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Praxis Manifesto

Karen Eliot, 1986
Previous avant-garde movements have sought the realization of aims and principles set out in an endlees series of manifestos. In Praxis we arrive at practice.

Praxis abolishes the divide between theory and practice by defining itself in terms of the tautology "I am what I am." That is to say that whatever we are or do is Praxis.

Where previous avant-garde movements sought to define themselves through the exclusion of ideas, Praxis finds coherence in the totality of human endeavour and particularly in the endeavour to seek definition through exclusion.

Praxis supercedes Neoism precisely because it does not seek new artistic methods or aesthetic criteria. In Praxis we practice plagiarism as an artistic technique and investigate the use of the multiple name aesthetic. Individuality is to be questioned by everyone adopting the name Karen Eliot and issuing a magazine called SMILE.



From SMILE 8, London 1985