Work history
Sarah angliss
I'm happiest working on projects where there's no need to pigeonhole me as either an engineer, musician or exhibit maker - I'm actually a little bit of all three. In fact, I've been mixing together these interests since I was a kid in the early 1970s. In the long summer holidays, I used to build mini cable cars across the garden and put together soundtracks, on a portable Phillips casette recorder, about futuristic trips to the Moon.
Performing in Copenhagen
My first degree was in electroacoustics (BEng(hons) 1989). On graduating, I had a brief spell in the building industry, assisting the chief acoustician in a busy London engineering company. Within a year, it became apparent that I wouldn't have many opportunities to fine-tune any rooms as the country had plunged into recession. My bosses were kind enough to keep me on for a few more weeks, despite the lack of work in the office. They let me loose on a custom-built hybrid computer - an old beast that played weather data on audio tape into a mix of discrete circuits - hoping that I could resurrect it and use it to predict the thermal loss of different building designs. I never got it running, although the ageing Apple III computer tacked on in the 80s was in remarkably good shape. A few months later, I parted company with the building industry, and the ill-fated hybrid computer, realising that I had fallen for the peculiar charms of analogue, vintage electronics.
Within a year, I'd joined the Science Museum, London (1991). There, I was encouraged to follow my interest in the history of technology, combining it with my enthusiasm for exhibit design and live performance. In 1995, I opted to leave the Science Museum and work independently. I joined the booming multimedia industry, working as editor and producer of CDROMs (1995-96). Around this time, I began to focus more on musical performance and the sonic arts, obtaining a performer's Associateship of the Royal College of Music (1996). I also started writing my first books and magazine articles.
Playing the theremin
I've put together many sound installations, exhibitions and live events since 1996, teaming up with Tim Hunkin, Colin Uttley, Richard Wiseman and others. In 2002, I initiated and led Infrasonic - a research project, funded by the Sciart Consortium, that culminated in a live experiment during a concert in the Purcell Room, South Bank, London. Infrasonic explored the curious emotional effects of extreme bass sound - effects that may explain why some people feel a sense of awe when they listen to cathedral organ music or a sense of unease in ostensibly haunted sites. Infrasonic was staged in collaboration with the National Physical Laboratory, who more recently let me improvise in their reverb chambers (2006).
I've been working independently on my own projects and paid comissions since the mid-1990s. These have included museum and gallery exhibits, as well as shows at music, arts and science festivals. I was able to take time out from commerical deadlines in 2004, when I was awarded a NESTA Dream Time Fellowship - a one-year opportunity to indulge in some open-ended research and development. I used my Dream Time to explore new ways for people to interact with sound in museums, galleries, science centres and other public spaces. This research has been influencing many of the more recent projects on this website.
In 2004, I also decided it was time to dust off the text books and get my engineering skills up to date. I took a master's degree in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at the University of Sussex (MSc, 2005). This highly unusual course mixes ideas from robotics, evolutionary theory and cognitive science, applying them to make responsive objects and systems (e.g. robots and generative music). At Sussex, I became particularly interested in enactive perception - I'm interested in applying ideas from this field to make multimodal illusions and novel, sensate sound sculptures (e.g. my giant seesaw - coming soon).
Evening visitors to the Swinging London automaton show and other sheds, South Bank Overture weekend, 2007.