In December 1877, a journalist writing in Scientific American noted there was a now ‘a startling possibility of recording voices of the dead’. He had just witnessed Edison recording sound on his new invention: the phonograph.

In this live demonstration, I’ll explore some of the stranger obsessions of the early adopters of audio recording, as I immortalise a voice from the audience by recording it on wax, using an original Edison Standard Phonograph.

Delving into the archives, I’ll also examine a little-known curiosity from the eighteenth century, one which may have been used to record short segments of sound 150 years before the phonograph.

This event will include some short, musical interludes incorporating a few of my inventions. As I use the theremin to conjure up ‘music from the aether’, I’ll reveal how the first ‘electric servants’ were also seen as tools for paranormal investigation.

At The Last Tuesday Society, 10 December 2010.

If you ever thought artists like Kraftwerk were the first to embrace the machine aesthetic in their dance and music, this curiosity might interest you.

This fascinating dance piece uses steps that directly mimic the sounds and actions of mill machines. Although these steps were danced a century ago by female cotton mill workers, they seem strangely ahead of their time, forerunners of today’s machine-inspired dance music. You can think of this dance as steam-powered Kraftwerk – or techno 80 years before Detroit.

We’ll be performing The Machinery live in the Central Library, Birmingham UK, 13:30 prompt on Saturday 18 September
, admission free
. For the British Science Festival 2010.

A video trailer for Uncanny Valley – coming to the Hen & Chickens, London, 26-28 August 2010.

Uncanny Valley is coming to the Hen & Chickens Theatre, 26-28 August 2010.

Musicians play live with decrepit dolls, theremins and robots in this eerie entertainment, exploring our fears of the almost human – from golems to ventriloquists’ dummies.

Hot from their sell-out run on the Brighton Festival Fringe, dreamlike musical and mechanical inventors Spacedog join forces with gentleman rapper Professor Elemental, known for his YouTube sensation Cup of Brown Joy, a paean to the pleasures of drinking tea.

Death ballads, unsettling live robotics and tales of the professor’s extreme taxidermy experiments. Read more for ticket details…

Ghosts and machines, as they were imagined in the early 1920s, when Lankins slid under window panes and families soothed their babies with Amperes from the first electric servants.

Spacedog will be playing a selection of death ballads, darkest folk songs and twisted takes on the European song book, featuring theremin, vocals, robotic dolls, waterphone, saw and assorted electronic oddities. With spellbinding visuals from Roger Spy and Dennis Da Silva. This event is an ArtHertz collaboration for the Soho Shorts Festival. The show will include a live performance from dolly therematrix Clara 2.0 and the Ealing Feeder, my new robotic bell rig, first seen at the Kinetica 2010 Art Fair.

At the Apple Store, Regent Street, London, 5pm 23 July
. Admission free but booking essential.

Can an archaic bird training manual – published two centuries ago – shed light on a mystery of avian intelligence which puzzles biologists today?

I think it might do – and I’ll be explaining all in a 15-minute talk at Dr Bramwell’s Catalyst Club, Thursday 8 July. Expect some evolutionary biology and live 18th-century music, wrapped up with some Easy Listening and contemporary neuroscience in this evening for the curious.

A flyer for Uncanny Valley, with Spacedog, Professor Elemental and assorted musical robots. At the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, 5 May 2010.

This week, I went to the Science Museum stores which are brimming with musical treasures, including three Mellotrons, a Fairlight CMI, Wurlitzer Sideman and Arp 2500 modular synth. Here are a some technical notes and snaps of these objects, taken rather hastily during my visit. I’ve also plundered YouTube for examples of these machines in action…

Tickets are now on sale for our new show at the Brighton Festival Fringe. This year, Spacedog are teaming up with Professor Elemental to bring you a delightfully unsettling evening, probing our very human fears of the almost human, from zombies to ventriloquists’ dummies. Marlborough Theatre, 5 May 2010.

