Wiseman-Trowse, N. J. B. (2015) ‘You should try lying more’: the nomadic impermanence of sound and text in the work of Bill Drummond. Lecture presented to: Kingston University Research Seminar Series, Kingston University, UK, 09 February 2015.
- Slideshows
- Texts
- Information
Information
Abstract:
Bill Drummond’s work straddles the worlds of popular music, literature and art. Through his books, music and artistic interventions Drummond has engaged with the (im)permanence of culture while manifesting a network of creative associations that give shape to a nebulous series of artistic efforts in a variety of media. His latest project, The17 and its associated book of the same name, explores the impermanence of musical expression, a theme manifested by his deletion of the KLF back catalogue in 1992 and his burning of £1 million pounds in 1994.
Yet the concentration on impermanence in Drummond’s musical work is balanced by the possible permanence of language, manifest both in his books and leaflets, as well as in his artworks which are highly logo centric, whether they be graffiti or the painted scores for the 17 project. This article explores Drummond’s work through the Deleuzian filter of nomadism to interrogate the tensions between that which is now and that which has the possibility to always be. Drummond stands in many ways as an anti-theorist, engaging with music, literature and art in nomadic ways that are not always intended by him, providing a network of connections that might seek to evade the very conception of the network itself.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Bill Drummond, popular music, music, sound, art, text, KLF, The17
Subjects:
Creators:
Wiseman-Trowse, N. J. B.
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes:
Date:
9 February 2015
Date Type:
Presentation
Event Title:
Kingston University Research Seminar Series
Event Dates:
09 February 2015
Event Location:
Kingston University, UK
Event Type:
Other
Language:
English
Status:
Published / Disseminated
Refereed:
Yes
Related URLs:
References:
Attali, Jacques, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).
Brook, Chris and Alan Goodrick, K Foundation Burn a Million Quid (London: Ellipsis, 1997).
Cauty, Jimmy and Bill Drummond, The Manual (How to Have a
Number One the Easy Way) (London: KLF Publications, 1988).
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: The Athelone Press, 1988).
Drummond, Bill, 45 (London: Little, Brown and Company, 2000).
---, How to be an Artist (London: Penkiln Burn, 2002).
---, Scores 18 – 76 (London: Penkiln Burn, 2006).
---, 17 (London: Beautiful Books, 2008).
Drummond, Bill and Mark Manning, Bad Wisdom: The Lighthouse at the Top of the World (London: Penguin, 1996).
---, The Wild Highway (London: Creation, 2005).
Holland, Eugene, ‘Studies in Applied Nomadology: Jazz
Improvisation and Post-Capitalist Markets’, in Ian Buchanan and Marcel Swiboda (eds.), Deleuze and Music (Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 20-35.
Nyman, Michael, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
 |