Searching for The White Room @searchingforthewhiteroom - Tumblr Blog

About

In 1988 The KLF, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, received a contract from an individual or organisation calling itself “Eternity”. They were required to make “an artistic representation of themselves on a journey to a place called 'The White Room’”. The medium as well as the interpretation of what this might be was left to their own creativity. The remuneration they were to receive on completion of this work was supposed to be access to the “real” White Room. They signed and began to shoot a road movie, The White Room, which was directed by Bill Butt, in London and the Sierra Nevada region of Spain. For a variety of reasons the film was never fully completed (a rough cut can be viewed here) but the soundtrack was and it became one of the best selling albums of the early 1990s.

I’ve always been intrigued by unfinished projects such as this, there is nothing more rich and satisfying than knowledge of uncompleted work, destined to remain mysterious and unresolved but free to be completed in the imagination of others (the Ziegarnik Effect). For this project I am treating the contract they received as an open invitation or brief for anyone to complete for themselves, while also examining the film itself and the activities of The KLF connected to it. Perhaps it’s only possible to gain a subjective understanding of The White Room by undertaking this artistic journey?

As The White Room for me would have to exist outside of linear time and physical space I have decided to ignore these dimensions to some degree. Therefore the starting point for each of my texts comes from unused photographs from my own unfinished projects from various times and places between 1987 - 2016. This was actually the same approach The KLF used for The White Room album, where they stated that ‘The songs on this album were written and recorded at various times and places between 1987 - 1991’. I am curious to see where this more experimental and subconscious path, going back almost 30 years, might lead me in my thinking; will I discover that I have been on a journey to an equivalent of the elusive White Room all along? All of our lives have hidden narratives, perhaps this is just one of mine?

Since they left the music industry in 1992 the achievements of The KLF have generally become over shadowed somewhat by their burning of a million pounds as the K Foundation. I would hope to remind people, that are not already fans, of an aspect of their early career which was equally intriguing and ambitious but not fully realised (which also coincidentally depended on one million pounds). Hopefully it can raise a few new pieces of information and thoughts about this subject but ultimately it might inspire others to complete the terms of the contract themselves and gain their own understanding of The White Room. I am approaching this in the same spirit as The KLF’s book, The Manual (How To Have a Number One The Easy Way) (1988), a kind of ‘How To Find The White Room (The Easy Way)’.

I have put up a Facebook page to pinpoint material I have referenced in the project (as well as additional information I couldn’t include) which I hope will help to reintroduce this idea and impulse to contemporary times, as well as serving as a community page. There is now an Afterword about this project.

The time for The White Room is continually arriving, the time for The White Room is now.

The White Room is calling.

Stephen Rennicks

This is the second part of my Strange Attractor series. The first part was Strange Attractor: Myth, Mystery and the Miraculous (2015) and Future Memory: An Experiment With Time (2017). I am very open to discussing ways to exhibit these projects, alone or in combination.

#the white room is waiting #the klf #the white room #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #eternity #contract #stephen rennicks #outside time and space #hidden narrative #search #at various times and places #k foundation #Ziegarnik Effect #k2 plant hire ltd #The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu #a trilogy #2023

First Glimpse

In 1987 when I was 14 I borrowed an SLR from the school camera club and got myself a b&w 35mm film. I went for a walk to a derelict and roofless church not far from the school and took a series of photos. Later, with the help of a friend, I developed the film into a negative and made a print of my favourite shot. The picture I chose had been the only one I had staged, by moving the weather exposed hymn book onto the patterned floor. At the time I had felt like I was doing something wrong by interfering with the scene (the other photos I had taken were of things just as I found them) but some deeper instinct told me that this simple action would make for a more compelling image. The photo looked like a world I wanted to enter, a fragment of something bigger I wanted to explore. Within a few years the print got mislaid and while I wouldn’t follow up this initial interest in photography until my early twenties I often remembered the experience and how making my first one of a kind image had made me feel.

Somehow the negatives remained in my possession and about 20 years later I got myself a negative scanner for another project and realised I could now view the pictures on the roll again. I marvelled at the image I had chosen and was shocked that it looked so much like a shot I could have taken on one of my walks today. For me it has come to represent some strange glimpse of my future, the start of my life as an artist, the moment all of my searching began.

