A team of writers, musicians, and artists will attempt to put together a musical in exactly 10 hours. The final performance, to be held that very same evening, will present a story of “haste”—a story that was itself created in a great hurry.

The event is intended as an exploration of whether it is plausible to use the book *Hurry, 591 BC – 2007*—a title from the *Webster’s Timeline Histories* series—both as a thematic foundation and as the sole research tool for a creative project.

The *Timeline Histories* series comprises around 90,000 titles. Published by the mysterious Icon Group International, Inc., each of these books is a medley of chronologically ordered quotations on the respective title topic—algorithmically selected and entirely without human oversight; and all of this prior to 2011. Pick any adjective, noun, or verb, and it is highly likely that publisher Philip M. Parker and his team at Icon have already generated a book-length chronology on precisely that term.

The question arises: what would it be like to engage intensively with these books? To find out, they invited authors, artists, and a pub quiz master to explore just that.

Issue 70 of *Cabinet* magazine presents its findings on topics such as wallpaper, trade secrets, nagging, and John Smith. This event marks the conclusion of an interdisciplinary assessment of the usefulness of early AI applications.

*Hurry, 591 BC – 2007: The Musical* is conceived and written within a single workday—using collaborative methods based as much on improvisational talent (“going with the flow”) as on quick-drying paint. The breathless team, whose hands are clenched with tension, includes, among others: Kit Downes, Nina Katchadourian, and Sally O’Reilly.

IN ENGLISH

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