Well.

THE MANIFESTO FOR THE FOUNDING MOVEMENT OF PROPAGANDIST ART

rnArt for the sake of art is dead. The progress of artistic vision and creation in the future must be guided by purpose, and the highest purpose is that which is defined and set by the common goals of the people and the state, the goals that all should strive to reach.

Many decry that governmental decree forces a decrease in artistic freedom. They are fools; the limitations in artistic freedom are nothing compared to the broadening and acceptance by society, and by the formative role that the new art plays. Is it better to create a work and hope that the populace comes to appreciate, or is it more ideal to create a work that shapes the populace’s very minds, thoughts and hearts?

Although it has been argued by many that people with intelligence will nevertheless come to appreciate so-called ‘true art’, we prefer to be remembered as those who did not wait for history to appreciate, but rather dictated to history that it would appreciate.

In the Soviet Union, the idea of the artist as the engineer of the human soul is supplanting the notion of artists as the renegades who lead by example, who push so-called ‘culture’ out of the muck from which it has been rightfully confined and elevate it for all to see and to wonder. This concept is driving the formation of a fellow Propagandist movement, where the artist is the mechanical manipulator of the human consciousness; where the artist is the controller and not the exhibitor.

Where the Futurists looked to a bright and mechanical destiny and urged the world to follow, we point to the same destiny and push the world ahead of us. We inform them of the future and tell them this is destiny. We not only imagine the new world as it should be, we shape it in our own image.

Where is the government that does not employ the tools of psychological control to lead their people to the right path? Where is the public speaker who does not insert elements of propaganda in his speech in order to lead the crowd to the correct fire and applause? They are lost in the ashes and dust of history, and we shall relegate the past artists to the same fate.

We shall shape and imagine the world as it should be. We shall make the impossible real.

rnThe Manifesto of Propagandism:

1. Control and shape of the human intelligence are the highest purposes to which art in all its forms can aspire. No work should be accounted great without it having a great and significant impact, an impact that must be imposed and not simply achieved.

2. The highest use of the control over which the human intelligence that art can obtain, is that which drives forth into the future, sponsored by the ideals of the ruling body or persons of the state.

3. Artists who cling to the ideals of merely lighting a candle in the hope that people will open their eyes are suffering from delusions, and that they shall be set free not from choosing to look into the light they seek to cast, but by having their eyelids peeled back by Propaganda; by being forced to gaze into the future that we shall create.

4. We shall use hypnotic rhythm in music, mesmerising colour and style in painting, the subliminal hooking of key words in literature. Coupling the methods of hypnotist psychologists with the flair of the creator, we shall construct a new opiate for the masses. with which we shall channel their hearts and minds into the moulds we have ourselves cast.

5. We shall support and endorse the use of propaganda, whatever its purpose may be. We do not attempt to predict the future as the Futurists did, we do not talk of a ‘just’ and ‘great’ destiny that awaits us. We will create our own reality, and we will hail those who succeed in creating their own reality for their own people.

rnWe will build a new world for in which to reside, a world where the people shall not feel the chains that bind but shall rejoice in the freedoms that are granted, a world that is both safe and yet stimulating, sheltering yet demanding. We shall use the tools of the fascist, the socialist, the preacher and the politician to give the people not the dreams that they believe they need, but the Utopia that we know they require.

We face the future now, not in trepidation or in anticipation, but in satisfaction, for the future that comes rushing towards us is that which we have brought into being, and into this future will mankind be forced, be spliced, and be fitted, for that is their destiny!

So. Does that make anyone else laugh? I love manifestos (manifesti?), I really do. I should post some of the Futurist ones where they declare war on pasta, it is really, really hilarious. Especially since they were Italian. ~_^

Oh yes - the above manifesto is ©2006 Ben Thomas, just for the relevant people who are thinking of stealing, stealing I say! And I’m not a Nazi. Despite what Day might have implied. ^_^

Alcata’riel.

-Andiyar