1987 was also the year Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty began to work together as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs). A year later they would receive the contract from ‘Eternity’, to make an artistic representation of a journey to The White Room. Even though they had no idea who this was or where this place might be, they took a leap of faith and signed. At the time they described this decision as being “as good a marker as anything as to what direction our free style career should take next". Long before this in 1973 Bill Drummond had written down his feelings about what art should be: "Decides that Art should use everything. Decides that Art should be out there. Decides that Art should be unknown, random, incidental, everywhere. Decides that an Artist should not make status symbols for the rich, that Art should be available for all." Drummond also learnt the importance of making art heroic from Ken Campbell while designing the stage sets for The Illuminatus! Trilogy in Liverpool in 1976. While Jimmy Cauty’s motivations are not documented, if you are looking for an explanation of the whys of The KLF then this information may be of use.

1 of 12: About this project

#the klf #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #the white room #the 12 parts #about #the justified ancients of mu mu #slr #first glimpse #ken campbell #the illuminatus! trilogy #liverpool #heroic #eternity #photograph #negative scanner #leap of faith #one of a kind

Follow Every Path

From time to time we all need our own version of a time-machine to move us at an accelerated speed through time and space and sometimes the most simple and unlikely vehicle will do. For a lot of people, their first bicycle is so much more than a means of transport, it gives them a taste of independence and can change their lives, bringing them to places they would never have reached on foot.

One day in 2001 I went for a cycle along Dublin’s Royal Canal. I started from a level crossing (today it has been replaced by a flyover) on the Cabra West-Finglas border, which was just beside where I had worked for four years as an apprentice lithographic printer in The Ormond Printing Company (now closed). I had begun working there aged 19 in 1992 and had often wanted to explore the walk along the canal to see where it went but for various reasons I had never gotten around to doing this. Years later after I had changed jobs I made a point of cycling back there early one Saturday morning to do it.

Perhaps the path would only last until the next bridge but something deep within me had to find out where it went. I retain that same basic desire to know where it is that pathways and side or forest roads lead. I don’t know how many miles I travelled that day but it was more than I had anticipated. I found that it actually continued on through Ashtown, under the maze of roads at the M50/N3 junction, onto Castleknock, Coolmine, Clonsilla until eventually a high metal fence blocked my way somewhere the far side of Leixlip. But the places in-between those locations were what astounded me the most. The nothing and everything contained in the backs of houses and industrial estates, the sounds of being underneath a busy motorway, at times being so close yet feeling so totally disconnected from the city, seeing incredible instances of wild nature breaking out at certain points along the route, the quiet, the fields of crops, the graffiti on bridges and overhead pipes, a towering and very post-apocalyptic looking unfinished motorway bridge and two burned out cars. The fact that this was 15 years ago and remains so vivid says it all for me. What would I have normally done that day? Whatever it was I would not still be able to remember it, that is for sure. For me that day’s journey has become a great example of the potential ease of discovering a whole other world and landscape so very close to what I had thought I was so familiar with. All it had taken was some curiosity, a little effort and some determination on my part. Every time I drive through the now even bigger and more complex M50/N3 junction I try to look down to glimpse the canal below and remember that day.

I like how The KLF picked a very beaten up looking 1968 Ford Galaxy they called Ford Timelord aka the Jamsmobile as their mode of transport. They used it to front their first Number One record, ‘Doctorin the Tardis’ by The Timelords in 1988 but it would soon go on to play a crucial and even starring role in The White Room. In a way the car became the hero of the story and central to their wider mythology, so much so that I was saddened to read that Ford Timelord is no more. Legend has it that it was destroyed celebrity stock car racing in 1992 (it was definitely a different car) and simply left to rust on a vacant lot in Norwich. Confusingly there were actually two Ford Timelords, briefly they can both be seen in this clip at 0.25sec; this second Ford Timelord was eventually sold to a member of Jesus Jones for £500 but fittingly some mystery does surround the fate of the original Ford Timelord, plus its registration, WGU 18G, is still owned by somebody. However it was so well immortalised it will live forever but my own personal favourite image of it (below) comes from the rough cut of the film itself. After a scene in which Cauty (the car’s actual owner) covers it in white-wash the car becomes even more akin to a type of time-machine or perhaps a Tardis. Certainly more suitable looking transport for the final leg of their journey to The White Room.

There has been a project where a fan built a replica Ford Timelord and took it to retrace the steps of the original in the Sierra Nevada region of Spain, which you can read about at this link. In 2011 a video of the completed car was released, which does look amazing.

2 of 12: About this project

Effort Adds Up

I do a fair amount of walking, exploring new places as well as revisiting the familiar. I like the pace and try to follow my instincts and let the experience take me where it will. I would normally be aiming to loop back towards my car but wherever I end up in-between could be anywhere. There is most definitely an element of searching involved, but not for anything in particular. Of course it’s a great way to have ideas and think things over and every time I do this I return home changed to some degree. Many people approach walking in this way, as much a mental journey as a physical one. Sometimes when I have experienced something significant to me, when the clouds part to cast a unique light on a certain magical view, stumbling on some historic site or a meaningful encounter with another person, I have a feeling that my subconscious somehow guided me to this particular place and time (or that the unused images I’m using here were really always ‘meant’ for this project). As much as I would like to believe this, what I’m actually doing is trying to impose an order onto what was essentially a chaotic process. All of this effort must add up to something or does it really?

Sometimes an image can pop fully formed into my mind which may have nothing to do with any project I might be working on. The photograph above of my walking boots overflowing with sand is a very good example of this. There is an intriguing line from The KLF’s final information sheet which I really like but don’t understand and in this context I think it could be seen to tie-in (or I just want it to). They are pondering whether they will be remembered, “…Do they gather dust with Ashton Gardner and Dyke, the Vapours, and the Utah Saints, or does their influence live on in unseen ways, permeating future cultures? A passing general of a private army has the answer. "No”, he whispers, “but the dust they gather is of the rarest quality. Each speck a universe awaiting creation, Big Bang just a dawn away”.

When we look back at the incredibly prolific (but short) career of The KLF, different patterns, meanings and narratives tend to emerge for each viewer. Even though they acted in quite a haphazard and freestyle way, we have this very human urge to impose a shape onto all of this chaos. Finding or creating your own meanings is a very important step along the way to The White Room.

3 of 12: About this project

Sacrifice

At the time of the 2008 financial crisis I had the opportunity to photograph some cash and thought that €7000 was a substantial enough sum that people could relate to having or needing. It strikes me that having money comes with a type of contract which can only end when we spend it or get rid of it somehow. Money as we know it today is largely the result of debt and magically springs from loan contracts. From taking the photograph I could understand more clearly than ever before how small and light this quite significant amount is in physical terms and how it could burn very well too.

In Maurice Walsh’s short story The Quiet Man (1930), later made into a movie of the same name (image below) that Irish people either love or hate, there is an unexpected and pivotal scene in which a long awaited and hard won dowry (perhaps comparable with the figure above) is burned as a symbol of the death of old traditions. Similarly today, I would be of the opinion that becoming fully aware of the nature of money and finding ways to overcome its all consuming influence and tradition would surely be an important step to take on any journey towards The White Room (whatever that might be).

This is an issue that The KLF, acting as the K Foundation, appeared to be addressing when they burned a million pounds of their own money in 1994. We don’t know for sure however as they claimed they didn’t know why they did it. Touring the film, Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid, was a way to try and open up just this debate and ask the audience what they thought their reasons were. From the perspective of this project it’s interesting to me that the first time Drummond and Cauty mentioned one million pounds was in 1989 in relation to needing this amount to ‘finish’ The White Room. I might be wrong but I feel on some level both films are connected. To gain entry to The White Room it’s quite likely that you would have to make some major sacrifice of your old belief system and burning the majority of the remaining income from your old life (as well as deleting your label’s entire catalogue as The KLF did) would certainly fit the bill. I’m not sure if they would have been aware of this at the time but unfinished projects have a habit of returning and interfering with our lives in unexpected ways (as I am finding by revisiting my own).

