Compassion is Dissent: Manifesto Slam

25 June 2015 at 7pm

the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home

The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home put out anopen call for Compassion is Dissent: Manifesto Slam in mid May just

after the 2105 general election in the UK. The event featured on CriticalNetwork, the Institute's website and Facebook.

To get in, the participants had to bring their own 3 minute Manifesto!

They could deliver their Manifesto in any way they liked: slam it, singit, dance it, read it, shout and scream it if they felt the need.

The open call:

The Institute know a new political moment is upon us.The prospect of another 5 years of the austerity assault machine has forced us to act. We want to activate ourselves and each other in the face of this Tory-ality, this No Future. We want to realise ourselves in action, to outwit, outgrow and outlast.

How can we spread the virus of compassion, how can we fnd new weapons of dissent? In our small, insignifcant way, we are calling for the downfall of capitalism, starting with the crumbling of the neoliberal project and the simultaneous overthrowing of the current government.

Join us. You’ll be suitably rewarded with drinks and the company of fellow revolutionaries. Let us know you’re coming at theinstitute@twoaddthree.org Solidarity.

The Manifesto Slam was inspired by Chris Thorpe and Lucy Ellison'sdouble bill of Confrmation and #TORYCORE at the Unity Theatre in

Liverpool on 7 May 2015, the eve of the election, when social changefor the better seemed vaguely plausible...

The Compassion is Dissent: Manifesto Slam stage and seating was prepared by the Institute on the eve before the slam, 24 June 2015. The stage spelled out 'dissent', the seating 'compassion is a way'. This stage is the result of the recent Institute Makeover, with sincere thanks to Studio Polpo, a social enterprise architectural practice from Sheffeld.

Slammers in feminist alphabetical order were Cathy Butterworth and Mark Greenwood, Gary Anderson, Jennifer Verson, Lena Simic, Lorena Rivero de Beer, Mark Loudon, Michael Pierce, Paul Matosic (visual arts contribution), Tim Jeeves and Zoe Zontou (in absentia, delivered by Sid Anderson).Time keeper and compere was Sid Anderson. Sid also gave out prizes: six copies of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels and one copy of 100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists (all purchased from the News from Nowhere radical Liverpool bookstore).Distractors were babies Isaac and James.Documentation was provided by Mark Loudon, who has kindly photographed the event and Gary Anderson, who audio recorded all the manifesto slams. Lena Simic compiled this PDF.

Introduction to the event

• Cathy Butterworth and Mark Greenwood: 22 Mondays Manifesto

1. Only make work on a Monday2. Only make work about the north

o of England3. Test institutional boundaries4. Subvert popular culture5. Celebrate plagiarism6. Disseminate artwork at little or no

c cost7. Revisit defunct working class

rituals rituals8. Get a tattoo9. Utilize brinkmanship10. Give your artwork away11. Gamble at will12. Revisit the romantic13. Work with animals14. Explore borders15. Wear Oxblood DMs16. Determine Arcadia17. Work with bricks18. Resist political commitment19. Loop 8-bit music20. Avoid sleep21. Disturb portraits22. Abandon Hope

• Gary Anderson: back of an envelope manifesto (after Manifesto for Maintenance Art! 1969 by Mierle Laderman Ukeles)

IDEAS

A. The privatising instinct and thecollectivising instinct.The privatising instinct:separation/isolation, individuality,self-identifying as an ego ,contemporary art par-excellence, tofollow one's own part to privatising,doing your own thing, preventingothers with your dynamic.The collectivising instinct:integration, returning, relying, theperpetuation and maintenance of thespecies, common dependency,enabling others with your generosityand empathy

B. Two basic systems: privatisation and collectivisation The sourball of every privatising revolution: who's going to get paid enough to pick up the garbage on Bank Holiday Monday? Privatisation: the systematic, cold disenfranchisement of everybody except the 1%! Collectivisation: the consensual, warm, enfranchisement of the 99%! joyous, erotic, fulflling social encounters.

