Futurismaesthetics of shock

–F.T. Marinetti

“On 11 October, 1908, after having worked for six years at my international review, Poesia, in

order to liberate the Italian lyrical genius, which was threatened with extinction from traditional and commercial obstacles, I suddenly felt that all the poems, articles, and debates were no longer sufficient. A change of method was absolutely imperative: to get down into the

streets, to attack the theaters, and to bring the fist into the midst of the artistic struggle.”

“ Marinetti managed to get “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” onto the newspaper’s front

page. It appeared on 20 February 1909, and Marinetti instantly became an international celebrity.”

Elements of Futurism

• contemptuous of everything that came before

• deeply connected to radical politics

• obsessed with speed, technology, violent action, and youth

• standard subject of a futurist work (painting) -fast-moving machine -train, airplane, motorcycle, bullets/guns

Timeline of Futurism

• After its founding (1909)- struggled to take hold

• its first performance - 3 April 1909, debut of King Hoot - Théâtre Marigny in Paris- panned

• 1910-1911 - expanded

• Feb. 1912- famous Paris exhibition of Futurist painting

Giacomo Balla, 1912, Dinamismo di un Cane al Guinzaglio (Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash), Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Ballerina in Blue, 1912

Gino Severini

Giacomo Balla, 1913

Speed of a Motorcycle

Ivo Pannaggi's "Speeding Train," 1922.

(Photo courtesy Fondazione Cassa di risparmio della Provincia di Macerata)

A gathering of futurists: Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini

Paris, February 9, 1912

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6syTQhm88u4&ebc=ANyPxKpR8Jei5Hhp8-sQJeGZn_1dspUCrDNeLmuj9tlpHWxC3m4OBlLmPkOOE39UY6nmumZF1dNwdct-SOWfYwkMOh1E5Whd0g

Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim: Historical Context

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_QhScwvs_I

Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim:

F. T. Marinetti and Futurist Performance

Futurism—The Latest Art Sensation

• extension of Futurism to the visual arts, music, and photography.

• development of the Futurist serata, or evening performance.

• A third was a sharp acceleration in the production of manifestos

ca.1911--Italian--drawing by Umberto Boccioni of a serata in Milan--Futurist serate consisted of speeches, manifesto readings, and poetry declamations. Riots often ensued due to incendiary and provocative ideas the Futurists laid forth.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

1914--Italian--Giacomo Balla's design for his Macchina Tipografica. Anti-realism and avant-garde.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

1914--Italian--Giacomo Balla's design for Macchina Tipografica--here is an attempt to show the dynamic and mechanized motion he wanted for the piece.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

ca. 1919--Italian--Ivo Pannaggi's design for "Mechanized Man" in Ballet Mechanico.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

ca. 1919--Italian--Ivo Pannaggi's costume design for prisoner G/H2 in Vasari's Anguish of Machines.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

1927--Italian--Cocktail--a one-act Futurist pantomime by Marinetti, choreographed by Prampolini--mechanization, dynamism, glorification of violence, anti-traditional--all the usual Futurist stances presented at the Theatre de la Madeleine.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

1927--Italian--Enrico Prampolini's costume design for Marinetti and Silvio Mix's Cocktail.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

1917--Italian--Balla's set design for Stravinsky's Feu d'artifice--Teatro Costanzi--a collaboration with the Ballets Russes.

source: Hekman Digital Archive

The Manifestos & Theoretical Writings

• The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909)

• Let’s Murder the Moonlight! (1909)

• Manifesto of the Futurist Painters (1910)

• Technical Manifesto (1910)

• Against Passéist Venice (1910)

• Futurist Speech to the English (1910)

• Futurism and Woman (1910)

• Manifesto of Futurist Musicians (1911)

• Futurist Music: Technical Manifesto (1911)

MAnifesto

a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

A MAnifesto

… asks the question, "What do you believe?" 

The Futurist Synthetic Theatreby F.T. Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli, Bruno Corr, 18th February 1915

With our synthesist movement in the theatre, we want to destroy the Technique that from the Greeks until now, instead of simplifying itself, has become more and more dogmatic, stupid, logical, meticulous, pedantic, strangling. THEREFORE: 1. It's stupid to write one hundred pages where one would do, only because the audience through habit and infantile instinct wants to see character in a play result from a series of events, wants to fool itself into thinking that the character really exists in order to admire the beauties of Art, meanwhile refusing to acknowledge any art if the author limits himself to sketching out a few of the character's traits. 2. It's stupid not to rebel against the prejudice of theatricality when life itself (which consists of actions vastly more awkward, uniform, and predictable than those which unfold in the world of art) is for the most part antitheatrical and even in this offers innumerable possibilities for the stage. EVERYTHING OF ANY VALUE IS THEATRICAL. 3. It's stupid to pander to the primitivism of the crowd, which, in the last analysis, wants to see the bad guy lose and the good guy win. 4. It's stupid to worry about verisimilitude (absurd because talent and worth have little to do with it). 5. It's stupid to want to explain with logical minuteness everything taking place on the stage, when even in life one never grasps an event entirely, in all its causes and consequences, because reality throbs around us, bombards us with squalls of fragments of interconnected events, mortised and tenoned together, confused, mixed up, chaotic. E.g., it's stupid to act out a contest between two persons always in an orderly, clear, and logical way, since in daily life we nearly always encounter mere flashes of argument made momentary by our modern experience, in a tram, a cafe, a railway station, which remain cinematic in our minds like fragmentary dynamic symphonies of gestures, words, lights, and sounds. 6. It's stupid to submit to obligatory crescendi, prepared effects, and postponed climaxes. 7. It's stupid to allow one's talent to be burdened with the weight of a technique that anyone (even imbeciles) can acquire by study, practice, and patience. 8. IT'S STUPID TO RENOUNCE THE DYNAMIC LEAP IN THE VOID OF TOTAL CREATION, BEYOND THE RANGE OF TERRITORY PREVIOUSLY EXPLORED. Dynamic, simultaneous. That is, born of improvisation, lightning-like intuition, from suggestive and revealing actuality. We believe that a thing is valuable to the extent that it is improvised (hours, minutes, seconds), not extensively prepared (months, years, centuries).

an excerpt

1 Danielle, Daniel, Bailey, Brianna Martinez,

Sage

Kaysie, Zackary C., Elizabeth G.,

Brianna Montes, Jordan Romero

Jacob, Mariana, Joe K., Alison,

Angel

Ashton, Justine, David, Nicholas,

Paula T.

Christian, Kayla, Brycen, Zachary S.,

Hidayeh

Mikayla, Lauren, Matthew, Yvette,

Yuvi

Jessica, Shannel, David Mendez, Justin,

Michele, Amber

December, Cecile, Eric, Yuli W.

Groups

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Outline what you as an individual artist/activist or as a member of a particular arts or other

creative group believe. 

Remember that your task is to narrow your focus to specific objectives related to larger principles.

Form these points into a manifesto on paper

Share/Read/Perform

MAnifesto Activity

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