Aut Manifesto
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
This is a fraudulent and apocryphal manifesto. It is also true and written in earnest. Aut welcomes the writing of a manifesto, but once written laughs at it. Whether this manifesto is taken seriously or seen merely as an inane endeavour by those who read it is of no consequence. For who is to say, when an autist speaks, whether the words are anything but uttered nonsense? This manifesto is a work of aut.
aut-: (gk, fr. ‘autos’ same, -self, self) 1: self: same one 2: automatic; self-acting; self-regulating
autarky: self-sufficiency, independence
authentic: being what it purports to be; not false or fictitious; genuine; valid
author: the beginner, former, or first mover of anything; efficient cause
autism: absorption in self-centered subjective mental activity (as daydreams, fantastic delusions, and hallucinations) esp. when accompanied by a marked withdrawal from reality
automatic: not depending on the will
aught: anything, indefinitely
ought: (originally the preterite of the verb ‘to owe’) 1: to be held or bound by duty or moral obligation 2: aught; anything 3: (a corruption of nought) a vulgar name for a cipher
What is aut?
- aut was born of art.
- aut is the expression of the perniciously naive.
- aut is an excuse for nonsense.
- aut is a maggot that never intends to become a fly, but has no choice.
- aut does not owe you an explanation.
- aut is both the expression of a self and a self.
- aut is nothing but tautology.
- aut is not what is not aut.
‘Aut is not what is not aut’
is the central statement in aut ideology. It is a misinterpretation, a corruption, of Ad Reinhardt’s statement of art-as-art. Reinhardt said:“The one thing to say about art is that it is one thing. Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else. Art-as-art is nothing but art. Art is not what is not art.”
So too with aut, but aut is simultaneously itself and many things.
‘Aut is not what is not aut’ is as amphibolous and beautiful as the phrase
“I SAW A MAN EATING FISH”.
Like a work of aut itself, the phrase can be interpreted any of a number of ways, all of which aut has the privilege of appropriating.
- Aut is naught. *aut is nothing*
- Aught is naught. *anything is nothing; everything is equivalent to nothing*
- Ought is naught. *owing nothing* or *nothing is nothing; the nonexistence of nothing; the existence of only things*
- Aut is naught, *the self is nothing: Existentialism*
- What is not aut? *what exists but the self?: Solipsism*
- Aut. Is not what is not aut? *is it not the case that those things which are, cannot be considered ‘not aut’? ‘not aught’?*
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And so on.
Aut recognizes its own inconsistencies and tautologies, and does not attempt to correct them.
Aut is a state inhabited by the object. A state of simultaneous opacity and transparency.
Aut looks exactly like art. The viewer may never know that the object beheld is aut.
Phonetically, the two words are almost indistinguishable as one moves into other dialects.
A work of aut can be beautifully crafted, or it may be produced cheaply. Like conceptual art, the idea is more important than the object which carries is, but an aut object harbours no such idea. Aut is conceptual art without the concept.
Aut is an excuse for the autist to produce without thought.
Aut embraces frivolity and apathy, sarcasm and nonsense.
Aut, like Duchamp’s Readymades, relies on the autist to proclaim it as such. This is the only authority the autist has.
The autist is not a believer in the death of the master narrative or the death of the author. There can be no ‘death’, because for the autist these things do not exist.
It is the lack of meaning imposed by the autist which allows layers of meaning to develop independently.
Or, the viewer proclaims it to be crap.
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The work of aut is flung out into the world without didactic panel or statement of intent. Its meaning is furnished solely by the viewer. The autist has nothing to say and refuses to accept responsibility for what is heard.
Aut, too, takes no responsibility for the actions of the autist. Which is the real self?
Aut is its own authority. Not even the autist has true authorship. The autist is the creator of the object, but neither creator nor controller of the meaning.
It is through the authority of the object that the object becomes a self. The work of aut has a life of its own.
Aut both disdains and welcomes criticism.
Aut is unconcerned with the criticism it is given. The autist also remains unmoved.
Aut tricks the viewer into thinking it is art, but it is no trick. Meaning is neither confirmed nor denied. It doesn’t matter to the autist what levels of meaning may appear or fail to appear.
There is no right answer.
Here is an important distinction: if the viewer ponders that, they may come to a logical consequence. “There is no right answer” is not necessarily equivalent to “There is no one right answer” or “There are many right answers”. Instead, one arrives at
NO ANSWERS ARE RIGHT is logically equivalent to ALL ANSWERS ARE WRONG.
The viewer who sees the sublime and the viewer who sees nothing but nonsense are both equally right (both equally wrong).
Here is an important word about nonsense: nonsense is only such insofar as the receiver of the information cannot interpret it. If the receiver of the information is willing enough, any number of meanings can be called into existence. If the viewer is unwilling, there is only the meaningless.
Aut does not object to the gaze of the perniciously naive. It meets that gaze with one equally pernicious, equally naive.
The autist’s work can be seen as meaning from meaninglessness, or vice versa.
Ought is naught, nothing is nothing, everything has meaning, there is only meaning.
Aught is naught, anything is nothing, nothing has meaning, there is no meaning.
AUT IS NOT WHAT IS NOT AUT. DEAL WITH IT, PINK BOY.
mctrmt and wolsmr
1998
