Thou shalt do thy best to change the mind of thy people
A manifesto is a declaration of intentions; a set of arguments that is published with the objective, and hope, to persuade. In this respect, one could say that it is a form of advertising: It wants you to buy in to a new way of thinking or behaving – unless you happen to be Dadaist.
Individuals, groups, political parties or art movements – we all have opinions, ideas we want to propose, things we want change, prescriptions we want to issue that might just benefit society. Little wonder then that human history is littered with manifestos. The most memorable ones, like the most memorable advertisements, are on-point with compelling copy, impactful art direction and great use of media.
God ticked all these boxes with ‘The Ten Commandments’. The precise messaging and the bullet point layout is as influential today as it was several thousand years ago (just ask Gilbert & George) and the choice of media was a master-stroke; what could possibly be more enduring than a tablet of stone? If God were around today (and depending upon which philosophical manifesto you believe in, he might be) he probably would have bypassed Moses altogether, and tweeted the Commandments, but it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it somehow. Jesus probably grasped that a manifesto wasn’t much use unless it reached the masses but he had to make do with word of mouth. It took the invention of the printing press, the bible (and around fifteen hundred years) to bring his ‘Sermon on the Mount’ to a worldwide audience. Now, in the age of Facebook, we can all be evangelists. The only problem is that we have a one in five hundred million chance of being noticed. So, for a manifesto to be a manifesto it has to be published. If it isn’t it’s just a speech. Or may be not. If a manifesto sets out to be a powerful, persuasive published statement that seeks uncompromisingly to challenge and change our perceptions and behaviour – in printed form - then the Gettysburg address (that took Abraham Lincoln just two minutes to deliver, and became the basis for the American constitution) wouldn’t meet the criteria. And Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” might have remained one had it not been for the TV coverage.
These defining moments of oration – and the art of oration - became manifestos, but perhaps did begin as such. But then am I splitting hairs? It’s complex. A book could be viewed as a manifesto; each chapter a manifesto. John Berger’s influential ‘Ways of Seeing’, first published in 1974, was a political and aesthetic polemic dealing with how we look and respond to art. The seven essays demanded that we should seriously question the way we evaluate and relate to visual culture in the twentieth century. It was a “game changer” and just one example of a book that neatly fits the conditions of a manifesto.
But then if you aren’t interested in such matters, it would have passed you by. But then again, there are manifestos designed for the many (political parties are good at this) and those created for the few; relatively-speaking: Spatialists, Futurists, Vorticists – all art movements that had a lasting influence on art and design in the twentieth century and beyond.
I was only following orders
It’s ok. I’m not going to talk about the National Socialist manifesto () that ignited Nazism, nor the Conservative Party manifesto of (), though they do share a certain commonality. But I do want to touch on the manifesto as an instruction manual – or instructions for living.