Week four consisted of an offsite visit to Jem Finer’s Longplayer exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London.
This exhibition is situated in a rather small unused lighthouse with large, stoned walls. Upon entering the large wooden ground floor door, you are instantly met with a hushed sound from above. After scaling the rather hobbled old lighthouse stairs you enter a mezzanine that opens to a large loft like room that is directly above the neighbouring attached warehouse.
This is where the physical and digital contents of Finer’s piece is situated as shown in the photo above. The sculpture consists of rounded platforms containing six shelf like layers holding a plethora of varying sizes of brass singing bowls, these signing bowls are static and not contributing sonically to this piece which is why there are many small speakers hanging directly from wooden joists above. The third floor is situated as a listening area where the light from the lighthouse would have been and is now hollowed out containing yet more speakers, this itself creates a different sonic environment with a slight metallic reverb.
The sound you hear is a computer-generated sequence of singing bowl compositions composed by Jem Finer that slowly evolve and subtract as you move through the building. It is generated using a program that plays six compositions simultaneously with the trick being that they are played out of time: just like having six vinyl turntables playing the same record but starting them each at different times (Steele 7). This is worked out in the computer program as such that the composition does not repeat itself for one-thousand years.
My thoughts:
Jem Finer’s Longplayer is an excellent interpretation of time and a sense of place; especially as it is not only available in person at many locations globally but also as it is livestreamed continuously, this makes it ultimately available for everyone to appreciate and connect with wherever they are. I was surprised about this as I expected it to be a physical, kinetic artwork at first but to me the thought that it exists within the cloud reinforces its sense of place as that it is not confined to some specific location meaning its idea can continue to exist wherever. The most unique factor I find about this piece is its millennium spanning duration especially as it started and witnessed 1999s move into the year 2000 and it won’t end until 2099. I interpret this length of time as putting a perspective of the true scale of time and how much can and will change during the length of the piece (Christenhusz 148). The fact that this idea of time is not confined to a visual context or a piece of art within a gallery creates much more excitement and evokes more thought especially as it won’t be seen in years to come as a historical piece but as one that is still ongoing and ever changing. This ties in with Steven Connors idea that static visual art can give off a ‘fatiguing and inhuman’ feeling whereas sound especially in this ever-changing example of Longplayer has the power to evoke more than just visual senses (Connor 48)
Bibliography:
Christenhusz, J. (2021) “Soundings of Ecological Time in Contemporary Music and Sound Art,” APRIA Journal, 3(2), p. 148. Available at: https://doi.org/10.37198/apria.03.02.a16.
Connor, S. (2003) Ears Have Walls. Available at: https://www.stevenconnor.com/earshavewalls/ (Accessed: October 26, 2025).
Steele, S. (2024) The music Of Deep Time, Research Gate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sean-Steele-4/publication/384110733_The_Music_of_Deep_Time/links/66eb144f97a75a4b4834dbc2/The-Music-of-Deep-Time.pdf (Accessed: October 26, 2025).