[im] manifesto of Fred Forest

[Sugár János]

The 91-year-old French artist Fred Forest, known as a pioneer of video and digital art, has published an astonishing manifesto in the culture page of the newspaper “Le Monde”, Sunday-27-Monday April 28, in the form of an advertisement, which you can read below. It offers an unpretentious lesson in pure wisdom to politicians of all stripes, and invites artists to abandon the mirages of the golden calf, and put their imagination to work in the service of art in “other” ways, to face up urgently the changing cycles that are beginning before our very eyes:
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FRED FOREST SHOOTS HIS REVERENCE FOR ETHICAL AWARENESS AND A REALISABLE UTOPIA On the eve of my 92nd birthday, as I prepare to leave the public stage, I feel the need to leave a final testimony. It's not a cry of alarm or regret, but an exhortation, a bridge to the future. This message comes not from a politician, but from an artist. For art has always been a compass, a territory of resistance and experimentation. If history teaches us one thing, it's that it's often the creators, dreamers and builders of the imaginary who have been able to anticipate, reveal and even bend the course of time.

TODAY, PROGRESS CAN NO LONGER BE REDUCED TO AN ACCUMULATION OF TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS. We have explored, invented, fought and transformed. We have believed in the power of progress, in its promise of a better future. But today, progress can no longer be blind. It can no longer be reduced to an accumulation of technical innovations, disconnected from ethical issues and our collective responsibility. Technology is a formidable lever, but it only makes sense if it serves human beings rather than enslaving them. We urgently need to reconcile reason and sensitivity, power and wisdom, innovation and memory.

I HAVE NEVER  STOPPED TRYING TO OPEN UP SPACES FOR DIALOGUE Several decades ago, I symbolically opened up a white space in Le Monde, a space for questioning and interaction, a virgin ground where ideas, commitments and utopias could unfold freely. This space never remained empty. It gradually grew richer, nourished by exchanges, participatory positions and contributions from my fellow human beings. It was a space for dialogue and shared reflection, where art and thought found a place of free and critical expression. Today, at the end of my journey, this space reaches its ultimate form with this latest manifesto. It bears witness to the road we ve travelled, the resistance we've put up, the hopes we've raised. It is not a closing, but a passing of the baton, a call to continue the collective work of a thinkable, livable future.

WE HAVE REACHED A DECISIVE MOMENT A moment when each choice involves much more than our individual lives: it involves the very survival of humanity. Can we still pretend to ignore the destruction of ecosystems, the rise in inequalities, the fragmentation of our societies, and the grip of algorithms on our consciences? Can we continue to move forward blindly without questioning the finality of our actions, without questioning the direction we are collectively taking?

THIS MANIFESTO IS NEITHER A FAREWELL NOR A SURRENDER. It is a handover. A transmission addressed to those who refuse fatality, to those who understand that art has never been a simple ornamentation of the world, but an active force, a vector of change, a resistance to the trivialization of the living. It's a call to unite ethics and intelligence, memory and innovation, dreams and responsibility. To those who still know how to dream, create and dare, this text is for you. To those who refuse to give up on an achievable utopia, it is your manifesto.

Fred Forest