WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.800
How do you make something last a thousand years?

2
00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:08.380
Because that is a long period of time - there are very few human endeavors that have lasted a millennium.

3
00:00:08.380 --> 00:00:10.660
The buildings behind me aren't designed to last
 that long -

4
00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:14.700
a century perhaps before they're razed and redeveloped with something else.

5
00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:17.980
The Great Pyramid of Giza, that's lasted an incredibly long time.

6
00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:20.880
There are universities who can trace back nearly a thousand years.

7
00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:27.540
There's a construction company in Japan that started in 578 A.D. - and went into liquidation a few years ago.

8
00:00:27.540 --> 00:00:31.940
But if you have a project that wants to last that long, well, you're not going to be alive to see it through.

9
00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:35.920
I mean, we can hope that life extension technologies will come along - but right now,

10
00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:38.980
humans don't live much past a hundred years.

11
00:00:38.980 --> 00:00:41.620
So what do you do if your project requires a thousand?

12
00:00:41.620 --> 00:00:48.080
Well, behind me is Longplayer, inside Trinity Buoy Wharf Lighthouse, here in London.

13
00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:50.780
Longplayer is a music composition for singing bowls,

14
00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:57.300
designed to last one thousand years - from the start of 2000 to the end of 2999.

15
00:00:57.380 --> 00:01:01.240
And that is an incredibly long time.
In order for that to work,

16
00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:05.100
it doesn't have to be a person that sees it through, it has to be a corporation.

17
00:01:05.100 --> 00:01:09.400
In this case - a non-profit, a charity - something called the Longplayer Trust,

18
00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.320
whose job it is to keep the composition going.

19
00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.260
Right now it's being synthesized by a computer.

20
00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:17.600
There's a large instrument in there that is in the process of being completed.

21
00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:19.600
And the trust's job is this:

22
00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:21.920
• Update the computer when it needs updating,

23
00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:25.100
• Port the software to another language
when it needs porting,

24
00:01:25.100 --> 00:01:29.620
• Find replacements for the people on the Longplayer Trust board when they need replacing,

25
00:01:29.620 --> 00:01:33.800
so that, in nine-hundred and eighty-something years,

26
00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:39.580
whether it's here, or somewhere else, or if the sea levels rise: another city or country entirely,

27
00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:44.320
you will still be able to hear Longplayer
somewhere in the world.

28
00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:46.920
That is how you make something last a thousand years.

29
00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:52.200
You use many people, and an entity designed to last that long - which is: a corporation.

30
00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.200
Which is something, you might not have known.

31
00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.040
[Translating these subtitles? Add your name here!]