetic sound sculptures, that is responsive to the environment.

Æolian harps were frequently installed in landscape contexts during the C18.th and C19.th century and it became a romantic custom in Germany to place Æolian harps at mysterious sites like ruined castles, parks and caverns. Many poems and fieldnames recall such old customs, which obviously made a deep impression on the audience visiting these spots.

Structure.
It is proposed that “Zephyr” shall consist of up to three vertical wind vane type structures, each supporting a sail-like pair of aerofoils with a passive sound emitting Æolian device embedded in the interior air passage. The foil section will additionally act as a sound resonator to passively amplify the relatively quiet harmonic sounds that these devices produce. ‘Zephyr’ addresses concepts of balance and equilibrium found in both natural systems (the cycles of the weather and the ocean) as well as those of human technologies (the rigs of sailing ships) each unit will feature counter balanced foils (see schematics) in addition the strung arrays of the Æolian harps will be kept under a constant tension by a balance device and thus require no additional tuning or maintenance.

The structure recalls the form of the Square rigged sailing ships and physically regenerate (albeit in a more tuned manner) the sonic ecology of the sailing era, with the murmur of a breeze in the rigging. At this juncture my preference is for a design with up to three Aeolian sculpture units, identical in structure but tuned to different harmonics, this will ensure a rich level of sonic and visual complexity. Naturally the detailed design stage may indicate budgetary constraints and limit the number of proposed units ~ however whilst even a single unit would function adequately, two (or more) would provide a visual and sonic counterpoint to the soundscape and the landscape.

Information on Æolian harp.

Wind-gradient - Near the ground the wind-speed decreases rapidly due to ground- friction. The higher over the ground, the better is it, the smaller the gradient-effect and the higher the wind-speed. Normally, spectators in the windward side of the harp cause a “wind-shadow” or at least undesired vortices; so, the harp commonly stops playing just then, when an interested person is approaching. Therefore it makes sense to position the harp over the heads of the audience.

The tones of an Æolian harp - These are mostly the harmonics of a string. The ground-tone, or fundamental is the tone if the string is plucked; it is of low intensity and can seldom be heard. However, depending on the wind-speed, several tones at one time can be heard on one string - new tones appear, while other tones begin to disappear. The stronger the wind is, the higher the pitches of the sounds will be.

It is mainly the tension of the string and not its length determines the tuning of the string whereas the length of the string is responsible for the intensity of the tones: The longest strings will produce the loudest tones. The diameter of the string plays an important role: It is the relation of wind velocity and diameter of the string, which is responsible for the frequency of the tone.

Sympathetic Resonance ~ the shorter the single strings are, the more it becomes
desirable to place them close to another in order to facilitate the strings influencing one
another to resonate sympathetically.

BioSonics

2008-06-08T06:41:02+00:00

The rational and the fantastical: the morphology of Nigel Helyer, by Gail Priest 2008

Despite Star Trek’s propagandist efforts for space as the final frontier, the vast unknown can be found much closer to home in the form of the earth’s oceans. Occupying approximately 79% of the planet it is estimated that only 5% of the watery depths have yet been explored. With the threat of impending environmental disaster the drive to better understand the global ocean has increased and advanced technologies (often similar to those used in space explorations) have enabled access to these previously unreachable zones. However prior to the technological wizardry of the latter 20th century scientists had already been exploring the dark, mysterious realms.

An acknowledged inspiration for Nigel Helyer’s work is the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). A biologist, he was a strong advocate for Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories and through his own research identified and named thousands of marine species, as well as developing significant methodologies for the study of biological form and structure known as morphology. What is most influential about Haeckel is that he was also a gifted artist. Before photography and computers scientists were reliant on artistic illustration to communicate their findings and the works of Haeckel, documenting his travels and discoveries, are exquisite. The scientific and the artistic are generally considered to be oppositional views: science is reliant on fact and rationality, while art often employs flights of fancy beyond what is accepted as reality. Haeckel struggled with this dichotomy and occasionally his artistic inclination dominated his empirical processes with some of his lavishly illustrated findings considered dubious. For example he employed considerable artistic licence illustrating the ‘similarities’ of the embryonic forms of a range of animals such as the salamander, chicken, cow and human which have since been refuted. However the relationship between art and science is in fact not so incompatible: both practices rely upon experimentation, innovation and even inspiration to achieve their aims.

