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).

The Foundation Doktor is relaxing on a day off, after three gruelling 12-hour shifts. She has been reading 2023: A trilogy in her time off. She likes the references to children’s books. And she has spotted from GANTOB’s social media activity and pamphlets that that tradition has continued with Judith Kerr’s Mog and Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler’s Squash and a Squeeze* both mentioned. 

The Foundation Doktor thinks that it is time to introduce a book that she enjoyed from her childhood – Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart. She loves the idea of characters stepping out of the page, into the real world. There are parallels with Pandora’s box, but she is confident that such perils can be avoided. No goat-themed villains for this blog. 

The following day she is back on The Benefaktor’s ward, doing her usual rounds. She has a wrench, some brown tape and a change of clothes with her. She closes the door behind her, draws the internal blinds to the corridor, and forces the external window open. She steps out and jumps onto the grass below her, enjoying the softness after 23 years stuck in her paper prison. She tapes the window shut, aware of The Benefaktor’s querulous voice shouting from inside.

Changing out of scrubs into the clothes that she has carried with her she steps out into our world. She folds her clinical garb neatly and packs it down in her bag, placing her sandwiches carefully on top. Her paperback copy of 2023: A trilogy is slipped into the document section of her rucksack. She starts running. 

The Foundation Doktor has Bill Drummond’s The Man on her phone. It is not traditional running music, but somehow it hits the spot. She is thinking through some of the reviews of the original 2023: A trilogy. A meta-narrative, beholden to its sources, purposefully creating confusion, understood only by existing fans of The KLF. She is keen to learn from that feedback, and extend the appeal of the blog. But that risks losing the KLF-centred readership GANTOB’s built up.

The slide guitar and upbeat acoustic rhythms take her somewhere else, so the pavement, tachycardia and dyspnoea are barely perceptible even as she increases her speed. She slips another phone out of a zipped pocket, and turns it on. The Benefaktor’s screensaver (a cat) fires up. She types in the too-obvious password, and dials GANTOB for the first time.

THE FOUNDATION DOKTOR

25 Oktober 2023

* Or KLFRS.com/gantob, pamphlet 8

The Benefaktor has been posting in monochrome. Perhaps it relates to his new status in the GANTOB projekt. Voted off by the readers, returning to a dream state, or perhaps having Krossed. On the plus side, an “accident”, a possible death and a tricky relationship with reality will strengthen the claim that this is a re-enactment of 2023: A trilogy.

As we approach post 33 – the finale of the first part of this “trilogy” in 99 blogs, and a number with klear Bill Drummond konnotations – I need to do a bit of tidying up emotionally and practically in this post and my next. The Beneftaktor will do his thing in between. He has accused me of not being a “starter-finisher”. I have to prove him wrong, but I have a lot of video editing and packaging before I can make that klaim.

I am sitting on a bench in Kingussie, bursting for a pee, waiting for a friend to pick me up and take me back to The Manse. I rest back, appreciating the autumn kolours. I think about the challenges in opening up the kreative process for others to kontribute. Ko-produktion. This started with the book of course, with the questions and interactions feeding into the quotes section, social media aktivity and some of the pamphlets. The konnektions became an essential part of the project. But giving The Benefaktor free rein on the blog was arguably an act of trust too far. Our kontrasting/ konflikting styles have taken the blog in unexpekted direktions, but it’s hardly Lennon and McCartney, or Bacharach and David. There are more promising kollaborations elsewhere perhaps.

I traipse up the River Gynack to the public toilets. It’s a kalkulated risk. I might miss my lift as a result. I think about Yoko Ono Jr and the lonely figure she cuts in 2023: A trilogy. Everybody else seems to be having a party in that book. Similarly, I remember that I will not be going to Toxteth Day of the Dead this November. I am konfident that The Benefaktor will not be there either. Diffikult to spoil the party if you’re not there I suppose.

I check for notifications on the @gantob2023 Twitter and Instagram accounts. Loyal GANTOB follower Missiformation has solved The Benefaktor’s challenge from yesterday, and shared some reflektions about GANTOB. This gives me the dopamine hit I need. No messages from my lift though.

GANTOB

24 Oktober 2023

We interrupt this blog…

An old man, but not The Elderly Gentleman is lying in a hospital bed. He is aware of voices, pain, and a sense of vast expanses of time passing. Eventually he manages to open one eye, then the other. He is seeing black and white. Black from his left eye, which seems to be covered, and white from his right. He peers around with the latter. He is in a room. It is dimly lit, with lots of shadows. It appears to be night-time.

He hears a drone, or perhaps it is a low tinnitus. A door in the corner to the right is open, with bright light spilling out. He is suddenly aware of a silhouette in the doorway, which turns and puts out the light. The drone stops.

“I’m just here to take a blood sample”, explains the intruder. No, that’s not right, it’s The Foundation Doktor. He remembers her now, in her mismatched scrubs and turquoise stethoscope. Her Essex accent. He feels a wipe at the crook of his arm, the smell of alcohol, a band of tightness, a jab, some pressure combined with softness.

“All done. I’ll need to press for quite a long time because of the blood thinning treatment you’re on”, she whispers.

They talk for a few minutes. He hears about the circumstances of his admission, as if for the first time. But The Foundation Doktor has apparently told him this story many times.

He tells her the things that he does and does not remember.

Name – no.

Identity – The Benefaktor.

Address – no.

Phone number – where is my phone?

The Foundation Doktor has a look around, without success.

Employment – no. Hobbies – writing a book, or is that a blog.

Next of kin – not GANTOB. The name seems to come from nowhere.

Home circumstances – can’t remember.

“Anything else I can help you with before I go?”

The Benefaktor has an idea. He pokes around in his recent memory, like a medical student trying to find a vein, and finds a rich seam of information.

Username – tick.

Password – tick.

Content – tick.

 So between themselves The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor start writing some new blogs and upload them under the cover of night, when GANTOB is asleep. Kreative Tyranny dictates that when a blog is uploaded, it cannot be undone.

THE BENEFAKTOR, WITH HELP FROM THE FOUNDATION DOKTOR

21 October 2023