Talks

Alexander Rose, Brian Eno, & Stewart Brand

Long Finance: The Enduring Value Conference

Recorded live on Feb 1, 02010

at Gresham College

Enduring Value

In February 02010, Brian Eno, Stewart Brand, and Alexander Rose spoke at the Long Finance conference hosted by Gresham College in London. The conversation was moderated by Faisal Islam, an economics correspondent with Channel 4 news in the UK.

Long Finance is an initiative begun by Professor Michael Mainelli in 02007 to establish a World Centre Of Thinking On Long-Term Finance. The aim of the Long Finance Institute is "to improve society's understanding and use of finance over the long-term".

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bio

Following a quarter century of leadership of The Long Now Foundation, Alexander Rose continues his work on 10,000-year clock and his research to discover the stories and lessons behind the world’s longest-lived organizations.

Alexander is an industrial designer and has been working with The Long Now Foundation and computer scientist Danny Hillis since 01997 to build a monument scale, all mechanical 10,000-year clock. Alexander speaks about the work of The Long Now Foundation all over the world at venues ranging from TEDå to corporations and government agencies.

As the director of Long Now, Alexander founded The Interval, The Organizational Continuity Project, and has facilitated a range of projects including The Rosetta Project, Long Bets, Seminars About Long Term Thinking, Long Server and others. Alexander shares several design patents on the 10,000 Year Clock with Danny Hillis, the first prototype of which is in the Science Museum of London, and the monument scale version is now under construction in West Texas. Alexander is also an advisor to the METI project.

Alexander graduated with a bachelor of arts honors degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Industrial Design in 01995, as well as attended the Art Center College of Design. He was an artist in residence at Silicon Graphics Inc., and a founding partner of the robotics company Inertia Labs.

Alexander's combat robots have won over six world championship titles appearing in the hit TV show BattleBots. He has built large pyrotechnic displays for the Burning Man festival, robotic bartenders and other dangerous machines. Alexander was a world champion paintball player holding multiple world titles with his team the Ironmen from 1990 through 1995. At Carnegie Mellon University Alexander was the lead designer for a record setting human powered vehicle team.

Alexander lives in California in Marin County and enjoys mountain biking, mountaineering and other back country activities whenever he can get out.

Speaking engagements

Writing and media appearances

Brian Eno is a composer, producer and visual artist. A pioneer of musical electronics, his manipulation of audio textures was first featured during the early 01970's as a founding member of Roxy Music. His solo albums and collaborative musical compositions with John Cale, Robert Fripp, David Byrne, Jon Hassell and David Bowie have been in circulation world-wide over the last 30 years. Eno has produced records for numerous artists including U2, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Jane Siberry, Coldplay and performance artist Laurie Anderson. He identified and described Ambient Music and Generative Music both of which have since blossomed into major musical movements.

Concurrently with his recording career, Eno has been involved in the design and production of audio-visual gallery installations since 01978. Currently his installations utilise his 77 Million Paintings software - a generative system which produces and endless and non-repeating series of changing paintings. Recently he has produced (with Peter Chilvers) Bloom, a generative music piece - and one of the most successful musical apps for the iPhone.

His widely used set of oracle cards, Oblique Strategies was published in 01975 and remains in print. His diary and essays A Year (with Swollen Appendices) was published in May 01996. He is a board member of the disarmament group BASIC (British American Security Information Council) and the environmental NGO ClientEarth.

Brian Eno Recordings and Products can be purchased through EnoShop. Concurrently with his recording career, Eno has been involved in the design and production of audio-visual gallery installations since 01978. Currently his installations utilise his 77 Million Paintings software - a generative system which produces and endless and non-repeating series of changing paintings. Recently he has produced (with Peter Chilvers) Bloom, a generative music piece - and one of the most successful musical apps for the iPhone.

His widely used set of oracle cards, Oblique Strategies was published in 01975 and remains in print. His diary and essays A Year (with Swollen Appendices) was published in May 01996. He is a board member of the disarmament group BASIC (British American Security Information Council) and the environmental NGO ClientEarth.

Brian Eno Recordings and Products can be purchased through EnoShop.

Stewart Brand is cofounder of The Long Now Foundation and cofounder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of the Long Now; How Buildings Learn; and The Media Lab. His most recent book, titled Whole Earth Discipline, is published by Viking in the US and Atlantic in the UK. He graduated in Biology from Stanford and served as an Infantry officer.

His homepage is here.

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