Projects

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…
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Songs from the UnderWorld_v3

Songs UnderWorld_V3 at the siva)(zona a.k.a. grey) (area Space for contemporary and media art, Korčula, Croatia. Songs from the UnderWorld has entered its third reincarnation at the siva)(zona gallery, Korčula, Croatia. The work continues to examine the issue of death from the perspective of the myth of Orpheus and his journey into the Underworld and…
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Architecture for Bees; Bees for Architecture

Architecture for Bees and Bees for Architecture is a three day workshop at the Kaisanemi Botanical Gardens, Helsinki, Finland offered by Australian artist Dr. Nigel Helyer as part of the ongoing Melliferopolis urban bee project. Architecture for Bees and Bees for Architecture is a project that considers the architectural capacities and potentials of colonial bees…
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Bristle

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Breathless; Take a Deep Breath

Take a Deep Breath; Breathless My creative practice is increasingly focussed upon bringing together the physical and ecological environments together with our social and cultural contexts. Using the media of multichannel sound installation; data sonification and sonic cartography these hybrid works are designed to create new forms of sonic space in which it is possible…
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Public Art concepts

Whilst the Sonic Objects; Sonic Architecture site is full of large scale public art and environmental projects they are of course the tip of the iceberg. Man proposes and God disposes as the saying goes; or in the realm of architectural and public art competitions the final call may not be 100% divine. So here…
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