What happened to the million quid that was burnt by the KLF on the Isle of Jura? How does this relate to 1984, surveillance, and artificial intelligence?

If you’re intrigued, then you are most welcome to attend our hybrid guest performance-lecture on February 13^th, 2025 offering insights from KLF co-leaders and artists Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond’s 2017 book ‘2023: A Trilogy’ (under the pen name ‘The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu,’ published by Faber & Faber). The book, a sequel to both ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (George Orwell) and ‘The Illuminatus! Trilogy’ (Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea), predicted with uncanny accuracy huge events in the Big Tech and geopolitical sphere. This lecture will focus on aspects of the book that are relevant to current technological debates in surveillance and data politics, such as the data breach of ancestry data from company 23&Me, the consolidation of a US-China AI race, and the proliferation of Generative AI newspeak and mis- and disinformation, through tools like ChatGPT. The performance will further involve a live generative demonstration of questions asked by, and to, new technologies as to the meaning of performing and improvising in the years to come.

The performance-lecture will last for 23 minutes and there will be 32 minutes for Q&A and further interaction with the audience. The event is free but ticketed (see below for registration link). You are more than welcome to help us recollect the million quid. After the event, there will be ample time for socialising and refreshments, especially for those of you who wish to join us for the screening of the film ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ at 19:30 at Macrobert Arts Centre.

The event is organised by Vassilis Galanos (artist and Lecturer in Digital Work, Stirling Management School) and features Emma Dorfman (dramaturg and PhD candidate in Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh, in partnership with the Traverse Theatre) and is part of the event series celebrating the hosting of ‘The Winston Smith Library of Victory and Truth’ exhibition by Hans K Clausen at the University of Stirling – a collaboration between the University's Management School and its Art Collection with the support of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance, and Privacy (CRISP) and AI Ethics & Society. The event has been initially conceived by suggestion of Bill Drummond and takes place with the knowledge and agreement of Bill Drummond. It further builds on Hans K Clausen’s live-art installation project I am the artist You are the artist.

Please register for the event here.

Please contact Dr Galanos for more information about the event at Vassilis.Galanos@stir.ac.uk

Further information about the ‘Winston Smith Library of Victory and Truth’ can be found here.

Further information about the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy can be found here and about AI Ethics & Society here.