Shalom Neuman, "Fusion Arts Manifesto"

Fusion Arts Manifesto
Shalom Neuman

“There is nothing new under the sun,” goes the old adage. What does change, however, is configuration. That change, as another well-known adage has it, “is constant”; in human terms, it is often the agent of modification, of perception.

Resulting technologies emerge, creating opportunities for broader methodologies of utilization: illumination, sonics, motion, communication, architectonics. Hand-in-hand with science - the imperative of which is the observation and manipulation of phenomena - is the artist who sits at the center of this shifting maelstrom of perception. The artist is part magician and part town-crier, busy with the invention and employment of tools meant to facilitate various modes of articulation.

Fusion arts, in the tradition of artists of the Bauhaus, seeks a closer relationship with science as well. Its manifesto is as follows:

1. We advocate as sublime the integration of all cultures, races, religions, ideologies and art forms.

2. We reject all that is dogmatic because it is divisive by nature.

3. We aim for maximalism, to bridge and combine rather than reduce, minimize and restrict.

4. We are inspired and driven by an inner need, by a deep passion to create and are not driven by misplaced ulterior motives. We are not slaves to a process devoid of political, social, emotional, and conceptual meaning.

5. We believe that the continued creation of minimalistic, abstract and concrete art is reactionary - repeating the past and not creating the future.

6. We espouse the use of all contemporary technological mediums and materials for melding, for fusing and thus for creating the art of the future.

7. We promote recognition for talent, creativity and vision and we recognize the truth that comes from creating art for its own sake and not for commercialization and profit.

8. We praise the collective spirit.

9. We eschew contemporary art which is narcissistic, self congratulatory and promotional.

10. We aspire to create archival art which can and will invade all sensory levels and by its limitless nature espouses the infinite.

Shalom Neuman
New York 1995