Accompanied by our home-spun musical robots, we’ll be singing songs of love, death and the uncanny as we explore the darkest reaches of your mind. With theremins, taxidermy and strange automata…

News of an extra date in the Brighton Festival Fringe: Spacedog are teaming up with Jane Bom-Bane, maestro with mechanical hats, and multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn for a very unusual music night at Bom-Bane’s, Brighton, 13 May 2010…

SORRY – THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO ILLNESS: It’s National Science and Engineering Week and Spacedog are celebrating by playing music inspired by the space race. Enjoy the eerie sounds of theremin, vocals, robotic bells and Sputnik beeps as we bring you extraterrestrial music and fascinating tales about Earth’s place in the universe. At Hastings Museum 2pm, and the F-ish Gallery, 8pm…

I’m looking for advice on ethics approval for studies carried out by independent researchers. If you have any advice on this, do get in touch…

It’s the press launch tonight of the Brighton Festival Fringe. This year, Spacedog are teaming up with Professor Elemental to bring you a delightfully unsettling evening, probing our very human fears of the almost human, from zombies to ventriloquists’ dummies. Marlborough Theatre, 5 May 2010.

Accompanied by our home-spun musical robots, we’ll be singing songs of love, death and the uncanny as we explore the darkest reaches of your mind. With theremins, taxidermy and strange automata…

Here are some snapshots of the Ealing Feeder – the latest version of my carillon (automatic bell rig), along with some details of the thinking behind the piece.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Arthertz stand at the Kinetica Art Fair and said ‘hello’. The Ealing Feeder survived admirably and is now back in my workshop until its next outing. Coming soon to the Brighton Festival Fringe and Battersea Power Station…

I’ll be showing off the Ealing Feeder, the latest version of my carillon (automatic bell-playing rig) at the Kinetica Art Fair, P3 Gallery, 35 Marylebone Road, London, 5-7 February 2010.

The words Ealing Feeder come from the control room of Battersea Power Station, which provided London with electricity during the boom years of the fossil fuel age…

As the sun sets over Battersea Power Station, Spacedog will be playing live in the turbine hall. Date tbc but fingers crossed for 1 June 2010.

Stay posted for more news of this hugely exciting event, including ticket details. For now I can tell you there will be music from Alex Paterson (The Orb), John Foxx and ourselves, an installation from Andy Back, projections from Ian Eames and Mike Coles and many other treats. Curated by Dennis Da Silva and Beverley Bennett, Art Hertz, the event is titled Electricity and Ghosts (after one of Foxx’ classic tracks).

See some photos of the interior of the power station…

Hear 8-bit sound artist extraordinaire Paul B Davis, Dave Green and I talking about electronic music, robots and other geekery on Shift Run Stop, a new weekly podcast from Leila Johnston and Roo Reynolds…

My first test with Hugo, the 1930s vent doll who will be appearing in future Spacedog gigs. Here, you can hear him singing the Kurt Weill classic Alabama Song. Stay posted for further developments – and look out for Hugo in the Brighton Festival Fringe…

Here’s an Edison phonograph recording, freshly made at the London Dorkbot Christmas party, December 2009.

Dorkbot is a meeting for ‘people doing strange things with electricity’ so the phonograph is an odd guest as it records and playback sounds using no electricity at all. As you can see when I lift the lid (see video), this machine is entirely mechanical. You turn up a handle to wind up a spring. This unfurls over several minutes, supplying the Edison with energy. Sound recordings are made using nothing more than a heavy stylus and a horn…

An utterly chilling poem that I stumbled on today. It’s from the pages of The Electrical Age, a pioneering gadget magazine, produced from the early 1930s by the Electrical Association for Women:

Hushaby! baby. Mother is near,
Don’t you cry, precious, take an ampere,
Cuddle down, sweet, near the dynamo’s brush,
The current will put you to sleep with a rush….

I’ll be getting out the camel hair brush and putting my 1904 Edison Standard Phonograph through its paces at the Catalyst Club, Brighton, 10 December 2009. Hear some commercial wax cylinders from the early 1900s and witness a live recording of a voice from the audience, straight onto a blank cylinder of carnauba wax…

“Finally someone has released a rather fantastic mind reading app that genuinely triggers that “wow – how did you do that?” response.” Phillis, Derren Brown Blog.
Ever wanted to read someone’s mind?
With Telepath, you can convince almost anyone you’re a mind reader. Telepath is a new mind-reading iPhone app that the talented Richard Wiseman and I [...]

Yep, I did say clog dancing.

This dance piece uses a combination of live, solo clog dancing, video loops and audio which plays at overwhelming levels, revealing a danceform that was directly inspired by the machines of the industrial revolution. With performer Caroline Radcliffe.

