I have been lucky enough to watch a project evolve: Sonic Spider is the world鈥檚 first eight-legged musical instrument, 4 metres in diameter with piano wires strung on spindly, steel legs. I saw its first performance last year and was hooked.
Musicians pluck, strike and bow the taut wires to take you into the alien world of a female orb web spider waiting for what the night will bring. Blind, she knows her world only through vibrations arriving along the silken strands of her web.
The vibrations the performers create make music as I have never heard it before, with sustained harmonics alongside staccato taps and clunks. Other instruments represent what excites the spider: trapped flies, predators and amorous males that may become lovers, lunch or both. It is a real trip inside another mind.
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Catch Sonic Spider at The Dome, University of East London, Stratford, on 15 September during the . You may even get to play the spider.
