Manifestos

Manifestos

Donut Manifesto

The purpose: to realize eternity through frivolity.

The thought process:
0. This is not a prescription, it is an interpretation.

1. Frivolity is a healthy, sensible, and practical attitude -- it is the lighthearted rejection of the rationalization that we will not someday die. It is the realization of our transitory nature and as such, it is the ultimate afÞrmation of life.

2. As much can be achieved through frivolity as faith. Both generate the courage necessary to sustain one through the harshest conditions.

3. The frivolous mind is the ultimate critical mind. All rationalizations cease to exist when we realize that we live a trivial existence and rejoice in it.

4. Rejoice in it!

Arbitrary Theatre Manifesto

Arbitrary Theatre is not a new trick for the jaded. It is about the realization of the arbitrary nature of creation. What else is theatre but the adroit manipulation of a set of rules for controlling groups of people?

Don't get us wrong; we do not decry the arbitrary, we recognize and embrace it. The manifestation of Big-A Theatre is in the discovery, elaboration, and celebration of tools and methods. It's a rev-olution -elation of process over form. The foundations of creation have been plumbed by the futurists, the dadaists, the deconstructionists; the Arbitrary Theatre is not about to reconstruct the foundation. We are not angry at the superstructure; we want to engineer it, tweak it into more and more fun shapes.

The Six Aspects of Big-A Theatre:

  1. Synergy. Knowing the whole and a few of the parts and extrapolating the behavior of the rest. (An example: the practice of starting with a title and documenting the attempt to figure out what it means.)
  2. Intuition/Dream. It is essential that the intuitive dream voice is not drowned out by method or convention. The intuitive dream voice must be incorporated into the method.
  3. Humility. The arbitrary artist must place just enough stock in the artist's place in the process.
  4. Synthesis. Compression. Recognizing/challenging the context-shifting sophistication of the audience.
  5. Cybernetics. Augmentation of the conceptual space by any and all means.
  6. Artifact. How can one believe that things can change if we do not have models to pawn off to the future? We are not angry at museums or churches; both have their place in the process. However; for the sake of the process both must be used properly. Big-A Theatre is a theatre of triangles.

    Mediated Human Interaction Manifesto

  7. Talk-show partitioning of human and political interactions into 'problem' and 'solution' is dangerous to the individual and to the process of human evolution.

  8. As a more responsible member of the media, we posit a process of creation that starts by presupposing 'solutions' to all 'problems' posed by the less-responsible members of the media. It is in this way that our working process can be called political.

  9. In light of electronic media's unmatchable ability to modify and replicate itself, we have no choice but to use it, but in such a manner as to create individual human experiences.

  10. Framing and amplifying human experience at a moment is the simple goal of the process.

  11. The complex goal of the process is a secret.