Neue Musik - Heute? is a symposium on the current situation of contemporary art music. Bill Drummond will be giving a presentation with Nobel Prize Winner, Elfriede Jelinek entitled How is the Public and non Public Dialogue?

The blurb translated from German into English for the symposium reads:

Contemporary music is now widely established, but still represents only a small segment of  the music market and the public media. The still noticeable elitist claim of contemporary music is increasingly at odds with current trends in artistic activities. Can the concept of contemporary music still be maintained today? What is exciting about contemporary music? What is behind the claim of artists who continually strive to create something new and unique? It is important to find a new understanding of contemporary art music in the context of today's changing values and the technical, medial and social changes and to question and possibly re-evaluate old categories and thinking structures to redraw boundaries between genres and social groups, as well as re-evaluate listening developments and music consumption habits.

Further information to follow.

The17 will be performing the world premier of Score 318: CONSIDER along latitude 36.1 degrees North between Kitty Hawk on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina and Lucia on the Pacific coast of California. This is part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

Further details to follow.

The17 will be performing the world premier of Score 4: AGE within the Curfew Tower. This will be part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour and part of the Heart Of The Glens Festival 2012.

Further information to follow.

Bill Drummond will be leading a performance of Score 328: SURROUND  as part of Infr'Action Paris. Infr'Action is an international live art festival that has happened in numerous cities around the globe.

This is also part of The17's City-to-City world tour.

Further information to follow

Julia Kratz & Stefan Schwietert are to marry on the 26th May 2012, in Berlin. Bill Drummond will be leading a performance of Score 13: CELEBRATE at the wedding reception.

Further information to follow.

As part of Un-Convention: Uganda, Bill Drummond will be leading a number of performance by The17 in and around Kampala. This will be part of The17's Coast-to-Coast and City-to-City world tours.

Further information to follow.

Bill Drummond will be launching The Bank of The Penkiln Burn at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. This will be part of the Art Lending Library (ALL) project that has been instigated by the artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromich as part of Market Gallery's input into  Glasgow's International Festival of Visual Art 2012 (Gi).

For further information about The Bank of The Penkiln Burn, read PB Posters 390 & 391

Ragworts is the title of an exhibition by Bill Drummond. The exhibition is spread across numerous locations in Sheffield.

In early May 2011, Drummond was the composer in residence for the Sensoria Festival in Sheffield. During this time he composed several site specific scores to be performed in Sheffield by members of The17.

The exhibition comprises of printed versions of these scores either framed and hung in the specific places or fly posted at pertinent locations in the city.

As part of Sensoria Festival 2012, the Site Gallery - 1 Brown Street, Sheffield - will be exhibiting the original scores as well as photographic documentation of the exhibition by Tracey Moberly, and a film by Andy Benfield that explores and documents the process of Ragworts.

Bill Drummond will be giving a walking and talking lecture on the 21 April.

Ragworts is also the name of a flowering weed that can be found growing up through the cracked paving stones and waste ground of Sheffield.

There is also to be a book by Bill Drummond entitled Ragworts that will be published to coincide with the exhibition.

Further details to follow

Eastside Projects curated the Curfew Tower's artist residency for 2011.

Cheryl Jones, Matt Westbrook & Nathaniel Pitt were three of the artist that undertook a Curfew Tower residency in 2011. They also did their residency at the same time working together. One of the works they produced and exhibited on the outside of the Curfew Tower is now being exhibited as a billboard poster on the out side of Eastside Projects.

DAMASCUS in LONDON - In March 2011, Bill Drummond was supposed to lead a performance of Score 328: SURROUND around the top of the medieval city walls of Damascus. This was part of a tri-nation festival organised by Reel Festivals. The three nations were to be Syria, Lebanon and Scotland. The Lebanese and Scottish legs of the festival happened. The Arab Spring caused the Syrian leg to be postponed. It was also supposed to be part of The17's City-to-City world tour

While Syrians are slaughtered on their city streets and the world looks on wondering what it should do, Reel Festival have decided to organise a festival in waiting with the Syrian refugees and exiles who are currently living in London.

Between 1pm and 3pm on Sunday, 18 March 2012, Bill Drummond will be leading a performance of the same score as he was going to do in Damascus. This score is usually performed on the circumfrence of a five-kilometre circle. As stated above it was to be performed around the city walls of Damascus, which are also five kilometres in circumference. Drummond has drawn an outline of the Damascus city walls on a map of London and will lead this particular performance following the outline on the streets of London. 

The 100 members of The17 that will be taking part in this performance will be primarily drawn from the Syrian refugee and exile community in the UK. But there may be a few vacancies left. To apply and find out where the rendezvous point is contact surround@reelfestivals.org

All those taking part get a DAMASCUS in LONDON T-Shirt and pamphlet.

The After Dark Gallery is hosting a charity art auction in aid of Barnardo's. Bill Drummond will be there to auction one of his ten Cake Circles. The winning bid will get Bill Drummond to construct a Cake Circle at a place of their choice at a time and date agreed by both parties.

There will only ever be ten Cake Circles constructed by Bill Drummond in the world.

The  reserve price on this work is £10,000

This was the seventh in the ongoing sculpture The Life & Death Of An Artist.

This was the sixth in the ongoing sculpture The Life & Death Of An Artist. 

Bill Drummond made the sixth of the Forty Beds in public in the grounds of Merchant Taylors' School. All those passing him, while he was at work, were entitled to enter the lottery to win the bed. And remember it is not the bed that is the art but all the thoughts, actions and dreams that happen in, on or under the bed over the life time of the bed, that is the art.

To celebrate the performance of Score 395: Whistle While You Work on 3 October 2011, on Forest Road, Ollerton on the edge of Sherwood Forest, Bill Drummond has returned to Sherwood Forest and painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti, underneath a bridge, over the old rail line on the A 617.

To celebrate not being imprissioned for vandalising a bridge with graffiti, Drummond had a shave in a local barber's

The Saha family performed Score 16: COMPLEMENT in honour of the life of Tarak Nath Saha,  who had recently died and had been the head of the household. The Bengali translation of this score can also be viewed at the link above.

This performance is twinned with a performance of the same score that was performed in Moville, County Donegal, Ireland in 2008. It is also part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

After being arrested by the local police for his activities, Bill Drummond was requested to paint out the graffiti he had done the previous evening. This he did with care and attention.

To celebrate the performance of Score 9: WELCOME the day before, Drummond painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti on the inside wall of a bridge over the Beleghata Canal, Kokata

Drummond would like to thank Nilayan & Krishna Dutta for translating the phrase into Bengali and suggesting the bridge.

This graffiti is also one of the forty bridge graffiti being done as part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

The Mondal family performed  Score 9 WELCOME to honour the recent birth of their son Rajbeer.

A Bengali translation of this score can also be viewed at the above link. This  performance is twinned with the performance of the same score in Derry, Ireland in October  2008. It is also part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

Bill Drummond gave a short presentation regarding the Liverpool Cake Circle that he had just completed constructing.

Bill Drummond constructed the Liverpool Cake Circle between 19:13 on Friday the 4 November and 17:06 on Saturday the 5 November as part of  Terminal Convention Liverpool. Ten cakes were baked at Static Gallery by Drummond, which he then delivered to random address of people living or working on the Liverpool Cake Circle.

This is the fourth of the ten Cake Circles that Drummond is constructing around the globe. Documentation of the construction of the Livepool Cake Circle is/was on display at Stacic until the end of November 2011.

Bill Drummond will be giving the keynote talk at this years All 2gether Now conference. Tickets for the day (10 Euro) - or all three days (20 Euro) - are available from the following link

Drummond's lecture will include him leading a performance by the Berlin members of The17.

He may also be found on the streets of Berlin before or after his talk performing Score 395: Whistle While You Work

If you are to attend make sure that you are wearing leather shoes or boots - no trainers.

Forty Cake Circle placards were attached to lampposts, railings, gates etc, on the circumference of the Liverpool Cake Circle. This was done to forewarn people living on the Cake Circle of the consequences - a strange man turning up on their doorstep offering them a freshly baked cake. It can also be considered one of the numerous transient exhibitions done by Bill Drummond over the years.

Bill Drummond will be performing Score 395: WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK on the streets of Toruń, Poland.

Dave Wood has been perambulating around Sherwood Forest. This walk started in July 2011 and will end on 5 November. On 3 October, Bill Drummond joined Dave Wood on these perambulations.  As to what Dave Wood and his perambulations are all about click here.

On 4 October, Drummond performed Score 395: Whistle While You Work on Forest Road, Ollerton on the edge of Sherwood Forest. This performance of this score is part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour and is twinned with a performance of the same score earlier in the year in Venice, Italy.

The 25 Paintings were exhibited underneath Spaghetti Junction. Photographs of the exhibition can be seen by clicking here.

The 25 Paintings were exhibited in Thetford Forest. Photographs of the exhibition can be viewed by clicking here.

Bill Drummond both performed his story On The Road To Damascus as part of the launch of the book On Nature and gave reasons as to why the scores 380 & 381 - DAMSON TREE #​1 & DAMSON TREE #​2  have not yet been performed in the Vale of Aylesbury or Damascus.

On Nature is the second anthology of nature writing brought to the world by the folk at Caught By The River

On The Road To Damascus  is Drummond's contribution to On Nature.

After giving his performance / lecture at Incubate, Drummond retired to the streets of Tilburg to continue his work on the sculpture 100 Pairs Of Shoes. In doing so shoe pairs 14 -17 were polished.

This  occasion was also used to celebrate the publication of the first edition of MAN SHINES SHOES (PB Book Sixteen).

