Destructural Manifesto

Destructural Manifesto.” Unpublished (2010). [Written in collaboration with Andrew Milne].

This manifesto was written in response to John McAndrew’s concept of destructrural video explored in his dissertation and on his blog. As McAndrew’s argues destructuralism is an art movement which aestheticizes “the exploration of medium specific flaws.”

Destructural Manifesto


Technologically we:

Declare the fallibility of all rationality to be the exclusion of the present.

Reveal the myopia of information and reason as visions realized through a complicit subscription: Only that which can be encoded will be declared to exist.

Denounce the asynchronous application of digital as the arrangement of the virtual and the denial of the physical, the real and the unseen. Abhor the deception of the two dimensional image.

Photography, film, video and digital photography; technologies for the dimensional compression of reality, simulations of inclusion and objectivity.

Refuse to acknowledge technology as spectacle; viewing technologies as only a collection of components enslaved to the aesthetics of need and desire.

Exploit the philosophical inherent within the analog and the digital, designing technologies to search out and embody the true aporia.

Acknowledge the human being as the central illusion of technological systems, the human in the machine.

Celebrate the post-modern return to the modern as the death of itself and the liberation of existence. History made possible through the experience of the now.

– Andrew Milne & Clint Enns
Founders of the Centre for Destructural Design currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The Centre for Destructural Design Mandate

The Centre for Destructural Design (CDD) is dedicated to using destructural techniques in order to investigate and design future digital/analogue technologies. Destructuralism is an art movement which aestheticizes “the exploration of medium specific flaws”[i]. Destructural techniques related to electronic experimentation include but are not limited to: 

– circuiting bending and circuit creation
– software manipulation and software creation
– synthesized images and video synthesizer creation

The CDD is interested in applying destructural techniques to the following technologies: 

– television
– video
– broadcasting
– holography
– file sharing
– file compression

The CDD intends to make the subversion, creation and implementation of technologies accessible through education, knowledge/idea/resource sharing and by exhibiting relevant work. The CDD adheres to an open source/design philosophy and believes in demystifying, sharing and providing access to source codes and design schematics.

The CDD is interesting in creating an environment which supports the exploration of destructural techniques. In addition, the CDD is interested in dialogue surrounding the philosophical and practical consequences of destructural design. 

– Clint Enns & Andrew Milne