“Cyber Dada Manifesto” by Dale Nason, Troy Innocent

Title:

Cyber Dada Manifesto

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

1990

Medium:

cibachrome print

Size:

1989

Artist Statement:

The cyber dada manifesto was a key international video work (with associated writings and art work) that defined the cyber art scene in the 1990s. A powerful engagement with the paradigm of information and virtual realities, it anticipated the connected world that we now take for granted. In critical and scholarly writings on cyberculture and digital media it is recognized as a landmark work, and continues to be cited and discussed today and also exhibited throughout the world.

Accompanying the video work were artifacts, installation and printed versions of the manifesto. The Victoria & Albert Museum holds these in the their collection, and digital copies are included in the international Cyberpunk Project, an archive of cyberculture. The video was screened extensively at events such as Ausgraph, and SIGGRAPH, the leading annual conference on computer graphics. Cyber dada were involved in the emergence of public television, often staging video mixes that went for several hours as part of the Cyberthon series; and exhibited video work at the National Gallery of Victoria in the early 90s.

Text of the Manifesto:

DIGITIZE THE WORLD. (A new life awaits you). TECHNOLOGY is speeding ahead: DIGITIZE THE WORLD. (A new life awaits you). TECHNOLOGY is speeding ahead:
are you following the integrated golden horizons?
Take technology apart and see what it really is!
Reuse everything!
Make sculpture out of polystyrene, computers, plastic, metal, anything!
Become a techno junky. Wear technology!
ANYONE can make or be art. Exhibit on the street.
Exhibit on yourself. Glue your piece to Alan Bond’s front door!
Right of access to all data.
Graffiti artists: start cyber-tagging.
DON’T be rude: talk to your fax machine.
Work things out for yourself, go beyond current standards and values and make your own.
Master computers and you will have hacking power over banks, governments, and the military through technology.
Psychoactive designer foods.
Subversive cultures are starting to seep from the rotten foundations of our society – cut their hydraulic lines.
Civilization destroys the world so lets digitize it and save the entire human society on mainframe laser disk.
All humans and the junk they produce will be sealed inside a huge computer.
Forget the meat of your bodies. Full-on brain experiences await you inside a computer. Even have sex with a computer.
Interface!
Your true life and aspirations are inhibited by the weak flesh of your body – your body is a burden. It is simply meat. Wetware can enhance it.
Cyborg implants bring you closer to true experience.
Jack in to neuro-circuits. Once all people, objects, senses, and experiences are digitized onto laser disk (with backup copies) the real world can finally breathe a sign of relief as man has disappeared forever.
He has already tried to create his own environment, now the potential is here!
Organic life is no longer a valid lifestyle. Fully synthesized environments where all physical and emotional feelings can be chemically simulated.
Soon it will be possible to inject a biological computer to program your brain, extend your life, anything.
This is your future.
You are your consciousness, don’t let a physical existence fool you.
Physical bodies are now superseded, replace your body with machine and computer components. And become superhuman!
Self sufficient society, solar powered.
We can now venture to the limits of the cosmos because we are not bound by earthly dimensions. Cybernetics does not discriminate by looks, race, disabilities, sex, species because it is pure brain to brain communication.
Jack in your neurons to complete expression and communication to self.
Be free of disease, food, be totally efficient. Learn technology.
Moder man’s aesthetic is grounded in pre 20th century decorativeness and over indulgent art theorising.
The new aesthetic is computer generated CYBER DADA.
The new species are cyborgs, man/machines, precise superior flawless beings to house our consciousness and create a new world.
DON’T BE AFRAID : LEARN TECHNOLOGY : DON’T BE AFRAID.
By wearing circuitry you will represent the new age.
Take electronics apart and see what they are.
Learn electronics, computer programming : the arts of the future.
Don’t be intimidated by flashing lights and buzzing, and computers that look like microwave ovens!
Master technology so it wont beat you as it rapidly fills the world.
Technology controls the world so if you control technology…
The end of the world is coming, but it is the beginning of a perfect techno world. STOP reviving old cultures – HAVE NEW ONES!!!
The youth of today have become complacent and apathetic, easily controlled by advertising, the media, and unscrupulous governments.
Let the top of hierarchy know that they can’t use technology to control us, but that we are fully integrated with technology and it is ours.
Digitize the world!!!
It’s time to interface with technology and understand it.
KNOW IT personally.
Get TECH. out of the establishment and into the streets.
Dive in CYBERSPACE where all feelings and physical realities can be psycho-chemically simulated.
DON’T BE AFRAID : EXPOSE YOUR CIRCUITRY.
COME TO TERMS WITH TODAY’S MATERIALS.
The future will come whether you like it or not so be ready for it.
PAINTING HAS DIED AGAIN : stop using purely old materials like oil and canvas.
It will not last in a cyber world.
(WHICH WILL COME WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT).