Manifestos for committed art in the digital age

In the final decade of the last century, the appearance of artistic practices relating to digital technological media, and even more so the introduction of the internet, has brought about the emergence of an abundant series of theoretical texts with the intention of defining said behaviours, and at the same time, justifying their existence. Texts which serve to reupdate the large quantity of art literature – manifestos - which came about during the first third of the 20^th century with the historic avant-garde movements. Furthermore, some of the more recent manifestos refocus on the concepts that were already outlined at that time, relating to the role and mission of the artist, their capacity to influence for change (activism), the receiving public and the artistic manifestations themselves (characteristics of the work of art, beyond formal questions, and their dissemination in a sense relating to the masses), in a context that is much more complex and rich, associated with a change in the sociocultural paradigm, as was the arrival of so-called “mass society”. Our work has been focused on considering more vital aspects cited above, some of which have the same subject matter as a number of the more significant texts, beginning with The Conscience of a Hacker (1986), by Loyd Blankenship, and lastly, Redefinition of Artistic Practices (2000-2001), by the Société Anonyme.