Lancashire clog is a deeply unfashionable dance form, often misrepresented as a pastoral dance – a sub-genre of Morris dancing. If you’re put off by the faux nostalgia of the Sunday afternoon clog dancing brigade, see us take Lancashire clog back to its genuine roots, as we evoke the sights and sounds of the industrial cotton machinery that inspired it. I’ll stick my neck out and say Lancashire clog is a pre-electronic forerunner of the industrially-inspired music of Kraftwerk and the noise music of bands such as Coil.

Spacedog will be performing a couple of numbers at the latest School for Gifted Children – comedian Robin Ince’s spectacular, celebrating all things scientific.

At the Komedia, Brighton, Thursday 29 October 2009.
8:30pm (doors open 7pm)

I’ve been quite the hermit recently as I’ve been locked away in the archives, wading through old lab books, government documents and other curiosities. This is for a book I’m hoping to publish in 2010.

Spacedog will be performing our latest set at Goldsmiths Great Hall, 16 October 2009. We’ll be performing torch songs, death ballads and eerie English folk songs on a host of instruments, including theremin, laptops, vocals and home-spun musical robots.
We’ll be joining Leafcutter John, the Finn Peters Quartet and Slub for this evening of beautiful musical [...]

Hear a selection of sound clips from 1995 to present.

A few concerns about audio tours, illustrated with some footage of the audio tour in use at Stonehenge.

I’ll be bringing along Spin Recovery, a small, experimental installation, involving robotic bells, cameras and video projections, to Brighton’s first SoundCurious event. Update 11 October: My appearance has been postponed by the venue – I hope to see you there at a later date!

I’m currently migrating content from my old wwww.spacedog.biz site to this new location. Apologies for any errant files, visual oddities or other disruptions while the transfer takes place.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Sarah xx

Over the last few months, I’ve been collaborating with Punchdrunk, the marvellous encounter theatre company, to make a very unusual multimodal effect – one that mixes emerging ideas in perception with a one-on-one theatrical encounter.

I’ll be revealing more about the nature of this effect in a few months, when some formal studies are complete. However, I can reveal we’ve piloted the effect – and have had some encouraging feedback – and have already used it (tentatively) in the recent Punchdrunk show: It Felt Like a Kiss. This show is a documentary, the form of a promenade piece, was devised by Punchdrunk in collaboration with documentary maker Adam Curtis (featuring music from Damon Albarn). It Felt Like A Kiss was created in summer 2009 for the Manchester International Festival.

Hello! You’ve stumbled on my rough and ready page of videos on the Uncanny Valley hypothesis – a hotly debated theory about our very human fear of almost human objects.

Hot on the heels of our shows at the Brighton Festival Fringe and Science Museum, we’re performing our electroplasmic set in Hastings, 20 June. No seance tonight -- but we’ll be making up for this with our eerie electronica and live Edison phonography (recording a voice on wax -oooh!). Venue: Eat@ 12 Claremont (tickets 01424 426768). We hope to see some of you there!

MzTek promotes opportunities for women working in media and computer arts. I’ll be talking about my work and sharing some ideas at their Unplugged session in Leon restaurant, Bankside, 7-9pm, Wednesday 27 May.

This week, Spacedog has been moved by the spiritual teachings of the Tarvuists…

If you’re in London on Wednesday 20 May, you can catch Jenny, Clara 2.0 and me reprising our electroplasmic set at the Science Museum. We’re performing at the Science Museum Late – an evening when adults are invited to come along and enjoy an array of free entertainment

Read some reviews of Electroplasm, the latest Spacedog show, at the Brighton Festival Fringe. Sarah, Jenny, Clara 2.0 were performing with Colin Uttley (at Bom-Bane’s) and Richard Wiseman (at the Marlborough).

Why is some music spookier than others? Which tracks give you a shiver down the spine? Is it the music, the lyrics or the association with a creepy film or place that gives it that edge? Join our mini survey to find the ‘world’s spookiest music’ and hear a live performance of the top-rated spooky music in the Brighton Festival Fringe.

In a gracefully distressed Regency theatre on the edge of Kemp Town, Brighton, I’ll be teaming up with vocalist Jenny Angliss and psychologist Richard Wiseman for another eerie outing, in Electroplasm. 8-10 May 2009 (with a music preview at Bom-Bane’s on 6 May).

I’m back now from the Newcastle where I was exhibiting a few odds and ends at the UK’s first Maker Faire. It was a hugely entertaining weekend — great to meet so many other hardware hackers, crafters and so on. I’ll be posting a few videos and writing about some of my favourite sights — [...]

