‘She’s got the wrong end of the stick… and won’t let it go’

Copper and glass cane, glass cyanotype, Touch Board microcontroller, speaker

is based on sensory loss and compensation, frustrated and facilitated communication, translation and sensory intersections.

Sentences from notebooks of conversations kept by my mother, who became deaf as a young woman from otosclerosis, are voiced out loud when a viewer waves their hand near the glass cane which acts as a sensor to trigger audio.

Random sentences reflect the notebook pages which contain disparate juxtapositions of text handwritten by friends, family members or strangers, conveying their side of conversations.

Hearing Instrument

(Copper-electroformed ear moulds, test tubes, Touch Board, speaker,
glass cyanotype)

This is a ‘musical instrument’ using hearing aid moulds.
Enjoyment of music is lost for someone becoming deaf from otosclerosis. The stapes ("stirrup" bone) in the inner ear fuses with the surrounding bone, becoming fixed so it cannot move and no longer passes on sound waves. Even when musical they find it difficult to enjoy music because hearing aids are tuned to the spoken voice, distorting the full range of sounds.