C. Collectivisation: is a drag; it takes all the fucking time, literally; the mind boggles and chafes at the boredom of inner power struggles – no status, no rewards, no pay – collectivist = no recognition or mis-recognition.

D. Politics: everything I say is politics is politics, everything I do is politics is politics 'politics is about who gets what, when and how'.

E. The demonstration of collectivisation 'Manifesto Slam' would zero in on our utter opposition to the present undemocratically elected TORY privatisation machine and BRING IT DOWN

• Jennifer Verson: Compassion is Dead

Compassion is deadCompassion is colonialComplexity is our only hopeHope is colonialHope is not based on logicHope is based on faithBut we can diagram complexityWe can draw a picture of our livesWe can use arrows to indicatethe fow of wealth and resources We can use equationsto explainthat the pavement we walk onis not ours, it's not our inheritanceinheritance as in inherited wealthas in the queen is not the only onewho has a right to the inherited wealthWe can use a formulato explainthat this parkthis pavement this job centre belongsto the children of Hararethat this parkthis pavement this job centre belongs to the children of Lahorehat this park

this pavement this job centre belongsto the children of Addis Ababait's not mine.

I don't belong heremy inheritance is scattered on asea shell strewn beach in the Gulf of Mexicowhere Ponce de Leon searched for afountain of youthand Jose Gaspar built a prisonto hold his captivesMy inheritance is a heartthat yearns for justiceWe can diagram justiceWe can map the relationship of the brothers and sistersin Libya, Lampedusa and CalaisThey remember this landThey remember their brothers and sisters and grandparentsgiving their lives for king and countryThey learned the words to God Save the King in missionary schools in RhodesiaThey survived the middle passageThey fought Nazi armies, Fascist armies,Imperial armies, with bayonets and

machine guns so that history could move forward in one direction from genocide and apartheidand a hatred of the other so systematically manufactured as to logically frame the placement of humans beings on cattle cars

We bought and sold7 generations of Africans We benefted from 12 million slaves3.25 million on British shipssailing across the AtlanticWe were on the side of victory in 2 world warsWe buried 30 000members of the King's African Rifes The men women and childrencamping on the beaches of Calaisdo not need our compassionThey are just returning fortheir inheritanceit is the Queen that should thinkabout sharing more fairlywith all of the childrenof the Empire.

• Lena Simic: Today 25 June 2015 at 18:10

Today 25 June 2015 at 18:10 I fail again. The process of speaking, of having to speak, humbles me. These are not my words. There's this worry about 'the pernicious substitution of intimacy and warmth for justice'. Again, I am stealing here. Today words fail me. Today is too much. The summer of 2015 is upon us. Abandon hope (summer is coming!). What are our weapons of dissent? Banner poetics, a friend said. Today I will give you slogans, mostly those which I haven't invented. Today I am a producer. Today I don't invent the new. Today I am all refection and no action. A paradox. What does it mean to begin, to initiate, to start?This is a philosophy of life, of natality, of action as Hannah Arendt would have it. Hannah Arendt, self-proclaimed political thinker, not a philosopher. Philosophy is set on contemplating death. 1. What's to be done? 2. Capitalism is crisis. 3. There is no need to fear or hope, only to look for new weapons. A break. I'm cooking rice. My mind is steaming and empty. IT IS A NEOLIBERAL CONSPIRACY TO DENY US OUR HUMAN RIGHT FOR A FUTURE LIFETHE CAPITALISTS ARE STEALING OUR MONEY AND OUR FUTUREMy friend Zoe writes in headlines.Today I am reliant on you. Today I will get through. Today I am taking on your instructions on how to live my life. I'm writing this manifesto. I'm cooking rice. One action interrupts the other. These days are given over... These months I step aside...I work in the background. I wonder what it is that makes one start something new, an action, an initiation. How does it begin? And today my student says: 'The processof speaking, of having to speak, humbles me.'

