23rd-27th March PROJECT BRIEF

From 23rd - 27th March, you'll be meeting me, Rosie Traina.
I'll be taking you through a 5-day workshop on working with TEXT.

In preparation for the week, you will need to have written your own manifesto (up to 5 points) on what you believe in, what guides you, or how you aspire to live your life.

You could write a general one, or one in relation to a subject matter you are passionate about (eg music, art, design, fashion, ecology, the body, society....etc etc), it's up to you.

You can use the manifesto posts on this blog as a starting point (great), but do search out for your own sources of inspiration, too (better). Have a look at the Sagmeister manifesto for an easy starting point. If you get stuck, don't panic, we'll introduce the project properly on monday morning.

That's it!...



BUT WAIT!- one more thing...

YOU WILL NEED....
as many black mark-making materials (pencils, wax crayon, charcoal, marker pen, ink, paint) and mark-makers (brushes, ink-sticks etc) you can get hold of. Organise this between you as a group. That's for Monday. Hopefully there'll be a bit of printing too.

OH, and feel free to contact me any time at rosannatraina@hotmail.com if you need....

GOOD LUCK! and I look forward to meeting you and your manifestos SOON.

Introducing the MANIFESTO

Working With Text


The week of the 23rd - 27th March will use the concept of the MANIFESTO as a starting point to explore how voice, expression, text aesthetic, type design, typography and the text-as-image are all interlinked. The manifesto concept will also provide the text-content to work with.

A manifesto is defined as a public declaration explaining past actions, objectives, or opinions and announcing the motive for future ones
(see: www.etymonline.com / www.dictionary.com), and often comes in the form of a set or list of 'action' points.

The word manifesto is an Italian one, stemming from manifestus (Latin) meaning 'proof'.
Manifestus comes from manus (meaning hand) + festus (strike, hit).
Therefore, we can think of 'manifesto' as being a kind of slamming-down-of-the-hand-on-the-table-to-emphasise-and-prove-your-point, except - with your voice and words.


Of the manifestos here, where the original texts are long and dense, I've provided summary points. But remember these are my own interpretations of what the original texts mean to me - you might extract something very different from them - such is the nature of the interpretation.

As a guide, the Sagmeister and It's not how good... manifestos are easy ones to digest, as they are just simple lists of maxims (maxims = principles or rules).

A TECHNIQUE FOR PRODUCING IDEAS

Every designer would want to know the secret recipe for producing excellent designs - if there was one out there - and in 1944 James Webb Young thought he'd found it. Without claiming his approach to be the be-all and end-all, he does outline a process that he found helped him come up with innovative solutions for communicating a message. In effect then, this is his 'manifesto', and he outlines it in his book A Technique for Producing Ideas, as follows:



Summary: New solutions are made just by combining old elements in new ways. Follow the next 5 points in the order they come in.


1. Don't wait for inspiration to drop from the sky, gather raw material. You will need to find material that is both specific (describe your subject matter in minute detail, identify it's quirky bits, identify what kind of audience it relates to) and general (this is an ongoing process of absorbing info about life, day to day)

2. Study and analyse all the facts you've gathered so you understand them. Scan your facts and see what hits you as interesting. Select 2 facts and put them together. Ideally, link a specific fact about your subject matter, with a general fact about the way we live in a new combination. Write down any weird and wonderful combinations that pop into your head, no matter how incomplete. Try different combinations until you feel like something is working.

3. Put the problem to one side and take a break with something stimulating - go to the movies, read some poetry, listen to music, read a detective story. Now you are stimulating your unconscious to come up with an idea.

4. At this stage, an idea should appear!

5. Now you need to work on this idea, and take it one step further - sculpt it, adapt it (like tailoring a suit to fit), work on any elements that feel awkward - so it's finally a practical and useful solution to your initial problem.

AN INCOMPLETE MANIFESTO FOR GROWTH

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations.

This is an up-beat, easy to read list of suggestions on how to keep your chin up and keep moving forward in your design work. These are gentle reminders of strategies we already know but often forget, and elsewhere, Mau suggests that being aware of such simple ideas directing your design, and applied to other disciplines, can create a Massive Change.

ICON 50 manifestos

Manifesto no.45 by designer Anteeksi

For their special 50th issue - the 'Manifesto Issue', ICON magazine asked 50 of the most influential architects, designers and thinkers to tell them what they believe in.

Whilst many don't come in the easy-to-reference bullet point style, most of the manifestos are short and sharp and not too dense. Scroll down the list and pick a few at random - each contributor takes a different approach - have a look at no. 1, 12, 13, 23 or 45 for some less traditional ones.

DOGMA 95 manifesto

Still from 'Festen' by Vinterberg


The Dogma 95 manifesto was written in 1995 by film makers and directors Lars von Trier and Tomas Vinterberg.

They aimed to get film-making back to the basics, accessible to anyone without Hollywood budgets.
They wanted to make it as 'real' as possible by removing any post-production effects or gimmicks. Doing this makes the film-maker focus on the actual story and actors' performances, and allows the audience to be more engaged.


Their manifesto, or "Vow of Chastity" states ten rules:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).

2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).

3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)

4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.

6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)

7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)

8. Genre movies are not acceptable.

9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)

10. The director must not be credited.


Some cite criticisms and weaknesses to the approach von Trier took - click here, to find out more, get a filmography and link to more websites

ECO-SOCIALIST manifesto

Joel Kovel, writer and activist


Click through below for the Eco-socialist manifesto. It's quite a dense text, so I've made a short summary...


The Eco-socialist manifesto is essentially anti-capitalist. Hand in hand with consumerism, the capitalist reduces humans to a mere 'money-making resource', with no other value.

They link the crises of ecology with the breakdown of society that often ends up in warfare.

They blame industrialisation and capitalist greed for the destabilising of the earth's ecology, and they blame globalization for starting the breakdown of society.

The cite socialism as the counter-fight to capitalism, and the only future answer for ecological re-balance. They realise older socialisms may have failed but they still believe in the original socialist ideals.

They suggest 'limits on growth' (ie quality not quantity) as the key to sustainability of society.


The manifesto was written in 2001 by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy

SITUATIONIST manifesto

Founders of the Situationist International at Cosio d'Arroscia, Italy, April 1957. From left to right: Guiseppe Pinot Gallizio, Piero Simondo, Elena Verrone, Michele Bernstein, Guy Debord, Asger Jorn, and Walter Olmo.


The Situationists were around from 1957 to 1972 - drawing on Marxism and Lettrism and inspiring anarchism since the 70s - in an attempt to breakdown restrictive hierarchical, capitalist, and consumerist structures. They hated the illusory nature of the mass media.

They proposed a number of alternatives to their contemporary society - play, freedom, critical thinking, community action, being aware of your context, but most importantly creating 'situations' that fused art and politics INTO everyday life.

One of the key players in the Situationist International group was Guy Debord - he wrote their core essay The Society of the Spectacle, where he argues that under advanced capitalism, life is reduced to an immense accumulation of spectacles and appearances, instead of something 'directly experienced'.

May 1960, the Situationist manifesto was written and published in Internationale Situationniste No.4. It's short but quite heavy, so I've summarised a few of their points below.

(Note: the manifesto uses the word ludic which means 'being playful, in an aimless way' - something they wholeheartedly supported.)



Summary points:

1. We can't hold back our energy (we are motivated by a dissatisfaction with technology)

2. We have to fight alienation and oppression as a whole, not in bits and pieces

3. With production taken over by machines, we could be free from the value system that 'waged work' imposes on us. then, life could be freely constructed like a game, where there is no exploitation of man by man for want of power or money. leisure and work would no longer be separated

4. Playfulness is seen as scandalous by the church

5. We aim to bring game-sters of the world together to fight the structure of daily life as it has existed to this point

6. We are independent of political or union groups that only attempt to 'manage' things

7. We will take over all organisations (like UNESCO) that take all the life out of art and culture by reducing them to 'administrative processes'

8. Our new culture would be anti-spectacle, instead encouraging total participation

9. Our new culture would be anti-preserved-art, instead engaging in the 'lived moment'

10. We support anonymous collaborative production, not the need for the individual to leave his or her own traces

11. In the past, artists are separated from culture and from each other in competition, as a result of capitalism. our new approach will be one of dialogue and interaction, complete communication

12. One day, everyone will be an artist, producer and consumer all at once. this will remove the need for 'novelty' in artwork

13. We are against the concept of being a 'specialist' as it differentiates people into hierarchies again

14. You shall see: our goals are the future goals of humanity



intro taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International

image from http://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/situationist/si.html - this site also has more information on the Situationists.

FLUXUS manifesto

Flux objects often came in the form of boxes or 'kits' to use



A ping-pong kit for a new table-tennis experience



Flux - in Latin, means 'to flow'.

Fluxus was an inter-disciplinary movement involving artists, composers, architects, designers, writers and so on.

The movement embraced the ideas of:

indeterminacy (doing away with control of the artist/musician and letting all sounds have equal value - whether from composer, performer, context)

leaving things to chance,

a DIY aesthetic by using whatever was to hand, and whatever skills you had (anti-traditional-crafts)

about simplicity over complexity,

and generally against the art-market and art-commercialism

a lot of the key Flux People began their work as composers who were interested in the idea of 'performance as creation' - ie: working from a 'score' anyone can be an artist / creator, as each new performance equals a new piece of work brought into being.

Fluxus performances sought to elevate the banal, the mundane, in order to frustrate the high culture of academic and market driven music and art.

info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus


The movement was seen to be sparked by 2 key figures - composer John Cage, and artist George Maciunas.
In 1963, George scribbled the Fluxus manifesto thus:



amongst the cut-out dictionary definitions for flux, George writes:

Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, "intellectual", professional and commercialized culture. PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art, - PURGE THE WORLD OF "EUROPANISM"

PROMOTE A REVOLUTIONARY FLOOD AND TIDE IN ART, promote living art, anti-art, promote NON ART REALITY to be grasped by all peoples, not only critics dilettantes and professionals.

FUSE the cadres of cultural social and political revolutionaries into united front and action.

image from: http://static.guim.co.uk/Guardian/artanddesign/gallery/2008/nov/03/1/fluxusmanifesto-6855.jpg



------

George also wrote this, in 1965 - a 'fluxmanifesto on art amusement':

FLUX-MANIFESTO ON FLUX-AMUSEMENT --VAUDEVEILLE -- ART?

TO ESTABLISH ARTISTS NON-PROFESSIONAL, NON-PARASITIC, NON-ELITE STATUS IN SOCIETY, HE MUST DEMONSTRATE OWN DISPENSABILITY, HE MUST DEMONSTRATE SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE AUDIENCE, HE MUST DEMONSTRATE THAT ANYTHING CAN SUBSTITUTE ART AND ANYONE CAN DO IT.

THEREFORE THIS SUBSTITUTE ART-AMUSEMENT MUST BE SIMPLE, AMUSING, CONCERNED WITH INSIGNIFICANCES, HAVE NO COMMODITY OR INSTITUTIONAL VALUE. IT MUST BE UNLIMITED, OBTAINABLE BY ALL AND EVENTUALLY PRODUCED BY ALL.

THE ARTIST DOING ART MEANWHILE, TO JUSTIFY HIS INCOME, MUST DEMONSTRATE THAT ONLY HE CAN DO ART, ART THEREFORE MUST APPEAR TO BE COMPLEX, INTELLECTUAL, EXCLUSIVE, INDISPENSABLE, INSPIRED. TO RAISE ITS COMMODITY VALUE IT IS MADE TO BE RARE, LIMITED IN QUANTITY AND THEREFORE ACCESSIBLE NOT TO THE MASSES BUT TO THE SOCIAL ELITE

quoted from: www.artnotart.com/fluxus/


images from:
http://www.uturn-copenhagen.dk/uploads/30083/1214986907.jpg
http://gregcookland.com/journal/2007_03_25_archive.html
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/03.08/16-fluxus.html

I AM FOR AN ART...

Claes Oldenburg's Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985-88) in collaboration with Coosje van Bruggen


I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.

I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.

I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.....



Read on!...Read the full text by the artist Claes Oldenburg, and get more general info about him, by clicking through on the same website...

image from http://nsm.uh.edu/~dgraur/Publications.html

BLAST manifesto

BLAST was created by Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, a magazine in support of Vorticism. It was first published in 1914 with lists of 'blessings' (things they supported) and 'blasts' (things they didn't). The whole issue was in 'manifesto' style. Here are a few images from the magazine and a quotation from the text...









L o n g   L i v e   t h e   V o r t e x !
Long live the great art vortex sprung up in the centre of this town!

We stand for the Reality of the Present — not for the sentimental Future, or the sacripant Past.

We want to leave Nature and men alone.

The only way Humanity can help artists is to remain independent and work unconsciously.

WE NEED THE UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF HUMANITY — their stupidity, animalism and dreams.

We believe in no perfectibility except our own.

Intrinsic beauty is in the Interpreter and Seer, not in the object or content.

WE ONLY WANT THE WORLD TO LIVE, and to feel its crude energy flowing through us.

Blast sets out to be a venue for all those vivid and violent ideas that could reach the Public in no other way.

Blast will be popular, essentially. It will not apppeal to any particular class, but to the fundamental and popular instincts in every class and description of people. TO THE INDIVIDUAL. The moment a man feels or realizes himself as an artist, he ceases to belong to any milieu or time. Blast is created for this timeless, fundamental Artist that exists in everybody.

We want to make in England not a popular art, not a revival of lost folk art, or a romantic fostering of such unactual conditions, but to make individuals, wherever found.

We will convert the King if possible.

A VORTICIST KING !  WHY NOT ?
DO YOU THINK LLOYD GEORGE HAS THE VORTEX IN HIM?
MAY WE HOPE FOR ART FROM LADY MOND?
We are against the glorification of "the People" as we are against snobbery.
it is not necessary to be an outcast bohemian, to be unkempt or poor, any more than it is necessary to be rich or handsome, to be an artist. art is nothing to do with the coat you wear. A top-hatt can well hold the Sixtine. a cheap hat could hide the image of Kephren.

AUTOMOBILISM (marinetteism) bores us. we don't want to go about making a hullo-bullo about motor cars. any more than about knives and forks, elephants or gas-pipes.

Elephants are VERY BIG. Motor cars go quickly.

Wilde gushed twenty years aboutt he beauty of machinery. Gissing, in his romantic delight with modern lodging houses was futurist in this sense.

The futurist is a sensational and sentimental mixture of the aesthete of 1890 and teh reaslist of 1870.

The "Poor" are detestable animals! They are noly picturesque and amusing for the sentimentalist or the romantic. The "Rich" are bores wihtout a single exception, en tant que riches!
We want those simple and great people found everywhere.
Blast presents an art of Individuals.


text taken from www.gingkopress.com/_cata/_lite/wl-blas2.htm
images from:
www.davidson.edu/academic/english/Little_Magazines/Blast/synopsis.html





Just for interest, here is a new manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson mimicking the BLAST style...

FIRST THINGS FIRST manifesto

The first version of this manifesto was written by graphic designer, photographer and writer Ken Garland in 1964, and was backed by 400 designers and artists - in an attempt to make design more critical, and distance itself from consumerist culture.

It was re-published in 2000 with fresh supporters

Both are quite short, so can be read in full!

DADA manifesto

Hugo Ball


The first Dada manifesto was written by Hugo Ball in 1916.
This is a short but loose, prose-style manifesto which was read out on July 14, in Zurich

Tristan Tzara wrote a second in 1918 - this is a long and free flowing text with lots of ideas to ponder. To get a true feel, read the manifesto, but for a quick selection of 'interpretations' (by me), read on...


A few pointers....

1. The word DADA is not important and does not mean anything. Dada is a word that throws up ideas so that they can be shot down.

2. I am against manifestos as I am against rules and measuring. Approximate instead, like the impressionists

3. To launch a manifesto you have to want A, B and C and fight against 1, 2 and 3. Regrettably everyone does it in this way. I am neither for nor against anything. I hate common sense.

4. A word-based construction often aims for perfect descriptions – these produce boring products.

5. Criticism is useless, it only exists subjectively for every individual. We don’t accept any theories.

6. Novelty means fashionable. Novelty is out of date. Novelty is boring. (cubist, futurist…) I appreciate an old work for its novelty. It is only contrast that links us to the past. Novelty is life.

7. Work should be for the author’s need and benefit alone. Only there can ‘laws’ become significant.

8. Every page should explode because of its profound gravity or vortex, vertigo, newness, eternity, absurdity.

9. Be uncouth, gallop - ride astride hiccups

10. To explain is to allow your instincts to be manipulated. Explanations are ‘safe’. To explain is to try to ‘win’, and to box, categorise and control life.

11. Don’t believe in Utopianism, Idealism

12. Business and publicity are also poetic. Propel yourself into the mystery of daily bread (events, material, stuff)

13. Reinstate the circus in the powers of reality and the fantasy of every individual.

14. Don’t be real, rational. Logic doesn’t prove truth - it is illusory, false. We are against thinking, theories, systems. Logic and intelligence restrain your independence. Be foolish, senseless.

15. We aren’t interested in formal ideas generated in the laboratory (eg cubist/futurist). These theoretical ideas don’t make a painting good. The making of art exists in the very eyes of the viewer

16. Activate simplicity. Be innocent, enthusiastic, supple, malleable.

17. Well considered, well researched work is the product of a journalist. What we need are strong straightforward precise artworks that will be forever misunderstood.

18. Measured against the scale of eternity, every action is in vain. Be aware of your immutability, your incapacity, just make stuff.

19. Abolish memory, archaeology, morals, good manners, prudishness, harmony, sentimentalism.

20. Mix the offensive and the loving. Be contradictory, support the freaks, the irrelevancies.

21. Choosing which philosophy to follow is no more important than choosing which dessert to eat. Thought is a fine thing but ultimately always relative.

22. Morals give rise to charity and pity. This is wrong. Goodness is lucid, clear and resolute, and ruthless towards compromise and politics.

23. It is bored and quarrelling men who invented the calendar and ‘wisdom as remedy’.

24. Even if you look at something from many points of view, there are still millions more that exist.

25. Science tells us we act according to nature and that everything is in order – so removing our responsibilities.

26. Experience is the result of chance and individual abilities.

27. People are sheep and can’t think for themselves.

28. Art does nobody any harm. Open to it, and it will caress you.

29. We want to invent our own words, rhythm vowels consonants. I want to play with them, allow new ones to emerge.

30. Each thing has its word (noun), but this word has become a thing by itself (we forget the thing, and think too much about the word). Let’s use some words out side of your domain of knowledge, let’s bin the labels for everything.

IT'S NOT HOW GOOD YOU ARE...

This is not so much a manifesto, as a set of guidelines that Paul Arden published in his book It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be in 2003.

His ideas are better read in the context of his book, but below is a quick selection of points...



1. Energy is 75% of the job. If you haven’t got it, be nice.

2. Do not seek praise, seek criticism.

3. If you are involved in something that goes wrong, blame no one but yourself

4. Do not hide your ideas away from others. Give away everything you know and more will come back to you. (if you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish)

5. Ideas are open knowledge, don’t claim ownership! They’re not your ideas anyway, they’re someone else’s. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to pick them up.

6. Produce the best solution to today’s brief, not tomorrow’s, however boring. (don’t look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity)

7. Accentuate the positive. Find out what’s right about your product or service and then dramatize it, like a cartoonist exaggerates an action.

8. Avoid knocking the competition

9. Do not put your cleverness in front of communication. Spend more time finding out what the problem is, to find the solution. If you ask the right question you get the right answer.

10. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Show that you understand the weaknesses, and how to resolve them to build a trusting relationship.

11. Do it the client’s way, then do it your way. Then they might look at what you’re offering. Don’t take no for an answer. If they don’t like your work, re-do it and show them again.

12. Do the work, bring it into existence – don’t wait for someone to back it. When they see it they’ll back it.

13. Make something. The person who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.

14. It’s wrong to be right. Being right is based upon knowledge that is provable but out of date, concrete and at times inflexible.

15. It’s right to be wrong. Start being wrong and anything is possible. You’re no longer trying to be perfect. Being wrong is nothing but being in the present.

16. Don’t concentrate on a good idea but then rely on fashion to finish the layout.

SAGMEISTER manifesto: Things That I Have Learnt In My Life So Far

Sagmeister on the cover of his book


This is an ongoing manifesto being written by Stefan Sagmeister.
Sagmeister an Austrian graphic designer who lives and works in New York


Here is Sagmeister's manifesto, so far...

1. Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

2. Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid, I have to live now.

3. Being not truthful works against me.

4. Helping other people helps me.

5. Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.

6. Everything I do always comes back to me.

7. Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.

8. Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.

9. Money does not make me happy.

10. Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.

11. Assuming is stifling.

12. Keeping a diary supports my personal development.

13. Trying to look good limits my life.

14. Worrying solves nothing.

15. Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.

16. Having guts always works out for me.

17. Everybody thinks they are right.

18. Everybody who is honest is interesting.

19. Low Expectations are a good strategy.


Sagmeister has published a book translating these maxims into images.
Have a look at his website
and the book

Sagmeister has inspired students all over to re-visualise his maxims and write and create their own.
Do have a peek at the student work

STUCKIST manifesto

The first Stuckist group, pictured at the 'Real Turner Prize Show',
Pure Gallery, Shoreditch, London, in October 2000

click here for a link to the Stuckist Manifesto, written by Billy Childish, 1999