The time has come to publish The hitRECord Manifesto: both to proclaim hitRECord’s mission as a new kind of multimedia production company and to think through its significance as a novel form of collaborative art making.

To a Professor of Film & Media Studies like myself, hitRECord not only represents a historically innovative means for collective creation; it also stands as a profound social experiment that demands equally innovative forms of thought to meaningfully comprehend. One could write an old-fashioned, single-authored treatise about hitRECord’s artistic and social significance; but such an approach would likely suffocate the creative spirit we wish to understand. Instead, I propose an effort of collaborative reflection and design: a book-length manifesto constructed by the artistic and social processes hitRECord regularly puts into action.

Combining original insights, remixed quotations, and fetching illustrations in a finely constructed volume, The hitRECord Manifesto shall be as thrilling to behold as it is revelatory to read. To signal this dual objective, the book’s full title will be something along the lines of: The hitRECord Manifesto: Aphorisms, Citations, & Related Scribblings.

Now for the nitty-gritty: the hitRECord Manifesto collab is currently working on a FOUR-PHASE design process. Know that all phases are being carried out simultanously and that all hitRECorders are invited to collaborate in all four phases.                                                                                 

PHASE I: Create THINKrecords & Corresponding Graphics

(A) Create THINKrecords either by: (1) crafting a concise reflection about hitRECord in your own words; or by (2) citing a brief quotation from a previously published piece of writing (either non-fiction or fiction) which illuminates the artistic and social significance of hitRECord.

THINKrecords should be written in a strong declarative voice, use metaphorical language when appropriate, and subvert or defamiliarize common cultural assumptions and binary oppositions. Also, focus your THINKrecords. They should illuminate specific and concrete aspects of hitRECord rather than praise its existence in general. Here is an example that accomplishes just this:

"hitRECord embraces a scratch-and-stitch aesthetic, with visible breaks and seams affirming the multitudes behind every polished publication or exhibition. These blemishes trouble ideas of 'completeness' and 'perfection' but, in so doing, accord hR works their characteristic singularity and splendor" (see http://hitrecord.org/records/699348).

*When quoting from copyright-protected texts, do what every academic does by heart: cite your source! For example, see this THINKrecord I uploaded recently, which quotes from Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage: http://hitrecord.org/records/463481. Feel free to mimic my citation format, which follows Chicago Manual of Style guidelines (more at: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html).

Some areas for THINKrecords to explore:

• Online Collaboration: Its broad social and political implications.


• Again By Heart: Recording as repetition, ritual, and labor of love.


• Artist as Recorder: What does it mean to imagine the contemporary artist as first and foremost a recorder and not, say, as a poet, graphic artist, or songwriter? How must our vision of the artist as either lone genius or savvy entrepreneur change in the face of online recording and collaboration?


• Remix: Legal and economic issues involving intellectual property and copyright.


• New Media: How do digitization and electronic networks alter the ways we create and collaborate?  


• The Fate of Traditional Media: What happens to traditional media, such as writing, music, and the visual arts, when new media cause them to mix and remix?


• Two-Way Street: How does hitRECord blur conventional distinctions between production, distribution, and reception? How might it further unleash creative powers historically excluded by traditional broadcast media?


• Aesthetics: What artistic forms do hitRECord collaborations foster (collage, montage, accompaniment, remixing, etc.)?  What other forms might the future hold?  


• Suggest Relevant Authors to Cite. Key authors include, but are not limited to: Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, Lawrence Lessig, Glenn Gould, Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. “D. J. Spooky”), and Walter Benjamin (especially his famous essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”).  


• Suggest New Areas to Explore                                 

(B) Design GRAPHICS that either (1) reflect upon HitRECord in their own right; or (2) illustrate or meaningfully manipulate existing THINKrecords. A helpful hint: avoid direct or literal interpretations of texts. Instead, design graphics that add something new to texts, that enrich, complicate, and develop their meanings! 

PHASE II: Selecting, Pairing, & REvising 

During this phase, texts and images from PHASE I should selected, paired, and REvised for maximum elegance.

For current TEXT & IMAGE SELECTIONS, see: http://hitrecord.org/records/555333.

For current PHASE II PRODUCTION NOTES, see http://hitrecord.org/records/545329/forum?order=newest. 

PHASE III: DRAFTING MANIFESTO PAGES

CALLING ALL ILLUSTRATORS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS, & LAYOUT ARTISTS:

    DESIGN HiGH-RESOLUTION ...     

          SINGLE PAGES  [300dpi] (2592 × 3888); or

           DOUBLE PAGES [300dpi] (5184× 3888)

Here are some tips and guidelines for doing so:

•  Each page should feature a single THINKrecord as well as its title. It is important to retain THINKrecord titles because they tend to reframe, complicate, and enrich the RECords they introduce.

•  When designing a Manifesto page, avoid literalism or mere illustration. Instead, try to create graphics and layouts that develop and expand textual meanings.

•  Experiment with manipulating and reorienting typography in meaningful ways.

•  As of late, the inspirational model for the Manifesto’s page design is Marshall McLuhan’s THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (1967): a slimmish, rectangular thing that uses both recto- and verso- pages for laying out its stunning text-image compositions. Designed by Quentin Fiore, the book’s graphics not only embody McLuhan’s brilliant words; they enrich and complicate them as well. This makes the text a perfect model for the Manifesto project, provided we do not lose sight of hitRECord's own aesthetic specificity along the way. If you are interested in taking a gander at THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE, a few sample pages are available for viewing through Google Images. Otherwise, the book is available from Amazon.com and other online retailers for roughly $10.00 (U.S.).

For purposes of continuity and consistency, please work with the Manifesto's two primary fonts:

* UglyQua – (body text):
http://www.dafont.com/uglyqua.font

Paired with (optional)
* League Gothic – (title text):
http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/league-gothic

For current PAGE DRAFTS, see: http://hitrecord.org/records/555329. 

Phase IV: REvising manifesto pages from Phase III

More on the REvision process soon...

hitRECorders unite!

Art movements from Constructivism and Dada to Situationism and Fluxus all generated manifestos to announce radically new aesthetic practices that forever changed the meaning of art. Now is the moment for hitRECord to bear witness to its own contribution to history.

As always, I eagerly await your RECords and REmixes.

Sincerely,

videotroph