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 […]
Read More →Sonique; the life and art of Dr Sonique (the Graphic Novel)
on February 22, 2023in Projects, Texts, Uncategorised, Web Referencestags: critical writing, Graphic Novel, reviews and press, Speculative fiction

The Sound of Place; Environmental Artworks at Bundanon.
on October 6, 2020in Articles, arts and science, environmental project, Essays, interactive new media, public art, sound sculpture, Textstags: arts and science, critical writing, environmental project, sound sculpture

This essay by Nigel Helyer and John Potts listens to the sound of place: of Bundanon, a three thousand acre property in the Shoalhaven river valley in rural NSW, Australia. Bundanon is today an artists’ colony and education centre, following the gift to the Australian people in 1993 of the entire property—including homestead, artist studio […]
Read More →Culturescape.
on November 14, 2019in Textstags: Art and Science, critical writing, environmental project, installation, research and development

Where Science Meets Art – the CultureScape book. Finally the book detailing the four year When Science meets Art research project has been published. You can read a version of the Culturescape book here. The beautifully illustrated hardcopy version is available via the Bundanon Trust online shop.
Read More →An Atlas of Small Voyages
on August 21, 2013in Textstags: critical writing

LAND, a sure footing, a Terra Firma, our groundedness. But my story is somewhat different, nomadic and fluid. Like Odysseus, who after all that hard travel and the spat with the suitors, was told to shoulder a ship’s oar and walk inland until he found a place where no-one could recognise the oar ~ at […]
Read More →Teatro y Democracia
on December 26, 2009in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
Act I. The Globe. It has been a standing joke for years now, each time I leave London I kick myself for again forgetting to visit the New Globe. Finally this inattention or amnesia has been remedied with the purchase of a five pound ticket for a standing place in the yard where I watched […]
Read More →Snap, Crackle and Pop; On listening, memory and amnesia
on October 21, 2009in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
Snap, Crackle and Pop; On listening, memory and amnesia. Your words are preserved in the tin foil and will come back upon the application of the instrument years after you are dead in exactly the same tone of voice you spoke in then…This tongueless, toothless instrument, without larynx or pharynx, dumb, voiceless matter, nevertheless mimics […]
Read More →Mexico Is Different
on June 7, 2008in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
This article originally appeared in RealTime Edition 83, Febuary/March 2008 and is reproduced here with the permission of the writer and RealTime http://www.realtimearts.net
“MÉXICO IS DIFFERENT LIKE A TRAVEL FOLDER SAYS.” THUS QUOTH THE IMMORTAL BARD, RY COODER. THROUGH THE LENS OF THE RECENT TRANSITIO_MX02 FESTIVAL OF ELECTRONIC ARTS & VIDEO YOU CAN SEE WHY. OVER A PLATE OF CHILES RELLENOS, DIRECTOR OF THE TRANSITIO_MX02 FESTIVAL GRACE QUINTANILLA RECOUNTS A STORY HER YOUNG SON TOLD HER, IT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS:
Read More →Ars Electronica; Vitae Brevis
on December 21, 2007in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
This article originally appeared in RealTime Edition 82, Dec/Jan 2007 and is reproduced here with the permission of the writer and RealTime http://www.realtimearts.net
A visit to the beach in darkest Austria!
Read More →A Night out in NokiaTown
on October 25, 2007in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
A Nomadic Ear treatment
Read More →The Nomadic Ear
on October 24, 2007in Essays, Textstags: critical writing
The Nomadic Ear.
Sonography, Cartography and the design of Sonic Narratives for Non-Linear Experience.
Preamble; getting immersed.
In discussing Immersive Environments we find ourselves at the mercy of a phalanx of aqueous meta-phors, saturated in an inescapable lexicon that engulfs our senses, saturating our frames in the fluid medium of sound. So be it; let us be carried away on the flood to be inundated in the ocean of sound. This text is concerned with concepts of spatiality, of location and the interactions of sounding bodies that articulate and activate the soundscape, how we as auditors experience the sonic domain and how we as authors compose and construct compelling immersive audioscapes.
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