Artist statement

Part of ISEA98Revolution, Nigel talks about his piece, “Ship to Shore”.  Over the past decade my practice has undergone a transformation in which discreet conceptual and methodological practices have converged to form a pluri-discipline – a cultural practice which synthesises, sculpture with architectural or environmental sites and combines performed soundscapes (textual, musical or electronic) with public radio broadcast. My initial formation as a sculptor has provided me with an orientation which insists upon an experiential, rather than a representational means of expression one in which the body (its sensorium and its memory) is invoked as the primary location of meaning. Such an orientation has drawn me to an area of research which seeks to critique and develop a nexus of relationships between the body, sound and public space.
My practice is broadly intended to redress this apparent lack of awareness of the sonic domain in the fields of design, architecture and art practice with a programme of Sound-sculpture projects designed to signal and promote the creative, cultural and technological potentials of the aural.

• Dr. Nigel Llewyd William Helyer, AU, is an Australian Sculptor and Sound-Artist who received a BA Hons in Sculpture from the Liverpool College of Art, UK. 1974, an MARCA in Environmental Media from The Royal College of Art, London, UK. 1979 and his Doctorate from the University of Technology, Sydney 1997. He has an international practice in Sound-Sculpture installation, experimental Radio Broadcast and New Media. He is an independent producer for ABC Radio (Sydney) a co-founder and Commissioner of SoundCulture International, a member of the International Council of The Exploratorium Museum of Science and Human Perception (San Francisco, USA) and an animateur for the Austral-ian Business Network. Currently he is the senior lecturer at the Sculpture, Performance and Installation studio at The University of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts.