Description
At its best, manifesto writing generates radical new ideas by freeing us from careful speech in times of crisis. Wearing the mask of the manifesto’s performative authority, speakers take on symbolic power and freedom to express powerful emotions like anger and outrage and to invest themselves with authority (real or invented). Manifestos help us imagine and build alternatives, or resist dominant futures. They help us to think outside of business as usual, to yearn, to strive, to invent, to destroy. Where there is a need for urgent action and a dramatic change of course, manifestos can ignite and inspire.Manifestos also come with significant baggage, including a history of violence - a tendency to ‘lose your patience and sharpen your wings to conquer’, in the words of Tristan Tzara. The essential dichotomy in all revolutionary manifestos lies between the desire to overthrow and to impose authority. Jenny Holzer summed up the manifesto as a form caught between two extreme tendencies: ‘the scary side where it’s an inflamed rant to no good end, and then the positive side, when it’s the most deeply felt description of how the world should be.’ Might this tension also invest manifestos with their unique and world-smashing potential? Can the more dangerous side of manifestos be mitigated by their potential as a tool for liberation and change?
In this conversation, we will attempt to articulate and confront some burning questions for the manifesto in the 2020s. How should we think about its history? How should we theorise the return and reinvention of this radical form in the (post)digital age? How can the manifesto serve as a useful intervention in the social / political / artistic / academic realm? How can we use, teach, and encourage this ‘escalating form’ - and is it wise or responsible to do so in these times of crisis and division? What are the manifesto’s latest mutations, how is it being co-opted, and what comes next?
Period | 22 Jul 2024 |
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Event title | manifestoNOW! Purposes and Effects of an Escalating Form in the US and Beyond |
Event type | Conference |
Location | Dresden, GermanyShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- manifestos
- American studies
- avant-garde