Longest performance ever

John Cage - Walker Art Center Archives

Do you want to know what utter tedium sounds like? Check out the livestream for this John Cage performance, which takes a mere 639 years to complete.

This little snippet of the piece, actually a single chord change, takes approximately four hours and twenty minutes.

The length might be entirely accidental (4:20) as you might want to be stoned before you try to tackle it. It happened on September 5th, a few days ago.

The work is called ORGAN/ASLSP, or As Slow As Possible and is currently taking place at St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt. It was composed by the avant garde artist in 1987.  The work emits a continuous sound thanks to an energy-generating compressor in the church basement. It began in September 2001 and is scheduled to end in 2640. Next note change will be in February of 2022.

I can't wait.