Find a manifesto or position in art, craft, technology or science that dates before 1900 and explain what makes it relevant for our time.
„Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist also der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung.“
Quelle: Immanuel Kant: Werke in zwölf Bänden. Band 11, Frankfurt am Main 1977. First print in: Berlinische Monatsschrift, Dezember 1784, S. 481-494.
This piece of writing could be considered as the manifesto of the enlightenment movement that laid the foundation for our modern societies. It defines the central values of the enlightenment as the ability of humans to exit their self-inflicted immaturity in thinking. The Enlightenment was a humanist movement in society that had the goal of educating people, empowering them to think for themselves and learn further, resulting in critical thinking, decentralisation of knowledge, and wave of innovation. It had a huge impact on the theological, political, economical and scientific development of the last two centuries, but has not lost any relevance today as education, decentralisation and local empowerment still are one of the most effective tool in fighting poverty and self-empowerment.
Who am I ?
Nemo. A Human, creator, teacher, companion. I think about crafting, about stagnating, about moving, about others, about abstraction, about perception. I feel myself hovering, I feel restless, I feel motionless. I feel love, I feel connected, I feel desire, I feel empathic. I feel estrangement, I feel nothing. I am empty, what I do fills me. I am full, not doing anything grounds me. Nobody? Anybody? Do I know myself? Do others know me? How does my face look to the others? When did I last look into the mirror? Where am I going?
What is my ambition as a Designer?
I want to Teach others. I want to explore, find and share. I want to be unique and the same. I want to do things with my hands, I want to imagine things. I pursue beauty and detail. I want to collect beauty. I want to earn some money and be happy. I would like to change the world somehow. I want to find purpose what I create.
Pick a topic of interest and what do you think you can say about this that no one ever heard before?
Why do we always pursue novelty? In a world where probably everything has been thought of already, Innovation has become the currency. It has been corrupted to be a self-perpetuating system of creating and satifying needs. What does post-growth mean? A return to systems we never experienced? Are they truly new? Isnt Innovation reactionary? How do we class things into new and old? Can I, with my small horizon of experience truly find the new? Should we asess the «new» with reasonable criteria? What will be the next innovation in Art? Will it be influnced by developments in society? Can we find the next level of abstraction in expression?
I would like to express myself here with a painting or drawing, as I feel that its visual character would provide a better ground for sparking new thoughts in other people.