ManifestNo.
ManifestNo. A conceptual piece responding to both "First Things First" manifesto (1963, 1999) and Michael Beirut's response to the 1999 piece from Emigre, titled "Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto" (2002).
My response took the form of a roughly 20 page essay in which I responded to the culture surrounding the Emigre printing as well as the reply from Beirut. Nearing the end of my writing, I became frustrated with the reality that all ideologies are murky at best, and that their authors are often weighted with bias on one side or another. Choosing to agree with one author over another often comes down to subjective interpretation rather than any ultimate factual logic. The finality with which the creators of manifesto's write do so in a specific culture, at a specific time and place. As such ,they often do not age terribly well unless they adequately work themselves down to the most base, minimalist core of universally appreciated, if not observed, sense of equal human worth. Even this is a loaded comment.
Given the nature of such ideological stances, I took to the linen bound, saddle stitch book with a laser cutter, removing sections of content indiscriminately. This removal created lush moments of typographic juxtaposition, as well as made a conceptual point to challenge the reader, acknowledging that hard and fast ideology is often full of holes.
