This event will take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre Pigott Theatre and is also available to watch online. Tickets may be booked to attend in person, or to watch on our platform either live or during the next 7 days on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out in the confirmation email you receive after booking. 
 
A special event to celebrate the release of What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory, Brian Eno’s first new book in twenty-nine years, written in collaboration with Dutch artist and novelist Bette A.
 
Why do we need art? What Art Does is an invitation to explore this vital question and a chance to understand how art is made by all of us. How it creates communities, opens our worlds, and can transform us. The book examines the function of fictional worlds - such as pop songs, detective novels, soap operas, shoe tassels and the hidden language of haircuts - and suggests a new theory of art. Curious and playful, richly illustrated, full of ideas and life, it is an inspiring call to imagine a different future.
 
Bette met Brian through her TRQSE network. They started collaborating on social projects and talking about art. Their conversations led to working together on What Art Does, assembling the ideas Brian has developed during his working life and turning them into a book.
 
Half price tickets are available for Members, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups. Book and in-person event tickets are available.
 
Captions are provided for our online events and most in person events in the Pigott Theatre. If you have specific access requirements, please email customer@bl.uk
 
The venue doors and bar will open at 18:00 and the Theatre at 18:45. If you are attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event.
 
Brian Eno is an artist. He was born in Suffolk and studied art at Ipswich and Winchester art colleges. After art school, he joined the band Roxy Music and over the next five decades, he continued to make music with others including Talking Heads, Devo, U2, Laurie Anderson, James, David Byrne, Coldplay, David Bowie, Grace Jones, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd and Fred Again. Brian’s visual art has been shown internationally in over 200 venues. He is involved in activist work, such as the climate charity Earth Percent and HardArt, both of which he co-founded, and Stop The War coalition. Brian often lectures, trying to answer the question: What does art do?
 
Bette Adriaanse is an artist, born in Amsterdam. As a child she liked to write plays and her primary school teachers allowed her to practise them in the gymnasium. She studied Image and Language at the Rietveld Art Academy of Amsterdam. After doing a Masters in Creative Writing at Oxford University she started writing in both English and Dutch and published her novels Rus Like Everyone Else and What’s Mine. Aside from writing novels, Bette makes short stories and drawings and teaches in art schools. In 2019 Bette co-founded TRQSE – a network of artists and scientists who work together on social projects.
 
Photo credit: Cecily Eno
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