Long-shot

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I became aware this weekend of a musical project of simultaneously monumental and yet exceedingly simple aim. The singular point of the piece is and has been [it has to date been playing for over a quarter of a century] to produce a non-repeating musical work that will last for a thousand years, starting as it did in the first moments [GMT] of 2000, and finally arriving full circle and repeating itself as the next millennium ticks through [GMT] in 3000. I think I might have heard something about the project at its inception, but it's a long time ago, at least on the human scale, and it took a piece in FT Weekend Magazine this week to bring it back to my attention, had it been there in the first place. It's called Longplayer.

I even downloaded the app of the project, which plays the piece in real time, with all copies of the app worldwide, synchronised together. It was composed for, and each loop performed on, Tibetan Singing Bowls; each loop forming one of a series of six, concentric circles that move at different rates, the sum effect of which is that of the aim of the piece: no repetition for 1000 years: simplicity on the one hand, complexity on the other, both musically and logistically. Each year, on New Year's Eve, people gather to hear live performances of sections of the score. You can hear Longplayer at The Trinity Buoy lighthouse in Greenwich, online, or via the app. 

The point of the project is not one of monstrous artistic hubris on its creators' part, but rather that it offers to the future a continuity of human endeavour: if successive generations want the thing to continue, despite and through the inevitably radical political, economic, environmental and technological changes that will affect its course over such a long period of time, then they will have to collaborate in order to pass on the baton to each successive generation. As a philosophical meditation on time, change and the fragility and tenacity of humanity itself, I can't think of a better example. The apotheosis of humanity through the uniquely human 'pointless' activities of Art and Music: its collective soul transcending the mundanities of the grind of life. And the kicker is that the artist who created the piece is Jem Finer, a founder member of The Pogues. Love it...

Comments

  1. Anonymous6 May 2025 at 06:46

    Rivers do the same without the faff mate!
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

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