The Artangel Longplayer Conversation: John Gray and James Lovelock

18 Apr 2011

This event was organised by Artangel Longplayer with IQ² as technical partners, and took place at RIBA on 18th April 2011.

Event info

The Artangel Longplayer Conversation 2011 introduces two of the world’s foremost modern thinkers: climate-scientist and ‘futurologist’ James Lovelock and political philosopher and author John Gray, who will embark on a discussion inspired by the philosophical implications of long time.

An annual event, The Artangel Longplayer Conversation invites two cultural thinkers to engage in a discussion inspired by the philosophical premise of Jem Finer’s Longplayer, a musical composition playing, in real time, over the course of an entire millennium. Commissioned by Artangel and launched in 2000, Longplayer suggests a projection of growth and change and a timescale beyond our lifespans.

The inaugural Longplayer Conversation, in 2005, paired New York artist and musician Laurie Anderson with Nobel prize-winning writer Doris Lessing, and in 2007, leading British architect David Adjaye conversed with Canadian design luminary Bruce Mau. 2008’s Conversation brought together British writer and philosopher Alain de Botton and international financier and philanthropist George Soros, and for Longplayer’s tenth anniversary in 2009, Longplayer Live staged an epic relay of conversations – a 12-hour talking marathon of 24 leading writers, filmmakers, scientists, academics and technology activists – as well as the enactment of Longplayer’s spectacular first-ever live performance: a 1,000 minute section from its 1,000 year duration.