In Nigel Helyer we see the inverse of Haeckel. Helyer is an artist with a remarkable fluency in the world of the technical and the scientific. Not only does he deftly employ technologies in his work – creating a meaningful, unfetishised usage ensuring that the concepts remain foremost – but he also delves behind standard techniques and devices participating in the very research and development of new technologies. This is evidenced by his involvement in AudioNomad, an ongoing research project (with the University of NSW) into mobile and location sensitive delivery systems for immersive sound works. AudioNomad was used for the Syren for Port Jackson project (2006) in which a small ferry travelled around Sydney Harbour, the journey mapped via Global Positioning Satellites (GPS), triggering an immersive multispeaker sound journey telling the hidden histories of the foreshores.

The contemporary art science nexus is being extensively interrogated in the field of bio-art, in which artists engage in laboratory practices, using elements of (arguably) living biological material to create artworks. Australia is home to one of the leading facilities, SymbioticA, based at The University of Western Australia. Helyer has been involved with the lab creating his project Host, recently exhibited as part of Ars Electronica, Austria and Transitio_MX02 New Media Arts Exhibition in Mexico City in 2007. Many of Helyer’s works combine a mix of rigour and humour and Host is no exception, using intricate technology to record the electrical activity of the aural nerve of a cricket as it listens to a lecture on the sex-life of its own species. The results are represented by an oscilloscope and a sonic interpretation of the data, along with the heavily pixilated image of the original lecture (perhaps a suggestion as to what the cricket sees).

In BioSonics Helyer draws together the preoccupations of these works above: science, living forms, and the sea. Encircling the space is a plethora of exotic sculptural sea creatures. These are extrapolations of life forms inspired by the microscopic wonders of the ocean depths, which have long been the focus of marine biologists, from Haeckel’s era to the present, as they offer insights into the process of evolution itself. Helyer has magnified these creatures, normally invisible to the naked human eye (he studied them via a Scanning Electron Microscope) to illustrate their intricate forms and symmetries.

Also drawing upon these microscopic physical forms is the sound sculpture Hydra. The Medusa-like tentacles imply a tactility and yet, in this work, are the vehicle for aural communication. Like a menacing sea monster the Hydra has ensnared a strange dwarf ark housing small speakers transmitting lists of fish species – while the fish didn’t need Noah’s conservation services during the great flood, they could do with his help now.

The final work is Transformer in which larval forms embalmed in honey (a gourmet mummification) are encircled by rustic antennae. It’s a kind of techno-shamanistic artefact literally drawing on the electromagnetic energy of the universe to re-animate matter in the form of vibration, creating an inaudible yet undeniably present soundscape.

The accumulative effect of these works is that of a peculiar aquarium in which the microscopic is manifested massive while the massive (the ark, the electromagnetic universe) becomes diminutive. And of course it is not unimportant that BioSonics is presented at the Dubbo Regional Gallery, which essentially transports the ocean 400km into the heart of grazing country, alluding to the ‘inland sea’ that Charles Sturt, John Oxley and other explorers endeavoured to discover in the middle of this dry land. Of course scientist and artists are also explorers: scientists map the mysteries of the inner workings of the universe while artists attempt to map the infinite permutations of the imagination. The world that Nigel Helyer has mapped for us in BioSonics is curious, mythical and fascinating, perhaps more so because it is based in rigorous research and scientific realities.

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Gail Priest is a Sydney-based sound artist, curator and writer on sound and media-arts.

