DrSonique: Recent Episodes
DrSonique talks to the ABC
Dr. Nigel Helyer is an internationally prominent sound artist who’s interdisciplinary practice combines art and science to embrace our social, cultural and physical environments. He brings these concerns together in poetic art 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. Principal web archive - http://www.sonicobjects.com
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.Frederick Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.The Sea and superstition go hand in hand. For centuries sailors unwittingly sensing the song of the Whale through their wooden-hulled ships thought them Ghosts of the deep, and despite the thousands of close encounters in the Whale hunt they remained ‘mute’ until the middle of the 20th Century.It was a team of US military sonar operators based in Bermuda, charged with identifying Russian submarines who initially identified and documented the singing of whales thus enabling the entire debate about their sentience. The Song of the Humpback Whale (produced by the biologist Dr. Roger Payne) was released as an L.P. Record in 1970 (and subsequently re-released as a soundsheet in National Geographic’s January 1979 edition selling 10.5 million copies making it the most popular commercial recording of all time and instrumental in turning public awareness against the cruelty and avarice of the Whaling Industry.
An interview with artist Dr Nigel Helyer and scientist Professor Mary-Anne Lea about the exhibition BioSphere/Datasphere at the Mawson Gallery in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (UTAS) Hobart.
800,000 Short-Tailed Shearwaters are taking off in the pre-dawn by running downhill and launching themselves into the air over huge seacliffs. Recorded on an iPhone.
Part of the Biosphere/Datasphere exhibition, mix based upon sonified DNA from prey species.
Part of the Biosphere/Datasphere exhibition, mix based upon sonified DNA from prey species.
Part of the Biosphere/Datasphere exhibition, mix based upon sonified DNA from prey species.
Part of the Biosphere/Datasphere exhibition, mix based upon sonified DNA from prey species.
We are neurologically predisposed to seek patterns in our surroundings pattern recognition is our core cognitive ability, vital to our evolution and survival as a species—as it affords the capacity of prediction.In life, as in art, we take delight in the symmetries, growth patterns and morphologies of the natural world as through them we recognise our formation. However, there is a constant flux between the regularity or predictability of a pattern and a counter-current of instability or turbulence that might threaten to render it indecipherable. This is embraced in creative practice as we always require a twist to a narrative; a dissonant metaphor in a joke; or an unpredictable note to conclude a melodic series. This is the sweet spot, the point at which our expectations of regularity in a pattern are disrupted, but not too much, just enough to throw the brain into mild confusion. It is the fissure, the reveal, and the punchline that reflects on the narrative arc and plays with our assumptions. To walk this tightrope between order and chaos is one of the central techniques of art. By contrast, the task of Science is to distil clarity from chaos; to disambiguate the signal from the noise.
In Helyer’s giant machines there is the echo of human presence. In Mute for example the oversized saxophone may look more like a powerful and threatening rocket motor but it retains its associations with a more biological heat as in the hot breath of a black jazz musician. These contradictory readings reveal yet another paradox which underlies many of the pseudo-scientific forms in his work.
An interview about an Artist in Residence exhibition at the Broken Hill City Art Gallery 2022.
A short radio work to accompany the exhibition "The Past is our Future; The Future is our Past."
One of the installation tracks for the exhibition "The Past is our Future; The Future is our Past"
BioLogging data collected from Southern Elephant Seals diving under Antarctic Ice is transposed to a musical framework.
BioLogging data collected from Southern Elephant Seals diving under Antarctic Ice is transposed to a musical framework.
BioLogging data collected from Southern Elephant Seals diving under Antarctic Ice is transposed to a musical framework.
BioLogging data collected from Southern Elephant Seals diving under Antarctic Ice is transposed to a musical framework.
A musicalisation of the dive data recorded by Southern Elephant Seals swimming under Antarctic Sea Ice
The Scribbly gum tree; Eucalyptus haemastoma, Eucalyptus racemosa and Eucalyptus rossii are found throughout New South Wales coastal plains and hills in the Sydney region.
These Eucalypts are easily identifiable by the graphic scribbles created under their smooth yellow-grey bark by the larva of the Ogmograptis racemosa scribbly gum moth caterpillars.
The Scribbly Gum Suites is part of a larger series of musical compositions which enlist simple biological agents in a co-creative process which intentionally surrenders human agency.
A small sound piece derived from the tracks left in the bark of a gum tree by moth lavae - reproduced on a 30 note music box.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
A series of audio tracks for an interactive exhibition on the island of Örö in the Finnish archipelago. Sounds will be triggered by QR codes placed in the environment.
