Deep Time, a music festival championing new sounds, is readying its latest edition at Fruitmarket Warehouse from Wednesday 27–Saturday 30 November. Tickets for the festival are on sale now. 

This year’s edition has invited participants to respond to the idea of an imagined conversation between the visionary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and experimental music pioneer John Cage, drawing on a Fruitmarket exhibition in 1984 when both artists’ work was on display. 

Curated by vocalist, movement artist and composer Elaine Mitchener, Basquiat & Cage 8424 will welcome a series of new commissions, performances, talks and curated playlists by some of the UK’s most radical and progressive experimental artists.

Highlights from the programme include the first performance of Graffiti Bodies II (Wednesday 27 November), a ‘performative graffiti’ work that promises ‘sensory overload of movement and a cacophony of sound and visual noise’ in response to Basquiat’s provocative work ‘La Hara’ (1981); a performance from Apartment House (Thursday 28 November), one of most important interpreters of and advocates for John Cage’s work, who’ll present a new Cage-inspired piece called A Youth Bec(k)oning A Righlteg Leg; Rie Nakajima’s work The Detail Of the Whole (Friday 29 November), a new performance and installation commissioned by Fruitmarket; and a revisiting of Cage’s Scottish Circus, his 1985 collaboration with The Whistlebinkies, which will be undertaken by leading musicians like Simone Seales, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Sodhi and others. 

The festival will also mark 50 years since Fruitmarket was established. Opening in 1974 as a Scottish Arts Culture venue, it has transitioned from a venue that shows touring gallery exhibits to a thriving space known for its ambitious programming. 

Deep Time: Basquiat & Cage 8424, Fruitmarket Warehouse, Edinburgh, Wednesday 27–Saturday 30 November.