In a strange lighthouse in East London, lives a 1000-year long composition by Jem Finer, which began playing there in the year 2000. A group of invigilators, a producer, and the Longplayer Trust are busy with the mammoth undertaking of keeping it going.

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I created an installation in this strangely enchanting space, exploring the nature of stewardship for its 25th year, when what is being cared for has been composed to continue beyond our human lifetimes. A collage of the voices of Longplayer’s present custodians played on an acetate disc that deteriorated with every spin. The voices consider Longplayer in the context of their sense of, and relationship with, time. Accompanying the recording was an animated loop of acetate prints, showing light passing through the windows of the lighthouse and other non-human long flows of time – projected through Longplayer’s shadowscape of singing bowls. An Ethnography of Longplayer: Year 25 is a moving reflection on how commitment to the distant future reshapes our sense of the past and present.

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Below is the audio track which played through the space, with the images that were projected. Featuring the voices of Jem Finer, Sam Kimchin-Smith, Imogen Free, Ella Finer,  James Bulley, Ansuman Biswas, Gilbert Carnell-Mckean, Travis Yu and Lois Keidan.