Rebecca Bracewell is a composer and sound artist exploring the possibilities of hearing aids in performance, and the politics of listening, deafness, and sound reproduction technology.

SHIFT is a series that creates a platform for artists with disability, to share their stories and lived-experience, celebrate their art and SHIFT the focus to their unique contribution being made to the musical and artistic landscape, both in Australia and overseas.

Enjoy new music by Georgia Scott, a new multi-media work by film composer Kristin Rule, and performances by Nat Bartsch and Ria Andriani alongside a new electroacoustic work by Rebecca Bracewell that explores the politics of listening and deafness through the sound potential of hearing aids. Composer Georgia Scott, Access Consultant Morwenna Collett and flautist and BackStage Music director Lamorna Nightingale have co-curated a program of new music by composers and performers who live with disability.

On 'Spirals' by Rebecca Bracewell:

Spirals is an electroacoustic work that explores hearing aid feedback. Hearing aids have a microphone, amplifier, and speaker, and feedback happens when the amplified sounds are picked up through the speaker, fed back through the microphones, and so on in a loop. As a hearing aid wearer herself, feedback is a regular part of Rebecca’s sonic life. She is interested in exploring the little ways that her listening devices malfunction, amplifying those sounds through resonating glass jars, and building a texture through live looping. In exploring each hearing aid’s unique timbre and frequency, she attempts to build a miniature living ecosystem out of these devices that are so often seen in a purely medical and mechanical way.