The Manifesto for a Metastable Art was collaboratively written in 2018 by the members of FAMA (Four Artists for a Metastable Art) as an attempt to define and articulate a shared approach to artistic practice through the concept of metastability.
Conceived both as a serious and partially ironic reference to the historical tradition of artistic avant-gardes, the manifesto proposed metastability as a possible framework through which to think about artistic practice, collective processes, temporary equilibria, and continuously shifting relations between autonomy and collaboration.
Borrowing the concept from physics and neuroscience, metastability was understood not as a fixed or stable condition, but as a state of unstable balance capable of temporarily holding together heterogeneous elements, positions, and trajectories while remaining open to transformation.
THE METASTABLE ARTWORK:
IS NOT A STATE, BUT RATHER A DISPOSITION TO ACT – IS COMPOSED OF DYNAMIC, COEXISTANT, COMPLEMENTARY TENDENCIES – IS A SELF-ASSEMBLING PROCESS – IS NEITHER A STABLE STATE, NOR AN UNSTABLE STATE, IT ARISE SIMULTANEOUSLY AS BOTH – IS SYMPATHETIC AND HAS ITS OWN RHYTHM – IS A CONSTRUCTION OF SYSTEMS – IS AN OPEN AND A TRANSIENT SYSTEM WHICH EXISTS NEITHER IN PURE SYNCHRONIZATION NOR TOTAL SEPARATION – IS WHERE CHANGE AND PERSISTENCE ARE INTIMATELY LINKED – IS A DWELLING AND A DOOR – IS THE KEY TO COMBINE THE TENDENCY TO EXPRESS AUTONOMY WITH THE SIMULTANEOUS WISH TO WORK TOGETHER – IS THE FUTURE OF ART.
Manifesto — Metastable Work Reacting to Heat
printed multiple, edition of 150, 2018
Manifesto — Metastable Work Reacting to Heat was produced in 2018 by FAMA for BAU No. 15 – Journal of Contemporary Culture, Viareggio, a project inviting artists to create works in editions of 150 copies collected inside archival boxes.
For the occasion, FAMA developed a printed version of the Manifesto for a Metastable Art. Each copy contained a hidden sign — a “tilde” or “squiggle” associated with neuroscientific interpretations of metastability — drawn by hand using lemon juice.
When the box is first opened, the sign remains invisible. Only through proximity to a flame, or by applying sufficient thermal energy, does the mark gradually appear as a yellow-brown trace on the paper. The activation transforms the manifesto itself into a metastable object: a work suspended between latency and revelation, requiring the direct intervention of the viewer to become visible.
The work translated the concept of metastability into a material and temporal process, where heat, waiting, and activation become integral components of the piece itself.
Manifesto Box
interactive installation, 20 x 20 x15 cm, 2018
Manifesto Box was developed by FAMA in 2018 for the presentation of BAU No. 15 – Journal of Contemporary Culture at GAMC, Viareggio, as a second iteration of the Manifesto for a Metastable Art.
The work took the form of a mysterious black box equipped with a large white button. Remaining silent and inactive until touched, the device required the direct intervention of the viewer to become operational. Once activated, the box began to vibrate, producing simultaneously sinister and humorous mechanical sounds before slowly ejecting a printed paper resembling a receipt.
The printed strip contained the Manifesto for a Metastable Art, conceived as a temporary object to be taken away by the viewer. Like the previous printed edition, the manifesto appeared on an unstable support destined to gradually disappear over time, transforming the act of reading into a fragile and time-based experience.
Through vibration, activation, sound, and material instability, Manifesto Box translated the manifesto into an interactive device oscillating between sculpture, machine, performance, and distribution system.
