In this fast paced society we leave little time to understand what we truly desire for our short, precious lives. Manifestos uncover what we most want, and become a road map for how to get there. Mobile Manifesto is a traveling intervention that takes place inside of a truck, where one can develop a manifesto and walk away with a reminder of their beliefs in a form of an ID card.

Mobile Manifesto is one of many offerings created out my thesis called The Spectacle, which was developed at the School Visual Arts' MFA program Products of Design. The experience was developed in a seven week experience design class called Design Delight led by Emilie Baltz. The class’ overall goal was to create an experience that is full of delight and interaction. Mobile Manifesto is an experience to give people permanent reminders of what they really stand for in this spectacle world. Their manifestos take form as an id card so they can keep it in their wallets close to them at all times. It serves as a reminder and a physical piece of evidence that they are in command of their true desires, despite the outside influences bombarding us every single day of our lives.

The event took place inside of a truck in order to keep the event mobile just like the participant’s manifestos. Inside the truck is a manifesto mad lib on a oversize id card. The mad-lib is accompanied by carefully chosen inspiring words that are generated from inspirational manifestos and mission statements. Armed with a laptop, a smartphone, a printer, and a laminator we were able to snap a picture in front of the id card and print the IDs on the spot.

Instead exposing people to other’s desires, I wanted to help people get back in touch with their own. Standing on the shoulders of artists of the past like the Situationist, I created an intervention that will take place on the streets that breaks people’s daily routines and gets them in touch with their true desires. A manifesto uncovers your true desires and serves as a road map on how to get there. Great people like Dr. Martin Luther King and influential art collectives like Dada created manifestos that served as reminders of their life’s goals. This is what I wanted people to do and experience.

I was surprised and intrigued to see how long people spent on their manifestos. It was a proud moment to see that they took declaring their desires and intentions so seriously. People would erase and rewrite, erase, rewrite, ask a friend what they thought, have a deeper conversation about it, and write it again. A total of thirty five people have manifested with an ID card. The ID cards aren’t meant to be the end all be all of declaring your desires, it’s a tool to get people to start thinking about it.

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