What is a manifesto? 

A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made. It often is political or artistic in nature, but may present an individual’s life stance. Manifestos relating to religious beliefs are generally referred to as creeds. I will be looking at a chosen manifesto, identifying what it is an what it argues. The manifesto I have selected is called Andre Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto.

The main goal of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism is to free one’s mind from the past and from everyday reality to arrive at truths one has never known. By the time Breton wrote his manifesto, French poets—including Breton himself—and artists had already demonstrated Surrealist techniques in their work. In this sense, Breton was intent on explaining what painters and poets such as Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, Robert Desnos, Max Ernst, and Breton himself had already achieved.

In Breton’s view, one can learn to ascend to perception of a higher reality (the surreal), or more reality, if one can manage to liberate one’s psyche from traditional education, the drudgery of work, and the dullness of what is only useful in modern bourgeois culture. To achieve the heightened consciousness to which Breton wants humanity to aspire, those interested can also look to the example set by children, poets, and to a lesser extent, insane persons.

Children, Breton suggests, have not yet learned to stifle their imaginations as most adults have, and successful poets have, similarly, been able to break down the barriers of reason and tradition and have achieved ways of seeing, understanding, and creating that resemble the free, spontaneous imaginative play of children. On the other hand, as one grows up, one’s imagination is dulled by the need to make a living and by concern for practical matters. Hence, in the manifesto’s opening paragraphs, Breton calls for a return to the freedom of childhood. Furthermore, if the “insane” are, as Breton suggests, victims of their imaginations, one can learn from the mentally ill that hallucinations and illusions are often sources of considerable pleasure and creativity.

Because of Freud, Breton says, human beings can be imagined as heroic explorers who are able to push their investigations beyond the mere facts of reality and the conscious mind and seize dormant strengths buried in the subconscious. Freud’s work on the significance of dreams, Breton says, has been particularly crucial in this regard, and the manifesto contains a four-part defense of dreams.

Planning a responseWhen creating my own manifesto regarding political landscape I intend to use consumerism as the basis for my work. However I would like to possibly incorporate surrealism into my work along the way, using enhancement to create dream like landscapes which don’t really reflect the true nature of that area. To do this I would be using software such as Photoshop and Lightroom to create the products desired, as they provide me with the necessary tools required. I want my manifesto to be creative, looking at varying sides of consumerism not just one aspect, allowing for diversity in my work produced. I would love to use colour and vibrancy as one of my leading aspects in the manifesto as it would provide the audience with aesthetic and appealing imagery that had a deeper meaning under the surreal appearance.