I'm an award-winning composer, engineer and historian of technology. I present talks, make radio shows and perform live with Spacedog - my band of humans, theremins and uncanny robots.
This photographic gem is straight from the archives of Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. I understand it’s a pressure chamber, designed to take the strain off Winston Churchill when he was jet setting around the world. I think it dates from the mid-1940s. The aeroplane he travelled in didn’t have a pressure cabin – but lying in this chamber, Churchill could breathe a steady supply of air (and maybe smoke a cigar or two).
Hitler had something similar, apparently. Chambers like these were a must for any VIP traveller as they also offered extra security in an attack. I don’t know if there’s any evidence of Churchill using this contraption. His aircraft was once in danger but never came under serious attack.
Cold War – Hot Science
I unearthed this wonderful image when I was digging through the archives for ‘Cold War Hot Science’, an exhibition I put together with Tim Hunkin, Robert Bud and Science Museum staff, early 2001. The exhibition marked the launch of a book by the same name. Among the many other extraordinary and alarming delights in the archive was a bomb switch for the Vulcan bomber (the aircraft designed to deliver our nuclear bombs, before we had intercontinental ballistic missiles) and some old laboratory glassware, used by Porton Down scientists to cook up Britain’s stock of the deadly Marburg Virus. Marburg is a Category 4 disease – like Ebola and Lassa Fever, it’s deadly, incurable and highly contagious.
Reactor Vessel used by Porton Down scientists to cook up Marburg virus and other Category 4 diseases
Putting together the exhibition, I also remember encountering what might be the world’s most historic pieces of Sellotape. They were holding together the original ‘drop models’ (small, balsa wood aeroplanes) that were used by engineers to figure out the best design for Concorde.
Working around 1962, long before the era of Computer Aided Design (CAD), engineers dropped these models, just like paper aeroplanes, from the top of a ladder or from helicopters. They watched them gliding to the ground as they were looking for an aeroplane shape that wouldn’t roll over dangerously, as it approached the runway, despite being contoured to travel smoothly through the sound barrier. After extensive drop model tests, Farborough engineers opted to give Concorde its famous ‘ogive’ (curvy, triangular) wing shape.
When Science Museum conservators prepared these drop models for public display, they took great pains to conserve the fragile remains of Sellotape that engineers had stuck to the models, all those years ago.
We juxtaposed artefacts from the labs with press cuttings about Farnboough workers, gleaned the local papers. Somehow, these very British local newspaper cuttings made the researcher’s undercover defence work seem all the more extraordinary.
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.
Attached to the back of female wasps, the tagging devices enabled the insects to ‘touch in and out’ as they flew into their nests. In 2007, ZSL scientist Seirian Sumner used data collected by the tagging system to find out how often female wasps drifted from nest to nest. She discovered the wasps were busy commuters – over half of them drifted from nest to nest, rather than staying at home.
This week Dave’s been showing us how to encase DV cameras in resin, so we can put them under the sprinklers in the zoo’s butterfly house.
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 oracle.
This is the second ever Marlborough Steampunk event – I also played there and briefly demonstrated the Edison Phonograph at their inaugural event last December. This event was curated by Tarik Elmoutawakil who went to enormous trouble to make the room look spectacular.
I was really taken by the crowd’s passion for ingenious mechanical devices and for curious electrostatic machines. It made me feel very at home. I’m new to the whole Steampunk milarky but was pleased to discover my robotic inventions fit into the Steampunk ethos very well. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of my wardrobe. At the last gig, Mike Blow and I hot footed it from a Spacedog rehearsal to get to the event. Mike was there in his jeans and green trainers and I was dressed like an old hausfrau, in an ‘ergonomic’ saw-player’s sack. Any advice on how to overcome the wardrobe crisis looming in February would be much appreciated.
Pay attention all you skeptics: This is a 100% genuine, independently verifiable, Christ picture. Capturing the beauty of molecules in motion, it’s one of a series of photos taken in Christ’s own carwash (the Christ conveyor with pre-wash, counter-wash and doubled-brushed portal sidewash, for those of you interested in the technical details – see close-up view at the bottom of this page). It was snapped by vocalist Jenny Angliss, during a monthly cleansing ritual with her Suzuki Wagon R.
