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.