All Articles Tagged 'futurism' (15)

At the same time as the Dada movement was finding followers in Japan, the Futurists were also gaining ground. The leading exponent, the artist Tai Kambara, published the first Japanese Futurist poem, “The Dynamism of the Automobile”, in Shincho magazine in 1917. One translated excerpt…

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Yesterday was the 89th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake, the seismic event that destroyed Tokyo at the end of the Taisho Period. At the beginning of the Emperor Taisho's reign, however, 12 years before, the nation was rocked by shock waves of a different kind - the radical cultural…

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Right from his very first works in the mid-seventies, the French musician, writer and musicologist Jean-Marc Vivenza doesn't conceal the fact that he belongs to the both theoretical and political bond linking him to the Italian Futurist and Russian Constructivist movements. The propositions about formal, plastic noise from these two currents are the only theorical sources that haven't really been developed ever. Both a composer and a philosophe, Jean-Marc Vivenza actually calls his…

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"The changing perspectives of flight constitute an absolutely new reality that has nothing in common with the reality traditionally constituted by a terrestrial perspective.

"Painting from this new reality requires a profound contempt for detail and a need to synthesise and transfigure everything. "

These were two quotes from a 1929 Futurist manifesto,…

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Content is nothing. Looks are everything. We've seen great works of art created to advertise cheap soap or mediocre movies.

With books, looks are often inferior to content, but sometimes the opposite is true. Even a statistics handbook can become a work of art, provided with appropriate cover. That's what Lyubov Popova has done for the Russian Postage & Telegraph Statistics, 1921 (above):…

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Is there a place for commercial art in a "classic" Socialist society?

The obvious answer is "no". Everything's nationalized, planned and centralized, thus eliminating competition between manufacturers, services and brands. So what's left to advertise? But this answer is obvious only to those who do not understand the needs of such society and its rulers. There's still a need to promote important, although not compulsory, initiatives like investment into government bonds*…

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Early 1930s, before the Abyssinian War. Magazines are packed with ads.

Of course, we've seen some spectacular examples of Italian advertising. But this set, brought to us by…

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Sometimes one article is not enough. And it's exactly the case.

More than a year ago I posted a story of Fortunato Depero, the great Italian artist and designer, probably the most…

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The Flying Proletariat (1925)

By: V. V. Mayakovsky

Originally composed in 1925 by communist VV Mayakovsky, I know of no scholarly translations of this excellent dieselpunk poem. I hereby offer this (poorly) autotranslated version in an attempt to expose The Flying Proletariat to our Western audience. Should you know of a proper translation, or are willing to provide us with one, please contact me. Thank you.…

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Antonio Sant'Elia (1888 - 1916) was an Italian architect who built only a small villa - and had a tremendous influence upon the modern architecture.

He was born in Como, Lombardy. A builder by training, he opened a design office in Milan in 1912 and became involved with the Futurist movement. Between 1912 and 1914, influenced by industrial cities of the…

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Ordering a Campari, do we ever wonder who designed the Campari glass? No, we don't. We use to think that the glass always existed, as if it appeared from nowhere. So let's honor its designer - Fortunato Depero!

Born in Fondo (in the Italian Trentino region), Depero grew up in Rovereto and it was here he first began exhibiting his works, while serving as an apprentice to a marble worker. It was on a 1913 trip to Florence that he discovered… Continue

Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (December 22, 1876 – December 2, 1944) was an Italian ideologue, poet, editor, and founding father of the Futurist movement. Here's his historic Manifesto.

Fine arts' bad boy, a true revolutionary, he ended his days as a Member of Academy and an ally of the most reactionary regime. But he was always… Continue

Ford commercial linking new compact cars to futurism and the space… Continue

Premiere of all-robotic version of George Antheil's infamous Dada piece for 16 player pianos and percussion orchestra. Features new robotic instruments from LEMUR: League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots.





The Ballet mécanique was originally intended to accompany an experimental film by Fernand Léger, but the musical score is twice the length of the film and now stands alone. The score calls for a percussion ensemble consisting of three xylophones, four bass… Continue

The Futurist Manifesto

F. T. Marinetti, 1909



We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.



Our hearts were filled… Continue