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The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

johnhiggs.com

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Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#91

Post by Towaway69 »

logifail wrote: post #86
pavlov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this thread is evidence that the question provoked by the performance is actually quite important, certainly more so than the average “but is this art” meta-debate. Someone in this thread was upset that the artists burned more money than the average person sees in their lifetime. Another commenter questioned why this would be more unfair than all the “regular rich” who we know spend many times that amount of m…

> Someone who is understood to not have money by default — like an artist [...] I'm sure we can all think of a few counter-examples to that one! Rihanna: net worth: ~ $1.4 billion Paul McCartney: net worth: ~ $1.2 billion Bono: net worth: ~ $700 million > then gets a sudden windfall is expected to use it responsibly "Expected" - by whom? I may be just a bit jaded, but we should perhaps consider the hypothesis that fo…

There is an category of artist who become overnight famous and cannot deal with the sudden interest and wealth.

Here I'm thinking of young Johnny Depp or Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, to give just three examples.

There are artists who do art for arts sake and not with the aim of getting wealthy. When these artists do have success, they can potentially become overwhelmed.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#93

Post by matheusmoreira »

ilamont wrote: post #6

I used to work for Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label. This book looks interesting ... but I really wish the focus was on the art and the music, and not the "the guys who burnt 1 million quid" incident. One thing that the media have a tough time recognizing is the fact that Bill and Jimmy are legit experimental artists, and still love making art of all kinds. And they also happened to have some amazing musi…

Not surprising. They burned one million £, like the Joker but years before they made the film. People kill for far less.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#94

Post by ectopod »

According to an article in The Times years ago (early 2000s?) the money was used notes from the Bank of England that was going to be burned anyway. With insurance, security, and a BoE employee to supervise it was expensive, but not a million pounds expensive. That said, I could imagine the KLF inventing this story too, so I don't know what the truth is.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#95

Post by matheusmoreira »

coldtea wrote: post #88
Baeocystin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More often than not, it's the one-off act of Burning a Million Quid in 1994. Their ground-breaking music, the books, the anti-establishment statements and art ... it's almost an afterthought. The pain of not having enough is a fundamental human experience, and to see someone who had more than most will ever see in their lifetime literally burn it away hurts. I thought it was deeply selfish stunt then, and still do n…

> The pain of not having enough is a fundamental human experience, and to see someone who had more than most will ever see in their lifetime literally burn it away hurts. Still, nobody bats an eye when some other celebrity or CEO or socialite throws away 1 million just for a single wedding or even a birthday party, or 10 million to have a large swimming pool. Which happens like every single day. $1m is probably what…

Rich people don't "throw away" money, they spend it. The money is circulating and enriching others for services rendered. In fact, the more money they "throw away" the better. The rational thing to do as a capitalist is to capture as much of that money as possible.

What they don't do is set it on fire, thereby depriving others of it permanently.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#96

Post by matheusmoreira »

techno_tsar wrote: post #21
Baeocystin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More often than not, it's the one-off act of Burning a Million Quid in 1994. Their ground-breaking music, the books, the anti-establishment statements and art ... it's almost an afterthought. The pain of not having enough is a fundamental human experience, and to see someone who had more than most will ever see in their lifetime literally burn it away hurts. I thought it was deeply selfish stunt then, and still do n…

Deeply selfish? There are literally millions and millions of extremely wealthy people who would spend that amount doing nothing, buying a yacht, their 20th property, or do actual terrible things. I don’t resent them for burning their money. They could have bought toys, instead they made a statement. We live in a world where many of us (myself included) have to live with the pain of not having enough. I’m reminded of…

When you spend money, you enrich others and drive the economy. There is no way their "statement" could be more valuable than that.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#97

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #95
coldtea wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pain of not having enough is a fundamental human experience, and to see someone who had more than most will ever see in their lifetime literally burn it away hurts. Still, nobody bats an eye when some other celebrity or CEO or socialite throws away 1 million just for a single wedding or even a birthday party, or 10 million to have a large swimming pool. Which happens like every single day. $1m is probably what…

Rich people don't "throw away" money, they spend it. The money is circulating and enriching others for services rendered. In fact, the more money they "throw away" the better. The rational thing to do as a capitalist is to capture as much of that money as possible. What they don't do is set it on fire, thereby depriving others of it permanently.

Isn't burning money just the opposite of Quantitative Easing and thus it slightly increases the value of existing money?

If burning money is "depriving others of it permanently", then when banks issue currency (e.g. quantitative easing), they are supplying money to others permanently. Logically, it would seem that if you are against the destruction of currency, then you should be a proponent of banks creating as much currency as possible. Obviously it's not that simple and currency is not the same as 'value', so it's overly simplistic to think purely in terms of creation/destruction.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#98

Post by phonescreen_man »

coldtea wrote: post #89
logifail wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead they made a statement What does that mean? I mean really mean? Follow-up question: did they achieve anything .. other than (even more) notoriety?

> What does that mean? I mean really mean? What does anything "really" mean? We are all going to die anyway. Keeping it in a less grand perspective, it means they made some people think and discuss the incident, debate the role of money and how we treat it, and made a fine punk gesture in the process... It might even spoke to some people that money is not some God we should workship, and that being irreverant and hav…

The KLF may of thought money had something to do with god or at least some version of god, given their deep interest and knowledge of the occult.

All hail Eros

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#99

Post by phonescreen_man »

msla wrote: post #41
leoedin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they piss it away though? That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. Can you say that about other things people spent £1m on in 1994?

> That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. I hate this argument, because it's worse than vacuous: It makes out that art is about as meaningful as a gunshot in a crowded room. Is that art? It'll damn well get a reaction, especially from the person who was just shot. Shouldn't we demand more from art? Like actual meaning and maybe, just maybe, a positive impa…

I found a lot of meaning in the symbolic gesture. Not everyone derived a negative from it. For me it was a positive impact learning that their existed a radical group with balls enough to stick a big fat fuck you to the money machine of the world..

Art - you either get it, or it gets to you

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#100

Post by phonescreen_man »

gorgoiler wrote: post #63
Baeocystin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More often than not, it's the one-off act of Burning a Million Quid in 1994. Their ground-breaking music, the books, the anti-establishment statements and art ... it's almost an afterthought. The pain of not having enough is a fundamental human experience, and to see someone who had more than most will ever see in their lifetime literally burn it away hurts. I thought it was deeply selfish stunt then, and still do n…

The problem with this logic is who gave them their money, and why are those people not scorned as well? For me, the answer is that, ultimately, everyone is responsible for the plight of anyone else. Society, run by The State — an entity whose powers including being able to raise revenue, make decisions, and then spend it to fix things. Demand more from the state (and every citizen who can vote — Society and State go…

Another alternative is we end up with Chan/Zuckerberg deciding who gets a hospital and who does not, Mackenzie Scott deciding which cities get schools and which do not, and Bill and Melinda Gates deciding which countries get more nurses and which do not.

The real world is close to this. The bill gates foundation trying to patent seeds, controlling food supplies. The billionaire lobby groups controlling puppet politicians. So it’s not an alternative from my understanding. It is the current state of affairs.

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