• Lorena Rivero de Beer: of course i feel compassion for you

of course i feel compassion for you, with your radical soul, hurt by injustice, marginalised by mainstream stupidity,for you who has the courage to fghtwhose strength cracks through your screams and consistent silencesfor you with your striking difference and your shattering tendernessfeeling your pain, becomes my privilege

but what about you my sisters and brothers?hiding behind your narrow minded investmentsdoing them just because you can so defensive and coward to my eyes

where do i fnd the compassion for my own hate of what you have becomefor the logics of neoliberalism that make your souls and the worlds you produce feel to me like putrid, dying fesh

how do i protect the space for our potential love?how do i fnd compassion for the painfully alienated and fragmented words that emerge when we talk?

how do i hold the absurdity of our fear?how do I look at you? how do i let you go? do I have to?

i am starved for compassion for what can’t be saidfor all the ones who die without dismantling a single piece of the machine

• Mark Loudon: My manifesto is better than your manifesto

My manifesto is better than your manifesto.

My manifesto overrides all pre-existing manifestos.

My manifesto destroys the past and invents the future.

My manifesto has a great font. (It's Futura. It was Stanley Kubrick’s favourite typeface.)

My manifesto is full of lies.

My manifesto is written in the breath of angels that condenses on the glass of a window which looks over paradise.

My manifesto is made of smoke.

My manifesto comes in a limited edition signed by the artist and hand-printed on to fairlytraded cotton t-shirts.

My manifesto is written in fre by a faming sword.

My manifesto is wordless and silent.

My manifesto is written on tiny scrolls found inside intact robins eggs: no-one knows howI got them in there.

My manifesto is purely an attitude.

My manifesto erupts slowly from the depths of my despair.

My manifesto is sung by blackbirds.

My manifesto has been eaten by dogs.

My manifesto is painted in soot and ochre in ancient caves.

My manifesto is scrawled in shit on prison walls.

My manifesto is written between the lines.

My manifesto is one unending scream of agony, rage and ecstasy.

My manifesto is for future generations and only they will really understand it.

My manifesto is concerned with every detail.

My manifesto is a stab in the dark.

My manifesto loses much in translation.

My manifesto can only be understood by the already initiated.

My manifesto won’t come down to your level.

My manifesto is a kick in the teeth.

My manifesto is “Soeinlangesgibtesnurbeiunswort” which is the German word for things for which there is only a word in German.

My manifesto whips up the following feelings in order to ruthlessly exploit them: fear, envy, avarice, hope, impatience, selfshness, altruism, patriotism, pity, disgust, perversion, apathy.

My manifesto exudes an underlying tone of menace.

My manifesto has been holding me back.

My manifesto is hopeless.

My manifesto is helpless.

My manifesto is hapless.

My manifesto is about helping people.

My manifesto is about helping people, hard working people.

My manifesto is about helping families.

My manifesto is about helping layabouts, lazy good for nothing layabouts.

My manifesto is true.

My manifesto blesses those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

My manifesto is a still small voice crying in a tempest.

My manifesto is the defeated whimper of a whipped cur.

My manifesto is bright.

My manifesto is right.

My manifesto is mine and only mine.

My manifesto is not what the country needs right now.

My manifesto is better than that.

My manifesto will change everything.

• Michael Pierce: Scalarama Manifesto

Scalarama ManifestoWhere there is a flm and an audience, there is cinema.

1. FILL THE LAND WITH CINEMASCinemas can be in bars, cafes, libraries, schools or family homes. They can be under motorways, on boats, at petrol stations or on the move. If you can't fndyour cinema, start it.

2. ASK YOURSELF WHY DO WE WANT TO SHARE?Show it. This is our strength.

3. CINEMA IS NOT JUST THE FILMEverything around it matters. Create an experience.

4. JUDGE FOR YOURSELFGood and bad are redundant. High art, low trash, critic's choice, family favourite. All flms are valid if you believe in them.

