OSCILLATIONS

Object number: 97/92/14-5What does it cost to be visible? Chinese and trans people shift in and out of focus in Australia’s historical records – appearing and disappearing, code-switching, oscillating. Through the lens of turn-of-the-century portrait photography, Jinghua Qian looks at the privilege and burden of representation and the luminous power of inscrutability. The piece was recorded and produced in Melbourne on the land of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong People of the Kulin Nations, with

Object number: 2007/56/104 In Mutual Obligation Sally Olds looks into unemployment activism in 1970s Australia, when Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister and Milton Friedman toured the continent. The piece tracks the links between unemployed worker unions, the origin of the ‘dole bludger’, and the rise of the unemployment policies we live under and struggle against today. Sally Olds is a writer whose work has been published by Sydney Review of Books, un Magazine, the Institute of Modern Art, and

Object number: 87/1192 Omar Musa responds to the Radiesthesia pendulum in a piece about divination and love. ‘I was drawn to this object because it seemed evocative of the type of spirit that poets (and yearning lovers) often invoke, a summoning or divination process, where the lines between art and pseudoscience blur.’ Omar Musa is a Bornean-Australian author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released four poetry books (including Killernova) and four hip-hop records. His

Object number: 2004/42-1 A Radiating Body turns to the not-so-distant past, when the body still held mystery and medicine still had a touch of magic about it. This replica of a multi-wave oscillator machine, built by Angas Vivian Jones in 1970s Sydney, is at once a homemade therapeutic device, and a container for desire, faith and an irrepressible spirit of invention. Miyuki Jokiranta presents and produces ABC Radio National’s documentary program, Earshot. Her work has aired on the BBC, NPR and

Object number: 87/234-1 The PB/5 pedestrian crossing button is a celebrated icon of Australian design. Its renowned sound became part of an independent movement for social change, and the audio tactile pedestrian button became an irreplaceable feature in our neighbourhoods. In Push to Walk: A People’s History of the Pedestrian Button find out how the PB/5 pedestrian button came to be a fixture on Australian streets from the people who helped make it happen: engineers, Vision Australia advocates and

Object number: 97/254/1 Alexandra Spence’s work explores earth’s material relationship with space via satellite disposal and debris, and the uncanny historic connections between electronic music and space exploration. Travelling through orbits, life cycles and transmissions, Stellar Nullius reconsiders the earth’s atmosphere, not as a liminal zone, but as a provisioning body whose wellbeing is deeply intertwined with our own. Alexandra Spence is a sound artist/musician based in Eora (Sydney)

Object number: 88/394-1 The Moral Frontier is a mosaic of thoughts, yarns and poetic reflections on the history of the Native Police, particularly the Native Mounted Police in Queensland. By reflecting on this history, The Moral Frontier exposes confronting truths about the pervasive relationships still at play in our society today. Content Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this audio work contains the voices of peoples now passed. The Moral Frontier

From heartbeats to brainwaves, economic cycles to cosmic orbits, oscillations can be found everywhere. These seven stories bring Dakota Feirer, Alexandra Spence, Jinghua Qian, John Jacobs and Jane Curtis, Miyuki Jokiranta, Omar Musa and Sally Olds into the Powerhouse’s collection of over 500,000 objects to explore the stories behind them. Ranging from the poetic to the musical, the journalistic to the personal, these audio works offer stories, interpretations and investigations, bringing new light