The Longplayer Conversation 2023

The Longplayer Conversation 2023 will take place on Thursday 28th September at the British Library, London. This year’s conversationalists are Richard Sabin, Principal Curator of Mammals at the Natural History Museum, and Dr. Sada Mire, Associate Professor of Heritage at University College London.

Richard Sabin is a Principal Curator at the Natural History Museum, London, where he specialises in the study of marine mammals. He publishes widely, is committed to public engagement, accessibility, and diversifying museum audiences. He works closely with the arts and humanities to explore ‘hidden’ narratives of natural history collections.

Dr. Sada Mire is a Somali archaeologist, art historian, science communicator, and presenter. She fled Somalia as a refugee, becoming a Swedish citizen, and holds a Ph.D. from University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, where she is serving as Associate Professor of Heritage Studies. She is the founding director of Horn Heritage Foundation and its Digital Museum, working on research and conservation of heritage across the Horn of Africa.

Please book your tickets via the British Library, here.

Initiated in 2005, the Longplayer Conversation invites leading cultural thinkers to conduct a public conversation inspired by Longplayer, a project which unfolds over the course of a millennium.

Previous Longplayer Conversations have included Denise Ferreira da Silva and Timothy Morton, Chris Watson and Sir David Attenborough, Marina Warner and Ali Smith, Brian Eno and David Graeber.

 

More about Longplayer

Overview of Longplayer

Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again. Conceived and composed by Jem Finer, it was originally produced as an Artangel commission, and is now in the care of the Longplayer Trust.

Conceptual Background

While Longplayer is most often described as a 1000 year long musical composition, the preoccupations that led to its conception were not of a musical nature; they concerned time, as it is experienced and as it is understood from the perspectives of philosophy, physics and cosmology. At extremes of scale, time has always appeared to me as baffling, both in the transience of its passing on quantum mechanical levels and in the unfathomable expanses of geological and cosmological time, in which a human lifetime is reduced to no more than a blip.

How does Longplayer work?

The composition of Longplayer results from the application of simple and precise rules to six short pieces of music. Six sections from these pieces – one from each – are playing simultaneously at all times. Longplayer chooses and combines these sections in such a way that no combination is repeated until exactly one thousand years has passed.

About Longplayer's Survival

From its initial conception, a central part of the Longplayer project has been about considering strategies for the future. How does one keep a piece of music playing across generations? How does one prepare for its technological adaptability, knowing how few technologies have remained viable over the last millenium? How does one legislate for its upkeep? And how can one communicate that responsibility to those who might be looking after it some 950 years after its original custodians have perished?

The Longplayer Trust

Long Term Art Projects

. . . some other long term art projects . . .