Handbook · 05 · Day 4 · Srishti Manipal Interim 2026

In 150 words

The manifesto worksheet. Your identity says what it stands for, what it refuses and what its work must do, in its own voice, short enough to read aloud in under a minute.

seed manifesto · depth 6

When: Day 4 · Thu 26 Nov
Length: 150 words at most
Voice: First person, as the identity
Becomes: manifesto.md
Version 2: Critique 1 · Day 5

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What it is for

A manifesto is a public position with consequences. It tells a stranger what this identity believes, and it tells your system what it is allowed to do.

It speaks, it doesn't describe. Write as the identity, to someone. Not about the identity, and not about the artwork.
It commits. Every manifesto worth reading refuses something. If nobody could disagree with it, it isn't one yet.
It becomes rules. At least one line has to be precise enough to turn into a constraint in code next week.

This is not the artist statement. That comes on Day 16 and explains the work to visitors. The manifesto comes first, and the work has to answer to it. Keep your identity worksheet open: Parts A, D and E are your raw material.

Raw material

Five sentences, one each. Don't polish them; they're the bones.

The claimOne sentence the identity would sign its name to. What it knows to be true about the condition.

What it stands againstA practice, an image, a habit of thought or an institution. Name it.

The demandWhat must change, and for whom.

The methodHow its work is made. Take this from your rules in Part E of the identity worksheet.

The addressWho the manifesto speaks to, and what it asks of them.

The long draft

Twenty minutes. Write about 300 words in the identity's voice, building on the five sentences. Don't stop to edit. You need too much material so that you can cut.

Long draftAim for twice the final length.

0of ~300

Cut to 150

Edit by cutting, not by adding. Each pass removes one kind of weakness.

Cut 1 · Explanation

Any sentence that explains the identity instead of speaking as it. ~~"As a surveyor, she believes…"~~

Cut 2 · Hedges

~~I think~~, ~~perhaps~~, ~~kind of~~, ~~in a way~~, ~~somewhat~~. The identity is sure, or it doesn't say it.

Cut 3 · The first sentence

Drafts usually start warming up. Try starting from your second sentence.

Cut 4 · Vague adjectives

Replace ~~"the vast, changing city"~~ with a fact: a year, a number, a place, a name.

Cut 5 · Questions

A rhetorical question hands the work to the reader. Answer it, or cut it.

Cut 6 · Borrowed lines

Anything that sounds like a slogan you've heard before. If any identity could say it, yours shouldn't.

Before

I think that maybe the city has kind of forgotten its lakes, which is really sad.

After

I measure what this city has agreed to forget.

Manifesto, version 1150 words or fewer, counted the way most word counters do. Due by 3:30.

0of 150

Read aloud

In your group of four, read it twice: once in your voice, then once in someone else's. Hearing another person say it shows you which lines belong to the identity and which belong to you.

Listeners note three things, without discussion. Collect their notes here.

The line they rememberedKeep it. It may be your first line.

The line they'd cutIf two listeners agree, cut it.

The line that sounded borrowedFrom another artist, an advert, a textbook or a chatbot.

Into the system

Mark the lines that will become code. Each should point to a rule, a parameter or a limit your system will obey in Week 2.

Three lines and what they becomeOne per line: the manifesto line, then an arrow, then the rule. "Absence is drawn heavier than presence → line weight = 1 / rainfall".

What the system must never doFrom the refusals. These become tests you can run on your outputs.

References

Fifteen real references in references.md, from the identity's world, not a mood board. Spend the afternoon's field research filling them.

The condition

Datasets, archives, reports, maps, testimony.

Lineage

Practitioners and traditions the identity would cite.

Materials and methods

Techniques, tools, processes, algorithms.

Manifestos

Two from the reading list below, or your own find.

# References

## The condition
1. Title — author or source, year. Link or where to find it.
   Why: one line on what it gives the identity.

## Lineage
1. …

## Materials and methods
1. …

## Manifestos
1. …

Codex can help you search, but it can also invent sources that don't exist. Open every reference yourself before it goes in the list. An invented reference counts as no reference.

Version 2

After the read-aloud and the field research, rewrite it once more for Critique 1 on Day 5.

Manifesto, version 2150 words or fewer. This is what goes in manifesto.md.

0of 150

What changed, and whyTwo or three lines. Bring this to critique.

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Before you hand it in

150 words or fewer, and under a minute read aloud. Spoken in the first person, by the identity. Names the condition specifically: a place, a year, a number or a name. Refuses at least one thing. Contains at least one rule a machine could follow. No other identity in the cohort could sign it. Every reference in references.md has been opened and checked.

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Reading list

Short manifestos worth reading before you write. Read them for how they work, not for what to copy.

De Stijl manifestoTheo van Doesburg and others · 1918The movement behind this handbook's grid. A collective position in numbered points.
No ManifestoYvonne Rainer · 1965Almost entirely refusals. Shows how much a list of "no" can define a practice.
Sentences on Conceptual ArtSol LeWitt · 1969Numbered sentences that read like rules for a system. The closest ancestor to what you'll code.
Manifesto for Maintenance ArtMierle Laderman Ukeles · 1969A real condition (unpaid, unseen labour) turned into a position and then a body of work.
A Cyborg ManifestoDonna Haraway · 1985Long and dense; read the opening. An authored position used to think about technology and the body.
Dogme 95 "Vow of Chastity"Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg · 1995Ten rules for making films. Constraint as a creative method.
Glitch Studies ManifestoRosa Menkman · 2010A manifesto about computational error, from inside a digital practice.
The Futurist ManifestoF. T. Marinetti · 1909Read it as a warning. Its force came with a celebration of violence and war; notice what a manifesto can make sound attractive.

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A worked example

Version 2 from the identity worksheet's example. Note the refusals, the numbered rules and the closing address.

Anjana Rao, surveyor of tank beds

Example

I measure what this city has agreed to forget.

My father kept the boundary stones of a tank that was filled in 2004. I keep his measurements.

Every map of Bengaluru records what the city owns. None records what it has lost. I draw the second map.

I will not make loss beautiful. No aerial views, no blue gradients, no water I have not measured.

My rules:

Nothing is drawn that has not been measured.
Absence is drawn heavier than presence.
Every line carries its date and its source.

A boundary is not a line. It is a promise, and I record where it was broken.

The borewells in the east now go past a thousand feet. I draw that depth too.

You may be living on a tank bed. My map will tell you which one.