A cryptozoological marvel from gentleman rapper MC Elemental, highlight of the Marlborough’s recent Steampunk Hidden Cabaret.

I’ll be bringing Uncanny Valerie, Clara 2.0, the robotic bell rig and a selection of other playful experiments with sensors, sound and music to the first UK Maker Faire.

Don’t read this entry if you’re about to eat your dindins. I created this sound effect for Bad Vibes, an exhibit I made for acoustician Trevor Cox to test people’s endurance of the worst sounds in the world.

I’ve created some music for contortionist Delia DuSol, who will be bending her body into some extraordinary poses and squeezing herself into a tiny perspex box at Richard Wiseman’s first night of Inexplicable Acts, Thursday 12 Feb. This season of shows at the Wellcome Trust will explore the psychology and physiology of circus performers’ bodies, including the sword swallower, the juggler and the exceptionally flexible Delia.

The UK this week has been transformed into a winter wonderland.

Here’s a photographic gem from the Cold War archives, plus some very notable strips of Sellotope (they were used to hold the original Concorde ‘drop models’ together).

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever been asked to make at work? Installing a new exhibit at London Zoo today, I met all-round troubleshooter Dave Hitchcock. He’s been asked to build everything from an electronic ejaculator for gazelles to a tiny tracking system, just like an Oyster Card, for Panamanian paper wasps.

I’ll be playing again at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, at their next Steampunk event on 21 February 2009. Details to be confirmed – but I expect to be appearing with  the robotic bells, theremin, saw and Good Companion – a rigged Imperial Typewriter. I may also bring along Uncanny Valerie – the ‘all-knowing’ robotic dolly [...]

Pay attention all you skeptics: This is a 100% genuine, independently verifiable, Christ picture, snapped during a monthly cleansing ritual with a Suzuki Wagon R.

Do you worry about your pet chicken getting lonely when you’re away? Well researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore certainly do – and they’re tackling the problem with tactile computing.

This highly unusual, public experiment explored the strange psychological effects of infrasound – sensations that may explain why people feel a sense of awe during cathedral organ recitals or a sense of unease in seemingly haunted sites. Venue: Purcell Room, London, May 2002.

This is my Mk III robotic bell rig, designed to make it easier to take the bells to venues. I’ve already used the bells in my own compositions at the Gasworks Gallery, Vauxhall (a Resonance FM night, curated by Ed Baxter) and at the Freebutt, Brighton. Here, for Christmas 2008, they’re playing Troika (from Prokovief’s Lieutenant Kije).

In December 2006, Spacedog assembled a group of musicians in the reverb chamber of the UK National Physical Laboratory. This room has one of the longest reverberation times in Europe. Here are some videos of our extemporisations in this highly unusual musical space.

An arrangement of sounds from Croydon’s wonderful fruit and veg market. There has been a market in Surrey Street since the 13th century.

The theremin AV controller is a device I’ve created to scrub audio and video samples live, using the pitch and volume aerials of the theremin. Here’s a video of it in action, manipulating samples from the Hammer classic The Devil Rides Out.

Named in honour of the original theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore, Clara 2.0 is a robot doll who can play the theremin live. I call her the ‘polite robot thereminist’ as she listens to a line from another player and moves her dolly arm to bring her own theremin in perfect tune.

A mini, automatic puppet show in a shed, created on a shoestring budget for the South Bank Centre, summer 2007. The brief was to come up with something novel inside a garden shed that would celebrate the area and appeal to families.

Did you hear the one about the lady on the bus? Hear it on this soundtrack announcing the results of Laughlab – the scientific search for the ‘world’s funniest joke’.

A brief tutorial on how to play the saw, a European skiffle instrument with a haunting, ethereal sound.

Telepath: mind-reading magic on your iPhone.

Look into the radio mirror and put your hands on the founder’s tranquil balls to receive a personality reading with uncanny accuracy. This exhibit for the Cheltenham Science Festival (now on Southwold Pier) explored the tricks used by phoney psychics, recruitment consultants and other ‘cold readers’.

Jet Age to Genome was a small exhibition, celebrating British innovation from 1953-23.

Senster is a show that mixes live performance with simple robotics and responsive, digital art.

One song in the Spacedog set celebrates the life of Laika, the first living creature in orbit.

The Mellotron

Devised for the 2004 Cheltenham Science Festival, The Cyborg Project was an event for the public, exploring enactive perception.
This is a holding page for the project on this new website – more details to follow shortly.