At the time they were showing and publicising the film of the burning it only reached a limited audience and was very soon forgotten by the wider culture. Since then, but especially since the 2008 financial crash and the Internet, many more people appear to have become aware of their action and have expressed opinions about it and the wider subject of what money really represents. This delayed reaction and lack of comprehension should not come as a surprise to what I think was an incredibly important statement about the fundamental importance we put on money and where that is leading humanity as a whole.

4 of 12: About this project

#false trails #the white room does not exist #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #the klf #the white room #the justified ancients of mu mu #k foundation #watch the k foundation burn a million quid #the illuminatus trilogy #poetic truth #stephen rennicks #the quiet man #john wayne #maurice walsh

Interpretations

Since first discovering it I’ve been a regular and rare visitor to the coastline of Co. Leitrim, which like The White Room itself, is difficult to locate, with no road access and being only 2.5km in length. This thin strip where the Atlantic meets the edge of Europe is a glorious eternal in-between, a place of limbo where it can feel like the march of history has stopped or is at least taking a breather while you remain there. It is a place that invites you to attempt unravelling the universe undisturbed (not forgetting that those disturbances can also be the most rewarding of experiences and important of clues).

Things tend to wash up on the rocks here (there is no beach) and stay that way. I like the metaphor of objects from other parts of the world drifting and collecting here for the very occasional person to come across. Somewhere that ideas, objects and events from history can be rediscovered or become entwined and fused together, much like how The KLF mixed and matched so many of their own influences throughout their short career.

In my research for this project I learnt that Bill Drummond was interested in the activities of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the late 60s, “I came to art school in Liverpool because John Lennon had been to our art school…I totally got into the whole John and Yoko thing when I was sixteen, seventeen, the Plastic Ono Band thing. I loved that and that’s what made me come to Liverpool.” There are also a few other Beatles/Lennon/Ono related parallels to The KLF, such as that John and Yoko had their own ‘White Room’ at Tittenhurst Park, their home in Berkshire, England from 1969 - 1971. The room was featured in their own unusual movie, Imagine (1972) (the film has yet to be reissued on DVD but clips can be viewed here), and the song of the same name was written on the white grand piano there. However by this time Bill Drummond was no longer a fan, writing in 17 he said, “Everything that John Lennon did after the Plastic Ono Band I found incredibly dull. As for the ‘Imagine’ song and even worse the promotional film that went with it, I could not believe how pompously trite a record could be. This was vanity writ large.” Also in 1987 the first release by Drummond and Cauty would be 'All You Need Is Love’ by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu which heavily sampled this well known Beatles song amongst others. Even the first record purchased by Bill Drummond was The Beatles ‘Penny Lane’/’Strawberry Fields Forever’. In one revealing interview he said of the latter song, “When I first heard the song it was like a door opening in my head; like going into a room I’d never been into before.” Later as the K Foundation they would release a medley of 'K Sera Sera (whatever Will Be, Will Be)’ and 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’, the latter by The Plastic Ono Band. I hope it’s not too trite to say this but I think it’s pretty obvious that accepting this universal message of peace could well be crucial before anyone could hope to access The White Room.

About the same time as Lennon and Ono began to work together, Stanley Kubrick featured a mysterious White Room in the second to last scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). According to the DVD, this chapter is called 'Through Space and Time’. Incidentally the director of photography for Imagine was Dan Richter who was also a close friend and personal photographer of Lennon and Ono. Richter was also the actor and mime artist who starred in and choreographed the opening ape sequence of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are lots of theories about the meaning behind Kubrick’s film and one is that the monolith is actually a metaphor for a cinema or TV screen. This argument is particularly evident in the White Room scenes where the main character appears to begin to observe himself in the scene, gradually realising he only exists in a movie. Incidentally this is the same ending as The Holy Mountain (1973) by Alejandro Jodorowsky (another kind of road movie/quest for enlightenment themed film which might have been an influence on The White Room). While I like this idea very much I am not sure if Kubrick was necessarily saying that. This project of mine is exploring similar territory though (personal interpretations of other people’s art). Also there is one other very obvious direct reference to Kubrick’s ‘White Room’ in The KLF’s film; when their real life lawyer, David Franks, is seen eating alone at a table just like Dave Bowman, each in their respective White Rooms with the same echoing sound of cutlery. In fact it's this sound which guides Drummond and Cauty to his presence through the fog of The White Room