Endnotes National Geographic, U.S. Deep-Sea Expedition Probes Earth’s Final Frontier For more information go to the national geographic link. Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (1904) - Artforms of Nature offering a stunning collection of illustrations is out of print but many plates are viewable at For more information go to this link.

GhosTrain

2008-06-07T08:42:44+00:00

The first stage of the GhosTrain project will create a series of short Radio Broadcasts and a Podcast website focused upon the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works. The project will address the oral histories and acoustic ecologies of Industrial culture. The second stage develop this content into to a major sound-installation for TPS at The Carriage-works.

The work aims to create a series of ‘audio-portraits’ of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works that encompass ,the oral histories and acoustic ecologies of Industrial culture. Audio content will be drawn from an Oral History project to be established with former Rail-yard workers, archival sources, actuality recordings of Rail technology and environments as well as from a series of contemporary rail journeys.

Check out some GhosTrain material on POOL

GhosTrain ~ a rationale:

When we consider changing socio-economic landscapes we naturally focus our attention upon the more obvious physical features of the shifting usage of architectural structures and major environmental infrastructures.

In a marked contrast, the transient elements, that are the soul of living cultures, are difficult to seize upon and tend to be quickly forgotten; erased under changing patterns of work and social usage. The iconic sounds that characterise a locale are one of the most fragile and difficult of these transient elements to recognise, evaluate and value. The acoustic ecologies of industrial landscapes are prime examples of our extraordinary capacity for amnesia. Closely observed every location has a characteristic ‘soundscape’ in effect a sonic ‘fingerprint’, formed from a complex mix of smaller incidental sounds’ punctuated by unique, ‘keynote’ sounds that are site-specific and directly associated with the particular structures and activities found at the location. Good examples of the iconic nature of “Keynote” sounds are the Imman’s call to prayer in Istanbul or the Fog-horns of San Francisco.

The discipline of Acoustic Ecology recognises that contemporary trends driven by Globalisation, the ubiquitous spread of urbanism, mechanised transport and forms of labour result in a homogenisation of world ‘soundscapes’, reducing both the variety, character and uniqueness of local acoustic ecologies. This proposal seeks to redress such oversight by addressing the unique Architectural heritage and social history of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works sites from a sonic perspective ~ recognising the importance of the soundscape that once characterised the site and endeavouring to re-instate specific elements of its acoustic ecology and oral history.

GhosTrain ~ Descriptor:

The Eveleigh site is impressive on a number of levels; its robust industrial architecture, the simple but effective re-purposing of the site as a cultural space; set against the lingering knowledge that this was a site of labour ~ of specialised knowledge and skill and of a lifestyle all but forgotten in Sydney’s upwardly mobile affluent society (well that’s a nice way of putting it!).

• The GhosTrain project will be developed in two phases with three principal outcomes, Radio Broadcasts, a Web presence and an Architectonic sound installation.

The first part of the ABC work will comprise of a period of research, with the purpose of generating an extensive sound-library. This library will consist of material drawn from; local archival sources, the establishment of an oral history project with former workers and labour organisations at the Rail Yards, archival and direct recordings of Railway technologies (e.g. field recordings of trains and train operations). Additional content will be recorded on a series of contemporary railway journeys in Australia and the Asia Pacific area.

GhosTrain will develop an extensive Social Network primarily through the content generation phase of Archival Research and especially the Oral History project. I envisage maintaining and developing local groups and encourage them to become involved with the subsequent web and installation aspects of the project.

Audioworks for Radio Broadcast:

The second part of the ABC project will be the composition and realisation of a series of short Radio broadcasts that deliver Audio-Portraits of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works, its working histories and the technologies and experiences of Rail travel. These short compositions will be designed to function as a series of broadcast ‘shorts’ and to be suitable as stand-alone PodCasts for a specially created GhosTrain website (also available to the ABC website).

