The Longplayer Trust

The Longplayer Trust
31 Eyre Street Hill, London EC1R 5EW, UK
Registered Charity No. 108 7243

The Longplayer Trust was established at the end of 2000 to take responsibility for Longplayer’s upkeep for at least its first 1000 year cycle. This involves researching and implementing the means to keep Longplayer playing, in ensuring its sustainability, and making it available to as larger number of people as possible. The trust also looks after the listening post at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London.

The trustees are: broadcaster and entrepreneur Paul Bennun; James Bridle, writer, artist, publisher and technologist; John Burton, Project Manager for Urban Space Management; Marcus Davey, Arts producer and artistic director of The Roundhouse, London; Janey Elliott, artist, musician and Longplayer composer Jem Finer; screenwriter and filmmaker Tony Grisoni; John Keiffer (chair); arts producer and co director of Artangel Michael Morris; urban developer Eric Reynolds; Anne Robbins.

Paul Bennun
Paul Bennun is co-owner and Director of Strategy of Somethin’ Else, a leading cross-platform production company in the UK and has been a game designer, entertainment producer and broadcaster. Somethin’ Else is the largest radio independent, TV entertainment indie and a major interactive content producer, in which it has been active for almost a decade.

Paul leads the Company’s interactive department and future product / business strategy. He holds internationally recognised awards in games, radio, mobile technology and interactive broadcasting such as Bafta Awards, Sony Radio Academy Awards and the GSM Association Awards.

A trustee of arts commissioner Artangel and the Longplayer Trust, he co-authored the British Government’s recent report on the future of digital music, and is an artistic collaborator with the likes of: several Artangel artists, writer John Berger, Theatre de Complicite and Rotozaza. Paul also presents science, technology and usability programmes for the BBC.

James Bridle
James Bridle is a writer, artist, publisher and technologist usually based in London, UK. His work covers the intersection of literature, culture and the network. He has written for WIRED, ICON, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic and many other publications, and writes a regular column for the Observer newspaper on publishing and technology. James speaks worldwide at events including SXSW (Austin), dConstruct (Brighton), LIFT (Geneva), Web Directions (Sydney) and NEXT (Berlin).

In 2011, he coined the term “New Aesthetic”, and his ongoing research around this subject has been featured and discussed worldwide. His work, such as the Iraq War Historiography, an encyclopaedia of Wikipedia Changelogs, has been exhibited at galleries in the Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia, and has been commissioned by organisations such as Artangel, Mu Eindhoven, and the Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC.

In 2012 he was a Happenstance resident at Lighthouse Gallery, lectured as part of the 4 Thought series on BBC Radio 4, contributed to the Istanbul Design Biennial and Guimaraes 2012 European City of Culture, and was adjunct professor on the Interactive Telecommunications Programme at New York University.

John Burton
John Burton is a chartered surveyor and Member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors who specialises in regeneration projects. As such he is responsible for various Urban Space Management projects, including Trinity Buoy Wharf.

He has wide experience working in the areas of local economic development, re-use of historic buildings, physical development and town centre strategies. He is a trustee of the Aluna Foundation and a Director of CIDA (Cultural Industries Development Agency), with whom he ran the Creative Space Agency which links owners of vacant property with arts and creative organisations needing space.

At Trinity Buoy Wharf he is part of the team regenerating this former buoy yard, which has become a centre for arts and cultural enterprises. There he is involved in creating new studios from converted shipping containers, programming public events and exhibitions and dealing with Longplayer on a day to day basis.

Marcus Davey
Marcus Davey, the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Roundhouse, studied at Dartington College of Arts and soon after completing his degree he became the Administrator of Dartington International Summer School and then in addition, the Arts Manager for Dartington Hall Trust and Director of concerts programming for Exeter University.

In 1995 he was appointed the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, where he created a new contemporary dance festival, a wide ranging creative education programme, an inter-festival orchestral series and commissioned over 60 works in music, dance and the visual arts and expanded the Festival in length, breadth and number of events. He was appointed Chief Executive of The Roundhouse Trust in 1999, where he over sore and managed the £30m re-development of the Roundhouse into a world class performing space and state of the art creative centre (the Roundhouse Studios) for large numbers of young people.

Amongst others voluntary positions have included Chairman of the PRSFoundation, including being Chair of Judges for the New Music Award, Chairman of the Hackney Youth Orchestras Trust, a founder Trustee of People United and an Advisory Board member of the Clore Leadership Foundation. He is currently Chairman elect of the Dartington International Summer School Foundation and Chairman of the Brook Street Band Trust.

Janey Elliott
Janey Elliott is an arts professional and currently works as part of the development team at Artichoke. She helped raise £1,000,000 towards the Roundhouse development with her husband Tony and is part of the Producers Circle there.

She is a passionate supporter and member of the Commissioning Circle at the Manchester International Arts Festival.

She is an active member of of Human Rights Watch here in London and a committee member of it in the past. She was Chair of a branch of HRW called ‘Cries’ and in May 2010 helped produce a play at the Royal Court in which 9 playwrights wrote and 2l actors starred in ‘The Laws of War’ which was successful in raising both money, awareness and new members for HRW.

For the last six years she has been representing writers and trying to sell books for both film and tv adaptations. They are often writers who have worked at Time Out over the last 45 years.

She a trustee of the City & Guilds of London Art school in Kennington, a wonderful mishmash of buildings which has operated under the same name and site since the school opened in 1879 and is the last independent art school left in London.

