OTHER DATA [originally uploaded on 29-02-2017]

Some playful, preposterous & plain pretentious penpersonship on “KLF_01_01_2017_WTF_FOUND” and where it sprang from. Q: What motivated you to put the video together originally? The motivation was simple, even though the material was not original(ly). Both DJs we approached were unable to perform on the date our event wanted to manifest. This lead us to completely forego DJs. No one else came to mind that we felt sure would do something exploratory enough to offset the strong possibly that what we were doing was just a pointless exercise in nostalgia. Another solution was needed. To further explain : The flickering of ideas for the event at The Cube – which it came to come from – bobbed up from several areas . . . The Cube appears one cold November in 1998, its handlers a handful of artists of somewhat Discordian bent. The project was not expected to last, but 14 years later we find ourselves in 2012 and The Cube still abides. It is run at every level unwaged, and with no external funding beyond the bar and the door. This is mircoplex freedom. An opportunity arises to attempt to buy the building – the site of the original Bristol Arts Centre, converted by counter-cultural volunteer force in the 1960s from its previous incarnation of The Deaf Institute (see Ian Breakwell’s archive at Tate online, and mentions in Chris Brook’s IT archive). The final fly in the ointment towards true independence. We must raise the seemingly impossible sum of £185,000. Impossibly our campaign succeeds, and on 11/12/13 the target is toppled. It’s April fool’s Day 2014, the documents are signed. A legal charter is established to secure and maintain the freehold of the Cube Cinema as a community arts space in perpetuity. Full ownership puts us in a new position. Our structure and mission has always posed questions. Questions about how money can be viewed in a project like ours. So let’s zoom in some more. The mission has always been to enrich the experience of everyone who passes through the doors, but our resources for play have been expanded. An idea – not universally approved – that has been floating around for a while seems to have found its time. We should do an event where instead of taking money on the door, we should give money on the door. The poster would say “£5 on the door“, which – unexpectedly – is what people would get on arriving. At some point in our roaming thought process, writer John Higgs’ fictional account of the activities of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty between the years 1976 and 1997 and all its wizard tangents and attendant gravity comes into our consciousness. We like it. This is the area to explore in relation to our £5 idea. The number 5 is significant. Also roaming this mental territory is Bristol DJ United States of Audio with his “mixumentary”, ‘Embrace The Contradictions‘. A tribute history of supreme cultural manipulators The KLF, released to coincide with 23 years since their music industry exit. It’s Summer 2015. We approach this DJ to recreate or adapt this work for our live setting. He gracefully declines. For him it exists in a place (the studio) and a time (the 23 anniversary exit earlier in the year). He hips us to some downloadable data, however. This is internet freedom. We approach John Higgs to give a talk as part of whatever it is that we are doing is destined to become. He likes our £5 idea, and aclines. He will happily come along to be a part, rabbit on, be a fulcrum – that’s the spirit. He tells us that on his travels he has encountered a man whose practice is concerned with burning money. A new inevitable route reveals itself. We do not want to do a cash in nostalgia night. This is a cash out night. We want to explore ourselves, our new boundaries. We intend to use the medium of the emerging interest in a bourgeoning 21st century counter culture feeding on the reappropriated concepts around the gang who stormed into TOTP in 1988 and out of The Brits in 1992. Plus what happened before and afterwards, jamming good with the history of pop and that unexhibitable Major Body of Work in the aftermath. The later perhaps the least explored and understood, despite all the retellings and long shadows of where it led. We knock up some graphics as we explore. People see them. People want tickets. Our £5 idea is challenged. We want to enrich the experience of everyone who wants to pass through our doors. People want to travel, people want advance tickets. Some are men for whom 23 years or more have passed since they were 17. They have families. They require planning. We mustn’t lose sight of the seed idea, but we must embrace what blossoms on the road. A solution presents itself. We are exploring money, this is another opportunity for play. We hadn’t considered advance tickets, but we now consider advance tickets. They shall be set at £10. The idea of £5 on the door remains . . . TEXT CONTINUES HERE : http://blog.cubecinema.com/2017/01/13/mu-year/