Creating a piece for the manifesto was fun, I wanted to do something which I felt would embody the idea of a manifesto. What made me decide to do the piece “Authenticity and Meaning” was a series of ideas that initially based on a lecture from Augustus Casely-Hayford, he said something about people searching for ‘authenticity and meaning’ in the world, and things around them, as though somehow this is an aspect of our lives that we loose through over- exposure to life and it’s objects.
I know that this is something that I experience, kind of loosing the thread. So I thought if I could ‘harness’ the idea of authenticity and meaning, then I would solve the problem, sort of new world order!! The other thing that he talked about was how the with the advent of the internet, our lives have changed and will continue to do so. With people living their lives vicariously through the internet, achieving both good and bad results.
So I had the phrase ‘authenticity and meaning’ and a computer, I wanted to portray this idea of suddenly understanding, which is why in the end I chose to use lights which would only appear when you typed in the keyboard.
Initially I wanted to do a wooden copy of my keyboard, because it’s really cool looking - and of course part of my mac. This would represent ‘good design’, but instead I ended up going for an old keyboard which could be dismantled and rewired (...!?..)
The words A&M link into my interest of language, and semiotics. For example going to the dictionary and looking up the word ‘meaning’, you come back with a definition, and then, putting ‘meaning’ into the thesaurus, you come up with a series of alternatives and of course they are all different, and change the way you can understand something.
And it is interesting because Heidegger said:
Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/martin_heidegger.html
Which means that when we think, the thoughts don’t magically attach words, the words magically attach thoughts. All very convoluted.
This is a piece by Robert Smithson, called ‘A Heap of Language’
'...it appears not as an objet d¹art but as a piece of "writing," occupying the same page as a text entitled: "Press Release / Language to be Looked at and/or Things to be Read"-a pairing also observed by Jack Flam's more recent edition of Smithson's "Collected Writings". Thus: depending on the frame or context one wants to bring to it, "A Heap of Language" can be viewed either as an artwork or as a wordwork, as an "essay" or an "illustration." Or as both, for Smithson¹s playful chiasma-"Language to be Looked at/Things to be Read"-asks us to engage in a crossover in which reading and looking, language and things dialectically reverse positions.'
‘A Heap of Language: Robert Smithson and American Hieroglyphic by Richard Sieburth, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, New York University ‘ http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/heap.htm
It is one of my favourite pieces because Robert Smithson has managed to express himself and his beliefs through his art, which must be the aim. As well as that I can really identify with the work because I feel that he has already said a lot of the things which I think and believe.
My sister got an Etch a Sketch for xmas off her husband because it was one of the toys she always remembered as a kid and we played on it, I think it reinforced my idea of using a computer to convey the message ‘A&M’
My final piece was made up of latex canvas, acrylic laser cut letters, metal, wood, light bulbs, keyboard and electricity. Making the words ‘pop out‘ was a big thing and which is why I decided to use the latex. The words were not spelt properly, to illustrate the ‘search‘.... for authenticity and meaning, as well as this although the keys of the keyboard would make the lights work, only a few of them did, and these were the letters which illuminated the piece; WHAT IS.
I especially liked the stretched canvas, and the letters popping out. 
With the lights on
It was great fun using the lights in the work, making them key to the piece, so that they were integral in the understanding of it.Writing the manfesto itself was also fun, but all I had was a scrappy bit of paper with ideas on it, which I couldn't seem to improve. So in the name of art I decided to exploit the fact, and below is the final draft:
Although I spoke about environmentally friendly design in my manifesto, I don't think that my piece necessarily fell into this category because the latex and the letters, are both made from plastic - so, I missed the point there a bit, but next time...