5 of 12: About this project

In The Air

It’s always hard to be truly original, perhaps it all just comes down to presentation in the end. When I go for walks I like to explore abandoned and derelict buildings. I have amassed a huge amount of photographs of these types of places but only once have I used this subject directly in my work. Yes it has all been done before and will again no doubt, but these are naturally places of mystery which I can’t help but be drawn towards. Once inside I feel the need to document what I find there but perhaps I only use this as an excuse to justify my impulse to explore them. Most artists probably have these types of subjects which they return to for their own amusement (woods and forest roads in particular would be another of my obsessions). In places like these the past has stopped and lingers in tangible and intangible ways, like some kind of waiting room. I liked the ‘Red Room’ scenes in the early ‘90s television series Twin Peaks (which also featured White and Black Lodges but dated from after The White Room), it was described as a waiting room which connected both lodges and existed very much outside of time and space. Ideas can be very much ‘in the air’ and become plucked and presented in very different ways over time. One other example of this or perhaps of a more direct influence on the writers of Twin Peaks, David Lynch and Mark Frost, may have been the William Burroughs novel, Cities of the Red Night (1981) which featured the same lodges as well as a detective who was similar in his approach to Twin Peaks’ Agent Cooper.

The director and co-writer of The White Room was Bill Butt who first met Bill Drummond at Liverpool College of Art in 1970. Butt’s parents had a fruit and veg stall in Northampton and legend has it that this is where Drummond learned that it is presentation that sells. Butt later directed all of the music videos for The KLF and their ambient film, Waiting (1990) amongst other projects. The unfinished road movie version of The White Room looks very professional and is beautifully shot with many scenes filmed at magic hour. As John Higgs says in The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds (2013), this version of the movie, while it may have been boring, did at least succeed on its own terms.

In the script for the uncompleted and more feature length version of the film Butt asks Drummond and Cauty if they are familiar with the road movies of Wim Wenders. Wenders’ road movie with the most obvious parallels to The White Room in my opinion must be Kings of the Road (1976), where two men also silently drive, but to nowhere in particular, a clip of which can be seen here. Another possible influence which I think is significant in this context is Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). In that film three men journey to a room where anyone’s deepest desire is said to come true. This room appears to exist in a huge derelict building inside a restricted zone surrounded by fences and the military. In the end they never actually go into the room itself but debate the merits of entering on its threshold. Just prior to this a phone inexplicably begins to ring. As a reflex one of them answers but treats it as a wrong number then another of them uses it to make a call successfully. After this they move closer to the room but the phone continues to ring in the background. In the same way during the final scene of The White Room a telephone is mysteriously ringing. Drummond and Cauty answer it to be told to go over to a white plinth (a prop which could also be referencing Stanley Kubrick’s ‘White Room’ in 2001:A Space Odyssey) where they put on novelty moustaches; obviously the comparison with Tarkovsky and Kubrick ends here.

I have a feeling there is one other possible influence on the story of The White Room, which would be La Valee (1972). This is a French film which Drummond thought was important enough to list in a personal timeline in the appendix of his book, 17, (2008). He saw the film the year it was released and it is about a group of French hippies who go in search of a mysterious valley in New Guinea which on their map is shown only as a blank area ‘Obscured By Clouds’. You can watch its trailer here, in my opinion its basic plot could have worked for The White Room quite well.

Perhaps there is just one moment of time that contains everything, which the senses of human beings experience as linear past, present and future. Influence (unintentional or not) could be an example of this reality and would explain why presentation is all we really have to distinguish ‘original’ ideas from each other.

