Retroaktive Avantgarde

The "Manifesto of Futurism" was first published more than a century ago. Since then, a whole range of avant-garde programmes have followed. There is even a belief that the present is a 'post-manifesto-era'. Yet German-speaking pop groups, such as Tocotronic, Locas In Love, and Ja, Panik still publish them. With titles like "Kapitulation" and "The Angst and the Money" the bands' manifestos are distinct for their lack of a call to action. Instead, their publications connect old ideas about imagined futures with a current reality that fails to live up expectations or promise emancipation. This text examines these manifestos, analyzes their contexts and lines of tradition informed by New Historicism and the poetics of culture as well as pop theories.