Author: Nigel Helyer
-
Transformer
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 installed at the Sculpture in the Valley Festival 2025. Transformer would appear…
-
Ariel@MQ
Laser-cut acrylic, copper wire, theremin electronicsfootprint variable, individual units variable, maximum 0.75m x 0.6m diameterMacquarie University Art Collection – installed in the Jim Piper building (2025). Ariel consists of a series of eight laser-cut acrylic sculptures, all of which have a strong morphological relationship to microscopic marine forms sharing symmetry with the structure of primitive…
-
SpeedRead
The express lane to articles and theoretical texts provided by Google Scholar. It may involve a bit of clicking :).
-
The Sonic Whale
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. He who fights the monster should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster.And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee.…
-
Sonic-Cartography
Over the years I have had the pleasure of of collaborating with and contributing to the Art and Science international summer school conducted by Cultivamos Cultural in São Luís, Portugal. The summer school is hosted in an old farm house in a sleepy village, and whilst the creative research is focussed and serious the general…
-
Imaginary Beings; three characters walk into a Bar.
Three characters walk into a bar, a Virus, a Human and Santa Claus. The bartender refuses to serve the Human and Santa Claus on the basis that he regards them as chimera, but happily serves the Virus with three beakers of industrial alcohol, which the Virus generously shares with his two colleagues. As the bar…
-
Freeze Frame; Cinema and the Afterlife.
Quelle est votre plus grand ambition dans la vie? Devenire immortel et puis mourir. Jean-Luc Godard, À bout de souffle 1960. Fictionalising fiction. As a thirteen-year-old lad, I along with a couple of friends, were once left to kick our heels for the day in central London —we were the crew in a sailing regatta…
-
BioSphere/DataSphere
The BioSphere|DataSphere project acknowledges the deep, longstanding and ongoing connection of the Palawa and Pakana people to the wild, beautiful coast and sea country where the Tasman Fracture Marine Park is situated. Between 2021 and 2024 artist Nigel Helyer worked with an interdisciplinary and multi-agency, team of scientists researching the environmental productivity of the Tasman…
-
Sonus Maris; the concert!
The Sonus Maris concert was developed in collaboration with the New Music Collective (UNSW) as an elaboration of the original data-derived monophonic musical scores. In terms of objectives, the original plan was to create an audio-visual work for the International Conference of Coastal Engineers, which was duly held at the Sydney International Conference Centre in…
-
Sonique; the life and art of Dr Sonique (the Graphic Novel)
Sonique; the Life and Art of Dr.Sonique, is the authorised biography of Dr. Nigel Helyer in the form of a speculative fiction Graphic Novel. The work is a collaboration between Sydney-based comic writer Mark Hobby, the Taiwan-based graphic designer The Milkman, and Dr. Sonique himself who provided copious amounts of factual, anecdotal, and totally fictional…