Inspired by Italian Futurism, “Manifesto of a Tree” is an echo of exhaustion that I’ve found myself consistently facing—contextualizing my internal desire to find escape from the contemporary world.
As a Palestinian and Italian American, I have found that my identity is highly politicized, leading me to reflect on life outside of politics—my transformation into a tree.
My manifesto, while not explicitly about technology, delves into transhumanist themes as a meditation of envisioning a future in which humanity discovers a means of existing apolitically within the natural world, away from colonization and the horrors of war.
By introducing the work into a physical space as a mixtape of white noise, it is able to exist independently without a reliance on the technology that keeps many of us directly plugged into modern media.
The overall goal of this piece is to repurpose the concept of evolution in order to explore alternative modes of existence.
Contrasting man-made experiences with nature, the imagery invokes a sense of parallelism in the two worlds. Upon further thought, one may recognize that nature and human civilization are similar, yet extremely different.
By printing my cd’s booklet via the risograph, I am recognizing the environmental factors involved in my work. I could not create work about becoming one with nature without finding environmentally friendly materials to work with. The risograph’s soy-based inks demonstrate a sense of sustainability as opposed to other printing methods.
By drawing a line between sustainability and ecological consciousness, I am advocating for a utopian ideology of harmony within society.