Author: Nigel Helyer
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A Dissimulation of Birds
Our capacity to communicate, and more so our ability to sing is directly related to our intimate evolutionary relationship with the acoustic genius of birds. Our species has internalised and evolved the trills and warbles of birdsong to form language and music. A Dissimulation of Birds pays homage to the virtuosity of our feathered friends…
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The Biological Mixer
By Sarah Moss. Dr Nigel Helyer, also known as Dr Sonique, has a fascination with data sonifications. “I’ve done quite a lot of projects where I build a really big audio library, maybe in certain categories,” he said. “It might be environmental sounds, local music, aural history archival sounds or from early radio in that…
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Landscape/Portrait
An exhibition at the Macquarie University Gallery (March ~ May 2017) exploring the Shoalhaven River Valley.
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Heavy Metal
Elements and minerals lay buried in the landscape tracing diagrams of human activity. Specks of alluvial Gold washed down to the flood plain from worked-out mountain mine shafts; the mineral auras that reveal the long-vanished outlines of farm-buildings and the tell-tale chemical fallout from workplaces. Boyd painted this (mineralised) landscape with colours which were themselves…
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CultCult – audio illumination from the Ocean
All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail…
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BioLogging Retrofit
The ‘Under the Icecap‘ art and science collaboration aims to illuminate the fundamental connection between human activities and planetary dynamics, by creating an experimental installation and performance series that will visualise and sonify scientific and statistical datasets. In essence Under the IceCap renders complex environmental bio-logging data-sets collected by Southern Elephant Seals on their under-ice…
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BioPods_V2 The Nebuchadnezzar Suite
BioPods_V2; The Nebuchadnezzar Suite is the second contribution from the Where Science Meets Art ARC project to the Bundanon Trust SiteWorks programme. The thematic for Siteworks 2015 is Feral and the three Biomorphic sculptures can be considered as Biology turned feral as Sculpture or naturally Sculpure turned feral as Biology. The works on the…
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NomansLanding
Five international artists create the NomansLanding project; Robyn Backen (Australia) Andre Dekker (Netherlands) Graham Eatough (Scotland) Nigel Helyer (Australia) and Jennifer Turpin (Australia) and jointly developed by Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Glasgow Life and Urbane Künste Germany, Nomanslanding made its debut at Darling Harbour in April 2015, and later featured at the Ruhrtrienniale 2015 in…
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BioPod
The BioPods project was developed for the Bundanon Trust annual Siteworks 2014 festival but is also the debut project of When Art meets Science a three year ARC (Australian Research Council) project conducted between the artist and cultural and environmental researchers at Macquarie University; with The Bundanon Trust and the Australia Council for the Arts…
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Eine Kleine GeneMusiK
GeneMusiK rides Again! and again and again… This is a complex bio-art project that spans thirteen years, undertaken at three different laboratories. This post records that journey from its inception to a final successful realisation and recounts the pitfalls, frustrations and the final accomplishment. Please scroll to the end of the post to listen to…