This proposal seeks to developing this matrix of linkages into a web based platform that will further extend the potential for both research and growing social networks ~ in effect exposing a sector of the working public (ex Rail yard workers) to a creative, cultural process that would otherwise remain distant.

Soundsculpture Installation:

The ABC project will furnish material for a subsequent development proposed to The Performance Space and The Carriage Works as an interactive sound-sculpture installation, distributed throughout the Carriage Works allowing visitors to take a mobile unit and activate ‘sonic memories’. This will be augmented by single daily keynote sound event (say at noon) in which a leitmotiv sound will pass momentarily along the axis of the foyer space ~ for example; a recording of a steam locomotive moving past a platform, a sort of sonic haunting lasting some 60 second only ~ a ghostly time marker!

The physical installation will comprise of up to 24 small Rail structures (sculptures) installed throughout the Carriage Works. These ‘stations’ will be modelled upon fragments of viaducts, bridges, rail-heads etc ~ the salient point being that they will all include a short section of ‘track’. I imagine each of these structures to be no more than 1.5m high, 1.5 wide and about 0.5m deep, they will be attached to walls or columns and made of Steel, Wood and Aluminium.

This ensemble of ‘stations’ will be fed by a live audio stream (from a x24 track hard-drive and x24 channels of amplification). However, instead of running to speakers, the signal will terminate (silently) on the sections of track.

Visitors will be invited to take a small and slightly abstracted locomotive (these will be some 400mm in length rather like a ‘Lionel’ model train). When placed upon any section of track the audio narrative will emanate from the speaker encased in the Locomotive’s body, thus visitors will actually ‘perform’ a journey to audit the work.

If no Locos were in-situ, then no sound will be heard in the building, alternatively if several were placed here and there, then an atmosphere of narratives and rail related soundscapes will inhabit the space.

Check out some GhosTrain material on POOL

Run Silent Run Deep

2008-06-07T08:24:17+00:00

Interface map

Catalogue Notes: The title is an ironic reference to the motto of submarine captains in WWII who knew that the silence of their craft was the key to remaining undetected. In contrast this artwork is a whole-hearted embrace of the richly sonic world deep within the ocean. The artist will be bringing this auditory world to the surface in an immersive surround-sound experience, which will be located within the gallery.

Prior to the exhibition, the artist will be creating an ‘audio portrait’ of Singapore harbour by recording underwater acoustics, running the gamut from sonar to whalesong. This library of sounds will then be ‘composed’ as a virtual cartographic environment which invites the visitor to navigate space and simultaneously create a dynamic 3 dimensional soundscape.

A (very) early morning reef-walk with a crew of Marine Biologists.

Narrow escape

This project employs the AudioNomad system to geo-spatially locate hydrophone recordings and other marine audio data, rendering this into a rich map-based composition that allows live ‘mixing’ in the form of Virtual marine journeys. AudioNomad is a collaborative Art + Science Research and development project between the artist (Sonic Objects: Sonic Architecture) and Dr Daniel Woo of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

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For more information go to the ISEA08 website.

Sculpture in the Vineyards

2007-10-23T05:20:45+00:00

A new work “Transformer” has been installed at the UnderCliff Vineyard in Wollembi alongside “Spinner” which remains in-situ from last year.

My approach to the sonic domain has always been informed by a Sculptor’s perspective which emphasises the experiential nature of sounds, linking them to the dynamic, material events that produce them and situating them within the environments that contain and propagate them.

“Transformer” would appear to disqualify itself from the definition of Sound-Sculpture by virtue of its apparent muteness. The principal function of the work, however, is to manifest an aura; a low-energy electro-magnetic field, drawn from the atmosphere by the primitive antennae, which then flows through the coils that encircle the embalmed larvae. These crude technical devices resonate in an infinitesimal manner and thus in it’s own way the work sings.