6 of 12: About this project

#hidden in plain sight #justified and ancient #stand by the jams #submarine #the klf #jimmy cauty #the white room #stephen rennicks #la valee #17 #kings of the road #wim wenders #andrei tarkovsky #stalker #john higgs

Hidden in Plain Sight

On one overcast and otherwise nondescript day I went for a walk not too far from where I lived at the time. For some reason I took an interest in a normally invisible building on the edge of a canal. It’s one of those places which no doubt serves some kind of important purpose but warrants only the most minimal and ugly design. I think most of us edit places like these out of the landscape to some degree but they are there nonetheless. On this day I could hear a very faint electronic hum coming from inside and for a short time it became a place of fascination for me. What was its purpose, how long had it been there, what secrets did it contain? Similarly we may find that The White Room was there all along, just under the surface, disguised in some way, but hidden very much in plain sight.

The KLF were on the surface nothing more than a pop band with accessible and catchy hit singles but once you looked just a little more closely you could find so much more under the surface. Not surprisingly they had a thing about submarines, which was something else they got fromThe Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Jimmy Cauty illustrated their imagined submarine in artwork but if they’d had the budget from early on perhaps there might have been no Ford Timelord. Interestingly they did talk about buying a ship, to be called SS Liberation Loophole, from the proceeds of The Timelords instead of making The White Room film. The closest they got to their own sub was in the video for ‘Justified and Ancient (Stand by the Jams)’. If you watch this video (which was one of their biggest hits) closely it’s as good an example as any of how humorously subversive they could be. They even managed to hide a few clips from The White Room in it.

7 of 12: About this project

#the white room #the klf #bill butt #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #justified and ancient #submarine #the illuminatus trilogy #robert anton wilson #robert shea #ss liberation loophole

Between Two Worlds

There may be times and places where the visible and invisible worlds briefly make contact where it might be possible for someone from the physical plane to cross over on purpose or unexpectedly. However unlikely this might be there are plenty of folk tales and legends around the world to suggest otherwise. ‘Madrugada Eterna’ was a title used by The KLF on their album, Chill Out (1990), which refers to the period between midnight and sunrise (they also had a song called '3am Eternal’). Mysticism is very much associated with the night, dawn and twilight (the gloaming), perhaps this is because most people would be asleep and dreaming at this time, their unconscious minds already exploring and roaming this other reality. At an all night rave with people in altered states of consciousness through drugs and or dancing I’m sure some of this collective would have experienced and caught glimpses of all kinds of places they would have liked to discover in real life. The image above was taken early one morning across the road from where I lived in Co. Leitrim, facing the fairy hill of Sheemore in the distance.

At the time The KLF were filming The White Room the music scene in the UK was experiencing what was called the ‘Second Summer of Love’ as Acid House and illegal outdoor raves were becoming very popular all over the country. The atmosphere of an all-night rave and the morning after appeared to have a big influence on the group. One of the things which made The KLF so different was that they could produce anthems for the height of the party as well as music for the comedown and more contemplative moments as well. The fans and many of the musicians of the time were in some way trying to tune into the more mystical side of the scene. The KLF’s attempt to make a film of their journey to The White Room actually sounds like quite a hippy idea or even an impulse more suited to the progressive rock era. Not surprisingly they weren’t as young as their audience or the majority of their dance music peers at the time, Drummond was 35 and Cauty 32 in 1988. It all must sound a bit foolish today but they and others were trying to grapple very much with a sense of the unknown, an intuitive feeling that was in the air at the time, something that remains difficult to grasp and define. Calling what they were searching for The White Room at least gave this feeling a name and a focus.

When you get there you will know.

8 of 12: About this project

#the white room #dan richter #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #second summer of love #mystery #chill out #rave #ambient #between two worlds #maddrugada eterna

False Trails

During 2011 I was searching for the sites of six exploratory gas wells in the Republic of Ireland which dated from 1963 to 2001. This was for an arts based anti-fracking campaign I was involved with at the time. While I had the general location for each well it was still like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack but the process continued to bring me to places I would never have ventured otherwise, such as the lonely location in the image above. In between my despair that any trace of a particular well would still exist or that my coordinates were wrong I could still enjoy these dead ends and whatever I randomly found along the way. Missteps and false trails can have their own hidden meanings, uses and purpose if we look for them.

