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Manifesto

 

THE OBJECT:PARADISE  MANIFESTO 


The only thing that is constant is change; a single moment can never be replicated again. OBJECT:PARADISE applies this notion to language to celebrate the innate uniqueness of utterances happening in a single time and space-specific context.

Because language is always happening for the first time, we aim to release it from its intention and foster a space where it can exist as its implication. To do this, we encourage the language user—producer and receiver, performer and audience—to embrace miscommunication to observe how connotative forces shape shared experience and understanding of the languages before them.

When we erase the restraints of denotation, the super ego of language, we find that we cannot produce poetry, but only receive it as it happens for the first time before us in the objective moment.




What is the objective moment?

Along with sharing a moment in time, comes the space where that time happens. It is often that at poetry readings there is a prescriptive space--meaning that the attendees of the event have prescriptive roles they must fulfill in order for the reading to achieve its intention: the poet stands before an audience (often in a turtleneck), and the audience listens (often with their hands crossed on their knee). If this act is not fulfilled, then one of two reasons are likely given:

  1. The audience does not understand the language of the poet; or
  2. The poet does not understand the language of the audience.

In both incidents, language is the enemy. This raises the core question, “is there a perfect poetic language, a language which embodies the correct amount of ambiguity and directness to be deemed poetic verse?”, but the answer is simple if we view language from a social perspective: language is not biological; or from the physics perspective: language is always changing. There is no one best word nor best order of the best words, only social perception, and trends that make language knowable or hip.

So if language can’t be objectively qualified as good or bad, then what would make it poetic in the first place? What would send chills down the spine and raise the hairs of our moles? We will argue that meaning is derived from context: time and space. This is clear when we think about our language choices; why is it that we can read the same poem at both a wedding and a funeral? Did the speaker really see two paths diverged in a wood? And what does that choice mean when taking a hand in marriage versus a hand in the casket?

It is only evident that because language relies on context to give it meaning, then poetry must as well. At poetry performances, the audience and the poet--which, according to this argument, we shouldn’t be making such distinctions--share only one thing: that moment, which constitutes time, space, and the actions before them. This time and space-specific context creates new forces on what the language once was, and in turn, forces intended denotation into implicated connotation. Language then begins to happen--it exists in the moment--and is always new if we accept, understand, and explore the pragmatics of the utterances before us.
Photo from Tunnel Vision(s) by Julie Orlova

How do we celebrate a language happening?



To celebrate a language happening is to open up our senses to everything occurring in the objective moment: sound, action, language, and physical space. Again, the poetry reading at the wedding and at the funeral taste differently.

With some orchestrated performances of sound, action, and language, unorchestrated happenings begin to be highlighted--the man spilling an entire pint on his crotch: is that part of the performance? Of course it is. It must be; it has to be.

It is when everyone who is part of the objective moment begins to ask themselves these questions we can see a true rejection of the “poet” providing meaning, but the moment itself and all of its chaos providing meaning. It is when this happens, we know we have provided a context for the subjective world to be experienced in the objective moment.



︎Manifesto Mantras ︎


  1. OBJECT:PARADISE IS THE INDUCTIVE SEDUCTION OF THE OBJECTIVE MOMENT

  2. USE THE LANGUAGE THAT THE PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE CREATE IN THAT MOMENT

  3. CONTEXT IS COTEXT

  4. MEDIATE THE THOUGHT AND THE BEAT

  5. EVERYTHING IS PART OF THE PERFORMANCE

  6. THE AUDIENCE IS THE POET

  7. DETHRONE, THEN DEMOTE THE POET WHO CAME KNOWING

  8. ELIMINATE THE EGO

  9. DEPLATFORM THE STAGE 

  10. ORCHESTRATE THE CHAOS

  11. LANGUAGE EXISTS ONLY IN A SINGLE MOMENT, THAT MOMENT

  12. DOWN WITH DENOTATION

  13. INTERACT THE REACTION

  14. CELEBRATE THE PARTY THAT LANGUAGE IS

  15. THE BEST WORDS IN THE BEST ORDER DOES NOT EXIST

  16. LET ALL PLANS GO WRONG

  17. DEMONETIZE LANGUAGE

  18. DEDOOM THE WRONG NOTES

  19. EMBRACE MISCOMMUNICATION

  20. PROMOTE THE CONTEXT FOR THE SUBJECTIVE WORLD TO BE EXPERIENCED IN THE OBJECTIVE MOMENT



︎ Special thanks to Sasha Honigman & Jan Černy for photos for our manifesto graphics.
︎ Special thanks to Zuzana Wrona for helping us build our digital identity.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.



