Futurism

From Polcompball Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

"It is from Italy that we are flinging this to the world, our manifesto of burning and overwhelming violence, with which we today establish 'Futurism', for we intend to free this nation from its fetid cancer of professors, archaeologists, tour guides, and antiquarians."

Futurism was an originally Italian artistic philosophical movement based on a Ultra-Modernist spirit based on beauty an action. It believes beauty is found in the new, speed and dynamic culture; said culture is achieved in rebellion and action against the past, and following that logic all Futurists sought to understand the means to find that beauty.

Futurism thus believes in revolutionary thought promoting beauty, violence, the abolition of past traditions, hyper-industrialism, and the whole of human passion and emotion. It rejects any form of utilitarianism, moralism or conservatism; choosing instead to lean on individualism and similar conclusions.

In its search for action, Futurists have supported a range of political movements in the past, from Fascists, to Socialists, and even Anarchists. However many of its involved politicians and philosophers, especially its founder, F. T. