Our First Performance, 2023
The Oxford Science and Ideas Festival, 7 October 2023
The Spider sat at the centre of the beautiful 18th century New Road Church in the centre of Oxford, with musicians playing wind instruments and electronics in the upper gallery which ran around the church. It was easy for the audience to imagine the space being filled by a huge web, with the spider at the centre, and musicians up in the gallery setting things going. Anexhibition was set up to run around the walls of the church, with giant pictures both of the spiders life and many other creatures, explaining the concept behind the performance, and leading through to the future where not just musicians and artists can imagine themselves into the lives of other creatures, but AI will help us decode what other beasts are responding to and communicating.
Every performance drew a crowd, many of whom, both adults and children, tried making web sounds themselves after it was over, and interacted withscientists who’d come along from the university to talk about spiders and other creatures.
Recent Performances 2025 & 2024
The Festival of Tomorrow, Swindon, 18th February 2025.
The Sonic Spider appeared at the Festival of Tomorrow in Swindon, in the vast engine hall of what was once a locomotive construction factory and is now a famous museum. Sonic Spider appeared alongside the huge art Gaia artwork, an enormous glowing globe of our earth, suspended from the ceiling.
Here, for the first time, the background to the project and our plea to see the world differently, through the eyes of the many creatures that inhabit it, was presented in a 24-page free booklet given to the audience which they could take away to think more about.
The spider played four times to festival goers with more than 800 people attending.Additionally, large numbers stayed on to play the spider for themselves, and talk about what it meant with the team. Enthusiasm ran very high and audience participation ran for longer than the performances themselves!
At the end of the day, the Spider played for VIP attendees, scientists and the festival’s backers.
The British Science Festival, London, 15 September 2024
The British Science Festival was held in London and the Spider appeared in the wonderful Dome room of the East London University. The round shape of the Dome was perfect for the spider performance with the audience able to sit right around the spider, with other musicians in a gallery above.
Here, the background to the project, which leads people from thinking about the world of the spider onwards to the future where we now see the first uses of artificial intelligence to understand what other creatures know about the world, was presented on a large screen, that ran before and after the four performances we did here.
Once again, audience participation was high, with many getting lost in creating spider web sounds for themselves, and asking questions about the world of the spider. There were fewer children, and more young adults, mostly science students who were just as enthralled as the children.
During the summer of 2024, thanks to a grant from Arts Council Wales, we were able to tour the Spider round Wales, with a particular focus on engagement with local musicians who were able toattend a workshop and then play in performances. That worked very well. The layout of each venue was quite different, and audiences included families with young children as well as teenagers and adults. Again, audiences were keen to try out playing the spider between performances.
We were at the Open Newtown Festival (17th and 18th August) in a studio above a cafe, the Darganfod (Discover) Festival (2 – 4th August) at Ty Pawb in Wrexham in a large open space (formerly a multi-storey car park), and in the local Scout Hut at the Narberth festival (Pembrokeshire) 25 and 25th July.
Some extremely small children came to the Narberth performances and were mesmerised.
At The National Botanic Garden of Wales, 22 & 23 June 2024, a wonderful round auditorium allowed the audience to really appreciate the Spider sounds and for a larger exhibition about the project to run around the walls. We had some great feedback:
“A huge thank you once again for bringing the Sonic Spider to the Botanic Garden, all the sessions were very well attended and it was wonderful to see both adults and children entranced by the sound that you all created. It was a truly immersive experience and it was great that visitors could experience something very unique.”
Angharad Phillips, National Botanic Garden of Wales.