‘When I recall some past epoch, I think of whoever I was in love with at the time.’  Alan Turing

Radical new memoir project The Universal Turing Machine to launch 1 September 2025

Drawing its name from Turing’s hypothetical machine that would one day compute everything computable, the Universal Turing Machine is memoir with a difference, designed to expand our understanding of what the form can do and aiming from September to become a mass participation project open to all.

The UTM begins life as Richard Beard’s whole-life memoir – 1000 words for each year of his life, from 1967 to 2030, laid out online in a chessboard format. It can be read in multiple different orders, not merely chronologically – mirroring the way we all reflect upon our lives and memories.  Following the many possible ‘knights’ tour’ journeys around the chessboard, readers can hop across years and decades.

This first phase of the Universal Turing Machine, by Richard Beard, is available for free online from 23 June.

The second phase, welcoming wider creative engagement, launches in September 2025.  Full details and guidelines will be released at the official launch of the second phase on September 1.