5. YOUR AUDIENCE ARE YOUR GUESTSFind your audience and engage them.

6. RESPECT THE DOUBLE BILL… and honour thy All-Nighter.

• Paul Matosic: you bastards

Visual arts contribution received via email on 15 June 2015. Thank you Paul!

• Tim Jeeves: 3 minute manifesto

This is the beginning of Minute 1

I’m going to sit down.(Sitting down)

This isn’t going to be much of a manifestoI’m not really in the mood to be very declamatoryI don’t really like certaintyOr I don’t really like certainty in the moment after things are certainI’m not really feeling inspired to write some kind of clever meta-manifesto that comments on the problematic nature of manifestosI’m sort of hoping that this isn’t thatIf I’m honest I’m feeling decidedly prosaicThis is a manifesto that’s simply a sharing of some thoughtsSome thinking that I’ve been doing recently

This is the end of Minute 1This is the beginning of Minute 2

I’ve been thinking about blame. About how we identify someone, or something, who’s fault it is when bad things happen.How sometimes bad things happen and we need to explain what caused them.We like to do this because the hope is to stop them happening again in the future.Nietzsche touched on this and some other philosophers have since as well. It’s not a

new realisation, but sometimes things happen due to such a complex set of causes that we can’t hope to identify what is going on.But we’ll still try.Of course, sometimes causes can be very simple to identify.

This is the end of Minute 2This is the beginning of Minute 3

(stands)

I’ve stood up. Before I stood up I knew that at least some of you would adjust your gaze. I knew that my action of standing would cause you to look at me differently. Hi.I also thought that some of you would wonder what I’m going to do now that I’m up here.Well… I’m going to sit down.

Similarly, we know that having found ourselves in an abusive, elitist, arrogant Tor-reality that 63% of the population did not vote for, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the 9th richest country in the world are going to suffer poverty,humiliation and hunger. Some are going to die.

This is the end of Minute 3This is the beginning of Minute 4. 45 seconds that I cheekily hope you’ll let me have.

Sometimes, we know what’s going to happen. Other times we don’t. There is never just one cause. One issue that, when resolved, will make things ok.I’m going to fnish with a quote. It’s a quote written over thirty years ago by a feminist, Adrienne Rich, about feminism, but I think the sentiment can equally be applied to a critique of capitalism.

An approach which traces militarism back to patriarchy and patriarchy back to thefundamental quality of maleness can be demoralizing and even paralyzing… Perhaps it is possible to be less fxed on the discovery of ‘original causes’. It might be more useful to ask, How do these values and behaviours get repeated generation after generation?

• Zoe Zontou: extracts marked in green from The Uzupis Constitution (delivered by Sid Anderson with off-script off-the-cuff comments)

'A few years ago the district of Uzupis, in the city of Vilnius, declared itself to be an independent republic. A President and bishop were appointed, four fags were designed [one for each season], and a suitable constitution was duly drawn up. The 41 rights which form the constitution are engraved on mirrors, attached to a wall on Paupio Street.'

Everyone has a right to make mistakes.

Everyone has the right to love and take care of a cat.

A dog has the right to be a dog.

Everyone has the right to be happy.

Everyone has the right to be unhappy.

Everyone has the right to understand.

Everyone has the right to understand nothing.

Everyone has the right to be of various nationalities.

Everyone has the right to celebrate or not to celebrate their birthday.

Everyone shall remember their name.

Everyone has the right to be misunderstood.

No-one has the right to make another person guilty.

Everyone has the right to be personal.

Everyone has the right to have no rights.

Everyone has the right to not be afraid.

Do not defeat.

Do not fght back.

Do not surrender.

Sid's deciding who gets what prize: The Communist Manifesto vs 100 Artists'Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists.

Compassion is Dissent: Manifesto Slam!James applauds our revolutionary verve!