The pair, who had formed an art foundation called the K Foundation, after they had retired from the music industry, decided that they wanted to do something extremely artistically subversive, so, they burned a million pounds in cash.
The money incinerating event was filmed on Super 8 by their friend Gimpo and a freelance journalist at the event wrote an article about it in The Observer.
The journalist, Jim Reid, said that at first, he felt shock and guilt about burning the money, but then, he simply became bored with the whole thing, as the money took well over an hour to burn, as Drummond and Cauty added £50 notes to the fire.
The backlash, incredulity and anger that this burning of £1,000,000 provoked, showed very clearly how the destruction of money is perceived as a transgressive act by most people. According to the psychologist, Claudia Hammond, research shows that our brains respond to money as if it is a tool. This is why the burning of a load of printed paper gets people so riled up. Because we see the usefulness and potential of money and the loss of the money is a loss of potential.
