33. PRIZE GIVING

My GANTOB (book) re-enactment (2023) was finished on 18 September 2023, printed, and copies sent out from 23 September. In the period between 18 and 23 September I wrote Kompanion Volume. Ten pages of that 19-page publication focused on a letter sent decades earlier.

We know that Curt Finks, my father-in-law, sent a story in snips to a literary magazine on 15 June 1987. Each snip had a word on one side, a number on the other. The potential reader would need to order the snips numerically to reveal the story. The editor appears never to have opened this envelope, so the story was neither considered nor rejected. I intended to reproduce this story with the GANTOB book package. I ran out of time (through the rules of Kreative Tyranny), but ten copies were sent out in snips as intended, the rest left intact with instructions to snip before attempting to assemble (a workaround by The Benefaktor). Finding escaped snips from the ten envelopes the evening before posting, I included a rescue sheet with the book pack.

On 7 October, with no evidence that any of the original recipients had attempted to reconstruct the story, I decided to extend the challenge to a wider audience (repositioning), and with The Benefaktor created a devilish challenge for social media. I reformatted the snips, with word and number on the same side, cut up the sheet, and stuck them in random order on a new sheet, checking them thoroughly to ensure that there were no missing snips. The Benefaktor reconstructed the story using my physical sheet as the first GANTOB/ The Benefaktor artistic collaboration.

A fresh competition was set, asking applicants to print and cut out the snips, complete the challenge, and send me the answer (a year) and photographic evidence of completion by 23:23 on 9 October. Four intrepid ornithologists completed this task. All, it turned out, were recipients of the book:

• DaftBrand (first prize), who used a glass table, wins the GANTOB/ Benefaktor original
• Andrew, Missiformation and Loop (runners up). Andrew looked for hidden meaning but ultimately found the simple answer (1987)
• Skellbert and Missiformation disagreed on the answer, submitting 1680 (EURING code for Brent geese) and 1987 respectively
• LoopManiac submitted a fully stuck down submission

Their prizes are in the post, with evidence of prize production (each a unique artwork) shown below. Thank you all for your kontributions!

GANTOB

26 October 2023

This marks the end of part one of this re-enactment of 2023: A trilogy (a blog in 99 parts for the last days of 2023).

The six videos are available here (and on Instagram):

GANTOB and The Benefaktor collaborate (not available in all countries) to produce The First Prize for Daft Brand (note that the latter does not feature a track from 1987, but a Whitney themed substitute).

Snipping, folding and sticking to produce the Koncertina edition (for Andrew and Nyla), under a process of Kreative Konvenience (keeping the snips together, rather than sticking each word individually).

Spinning version (for Christine and Skellbert) – the original plan to do this with stop motion animation was rejected, using The Benefaktor’s turntable instead.

Wild goose chase in rushes edition for LoopManiac (because he already had a fully stuck solution).