It’s extremely possible that the contract sent to The KLF was a hoax designed by someone aware of their references to the Discordian Society via The Illuminatus! Trilogy (they had used the name The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu and much more from the book). Fans of Discordianism see this type of subversion as part of what they call Operation Mindfuck. Perhaps the hoaxer had been the one thinking of Kubrick’s or John and Yoko’s ‘White Room’ or something else entirely but the contract did have a poetic truth to it which The KLF readily embraced. They did admit their own doubts of its authenticity at the time but obviously this suggestion of a journey to The White Room appealed to them very much even though it came from an outside source.

All along, creatively, The KLF appear to have very much gone with the flow (despite their undeserved reputation for calculation) and didn’t question for long an idea but would answer in the affirmative and carry through the action with their own talents, style and wit which quickly made whatever they were doing their own. I think the later idea of burning a million pounds as the K Foundation was a very similar case. Drummond and Cauty were obviously both impulsive and compulsive, which is brilliant way for artists to be.

There are no false trails, just one larger journey towards what we could call The White Room or anything at all.

9 of 12: About this project

#the klf #the white room #watch the k foundation burn a million quid #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #eternity #stephen rennicks #operation mindfuck #Discordianism #discordian #fracking #false trails

Truth & Infinity

There are times when it all seems to makes sense, we know, we understand something. We might not be able to put this into words but we feel it. Then it’s gone again, our minds are onto the next thought or some more petty issue arises. I can’t remember now if I felt like that when I took this picture, probably not, but somehow for me it does manage to capture a sense of what that brief blinding moment of burning insight can feel like and more importantly can help to remind myself of the sensation, that I can find it again.

One obvious meaning of The White Room would be as a place of illumination (the contract they signed was with Eternity after all). A place of enlightenment, where knowledge and understanding might be somehow instantly attained. White implies pure with no more distractions for the mind (the same principle as the white cube of the gallery space). This moment of enlightenment or awakening is a very real thing in Eastern religions, such as in Zen Buddhism where it is known as Satori. Of course there are other paths to this same enlightenment which has been described as an understanding of the true nature of the self. Christianity or Atheism does not so obviously include the possibility of this very ancient and fundamental human impulse so it’s no wonder that New Age beliefs, which borrow very much from Eastern thought, have so successfully filled this gap for many. I think on some level The KLF were on some kind of spiritual quest all along but justified it to themselves at different times as a road movie, a pop group, an art foundation; a search for their own ‘truth’ through their art. I can completely understand this like any other artist can. I don’t know if they found it through attempting to make the film or their music or later through money burning and what they do separately today. Their journey towards some kind of progressive understanding of themselves and the Universe continues as surely does mine and yours.

10 of 12: About this project

#zen buddhism #the white room #the klf #illumination #you already know how #forget about this #reminders #universe

Reaching Beyond

There is a huge element of trust when you embark on any creative project. It usually doesn’t start with a contract, a map or a plan but rather a feeling or a very appealing fragment of an idea. You can’t know where you will be taken once this journey starts or how you might explain it to others once you get there. Many of the images I’ve used for this project have been those compelling and often impulsive pieces I never got to trust and fully explore. Like the image above, which I shot instinctively one day and liked so much I had it enlarged into a print suitable for framing. At the time I’d never taken this step with any of my images before and this coincided with me thinking I should really start calling myself an artist and develop what I was already doing in this direction. The photograph has never had a name until now but it’s fitting that it becomes another part of this particular 30 year in the making jigsaw. A story of reaching beyond the known to discover this particular hidden narrative and much more besides over the course of my past and present.

The KLF described the unfinished feature length version of The White Room as "The story of men out of their depth" and the contract they signed very much asked them to reach beyond the known in making this artistic representation of a journey to what was essentially a mystery. I like how at the beginning of the film it looks like they are actually already leaving The White Room as they walk down the steps of Jimmy Cauty’s squat, also the location of their spiritual home and mythical studio, Trancentral. This studio, like the film, was paid for with profits from their number one as The Timelords. The name across the door says Benio which certainly makes it look more like a club (in this scene a full on house party rages inside) but from what I can gather this was another name for the building. Trancentral was where they reached beyond the known and made music out of nothing and has quickly became central to their mythology, cropping up in song titles and lyrics since the beginning of the group. I have always presumed the name refers to transcendental, the meaning of which is going beyond common thought or experience into the realm of the mystical or supernatural. Trancentral was more than a studio, perhaps more of a state of mind, Bill Drummond described it as “anywhere with a mixing desk that we happen to be working in”. As artists this was their most special place and could itself be a candidate for being The White Room or the means to find it.

