11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Powys County Times
Knighton performance for the Sonic Spider instrument
THE world's first eight-legged musical instrument can be experienced in Powys next week – as the Sonic Spider comes to Knighton.
The Sonic Spider is an instrument designed to be played by multiple musicians; four metres in diameter, with piano wires strung on spindly, steel legs.
It aims to recreate the experience of an orb web spider, which cannot see and relies on vibrations in its web for sensory information, with performances intended to convey the drama of the orb web spider's world.
There will be an outdoor presentation of the Sonic Spider in Knighton on Sunday, August 17, outside in Pinners Hole, Knighton (LD7 1EN), located behind the Offa's Dyke Centre, at 2.30pm.
The Sonic Spider is the brainchild of Camilla Saunders, a musician and composer, whose work attempts to build bridges between species on this planet through the medium of sound.
It was designed by biologist and science writer Alun Anderson and musician/designer Charlie Beresford, who built the spider.
'They (an orb web spider) know the world around them only through the vibrations that reach them through the silk lines of their web,' reads a statement on the Sonic Spider website.
'It is this world of vibration that the Sonic Spider recreates with sound, the closest we can come to entering the spider's sensory experience.
'At performances, we ask the audience to imagine the whole event space is filled by a giant web, with the Sonic Spider sitting in its centre.
'Several musicians play the eight strings on the spider, while others, playing a variety of instruments, perform out in the 'web'.
'A fly may crash into the web, sending the spider into a frenzy of activity as it tries to capture it and wrap it in silk. Or a male may appear, cautiously signalling that it is not a fly, and hoping to mate and flee, without being eaten.
'Dangerous predators may appear, and the wind will set the web vibrating too.'
The website adds: 'The goal is to encourage the audience to perceive how the world of every creature is unique, and to let their imaginations go and begin to imagine the multitude of worlds in this space right here, right now, of creatures large and small around them, that often pass through our lives unnoticed, or even despised as pests.'
August is appropriately the eighth month of the year and the international month of the orb web spider.
The Powys performance will last about 40 minutes, with attendees encouraged to bring their own seating and umbrellas if rain threatens.
The event is free and family-friendly, and there are no real live spiders involved.
The Sonic Spider has appeared at several science festivals, including the British Science Festival and Oxford IF, and toured Wales last year courtesy of a grant from Arts Council Wales.
