Chamber Made – Listening Acts Performance

Chamber Made invites you into stillness, and asks you to reflect on how we perceive, process, and hold sound – whether it be through medical devices, recording technologies, or the quiet resonance of everyday objects. Grounded in the artists’ personal histories and diverse cultural perspectives, these works reveal listening as both solitary and collective – shaped by technology, and yet profoundly human.  

Delve in with Song to the Cell by Biddy Connor which transforms an IV machine into an instrument in this intimate performance. A vocalist and a medical device entwine in a unique duet of hums, beeps and mechanical rhythms, exploring ideas of healing, dependency, and transhuman connection.  

Tactile Piece for Human Ears by Aviva Endean creates an intimate listening experience, capturing sounds through binaural microphones which are designed to replicate the acoustic properties of human hearing. Working with sounds which are on the edge of human perception–wind currents, pipe tone and vibrations heard through bone conduction, Aviva builds acoustic landscapes shaped in real time to feel like they’re happening just for you–immersive, strange and quietly communal.  

sounding forms / forming sounds by Alexandra Spence is an evolving electroacoustic performance that highlights the physicality of sound and listening. Beginning as a solo and expanding into a trio with Biddy Connor and Aviva Endean, it uses tuned sinewaves to resonate and vibrate custom-built perspex instruments and drum skins–illuminating the animation of space, bodies, and objects.  

The listening journey doesn’t end there. These performances will be accompanied by Listening Acts | Installations throughout Melbourne Recital Centre, offering a further meditative gateway to listening as a practice.

Commissioned by Now or Never. Listening Acts is supported by Creative Australia, City of Melbourne, and the University of Melbourne’s Science Gallery. Melbourne Chamber Made has multi-year, recurrent funding from Creative Australia, Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, and is based at the Meat Market. Made possible by Chamber Made donors.  

Biddy Connor
Aviva Endean
Alexandra Spence 

Based on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne, Chamber Made cultivates adventurous multi-artform practice to disrupt and rewrite conventions of live performance. The company harnesses the momentum of our rapidly evolving world to make original works that defy categorisation and express something essential about our life and times. Interrogating the intersections of music, sound and contemporary performance, Chamber Made works speak directly to a 21st-century Australia enriched by the meeting and intersection of cultures. A commitment to collaboration, an appetite for innovation, and an ongoing fascination in the intersecting spaces between artforms drives them through their fourth decade.  

Led by Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick, who, as an acclaimed performance-maker and director with over 25 years’ experience, brings a deep knowledge of multi-artform collaborative practice. Since 1988, Chamber Made has been a leader in the creation of new Australian work, creating over 50 works and presenting over 100 performance seasons in Australia and internationally, which have been recognised with myriad national and international awards and nominations.