| Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Nigel Helyer

Artistat Sonic Objects; Sonic Architecture
Rushcutters Bay,
Australia
Focus area: Augmented Reality, Biology, Environmental Art, Eco Art, Land Art, Geography, Geo-Locative, Mapping, Sculpture, Spacial, Sound, Acoustics, Writing, Literature, Poetry

Dr Nigel Helyer (aka DrSonique) is a contemporary polymath whose work links Art and Science, and embraces the environment; identity and cultural history. He has an international reputation as a sculptor and sound-artist who creates large scale sound-sculptures, environmental artworks and inter-active projects that prompt the community to engage with their cultural histories, identity and sense of place; inviting us to examine the abstract conditions of our world and our complex relationships to it.
 
His practice is interdisciplinary and collaborative,focussing on the areas of Art and Science, Environmental-Art and Bio-Arts, creating projects such as GeneMusiK, a prototype DNA/Music remixing system; Host a sonic installation with live insects that has toured internationally. Nigel was the Artistic Director of the infamous LifeBoat bio-art project and co-founder of the SoundCulture producing major international sound-art festivals in the AsiaPacific -1991~2012.
 
Nigel ’s R&D work in augmented audio-reality with Lake Technology the Creative the Audio-Nomad Research Group, resulted in a series international patents and major immersive sound exhibitions. 
 
He is a leader experimenting in the creative sonification of biodata creating cultural and environmental audioportraits: VoxAura, the River is Singing, European Capital of Culture Turku 2011; CrayVox, Spaced Biennale 2012; When Science meets Art, at the Bundanon Trust 2014/8; and Under the Icecap, a collaboration with the University of Tasmania that sonifies bio-data collected by Seals in the Antarctic.. 
 
A recent collaborative project, Nomanslanding, creates an immersive multi-channel, floating acoustic-architecture. With x20 channel audio composition and live singers. The work has been exhibited in Sydney; at the Ruhr Triennale (2015) and Glasgow (2017).
 
This year he realised Oratorio for a Million Souls, a series of bee listening spaces in three botanical gardens (Leeuwarden the European Capital of Culture).

Journal Articles:
Artists’ Articles

Culturescape: Environment, Science, and Art at Bundanon

August 2023
Special Section: Abstracts from the Spectra 2018 Symposium

Abstracts from the Spectra 2018 Symposium Part 6: Systems

December 2021
Articles and Notes

Heavy Metal: An Interactive Environmental Art Installation

December 2018
LMJ28 Audio Companion

Sonic Commentary

December 2018