Pierre (22.01): Your point about performativity and speech-acts-ish makes me think of programming languages being the only languages that execute (i.e. actually do what they say they do). Are there any examples of manifestoes that can be executed? That exist as software? Mateus's point about RFCs might be an example of it (is the RFC about DRM/Encrypted Media Extension an executable manifesto about intellectual property?). There are also video games that can act as manifestoes (e.g. https://www.molleindustria.org/)
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In 2022 I was part of a group of artists, technologists and theorists which made a dataset of xenoimages. This dataset was not functional, but a form of speculative/fictional design, and it was accompanied by a manifesto that we all wrote together. Once written, we decided to dramatise its reading in a presentation event. Your text made me wonder: why do we automatically dramatise reading? Apparently, in our imaginary as artists, that is the only option. You can watch the video of the event here. This is the manifesto in English. And the web which is in Spanish for the moment.
In relation to the theatricality of the manifesto, the dramatised readings of Paul B Preciado's book "Y soy el monstruo que os habla: Informe para una academia de psicoanalistas" [I am the Monster that speaks to you: Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts]. I do not think he is calling this text "a manifesto", but it could be considered as such. As well as one more example of the need to bring Manifesto to the theatre space.
I wonder if the protocological structure of the internet feeds into the active, toolkit manifestos you've referenced. The internet standards emerge from RFC (request for comment) documents that are mostly quite dry and necessarily technical, but can often read a bit like manifestos (some are titled as manifestos). RFC1 RFC history page--Mateus (talk) 17:12, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
I love that you included Sadgrl's manifesto, I did a lot of work with her for my master's thesis on alternative online spaces, and I think perhaps we have a link here that we could explore further in the workshop? (Kendal)
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I recently thought about the aspect of temporality in relation to Internet-manifestoes, after reading (and answering to) the recent call from e-flux on the 20th anniversary of Wark's A Hacker Manifesto. When I researched the reception of this manifesto, I noticed that every anniversary had been marked (e.g. 10 years). Somehow, the manifestoes are being used as sign posts to track the evolution of how to think about the internet. Wondering if you reflect upon the internet manifesto as a sort of ongoing chronicalisation? (Asker)
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I have been thinking what makes the manifesto different with the internet. As you mentioned internet is a publishing infrastructure, how is it different from a medium in terms of performativity? i think temporality and spatiality is one of the aspects to think about it, also in terms of speed and scaling. I also think of Katherline Hayles's text: My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts, and in one of the chapters "intermediation", it talks about textuality and computation which discusses a more unique aspect of code (or performativity of code if you wish). Perhaps it will be useful. (Winnie)
I wonder about the role of hypertext in Internet manifestos and how it introduces non-linearity (as opposed to manifestos in traditional media we read linearly). Perhaps this is aligned with the self-reflexivity you mention and manifestos as online objects having a different kind of agency? Made me think of Gregory Ulmer’s Text/Hypertext and agency in reading? I guess there’s a different kind of performativity (in process maybe?) emerging between a distributed text (through hyperlinks) and the reader’s agency of interacting with the text.. (Bilyana)
Thoughts from Søren
Great perspective! I wonder how you distinguish between 'action' and performativity (e.g. software) and theatricality, the pose? To what degree can hacking be a manifesto? Perhaps the concept of "recursive publics" that Christopher Kelty uses to describe FLOSS culture is useful? Also a suggestion for a potential manifesto that is also an art work could be Cayley/Howe's The Readers Project (http://thereadersproject.org/).