Adrift (2009) was an installation/soundscape project by Nigel Helyer concieved for the Memory Flows exhibition at Carriage Works in Sydney (2009). The project used the hull of Helyer’s sea kayak as a transducer that relayed a recording of a ship’s propellor rumbling and sonar soundings while a audio equpped model of an Ark held aloft in the net of a fishing trawler played back a recorded medley of fish names in Latin and English. The project is apparently powered by a simple voltaic cell positioned below and connected by jumper leads to the kayak that is built of two copper and zinc fish in a wash basin filled with water.
Adrift is amongst the simplest and most linear of Helyer’s works but nonetheless manages to make visceral the complex of relations that characterise and constitute the interactions of human/marine culture.