Sarah Angliss: Automata for the people

If there’s one thing that most events simply don’t have enough of, it’s robots. Robots, and saws. Not so Ada Lovelace Day Live!, which will feature the robot-wrangling saw-flexing talents of Sarah Angliss, composer and tech historian.

Sarah describes her performances as “tapping into her obsessions with scientific oddities, obsolete machines, faded variety acts and the darkest European folk tales to create highly original, unsettling and sometimes strangely comic work.”

With a live show that can only be described as a technical marvel, Sarah’s geeky, science-focused music features theremin, keyboard and musical saw.

Hugo

Hugo, one of Sarah’s robot friends

Sarah’s mechanical sidekicks include Hugo, a rather spooky roboticised, disembodied 1930s vent doll head, The Ealing Feeder, a robotic bell playing machine, and Clara 2.0, which Sarah describes as ‘the polite robot thereminist’.

Sarah, performing with Spacedog

Sarah, performing with Spacedog

Sarah’s band, Spacedog, is probably the only live band to give equal billing to both humans and robots and has been featured on Radio 4 and in 2011 won the Best Music Event of Brighton Festival and Fringe. She’s had received funding from NESTA Dreamtime and public engagement grants from the Wellcome Trust. In 2007, her digital performance Repeat Repeat, in collaboration with performer Caroline Radcliffe, won a Quake Dance Festival Award.

We can promise you, of all the performances you’ve seen in 2012, nothing will be quite like Sarah Angliss and her robot pals!

Tickets for ALD Live! are £10 for the general public, £5 for students. Book now!

Posted in Ada Lovelace Day 2012.

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