MANIFESTO!

Pictured: Christina Linden, Wendy Vogel & Adam Pendleton, and Katerina Llanes.

MANIFESTO!, April 13, 2009, Weiss Cinema, Bard College.

Manifesto readings by CCS Bard students, Bard undergraduates, and members of the Bard community. A recording of the event will play in the restrooms of the Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College for the duration of the Spring Exhibitions, Series 2 (April 19-24th). An intimate reformatting of the restroom context, Manifestos-In- the-Restrooms is a satellite show to PILOT.

The 'List':

Gerrard Winstanley, The Diggers Song (1650), read by Fionn Meade; Mina Loy, Feminist Manifesto (1914), read by Sofia Pia Belenky; Wyndham Lewis, BLAST (1914), read by Diana Stevenson; Theo van Doesburg and Others, Manifesto I of De Stijl (1918), read by Niko Vicario; Sergei Eisenstein's Montage of Attractions (1923), read by Sam Stonefield; F.T. Marinetti, Xenomanes (1931), read by Michael Nickerson; Gustave Metzger, Manifesto Auto-Destructivist Art (1960), read by Niko Vicario;  Antonin Artaud,  All Writing Is Pigshit (anthologized 1965), read by Katerina Llanes;  Robin Morgan's RAT takeover, Goodbye to All That, (1970) and The Black Panther Party Platform, (October, 1966), read by Adam Pendleton and Wendy Vogel; Joyce Stevens, “Because” (1975), read by Kate Menconeri; Guerilla Art Action Group, (Jon Hendricks, Jean Toche), The Definitive/ist Manifesto, (1981), read by Christina Linden; Hardt and Negri's The Political Manifesto (1990's), read by Sohrab Mohebbi; ACT UP!' member John Russo's Why We Fight, (1988), read by Bartholomew Ryan; Alexei Shulgin's Art Power and Communication, (1996), read by Hajnalka Somogyi; Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, The Stuckists, read by Diana Stevenson; Susie Ramsay and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's OK Art Manifesto, read by Jessica Wilcox; premiere of PILOT's First(Crisis)Epiphany Manifesto read by Bartholomew Ryan. 

The manifesto selection was tough. Out were the greatest hits –The Futurist Manifesto (1909), The Communist Manifesto (1848), and others. The idea was not to create a comprehensive rendition of the manifesto-cannon, but to allow different texts to exist in conversation that alluded to aspects of the overall manifesto-context in an interesting way. This list could be replaced with 30 other lists equally valid and interesting, though, of course, necessarily differant  in the effect of their affect and political/aesthetic prescriptions. If there are any questions about the selections, or the reasons for the selections –not all of which were an endorsement of the given position proposed– email welcometopilot@gmail.org. We did not have time to get to all the texts, some of which will be a part of PILOT, so this does not seem so bad. Where I decided to cut one, I have linked to another version of the manifesto online. Audio from the event will be updated periodically.