To quote Incubate's blurb -

Incubate is the annual celebration of independent culture in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is a festival exhibiting a diverse view on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts. It brings more than 200 cutting edge artists in an intimate context to an international audience. Black metal next to free jazz. Refreshing art next to inspiring debate.

Bill Drummond will be giving a talk and leading a performance by The17 in the main hall of the Midi Theatre in Tilburg as part of the festival.

The making of a bed on the streets of Rotterdam was also used as an occasion to celebrate the publication of the first edition of MAN MAKES BED (PB Book Fifteen). There were only 40 copies of this edition they were all disposed of in Rottedam.

Bill Drummond made the fifth bed in his Forty Beds sculpture. Like the others before it was made using no power tools. It was made in the open on a bridge in Rotterdam over the 10 & 11 September. He then gave a talk where the winner of raffle to win the bed was announced. After the talk he delivered the bed to the winner's home. This was part of the  Witte de With Straat Festival

The official blurb for  Witte de With Straat Festival reads:

This year's three-day festival of visual arts in the cultural center of the city, entitled Strange Encounters: Engagement & Alienation, focuses on the abundance of creative anti-authoritarian practices that mark the tactical victory of bottom-up approaches in comprehending and experiencing the city over functionalist top-down strategies of urban planning. The invited artists seek to overcome the confines of the prevalent, passive experience of urban surroundings and actively explore its hidden potential, producing valid critical insights. Strange Encounters furthermore reflects upon novel performative strategies in the contemporary arts that express a poetic, if eccentric, understanding of the theatricality of urban space.

To know more about FORTY BEDS read the PB Poster 280: FORTY BEDS

To view more photos of the bed making process in Rotterdam click here.

Bill Drummond will be giving an 'artist talk' at Catalyst, about the Curfew Tower and the artist residency there that has no been going since 1999. This event is open to the public.

Bill Drummond gave the keynote lecture at this years Media Evolution conference in Malmö, Sweden. He also be lead a number of performance by The17. After the lecture he continued the construction of his sculpture 100 Pairs of Shoes (see PB Poster 325) on the street outside the conference centre. 

‘NOTICE’ is a multi-disciplinary exhibition showcasing the work of the artists who took part in the Catalyst Arts curated Curfew Tower residency program of 2010.



Exhibiting Artists: Bill Drummond, Nathan Crothers, Sinead Conlon, Stephen Anderson, Anne-Marie Dillon, Aoife Desmond, Florian Hollerweger, Angela Halliday, FIELD.

Jacki Clark led a performance of Score 8: TAKE in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh in the early morning of Tuesday 28 June 2011

To celebrate the launching of his career as a 'shoe-shine boy', Bill Drummond had a shave in a barbers' in Mestre (near Venice).

Bill Drummond has been invited by the curator Jonas Stampe of Infr'Action Venice 2011, to make an 'action art' performance at this year's Venice Biennale. Drummond used the opportunity to launch his career as a shoe-shine boy. The career is taking two paths - one involves the performance of Score 395 Whistle While You Work, the other the construction of a sculpture entitled 100 Pairs Of Shoes

The performance of Score 395: Whistle While You Work is also part of the17's Coast-to-Coast world tour and as such there will need to be a IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW... graffiti done on a bridge in Venice. Although the bridge has been chosen the graffiti was not done while there, due to lack of suitable materials for the vandalism.

Although not strictly a performance by The17, the evening will include a couple of performance of scores by The17

The main purpose of the evening is for Bill Drummond to launch the book IMAJINE (Penkiln Burn Books)

IMAJINE is a book by Haitian artist and writer, Claudel Casseus.

Bill Drummond and Claudel Casseus worked together at the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in December 2009. Two-and-a-half weeks later Haiti was hit by an earthquake that killed over 200,000 people.

IMAJINE tells the story of Claudel and his family over a two-week period, from the moment the earthquake struck.

To quote the back cover blurb:

‘This book is about: EARTHQUAKE, HAITI, BEING ALIVE, WATCHING PEOPLE DIE, RUNNING, THE END OF THE WORLD, HOPE FEAR, PRAYING, SURVIVING, STRUGGLE CORRUPTION, TRUST. But more importantly it contains words not mediated through the mind of a Western journalist but the words of a young man called Claudel Casseus, who has lived in Port-au-Prince all his life and has never written about anything else before.’

At The Idler Academy on the evening of the 18 May, Drummond will be celebrating the publication of IMAJINE by engaging all those present with nothing but the power of his words and the words contained in this book.

He will also be instigating the construction of a sculpture entitled 40 T-shirts For Sale.

Places strictly limited. Tickets £20. Includes wine and small pieces of bread and meat. Book online, or call The Idler Academy on 020 7221 5908, Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 6.30pm, and Sundays from 11am to 5pm.

Bill Drummond is to be the Keynote Speaker at the Forum for Innovation in Music Production, Composition (FIMPAC)  at the Leeds College of Music.

Please note that this performance / lecture has been shifted from the 12th to the 13th