His work as co-manager (with Kaj Grønbæk) of the Interactive Spaces research centre involves; The design and implementation of IT systems that are designed with a specific focus on ensuring the seamless integration of information architectures and the physical environment (Info Gallery, Echoes of the City, Wisdom Wells), The potential presented by pervasive computing for new forms of sporting interaction and extension (iSport) and The potential for context aware computing presented by pervasive computers ubiquitous networking and mobile sensor, capture and positioning technologies (Urban Web).

Peter’s research publications are concerned with the both theoretical and pragmatic exploration of new approaches to interaction design and have, for example explored the innovative concepts of ‘Collective Interaction’ (with M.G. Petersen Designing for Collective Interaction in Randall, D. (ed) From CSCW to Web 2.0 European Developments in Collaborative Design, Springer Verlag -in Press.) and ‘Frame Shifting’ (with Thomas Markussen, Mapping Cultural Frame Shifting in INteraction Design with Blending Theory 2008 -www.ijdesgn.org). Peter is the Conference Chair (with Olav W. Bertelsen) of the DIS2010 conference. He sits on the board of the Nordic Design Research Network Nordes.org.

Under the Cutural Heritage focus of the centre the DUL has worked with Moesgård Museum to produce an interactive display allowing visitors to create and record their own rune stone designs. Under the Digital Art focus the centre has curated an exhibition of work exploring Surveillance in contemporary networked and pervasive media cultures. Under the Digital Art fous the centre has also employed the ‘Talkaoke’ format developed by the British Artist collective ‘The People Speak’ to explore the potential for digital/networked art to open spaces of public dialogue and exchange and as a commercial and cultural ‘facilitation’ engine. The Talkaoke format involves a donut shaped ‘news desk’ in which a central interviewer host a ‘talk show’ with the participants seated around the table discuss a particular user -led issue. The format of the table encourages and open and intimates engagement which is then recorded and presented on screen on site and online. In the same vein and in collaboration with ‘The People Speak’ once again the DUL directed a game show  ’The Pledge Pyramid’ that encouraged people to discuss options  and to vote for an idea for combatting the effects of climate change – participants were required to donate ‘hard cash’ and the collected funds were awarded to the ‘winning’ option. The project Atmosphere Co2 involved the translation of Co2 levels to sound and light in the form of 3 sculptures positioned in public spaces- exploring the effects of making the non-sensuous qualities of the environment sensible. The data from the sculptures’ sensors was captured to pachube.com. Pachube.com is a site that acts a an open repository/collection point for environmental and other forms of realtime sensor creating a real time source of CO2 information beyond the immediate and the sensible.

The centre also publishes extensively on management training, management and business communication, and participatory design, and the analysis of public and management discourse.

Aaron’s work has often included the conceptualisation and visual design of installations, interactives, web applications, multi-screen displays as well as the subsequent coordination required to see the often multidisciplinary nature of cross-media projects realised with a consistency of visual and interactive design.

Helyer’s work is what his website describes as ‘actively interdisciplinary’- linking creative expression, scientific research and technical development. More specifically Helyer’s work is characterised by an interest in the potential for technical architectures to reveal otherwise unseen or marginalised dynamics that span and interweave the development of culture, environment, history and technology .

Installation is the most common vehicle for Helyer’s work which tends to employ elements of computer and mechanical interaction as the basis for an establishing and exploring the visceral relation between body and ecology that it potentialises.

Helyer’s most recent work has developed out of a collaboration with the Satellite Navigation and Positioning Group and Human Computer Interaction Lab of the University of New South Wales (Most notably with Daniel Woo and  Michael Lake of UNSW). That work is based on the Audio Nomad system that provides for the mapping of geo-tagged media and geospatial information in a interactive system that immerses the user in a sonified representation of the environment. That representation juxtaposes sonified meteorological and environmental data with recorded histories, cultural fragments, field recordings (both visual and sonic) making the relations between these ‘readings’ visceral. The user traverses this sonic topology  produced via an immersive multiscreen and surround sound system and the unique Audio Nomad interface  to explore the transitions and relations between the human, biological, and environmental systems.

The Audio Nomad system is the result of a project Helyer began in 1999 and which continued until 2001 called Sonic Landscapes and which employed the spatial audio systems developed by Lake Technology and the GPS systems developed by the SNAP lab of the University of New South Wales (and in collaboration with both Lake and UNSW). That project allowed for a fictive but nonetheless visceral 3D immersive soundscape to be accurately positioned and explored on/in a physical terrain. The subject and site for that work was the St Stephen’s Graveyard in Newtown, Sydney – a site rich with the kind of lost/invisible histories, that along with the invisible or marginalised dynamics of our ecology, constitute the other principle interest in Helyer’s work.

Two other interwoven streams are apparent in traversing Helyer’s catalogue. The first is an interest in oral and sonic histories that is expressed in the Wireless House (2009) and  GhosTrain (2008) projects both of which work on resounding the forgotten histories that are expressed in the sonic markers of a superceded or evicted heavy industry that once constituted Sydney’s inner city life or the oral histories that recount the human cultures to which it gave rise.

The other stream of Helyer’s catalogue is the design of mechanical and dynamic sculptures that harness wind or other environmental (or differential forces-electromagnetic force for example) forces as a means of modal ‘transduction’ – of converting wind to dynamic form (Zephyr 2010), or electromagnetic potential into sound (Swarm 2005), audio to tactile vibration (Adrift-2009, Transformer 2005), kinaesthetic potential into sound and form (Spinner 2005).

Helyer’s work is extensively and generously documented on the Artist’s web site (http://www.sonicobjects.com/) and farexceeds this rather cursory account of his contribution to media art both nationally in Australia and and internationally – The rise of ubiquitous computing and cheap portable, and embeddable, systems of playback has seen sound art move to the forefront of media and interactive art – Helyer has become a central protagonist in this ongoing exploration.

Run Silent, Run Deep is the 2008 Singapore Iteration of the series and involved a mapping of the Marine environment of Singapore harbour onto an immersive and interactive sonic topology that the user can explore via a projected visual interface.

The Audio Nomad project involves the representation of geo-tagged, recorded, media including images, video, sound, juxtaposed with the sonification of geo-spatial information. This reconstitution of this collected data in a sonic topology allows a user to navigate a soundscape in which recorded histories, unseen ecological dynamics, and visceral field recordings are evocatively juxtaposed to reveal otherwise forgotten, marginalised, or assumed networks of relation.

Eco Located began with a  maiden collaborative residency aboard the MARIN (Media Art Research Interdiciplinary Network) catamaran.

The project took water quality and meteorological readings, geotagged information, made field recordings, and recorded interviews with scientists and the community in and around Belfast Port and during their voyage across the North Sea- concentrating on the ‘Littoral cultures’ – the cultures that develop at the transition or boundaries of (in this case) land and sea.

The information gathered becomes the basis for an immersive surround sound installation that uses the Audio Nomad system to allow a user to enter and navigate an abstract soundscape – a kind of sonic topology constituted of and juxtaposing (sonifying) the information and media recorded during the vessel’s progress across the North Sea.

The Eco-Located project continues a common theme in Helyer’s work that explores the potential for audio to make audible that which be forgotten or unseen – this extends beyond the post modern desire to reveal an underlying or marginalised structure and  to explore the way we might use audio in both new and old technology to realise new networks of relation and remembering between individuals, the communities of which they are part,their ecology, and their histories.