Art National interview concerning the Mute in TalkTown exhibition at The Perfromance Space Galleries 1990
http://www.sonicobjects.com/index.php/2019/12/16/sonus-maris/
You will need either big sub-woofers or some audio actuatiors bolted to something big to listen to this :)
Technical Notes. Sonus Maris is the result of an Art and Science collaboration with the scientists and engineers of the Water Research Laboratory of the University of New South Wales. The artist worked with data relating to the movement and deposition of sand on the beach at Narrabeen (in fact this is the world’s longest observation of sand deposition – taken over a period of 43 years) and is accompanied by tidal data and wave height. The artist quantised these data and then assigned a range of tonal values, that are played via audio actuators fitted to four Chaldini plates* and which excite various particulate matter on the plate’s surface. Sonus Maris sonifies and visualises abstract data sets across the four plates operate at very low frequencies generating a palpable and visceral experience. The project has been extremely popular with both the general public and with the scientists and engineers of the laboratory – so we shall continue our collaborations. * Ernst Chaldini (1756 – 1857 Hungarian/German) developed Robert Hook’s experiments of 1680 where he had observed nodal patterns manifest on vibrating glass plates (he employed flour activated by a violin bow stroking the edge of the glass). Chaldini patterns or figures are a method to demonstrate nodal boundaries in vibrating surfaces and have similarities with the solutions of the Schrödinger equation for one-electron atoms.
An in-situ recording of spoken word under the track-way of a major highway bridge (you can hear the expansion joints!).
Artist Nigel Helyer and Curator and Traditional Tasmanian Tony Brown discuss the Two Islands public Art project in Franklin Square, Hobart, Tasmania.
A concert for Brass ensemble with a score generated from bee recordings and bee data sonifications.
GeneMusiK 2003 ~ ongoing) experiments with the metaphors of Genes, Memes and Dots as mnemonic structures capable of evolution and embodiment. GeneMusiK creates a re-mix of cultural, social and biological pathways, by hybridising and remixing music notation by coding it as DNA which is synthesised and inserted into Bacterial cultures which transform and restructure the original musical form. See for more details. http://www.sonicobjects.com/index.php/projects/more/eine_kleine_genemusik
GeneMusiK_Over the Rainbow_Mutations No.1 and No.2 are currently touring with the FACTT exhibition series https://cultivamoscultura.com/2018/09/27/factt-ny-is-coming
GeneMusiK 2003 ~ ongoing) experiments with the metaphors of Genes, Memes and Dots as mnemonic structures capable of evolution and embodiment. GeneMusiK creates a re-mix of cultural, social and biological pathways, by hybridising and remixing music notation by coding it as DNA which is synthesised and inserted into Bacterial cultures which transform and restructure the original musical form. See for more details. http://www.sonicobjects.com/index.php/projects/more/eine_kleine_genemusik
GeneMusiK_Over the Rainbow_Mutations No.1 and No.2 are currently touring with the FACTT exhibition series https://cultivamoscultura.com/2018/09/27/factt-ny-is-coming
Here are three short radio episodes created by artist Nigel Helyer for the When Science meets Art collaborative research project based at the Bundanon Trust NSW Australia
Here are three short radio episodes created by artist Nigel Helyer for the When Science meets Art collaborative research project based at the Bundanon Trust NSW Australia
Here are three short radio episodes created by artist Nigel Helyer for the When Science meets Art collaborative research project based at the Bundanon Trust NSW Australia
A stereo mix extracted from a site specific x8 channel audio resonator sound-sculpture installed for Siteworks at the Bundanon Trust NSW, Australia. http://www.sonicobjects.com/index.php/projects/more/milk_and_honey
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 dives and open ocean transits with economic and climatic data, combining them to form 4D cartographic animations, sonifications and live performative and sculptural forms.
The byeline for the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies is Turning Nature into Knowledge. The Under the IceCap project supplies a second line Turning Knowledge into Culture encapsulating a powerful Art and Science synthesis and simultaneously raising the expectation but also the risk of the endeavour.
The complex bio-logging data collected by Southern Elephant Seals on their dives in the Antarctic (and collated as Surface Wind Speed, Depth with Salinity, Depth with Temperature and Ocean Bottom with Bottom Density) are transcribed onto the punch paper music-box system. This a crude but effective Digital to Analogue sonification of data values. This simple prototype illustrates the potential to render tens of simultaneous data streams onto a pianola or disc-klavier for ‘live’ performance.
The primary aim is to produce creative work which is compelling and affective but is at the same time a work of scientific utility tapping into both sides of the brain! The key focus is the relationship of the environmental knowledge generated from Antarctic bio-logging data with the Anthropogenic changes in the biosphere. In “Biologging Retrofit” the complex streams of bio-logging data has been transcribed using a punch tape system on a series of multi-note range music boxes as a short live performance which made its debut at the Australian Computer Music Conference (Sydney 2015). The work was subsequently recorded and broadcast by ABC Radio National and re-presented at the International Conference of Auditory Display (Canberra 2016).
A rare opportunity to record the three female singers from the Sydney debut of Nomanslanding singing the final lament together. Recorded after we closed the project to the public on the last day of the exhibition.
Artist Nigel Helyer and Artist/Curator Darko Fritz discuss sound art and the exhibition "Songs from the UnderWorld" (version three) at the Grey)(Space Gallery, Korcula, Croatia.