This Christ is at an undisclosed location, somewhere outside Luton, Bedfordshire. Once the photos have been independently verified by experts, we shall be making the address public. Parapsychologists should note this is a repeatable effect. In fact, according to local rumours, the Christ can be seen by anyone willing to pay a modest fee of £8.50 (or £10 if you would like the optional waxing).
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.
Hooked up the web, the Poultry Internet enables office workers give their pet chickens that reassuring hug, while they are in the office. Simply place the data jacket over your feathered friend, then caress the chicken-shaped orb on your office desk to transmit that personal touch. And when your chicken moves, the orb moves too, allowing you to keep in touch with her actions. A very impressive example of tactile computing in action – one which opens up endless opportunities for new lines in happy meat.
Photos from the project website
Your pet chicken stays at home, wearing a data suit
Caress your chicken remotely using this device on your office desk
Infrasonic (aka Soundless Music) was a carefully controlled psychological experiment, in the form of two back-to-back concerts. These concerts were highly unusual because some of the music was laced with infrasound (i.e.extreme bass sound, below 20Hz in frequency).
This concert/experiment has attracted worldwide media interest. It’s also inspired many other artists and cognitive scientists to delve into the murky world of extreme bass sound.
Original music
She Goes Back Underwater (2003)- one of my original pieces for the concert and experiment. This version is for electronics only. There is another version for piano and electronics.
NB There is no infrasound in this recording! We had to build a special generator to make live infrasonic notes during our concert. Any infrasound played through the pipe was cued in on a separate channel to the ones you’re hearing in this recording. There are some very low frequencies in this composition (which I included to mask any infrasound). But they’re not quite in the infrasonic region. Even if I had included infrasonic notes in this piece, it’s unlikely they would survive the mp3 compression process and any filtering by your computer soundcard, amps and loudspeakers (unless you have a very special set-up – in which case, sorry to disappoint!).
Setting up the experiment
I initiated and led Infrasonic, project which was awarded funding from the SciArt Consortium. To delve into the curious world of infrasound, I put together a team of experimental psychologists, acoustic consultants, composers, a visual artist and a pianist. Our aim was explore some tantalising claims about infrasound and put them under scientific scrutiny. Of particular interest were its reputed emotional effects. Infrasound is used in sacred music, for instance during cathedral organ recitals, and there is debate about why it’s used. Some people say it adds a sense of awe to the music – it puts a shiver down your spine. Others say that giant infrasonic organ pipes are nothing more than ‘an expensive way to make a draught’. Stranger still, infrasound has also been detected at some ostensibly haunted sites (see Vic Tandy, 1998) where it may also be making people feel very uneasy.
According to Tandy, even when infrasound comes from a mundane source, such as a faulty ceiling fan, it can give people such strange sensations, it might lead them to think they’ve been haunted. This was enough information to encourage us all to unleash infrasound on an audience.
Setting up a dry-run of the experiment. This open rehearsal took place at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Photo: Dan Simmons, NPL
This is the Mk III robotic bell rig, designed to make it easier to take the bells to venues -- earlier versions saw the bells inside a shed or scattered around a gallery, in dozens of separate boxes. Here, I’ve mounted them on an old shop fitting, salvaged by Vivien Angliss from a place in Bedfordshire that was closing down.
The Mk III bells had their first outing in the Malborough Theatre’s inaugural Steampunk night (Brighton -- curated by Tarik Elmoutawakil). I’ve also taken them to the Gasworks Gallery, Vauxhall (for a Resonance FM night, curated by Ed Baxter) and to a Spacedog night at the Freebutt, Brighton. I’ve been using them quite a bit in my own compositions for bells, saw, theremin and vocals. But here’s a video of the bells playing a classic -- it’s Troika, from Prokovief’s Lieutenant Kije. Over the next few weeks, I’ll endeavour to post more videos of the bells in action.
