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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Be not afeared; this isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices
that, if I then had waked, after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me,
that when I waked, I cried to dream again.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

Prototype testing the mobile audio units...

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Syren for Port Jackson has recently plied the waters of Sydney Harbour, delivering a unique location sensitive, immersive audio experience aboard the M.V. Regal.

The Syren project is part of the AudioNomad R+D project ~ a collaboration between the Artist Nigel Helyer and the Scientists Daniel Woo and Chris Rizos of the University of New South Wales.

The Regal approaching Darling Harbour.

Visit the Gallery

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Narrative treatments

Also...

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“Lotus” is a recent commission for an environmental audio sculpture that is moored in the lake at ECU’s Joondalup campus.

Lotus on-site and talking poetry ~ November 2006

“Lotus” is a development of my previous solar powered environmental audio works and is directly based upon the functional components of “Haiku” but here deployed within a space-frame that acts as a floating sub-structure for deployment in the lake at Joondalup.  Floating the work is a...

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Exhibited.
Watch This Space, Alice Springs, 1996.

Materials. Steel wrenches, Copper Antennae, Scientific Glassware, Grubs.

Dimensions 10m x 3m x 3m.

Notes
My approach to the sonic domain has always been informed by a Sculptor’s perspective, emphasising the experiential nature of sound that links sonic events to the dynamic, material eventsthat produce them, as well as to the architectures and environments that contain and propagate them.The current work “Interferences”...

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The Audio Nomad project is an exciting new development in Australian Research and Development that combines the skills and talents of Artists with those of Scientists in an imaginative collaboration that is developing technologies to support and deliver creative public sound-art events.  Our specific interests are in location sensitive, mobile audio systems that generate immersive sound experiences.  Our approach is to mould our research and development around the real...

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Between June 2004 and February 2005 Nigel Helyer worked as an Artist in Residence at the Paul Scherrer Institut, one of Switzerland’s largest research laboratories.  The Following is extracted from the Institut publication ‘Aktuell’.

How might an Artist approach the Paul Scherrer Institut, which by any standards, is a complex intellectual and social organism?  My strategy, simplistic though it may seem, has been to imagine PSI as eco-system, or more specifically,...

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