Who we are


OBJECT:PARADISE is a performance and poetics collective founded in 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic by Tyko Say and Jeff Milton. The original concept was simple and remains our core principle today: let’s make the public poetry reading more accessible.

We don’t believe in a poetic language nor the best words in the best order, but rather believe that readings can be a celebration of language that everyone can come to. We want to deconstruct the classism and prejudice inherent in “good” language versus “bad” language use and, instead, celebrate the moment that language exists in.

In 2018 OBJECT:PARADISE had its first event, Poetry of Sound, at the Czech Inn in Prague, Czech Republic. The happening would inspire later events that emphasize the connotative forces of language; specifically, performance, sound, and space.

In 2020 OBJECT:PARADISE, z.s. became a non-profit organization where the OBJECT:PARADISE Manifesto was officially written. The collective has three equal governing bodies which are reflective of their mission to celebrate language in context: poetics, performance, and sound.

In June 2021, the collective launched an on-going, print-only project titled KROTCH Magazine which publishes monthly writings from collective and community members without any identifying author information. The objective of the project is to prioritize physicality, language, and the reader experience to fight against denotative authorship prevelant in modern identity poetics canon.

Since the collective’s creation in 2018, the collective has curated and directed various performances, installations, and multi-media projects in light of the Manifesto, generating a strong following of community members who seek to engage with poetics in a low-brow, accessible, and immersive way.


Press / Seen in


Terrain 13 (Terrain festival ; Spokane, Washington)

Apriticty Magazine, Volume VI (University of Texas Austin)

November 2022 Issue (South Flordia Poetry Journal)

Pražský Mikrofestival 2022 (A2 Magazine / iTvar)

Instant Nostalgia (A2 Magazine)

Object Paradise, el colectivo artístico que quiere devolver la vida y la voz al barrio de Žižkov(Radio Prague International)

Žižkov, Where Are You? (iTvar Magazine)

Atticus Review Issue Three (Atticus Review)

Poetics collective OBJECT:PARADISE celebrates Žižkov (Prague Monitor)

A Transcontinental Collaboration with Object:paradise (Flow Chart Foundation)

Tentacle Poetry Pop-up (Hudson Hall)

There’s a Projection Of Hope & Solidarity In Vinohrady (Prague Morning)

HYB4 Čítárna: Poetronika! (Kampus Hybernska)

So Say We All Public Access TV (SSWA TV)

Prague Microfestival  XIII (PMF)

Festival of Hope 2 (Versopolis)

Tyko Say of OBJECT:PARADISE: Five Things You Need To Write Powerful And Evocative Poetry  (Authority Magazine)

OBJECT:PARADISE Volume II to be Released on Seattle-based Sifter Grim (Prague Monitor)

Paradise Poems from New York & Prague (Culture Smuggling)


The OBJECT:PARADISE collective is currently governed by three members ︎


Founder & Director of Poetics and Media
Tyko Say

Director of Performance
Sandra Pasławska

Director of Poetics & Czech Media
Jaromír Lelek  





/ OBJECT:PARADISE IS THE INDUCTIVE SEDUCTION OF THE OBJECTIVE MOMENT / USE THE LANGUAGE THAT THE PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE CREATE IN THAT MOMENT / CONTEXT IS COTEXT / EVERYTHING IS PART OF THE PERFORMANCE / THE AUDIENCE IS THE POET / DETHRONE, THEN DEMOTE THE POET WHO CAME KNOWING / ELIMINATE THE EGO / DEPLATFORM THE STAGE / ORCHESTRATE THE CHAOS / LANGUAGE EXISTS ONLY IN A SINGLE MOMENT, THAT MOMENT /  DOWN WITH DENOTATION /  CELEBRATE THE PARTY THAT LANGUAGE IS / THE BEST WORDS IN THE BEST ORDER DOES NOT EXIST / LET ALL PLANS GO WRONG / DEMONETIZE LANGUAGE / EMBRACE MISCOMMUNICATION /  PROMOTE THE CONTEXT FOR THE SUBJECTIVE WORLD TO BE EXPERIENCED IN THE OBJECTIVE MOMENT