Technical notes
The bells are being percussed by servo-driven, spring-mounted beaters. These are controlled by a LynxMotion SSC-32 servo control board, which is receiving serial signals from Max/MSP. As you can see, the springs make the beaters remarkably responsive -- they can even tackle the odd semiquaver. See also the Mk I version of the bells, in Swinging London -- my automaton show for the South Bank Overture Weekend.
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, is here! I'm ducking out of the Kinetica Art Faire this year but am huddled indoors, writing, sleuthing (investigating a recording in the archives) and devising a new biologically-inspired musical instrument - all will be revealed soon.
News: December 2011
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, launches in mid-December. Join us for the launch gigs at the Marlborough, Brighton, on 9 December and the Horse Hospital, London, on 14 December.
News: November 2011
A busy month writing and editing the forthcoming Spacedog album - stay tuned for news.
News: October 2011
I'm focusing on my writing this month (so am quite the hermit) but I'm squeezing in the occasional live performance here and there.
I'm looking forward to working with Helen Keen in her Spacetacular on 20th. I'm writing a code-based work for the new label Chordpunch and some owlish music for that fine wordsmith Professor Elemental.
Spacedog are booked into the studio at the end of the month to complete work on our album.
News: September 2011
A busy month writing, preparing a get-together of maker musicians for the Brighton Maker Faire After-show party. I've also been electrifying a teapot for the Chi-Tek - an exhibition by MzTek of female tech artists at the V&A. And with my fellow Spacedog Stephen Hisock, I made an appearance on the 10th Anniversary edition of BBC Click.
News: August 2011
The Spacedog song For Laika is now available on iTunes (and the album is on its way). Meanwhile, we've been busy preparing our set for Green Man, including the first outing of our torch song for Tommy Cooper.
I'm procrastinating over a teapot which I'm going to electrify for a MzTek event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.
I took a short trip to a very rainy Edinburgh Fringe where I played at an event for Edinburgh Skeptics in the Royal Observatory and made some plans for a Spacedog show next summer.
Apart from that, I've been busy writing. More news on that shortly, I hope...
News: July 2011
I'm interviewed by Leila Johnston in this month's Wired UK magazine and will be appearing with my fellow Spacedogs at a Wired: The Future of Music on 20 July.
I've rounded up a bumper crop of links and soundclips for my BBC Radio 4 doc The Bird Fancyer's Delight, which is broadcast on 5 and 9 July and is also available on Listen Again. Thanks for all your cheery emails about the doc, to ProjectMoonbase for mentioning it in their podcast PMB038 and for the many national papers who gave the documentary such lovely reviews - I'm glad people enjoyed it! On Sunday 10 July, the doc was featured on Graham Seed's Pick of the Week (Radio 4). A good week!
My latest collaboration with Richard Wiseman is a free and fun magic trick for your iPhone. It's called Paranormality and it's been put together for the launch of his book by the same name in the US. Thanks to Phillis on Derrren Brown's blog for giving the app a mention - thousands of people have now downloaded it and are busy bamboozling their friends.
News: June 2011
Playing theremin for Louise Colborne's homage to Loie Fuller (pioneering cybernetic dancer c1900) and composing sounds for Sonus, an homage to the analogue age with Spacedog, ArtHertz, Rushes Soho Shorts Festival and Ridley Scott Associates. Discovering how easy (or difficult) it is to publicise events in 2011 without Twitter - will report back!
Getting ready for BEAM - a brand new festival of electronics and music at Brunel University (24-26 June). I'll be speaking, running a workshop on optical flow and performing live with my fellow Spacedogs. I'll also be playing a short theremin set at the Speaky Spokey, a new arts salon in Brighton (Wed 22 June).
Putting the finishing touches to a sonic-themed BBC Radio 4 documentary, with producer Neil McCarthy, due for transmission on 5 July 2011.
Presenting a workshop for Hack Circus at Interesting, in the Conway Hall, London, 18 June, and performing theremin at a family day at the Science Museum, 19 June.
This is the second ever Marlborough Steampunk event – I also played there and briefly demonstrated the Edison Phonograph at their inaugural event last December. This event was curated by Tarik Elmoutawakil who went to enormous trouble to make the room look spectacular.
