Clear your diaries. On the 27 May, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Andy Warhol's death, Tate Modern are screening his endless film Sleep 1963, accompanied by the musical piece that inspired it, Erik Satie's Vexations 1893.

Vexations was written, as you might expect, in 1893, and consists of a few bars of piano plinkery, which the French composer (pictured, by Cocteau) decrees should be repeated 840 times. "Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif," he says, "il sera bon de se préparer au préalable, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immobilités sérieuses". (To play this motif 840 times, it's advisable to prepare yourself beforehand, and in completest silence, with grave immobilities." Sounds better in French).

As you might expect for a piece that takes about 12 hours to perform, Vexations did not shoot up the French Top 40 back in the day; indeed it was only premiered in 1963, by a group of musicians led by John Cage - the first composer to take it seriously - taking turns on the keyboard. Warhol was in attendance and was inspired to shoot Sleep, his essay in filmic boredom.

What does Vexations mean? Was it a Dadaist prank? Was it an irritant to the bourgeoisie? Was it a parody of pomp? Was it a proto-minimalist masterpiece? Cage certainly thought the latter - if you repeat anything enough times, it becomes interesting was his oft repeated mantra. He reported that at the mammoth performance in New York, after initial periods of anticipation, amusement, tedium and torture, the relay performers reached an uncanny state of bliss, where time slowed down, transcendental things happened and profound insights into the nature of existence were gained. (Similar profundities have been afforded at psy-trance raves). Cage also point out that the idea of hearing the piece is completely different to the reality of hearing it: something always worth bearing in mind in this age of preconceptions.

It's easy to dismiss this as avant-garde wankery - but I certainly intend to be there for the duration. I expect either to find nothing less than enlightenment. Else commit mass murder.