FOREWORD

From the standpoint of practical knowledge, also, we might expect in advance that the more an empirical
science approximates to the “rational” stage, the stage of “exact” monological science, i.e., the greater the
extent to which its’ structure is ordered on the basis of well-developed eidetic disciplines, and to its’ own
advantage draws upon them for the grounding of its’ own propositions, the greater will be the increase in
scope and power of those practical services which are the fruits of knowledge.
Edmund Husserl. 1

Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where
mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources.
Wikipedia.

The Manifesto of Nomadism was originally conceived in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, in 2010, as a
working document - of course incomplete and structured for progression - for exploring and making
contemporary art. As such I had imagined it could be be used as a template or source of inspiration by
myself and others.

Manifestos are by definition not extensive theses, but a call to swift and sure action. Given the
status of Art in contemporary societies and its’ well-defined links to Capitalism and Class for instance,
and theories of cultural and individual expression, there is an urgent need within pakistan to engage in
the theoretical aspects of Art. One is reminded of Jacques Lacan: Nothing created appears without
urgency; nothing in urgency fails to surpass itself in speech . Thus, this manifesto is both reaction and
1

response to a need, and it perhaps functions particularly as an attempt to create a myriad of linkages
between theoretical concepts.

The art of writing about Art is not the making of art, it remains Writing. In order to develop
Critical Frameworks that can be applied to Art, Architecture and Design, one might take the advice of
Edmund Husserl and delve deeper into “rational” disciplines, so as to arrive at standpoints of objective
2

criticism and contextualization, processes vital to artistic, architectural and design practice in terms of
development and innovation. As is well-known, in order to analyze and synthesize theoretical
frameworks, then, there is no substitute to engagement with the thinking process and to begin
discovering the relations to creativity ; in my case, building on my academic history, there are
opportunities offered to me by Psychoanalytic Theory, Sociology and Linguistics as well as Contemporary
Philosophy, and however difficult and introrse these connections may seem, I am compelled to
investigate these leads, if it can be put as such. Indeed, speaking for myself, this involvement began with
an interest in Literary criticism in 1987 with Marinetti, Marcuse et al., and by 2003, after having acquired
professional training in Electronic Media, I was able to begin transposing my interest in Semiotics to an
artistic practice ( See ‘The King”). There are surprising revelations to be had: one might begin to
understand, for instance, that the Deleuzian concept, per se, of nomadism as War Machine, is
somewhat mistaken in its’ poetical enthusiasm - it cannot in reality be an anti-State force, but is instead
the appropriation of territories in order for the horde to survive as nomads; its’ disruptive intention, if
at all it wishes to be so, is a purpose bound to fail because the State reacts in order to defend itself with
the full force of it’s not inconsiderable resources. If in older times, nomads were freer to cross
geographical boundaries, this is just not the case in our times. To remain free of the State and yet be
entirely dependent on it is the real conundrum of societies. The illusion of freedom, as it turns out, is in
fact encouraged by purveyors of new technologies.
 The Manifesto of Nomadism is frankly an esoteric document. It is addressed to professionals
and academics, no doubt, but certainly not inaccessible to those who are aware of the imbrication, to
use a biological term, that forms artistic practice and theory in our times; for the moment I can only
indicate the reasons why it is intentionally a ‘dense’ document, rife with statements and injunctions, a
heated free play of associations within critical theory as written out by Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari,
among others, and a bit fearsomely, this structuralist poetics appears already dated. Nevertheless, I
have wished, even in the recent addition of a third sector, to anchor this document firmly in the present
latitude.

Paul-Mehdi Rizvi Karachi 2018

1. 241: Ecrits. Lacan, J. 1966. Translated by Bruce Fink.

2. IDEAS. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl. Translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson.1962
Edition. Page 58. COLLIER BOOKS. Macmillan Publishing Company ISBN 0-02-065910-5

Joint Artist’s justification: Chronotopia

Given the quiet success of the first Artists Of The Manifesto Of Nomadism of 2016 and in
keeping with its’ originator’s goal of experimentation and innovation primarily aimed at contemporary
usage of new materials (with its’ clearly stated caveat to avoid gimmickry ), and amidst the prevalent
confusion in certain quarters between constructing the Social on the one hand and Pure Aesthetics on
the other, it seems we were not so far off the mark in our intention of staying close to the home-
grounds of artistic endeavour.