The Work: Take a Deep Breath ~ Breathless, is a new work commissioned by the Sound Reasons, Sonic Cities Festival due to take place in Delhi, India under auspices of the SARAI new media foundation. Take a Deep Breath ~ Breathless, is a development of my current research into the sonification of environmental data and the installation of the resulting sound works into public or architectural space. Conceptually the work is similar to VoxAura in that it is structured in two parts, one originating in a social and cultural context, the other ecological and environmental ~ the aim of the work being to integrate and interrogate the relationship between these spheres, and present them in an outdoor urban environment.
Concept: Take a Deep Breath ~ Breathless, concerns the atmosphere, the breath and the act of breathing. Breathing as meditation, as respiration, failing breath in respiratory diseases, the breathy sounds of our voices, of song and flute ~ the metaphor of breath as life itself. Hence the audio library which I shall establish in my one month working visit to Delhi will embrace and record a wide range of ambient, vocal, environmental and musical sounds, establishing what I term as an AudioPortrait of the environment.
Bio_Logging data collected in Antarctica by Souther Elephant seals transcribed for string quartet - Test_01
Ars Memoriae Mexicana is the result of an Audio-Journey through Mexico in which these questions of location, memory and identity were very much in my daily thoughts as I traveled through a landscape saturated in sound, music and voices.
In the recording you listen to the voices of :- the sound artist Charlie Fox as he claps rhythmically, facing the steps of an Aztec Pyramid; the film maker Mike Buckley sitting on a balmy evening surrounded by crickets; acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westercamp talking in the garden of the villa once owned by Octavia Paz; the artist Juan Gonzales de Leon recalling a childhood walk in the alien landscape of a Primrose Hill park in London; the journalist Miriam recounting her favourite Mexico City sounds.
These voices float in a bed of ambient environmental sounds and street-scapes that for the most part I have chosen not to edit or sanitise, preferring to leave in the noise, the glitches and the occasional less than perfect recording ~ that’s the way the world sounds and Hollywood is a long way away both geographically but especially philosophically!
Short stereo fragment of an automatic audio and data sonification four channel system.
WYSSA ~ All my love darling!
WYSSA ~ All my love darling! is a work that combines vocal texts derived from the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE) Antarctic Telecommunications Code Books and combined with Bio_logging data collected from Southern Elephant Seals diving under the Ice shelves and on long Southern Ocean Transits.
The ANARES WYSSA teletype morse code words formed a compressed lexicon that allowed Antarctic expeditioners to communicate with their next of kin across the Southern Ocean. Before satellite communications where introduced Circa1985 expeditioners could send telegraphs home. To stretch out the word limit a special ANARE telegraphic code was devised.
These telegraphs were called whizzers, from the code WYSSA (All my love Darling). Today one can still send a whizzer, but it is done by faxing or emailing the communications section at Kingston who then email the message. Each expeditioner was allotted 175 code words per month but could purchase additional words at 5 cents each! These were shared with family back home, therefore the stock phrases reflect both sides of the communication, some Antarctic, others domestic.
In WYSSA the vocal material is convolved with the SES Bio-Logging data sets to produce two streams of stereo audio. The first stream is the original audio file, a voice reading the Nato Alphabet Code, for example WYLLA = “Whiskey, Yankee, Lima, Lima, Alpha” followed immediately by a second voice = “Keep Smiling”. The second stereo source is the same audio file harmonically restructured by the SES data, rendered as an abstract harmonic shadow of the vocal text.
The sound system is housed in four expedition tents (kindly on loan form the Australian Antarctic Division) which are illuminated at night, forming a camp in Kelly’s Garden, part of the Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart, Tasmania.
Here are some examples of ANARE codes.
WYLLA Keep smiling WYLME My thoughts are with you WYLOP Good show keep it up WYLPO God bless you and keep you safe WYMAM My thoughts and prayers are ever with you WYMEM Love and best wishes for new year WYMIP Are you all right worried about you WYMMA Please don't worry WYNAN Glad to hear you are better WYNNA Hope you will soon be better WYNPE Very happy in receipt good news WYNRO I wish we were together on this special occasion all my best wishes for a speedy re-union WYNUS With kind regards from WYOHL Your loving family WYSSA All my (our) love darling (this is there the name comes from).
YATOP The weather has been very bad for the past YATPO The weather has been so bad that YATRY Wind velocity (ies) has/have reached YAUCY Weather too bad for YAUDZ In bad weather YAURN Snow is drifting through the station YAUSP Deep snow drifts have accumulated in the lee of huts
YIUMS Am saving money and doing ok financially YIURY I am having a struggle financially YIVBO How are the children YIVIZ Give my love to the children YIVOB We have just had a radio blackout lasting several days YIVUC Days are short in the antarctic at present, the sun appearing above the horizon for no more than three hours
Over and out!
My first encounter with a Kurtzweil text to speech machine (used by blind folks to scan Sci-Fi novels at race horse commentator speed!
La Zona, co-produced with Tony McGregor as part of the Transit of Venus project for the 1992 Biennale of Sydney.
La Campana, co-produced with Tony McGregor as part of the Transit of Venus project for the 1992 Biennale of Sydney.
Sound track mix from the Sound in Space CD to accompany the Oracle installation at the MCA sydney.