One of our principal oversights is to demand that nature exists only by virtue of our sense organs, like infants we carelessly assume that events that which we cannot perceive do not exist. What the ear fails to hear is therefore mute. Perhaps these are Sound-Sculptures which are simply inaudible! Visit the Gallery

WA Marine Facility ~ Ondes

2007-02-17T04:59:02+00:00

This commission for a new Marine facility at Henderson WA has recently been completed. The work is comprised of three elements, a Video-projection work, a series of interactive biomorphic sculptures and an outdoor kinetic work, consisting of six counter-balanced needles which interact with the wind.

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Laser cut interactive units being installed.

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Stainless steel and Aluminium, wind sensitive sculpture with passive sonic elements.

Interior forms in laser cut acrylic and stainless steel, sensitive to movement.

AudioMaze

2007-02-17T04:49:06+00:00

Listen to this space (well a space in Western Australia).

AudioMaze is an interactive project for the new exhibition space at the WA Blind and Guide-Dog AssociationA development of the “Talking Stick” project commissioned by the “Exploratorium” Museum of Science and Human Perception” in San Francisco, AudioMaze presents the sonic experience of an imagioned architectural space. Visitors may interact with the soundscape by using ‘sonic wands’.

Quint de Loup II

2007-02-17T03:14:39+00:00

Quint de Loup II was exhibitied at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Sydney ~ the show rounded up with a one day seminar on Sound, Art, Architecture and the Environment.
Here is my short presentation.

AudioNomadism or a description in plain English of how to do very complicated things with location sensitive spatial audio

The download is a bit slow ~ but it’s worth the wait!

Fictionalising Fiction! ~ Nigel Helyer.

In the beginning: As a thirteen year old lad I was once left to kick my heels for the day in central London, along with a couple of friends. Being both wary of getting lost in the capital and having little or no money we decided to visit the cartoon cinema that in those days was housed on the main concourse of Victoria station. However our encounter was not, as we had imagined, with Bugs Bunny or the Invisible Man (as it was each Saturday morning) but with something indescribable and utterly alien. I left the cinema with mixed emotions no longer an innocent, for I had seen Godard and my experience of cinema had been changed irrevocably!

Many years later (in 2003) I made a small work consisting of seven miniature reconstructions of my favourite scenes from Godard films, each mise en scène encased in a small glass dome mounted atop a camera tripod and hidden from view an induction audio system capable of interacting with hand-held ‘readers’.

The main issue at stake was how we negotiate the fictional spaces and narratives of cinema – in fact how we incorporate and ‘carry’ these fictions within us into the ‘real’ world. During the construction of ‘One or Two Things’ I realised that I held two wildly inaccurate assumptions.

Surprise number one; As I attempted to locate the scenes and sequences I recalled so vividly, I was to discover that they for the most part, did not actually exist in Godard’s works per se and that the images and turns of phrase I had internalised and held so dearly, were hybrid forms, embroidered, imploded and super-imposed. This caught me totally off-guard and lead me to search repeatedly through Godard’s oeuvre in a bid to locate the fugitive sequences!

Wildly inaccurate assumption, number two; During the process of transposing the filmic narratives into miniature sculptural dioramas a second form of slippage occurred as I realised that the discontinuous narrative that constitutes film, would only reluctantly congeal itself into a sculptural tableau.

The filmic event constructed via montage appears strangely like a Medieval ‘continuous narrative’ frieze when it is recruited as a three dimensional form. Likewise in the sonic domain, the soundtracks were re-constituted on the Procraste’s bed of my memory and neatly sutured into place with digital surgery ~ a Voodoo of memory!

Alpha 5: Savez vous ce qui transforme la nuit en lumière ? Lemmy : La poésie.

Memory slips, trips and trades ~ Gail Priest.