Jem Finer
Uncomfortable with labels such as composer, sound artist or musician, Jem Finer sees all of his activities as emanating from the same obsessive curiosity that has led him, among other things, to make films, take photographs, form bands, draw, write, perform, compose, play music and build installations. An enduring fascination with deep time and space has been the impetus behind much of his work. Some of his other projects can be found on the following sites:

Tony Grisoni
Tony Grisoni worked in many different areas of film making before turning to screenwriting. QUEEN OF HEARTS, 1989 was his award winning first feature directed by Jon Amiel. He has worked closely with a number of directors including Michael Winterbottom, John Boorman, Rankin, Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker, Sean Durkin and Terry Gilliam (FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and TIDELAND). Grisoni is proud to count himself amongst the crew on board the ship of fools: THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE.

In 2001, Tony Grisoni made the trek along the people smugglers’ route from the Pakistan/Afghan border, through Iran and Turkey to Europe with the director, Michael Winterbottom. The resulting film, IN THIS WORLD, won the 2002 Berlinale Golden Bear.

Grisoni collaborated with Simon Channing Williams of Potboiler Films, and Keith Fulton & Lou Pepe (directors of LOST IN LA MANCHA) to write and co-produce BROTHERS OF THE HEAD, 2005 adapted from the novella by Brian W. Aldiss.

He adapted the David Peace Yorkshire Noir novels RED RIDING, 2009. Directed by Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker, they were produced by Andrew Eaton at Revolution Films for Channel 4.

THE UNLOVED, 2009 was Samantha Morton’s directorial debut which won BAFTA – Best TV Single Drama. Produced by Kate Ogborn and Michael Elliott for Revolution Films and C4.

SOUTHCLIFFE, 2013 is an original 4-part drama for Channel 4, directed by Sean Durkin and produced by Peter Carlton and Derrin Schlesinger of Warp Films.

VANISHED – A VIDEO SEANCE, 1999 was made in collaboration with performance artist and poet, Brian Catling. “…genre busting – an encounter between mainstream movie story telling and the art avant-garde…” – Jonathan Romney. He and Catling have gone to make other pieces for galleries and together host the annual celebration of the absurd, CABARET MELANCHOLIQUE. Other artists he has collaborated with include Oona Grimes and Dryden Goodwin.

Grisoni has also written and directed a number of short films including the BAFTA nominated KINGSLAND #1 The Dreamer, 2008, SYNCING, 2009, and the award winning THE PIZZA MIRACLE, 2010.

http://www.tonygrisoni.co.uk/

John Keiffer

Michael Morris
Since 1991 Michael Morris, along with James Lingwood, has co-directed Artangel, commissioning and producing site-based work by exceptional artists for particular places throughout the UK – both natural and architectural – in the visual, performing and media arts. Since 1992, Artangel’s landmark commissions have included Rachel Whiteread’s House, Michael Clark’s Mmm, William Forsythe’s Tight Roaring Circle, Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 4, Gavin Bryar’s and Juan Munoz’ A Man in a Room Gambling, Jem Finer’s Longplayer and John Berger and Simon McBurney’s The Vertical Line, amongst many others. Artangel Afterlives gives a more enduring form to some of these temporary works through a programme of publications adapting individual projects into videos, books and CDs.

Following his tenure as Director of Performing Arts at the ICA London in the 1980s, Michael Morris also established Cultural Industry in 1988 as an independent, international production company, presenting and producing new work across a complete spectrum of the performing arts. Long term relationships have been forged with Robert Lepage, Pina Bausch, La La La Human Steps, Brian Eno, Robert Wilson and Laurie Anderson, amongst others, in on-going partnerships with leading venues and festivals throughout Britain and beyond. Cultural Industry also initiates and produces projects which tour outside the UK, notably Shockheaded Peter, currently making its way across the globe and soon to be adapted as a feature film.

Eric Reynolds
Eric Reynolds has been involved in numerous urban regeneration schemes since the early 1970s, many including the practical re-use of historic buildings. In 1972 he spearheaded the restoration of a derelict building in Clerkenwell as one of the first craft workshops in the country. With two partners, he started the 1974 conversion of Camden Lock, which is now one of the top tourist attractions in London.

He has repeated this success at many other locations around the country. Those he has developed and/or runs include the Elephant And Castle shopping centre, Merton Abbey Mills, Spitalfields Old Fruit And Vegetable Market, Gabriels Wharf, Greenwich Market, Bishopsgate Goodsyard, Merton Abbey Mills, Platform 12 Kings Cross, Swindon Market Hall, Sneinton Market Square in Nottingham and Green Park Market in Bath.

A recent scheme is at Trinity Buoy Wharf, opposite the Millenium Dome, where Longplayer has been housed since its launch in 1999. This is the site of London’s only lighthouse, for which he won a development/management competition from the LDDC to develop a centre for arts and creative activity. Here he has pioneered the re-use of shipping containers to create buildings in a system called Container City.

He acts as a regeneration advisor across the country and is a director and member of several other voluntary bodies. He is a Board member of Tower Hamlets College, a Freeman of the Waterman and Lightermans Company, an Honourary Member of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), Chairman of Leeside Regeneration and has recently been elected to the Board of Governors for the Museum of London.

Anne Robbins
Anne Robbins was brought up in the United States and Turkey, but has spent all her adult life in the UK. Her working career was spent in bookselling and publishing. She now divides her time between The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, where she volunteers on the programme to support Iraqi scholars, and an organisation aiming to improve the effectiveness of philanthropy in positive social change.

However, it is her interests in music and early medieval history which inform her involvement in Longplayer. In particular, Anne has been fascinated by the efforts of 8th and 9th century Europeans to mold late Roman institutions to their own changed economic and social conditions, and to create new forms of government and social organisation within – and sometimes against – the widening influence of the Christian Church.

The long-term survival of Longplayer may not depend on fixed institutions such as the monastic libraries in which some Carolingian documents still remain, but it should have the benefit of an awareness of history. After all, our ability even to imagine the future is based on what we know of the past.