White Paper Manifesto is encoded in a stock image from Unsplash using steganography programme developed by nukeop. The image is stored in Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed network protocol created by Juan Benet. The peer-to-peer web protocol locates file by issuing a unique hash to each file on the network in a logic similar to blockchain technology, allowing efficient retrieval and storage of the file.

The main text of the manifesto exists as a white paper in the form of an ongoing google document, open to comment, ready for further edits and constantly updated. The artwork proposes planning as an artistic approach and situates artists in the current ever-hostile socio-political climate characterized by late capitalism, network culture, institutional failure, and the climate crisis. The white paper rethinks the logic of exhibiting and art production in this day and age. The white paper views proposal, as opposed to art production, as a valid artistic practice to navigate the current calcified art institutions and a starting point to imagine new economic systems for artists.

Adopting a metamodernist position (a concept coined by Luke Turner), the white paper oscillates between the grandiose statement of manifestos and the boring clauses in corporate annual reports. It appropriates the bureaucratic language of government agencies to speculate on a new mode of doing art. The idea describes will be ever-changing, in perpetual influx, never coming into conclusion nor fruition.

Following up on the institutional critique of conceptual art from the 60s, it advocates for an ecosystem that accommodates emerging forms of art - 'the art of delayed production (and indefinite planning)'. The project argues that planning exemplifies the oscillation between pure imagination and corporeal production, between jaded cynicism and fresh-eyed hopefulness. By drifting away from art production, the white paper speculates on a value system based on planning as opposed to producing - the aesthetic of delayed production.

The most updated version is alpha 1.4

White Paper Manifesto

You can contribute to the manifesto by commenting on the google document or on CodiMD

You can support White Paper Manifesto and the artist via Patreon