We are not unconscious of the sheer range of territory that need to be taken account - on the
contrary. We are well beyond the post-modernism that underpins, in the case of Manizhe Ali and
myself, our oeuvres, negatively: we have discovered, along with The Poet, that the road we took is not
the one we should have taken. Ali Khan, for his part, is The New Optimist.

This observation allows for a more precise understanding of the situation we find ourselves in
and presumably can be stated as follows: while I have discovered means and methods to appropriate
and assimilate, for instance, theories of modern mathematics and am learning to transpose these into
the gallery, Manizhe Ali has retrieved a fascinating and no doubt enduring Jungian synchronicity visibly
operative in her art ( she has stories to tell), and Ali Khan continues to draw on the challenges of holding
to an artistic practice and producing viable Design in a city that remains notorious for being an immense
third-world conurbation. Making Art in Pakistan is now (perhaps it has always been and we are now
confronted with an even greater magnitude of the emics and etics ) analogically akin to a deranged
waltz across a topography variously described in turn as schizoid and insane, wonderful and fascinating.
Be that as it may, we hope to have learned from the writings of Said and Fanon and are in a position to
establish that we are not merely passing through.

Chronotopia then, as befits the title and basic curatorial concerns of is constituted of a series of
works executed over a period of years by each of the artists.
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direct usage of structuralist terms and conditions in art history and art
criticism;

equivalence of art and design;

exchange of operational concepts on exploratory bases, a free flow from one

territory to the other;

OR

blockage

}
Nomadic manifesto (String)= new manifesto(NOMADISM);

trace manifestoName ; // Nomadism

(THE SURREALIST ENDEAVOUR: AN AUDACIOUS PROJECT THAT, WITH URINALS AND LOBSTERS, CHALLENGED
IMPERIAL ART, GIVING RISE TO DIVERSE LINES OF FLIGHT ALONG WITH A MULTIPLICITY OF FLOWS AND
FORCES. YET, ONCE AGAIN, ANOTHER IMPERIALISM: MARKETING, HERE WITH ITS VAST FINANCIAL MEANS AND
POLITICAL PUISSANCE. PSYCHOLOGY IN SERVITUDE, PSYCHIATRY RELEGATED TO THE ORGANIC
STRATIFICATION. MAN IS BORN FREE, AND EVERYWHERE HE IS ENSLAVED TO RETAIL. AN OPPORTUNITY
ARISES, NEVERTHELESS - ONE THAT MUST BE GRASPED WITH OPEN EYES, ONE THAT HAS LESS AND LESS TO DO
WITH SOLELY IDENTIFYING CONTRADICTORY ELEMENTS BY MEANS OF ELABORATION, A WEAK ENUMERATION AT
BEST )
Class A : nomadism = ( Is the site of arrival or departure more important at
this time, than asking, who arrives and who departs? An event*ual
concatenation of arrivals and departures within a temporal framework allows
us to make up an array, and then to namespace appellations of nomadism and
migration. It would be a mistake, though, to take no notice of this fabulous
act of bracketisation, to assume that technology has decreased the
vicissitudes of nomadism, or eased its’ ruptures in any significant way, by
supplying many more vectors of flight. Agreed, concrete theory points to
initialisation of a weltenshauung, but its’ very existence may be little else
than a successful macrophagy by Capital, if you will. And, cyberspace, we
believe, whilst declaring and demarcating, fairly successfully, an attractive
and seemingly imperative topographical mass, essentially, in itself does not
nullify self-constructs in as forced migrancy does, and therefore, cannot
produce the revolutionary affect that an authentic challenge would. To be
sure, the bore-holes in plain sight remain qualitatively the same: it is the
horizons and vertizons that have changed somewhat; but we must deny this
complex*ity an overriding privilege of pure plurality and real-politik
assures us we are not misguided in this refusal. True nomadism remains a
burden for humanity, still, and migrancy, a forced displacement; If somehow,
for the fortunate among us, it is a case of shamanic capture, there on the
borders of divinity, then of course we seek to delineate a people, a coterie
of saints, as it were, but we must remember to not feel any guilt at all if
we fail to create any such thing as a tribe of Seers and the universe
continues to be indifferent to the endeavour. When we are offered a choice of
levitation or collapse, we might choose either or both, knowing it is always
a problem of plotting trajectories between and through a multidimensional set
of strata, milieus, polyvocities as well as monocultures, and geo*metric
possibilities; Regrettably, it has to be said, we can no longer reify the
megalopolis as destination, or even as settlement, and it should be
sufficient to see it for what it really is: an over-heated compendium of
signs and significations. Therefore, we cannot afford to be charmed by the
intensity of these flows and stoppages, unless, of course, we completely
understand that we ourselves may be injured by the same forces. Moreover, it
could be a matter of being deaf to architecture’s Post-Modern symphony,
knowing how it is that we have been more interested in raising many a
marvelous structure, but then not knowing what to do when a particular
edifice begins to fall; An intellectual may well aspire to the same behaviour
evinced by points that generate spatial forms, but then evaporate. To be even
more precise, it should be possible to appropriate an influential dimension
of invisibility. We embrace the suggestion, a proposition that has a frisson
all its’ own, that an intellectual possibly might employ powers far removed
from conventional forms, and since all such matters belong still to the
socius, this puissance moves along influential lines running parallel to
basic given forms; We must perforce ask, are nomads better at gauging
exchange values than most, and are they any better at re*forming the rates of
exchange than the average citizen? Whatever the case may be, let us be a
people of many words and as many actions, understanding that there will
always be societies, that some societies will display sterility and fecundity
according to the nurturing qualities of the strata they wish to inhabit.
Societies differ only in degrees of ingenuity when taking up a continuum. We
accept that migrant mankind will cart along the habits of being nomadic and
sedentary to the stars, and so, infect the universe. For the moment,
however, here in one corner of the earth, as nomads, we have an opportunity
to reinstate our navigational skills. We must seek a new methodology that
frankly appropriates abstracts as though they were, as all materials are
bound to be, at hand. We therefore explicitly accept the challenge of
creating an imperium based on the detection of fresh territory. Let us not
squander time merely wondering, and instead closely consider the
possibilities of art and design around which a sincere neo-structuralist
silence gathers;)

