The Surrealists had a manifesto, as did the Dadaists, Futurists and many others. There is even a _______ Manifesto, which is thought to be the first online manifesto.
Back in high school, I had wanted to write one. Though I am glad I never did. I’m sure it would have been ridiculous and not in a good, Dada kind of way. Also I became unsure of what exactly the manifesto would be for. Who would read it? After all, a manifesto is a type of declaration and, let’s face it, teenagers go about their days making declarations almost ceaselessly.
But now I’m older and involved in an actual movement of sorts. It occurred to me that we could all make an Art & Science Manifesto; something that outlines the goals for Sci-art. It can be anything we want; fun, silly, serious, contradictory and totally untenable in the real world. Just like a real manifesto!
I’ll kick it off by altering the first sentence of the original Surrealist Manifesto:
“We are still living under the reign of logic, and the logical processes of our time should be applied to the solution of problems that encompass all of our interests…”
What would you like to add to the Art & Science Manifesto?
The ART Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Mad Art Lab community. Look for it to appear Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 3pm ET.
We hold that any truth appearing to be self evident, isn’t.
Art is in the eye of the beholder, scientific truth isn’t.
Imagination should be used to complement, enhance or even cast in contrasted relief aspects of reality, but it should not be passed off as an alternative to reality.
Art and Science need each other. One to exist, the other to propagate.
Creativity is to Art like non-conformism is to Science.
In the words of Tristan Tzara, “A manifesto is a communication made to the whole world, whose only pretension is to the discovery of an instant cure for political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomical and literary syphilis. It may be pleasant, and good-natured, it’s always right, it’s strong, vigorous and logical.”
Hey, these are great you guys! And if we want to give it a nice, nerdy flavor, we can put “So say we all!” after every declaration (or just at the end).