The Artangel Longplayer Conversation 2008
Alain de Botton and George Soros
7pm, Friday 12 September 2008
Royal Geographical Society, London
The Artangel Longplayer Conversation invites two cultural thinkers, aware of each other’s work but never having met, 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. 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. This year’s conversation brings together British writer and philosopher Alain de Botton and international financier and philanthropist George Soros.
Alain De Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. His writings - including How Proust can Change your Life, Status Anxiety and The Architecture of Happiness - refer both to his own experiences and ideas and those of particular artists, philosophers and thinkers. His style of writing has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life’, and several of his books have been serialised as documentaries for broadcast television.
George Soros is an international financier and philanthropist. He is chairman of Soros Fund Management and founder of a network of philanthropic organisations active in more than 50 countries around the world. He has been called the man who "broke the Bank of England for his role in Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, devaluing its currency. In 2004 he strongly opposed the reelection of George W. Bush and contributed more than $20 million to various voter registration and mobilisation programmes. A graduate of the London School of Economics, Soros is the author of ten books including most recently The New Paradigm for Financial Markets.
The talk will take place in The Ondaatje Theatre at the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR. Tickets £10 / £8 conc. (plus booking fees), available from Tuesday 15th July, from See Tickets: www.seetickets.com / 0870 264 3333.
www.longplayer.org
Alain de Botton 
George Soros