11 of 12: About this project

#first glimpse #the white room is waiting #bill drummond #jimmy cauty #the klf #the justified ancients of mu mu #stephen rennicks #transcentral #transcendental #benio #squat #reaching beyond #trust #studio #trancentral

A Place Inside

"We look for the Secret - the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of the Wise, Supreme Enlightenment, "God," or whatever the final answer might be - in all directions, north, east, south, and west, and all the time it is carrying us about. It is the human nervous system itself, the marvellous instrument through which we create order out of chaos, science out of ignorance, meaning out of mystery, "Mescalito" (or a chair) out of whirling energy." - Robert Anton Wilson

So where has all this led us to? Why do any of us make art? My own personal interpretation would be that The White Room (whatever that might be) has existed outside of time and space in our minds all along; discovering and then trying to remember this as we go through life is the hard part for sure. As universal as this names implies, how each individual locates it, what they find there and how they manage to keep all of this in focus is up to them, call it what you like. As artists we can at least attempt to make some kind of a reminder for ourselves which hopefully might work for others as well. The lyrics of ‘The White Room’ itself appear to hint at this same interpretation as they ask us the impossible, “If you want to know the things I see then step inside my skin.”

With this last image (a self-portrait) and text I have completed the contract to my own satisfaction, found a personal narrative of this search and feel I have now accessed the “real” White Room through the process. I also have a handy reminder for whenever I next forget this knowledge which I hope might be useful as a possible guide to the process for others but each person would ideally need to complete the contract for themselves in their own way.

While the film was still in production a promo cassette of The White Room soundtrack album was circulated by the group but this version was never issued. No doubt because the film ran into financial difficulties when the opening song and single from it, 'Kylie Said To Jason’, flopped.This is quite a different album from the record they would release under the same name to enormous success two years later. I’ve made a youtube playlist of this version of the The White Room so you can listen to the original mixes and sequence. I might be wrong but there could be one last clue as to The KLF’s own feelings about the meaning of The White Room contained in it. The very last song is an unexpected cover of Andy Williams’ 'Born Free’, a tender ballad with its lyric delivered in a very heartfelt manner by Bill Drummond, sounding more like a song from his earlier solo album The Man in 1986. It would never officially be released and does raise the question whether this was to be the final song in the film. It definitely could be said to be a song designed to remind us of something fundamental to our being. Williams’ original impulse may have been to write this lyric when he himself forgot this truth and wanted to use his talents to craft something capable of reminding himself and others of it. Even now The KLF may have been concerned with finding a way to disentangle themselves from the music industry. The ‘Liberation Loophole’ in the film, which their real life lawyer, David Franks, discovers in the contract from Eternity, appears to offer them just this freedom. While they would not exercise this clause until 1992, when they ceased working as The KLF and deleted their back-catalogue (leaving them free to pursue other artistic goals outside of music), this decision might be being foreshadowed in a poetic way in The White Room.

While it’s great that no final ending or meaning can now be stamped on The White Room, perhaps consciously or not, this was The KLF’s own attempt to seal forever this knowledge in a piece of art which could serve them and others in everyday life as a useful reminder. Perhaps they managed to bring the project to their own private and undocumented conclusion when they later mysteriously went to Mexico (the location they had wanted to end the film) when they actually did leave the music business in May 1992. Most likely they never really found The White Room to any level of satisfaction, or if they did, like a mirage or chimera, it quickly changed again (as it will for everyone). The attempt was the whole point, to follow your artistic instincts, no matter where this might lead you.

The White Room, when you get there you will know.

Stephen Rennicks

12 of 12: About this project

There is now an Afterword about this project.

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