Lawrence Weiner

 Lawrence Weiner has been a prominent conceptual artist since the 1960s, when his book 'Statements', a collection of texts describing artworks and ideas, was first published. In terms of thinking about space as 'doubt' or a country as indefinable, existing only to the individual, Weiner's work seems particularly relevant. 

 All of Weiner's work is based upon, and intrinsically connected to a self-imposed manifesto that states: 

1. The Artist may construct the piece

2. The piece may be fabricated

3. The piece need not be built

 To state that the idea or concept of a piece of work is as important, or more important than the piece itself, was revolutionary and has helped to reshape how art is thought about and taught.

 In terms of the project, then: 

We were thinking about how formulas and structured diagrams can help to structure a way of working that will create coherent responses, and maybe this could be achieved through a written manifesto or set of rules. Furthermore, Weiner's basic approach to art links with Perec's writing about borders: just because the piece doesn't exist physically, this does not make the idea any less valid. Similarly, just because a country's borders are not physically set in stone, this does not make it any less of a country. 

 Once we have a clearer idea of how we want our country to behave, it might be interesting to play with the idea of a manifesto that could be flexible and vague, seemingly rigid, yet with room for interpretation, much like the work see in 'formulas for now', or even the borders of space that Perec describes.