Based on subjective perceptions, and stored in the chemical and electrical mystery of a mind, memories can only offer some kind of veracity to their owner. So it is surprising how frequently we are called upon to defend memory as truth. I have always thought I had a very good memory–extensive and factual—however with increasing frequency my assumption is being shattered. Interestingly, it seems that the visual information in my recollections is not just patchy but sometimes wildly inaccurate, while the sonic material remains reasonably faithful. For example a few years ago someone gave me a CD featuring soundtracks from Pipilotti Rist videos. One piece in particular, a lilting meditative humming interspersed with cataclysmic crashes, was instantly familiar (I could sing along) and triggered my memory of the work seen over 5 years ago. Discussing it with friends I was ready to lay money on the fact that it was in black and white and Rist was walking along the street carrying a sledgehammer. In reality it is in colour and she holds a flower. It’s lucky no one took up my wager.

This re-interpretation of memories is the source of Nigel Helyer’s Two or three things. The tiny tableaux drawn from his childhood experiences of Godard films celebrate the inaccuracy of memory. The narratives are collapsed as Helyer condenses the action to frozen moments, sometimes placing figures together in scenes where in fact they never appeared. The sonic material is an elegant remix, collaging and condensing snippets of iconic score interspersed with fragments of dialogue, some sampled, some recreated. But what becomes clear is that while the sonic material contains factual (textual) errors, the atmospheres remain faithful to the originals, providing an immediate flood of memories—not only of the film, but when you saw saw it, where, who with, how you felt about them… Perhaps this is the defining characteristic of audio memories—the sonic elements hold the key to unlocking the ambience, the emotional colour of our recollections—something so experiential and subjective that it cannot be called to account.

KelleRadioActive could be seen as an antidote to the mis-rememberings of Two or three things. Created during a residency in Kellerberin, a small wheat belt town three hours out of Perth, Helyer conducted interviews with people asking them to recall their experiences of radios and early telecommunications. The recollections themselves may already be slipping, but once recorded they are preserved—the moment fixed and verifiable. While it would seem that it is the physical act of recording that contains the power of preservation, it is also the “hearing and saying”2 that allows memories to hold firm and be passed on. Unspoken memories tend to slip much faster than those that are recounted, formed into story, traded for other stories. Part of this is the speaking, but part is the hearing. When remembering a phone number, is it the number you remember (that serves no quantifiable purpose) or the sound-patterns of the words? Perhaps the tradition of learning things by heart is in fact remembering by ear.

The two works in Quint de Loup II not only offer fertile territory for contemplation of aural memories, but also illustrate Helyer’s deftness at physically manifesting his audio-explorations. Heyler’s installations always contain sophisticated yet playful audience interfaces. While tirelessly experimenting with new and old technologies, the mechanics of his works are fully integrated into the sculptural forms, providing the function of delivery while thoroughly disappearing themselves. The result is that his pieces seem to operate magically, invisible transmissions finding their way to you, selecting you as their listener.

It is this combination of the visible and invisible that truly characterises Helyer’s approach. Looking across the vast body of his work it seems that he has manifested the invisibility of audio through an astounding variety of interfaces and spaces, from meditative buddhas (Chant 2002), land mines (Seed 2002), lily ponds (Lotus 2006), or even an entire city (Siren for Port Jackson 2006). But by no means can Helyer’s work be seen as formulaic. Rather each of his pieces responds anew to the challenges of environment, function, reception and perception. Most importantly the resulting works cajole, challenge and often seduce us to listen—to our stories, our environments, our pasts, and maybe even our futures.

Gail Priest ~ January 2007

Notes 1. Pipilotti Rist, Ever is Over All (1997), sound by Pipilotti Rist and Anders Guggisberg 2. Pre Socratic sophists, circa 6th century BC, quoted in Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1996) p44, quoted in Darren Tofts, Memory Trade (Sydney: Interface, 1997) p62

View the “Ouint de Loup II” catalogue

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ A Bout de Souffle

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ Carabiniers

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ Alphaville

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ 2 or 3 things

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ Le Memphris

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ Une Femme

Listen to a stereo sample from the project ~ Le Weekend

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