FUNCTION (nomadicMaterials.axiomatics): new FUNCTION = [( An enunciation is

in order, an enunciation in favour of a multi*plexed flow of pre-procedural
and pre-processual materials resulting in perhaps an outward dominance of
chaos, but instead is essentially a masterful tolerance of disruptive forces.
Here, we must clearly mention thresholds and limits from which destruction
steps back and in truth reconstitutes itself as life-saving schizophrenia;
Moreover, as a prescribed condition, amongst other requirements, of nomadism,
it is necessary to consider a temporal framework, a system of kinship and
agreed alliances, however pregnant with tension, of materials in their usage.
Our foundational notion of nomadism therefore, cannot be anything else but
one that, structurally speaking, involves the earth and those things
originally of the earth, which traverse its’ face and body: wind, fire, water
and of course, the skin of the earth itself as clay, sand, ore, deserts, seas
and forests. And it cannot be argued forcefully enough, we must also fit into
place that which delivers to us, if not truth, at least contextual
fabrication, in fact a content that is both inner lining and epidermal
stratum - in short, our power of abstraction, being a directive of the
intellect and indeed intellect itself, both of which are no less things of
the earth; This is not to mean deterioration into recidivism, another form of
nostalgia or even shamanism. That would be far too literary, one could say.
What we mean to say is that we must be mistrustful of a hysterical
disorientation within ourselves. Restlessness not content with calm
assurances, a fine suspicion of the reification of shining texts over and
above slippery grammar…these we must admit. Lest this matter be misconstrued,
it is not a question of abandoning the emotions as a source of intentional
force. In the words of a sympathiser, there is a world of failed ideas and
shattered dreams. All this notwithstanding, we do not imagine this situation
to be a good enough reason to forego this innovation, this form of
transcendental ratiocination, and undoubtedly, we must bring out our alembics
and lay them out well, all the better to savour without any real regard to
predicted results, our moments of entelechy;]

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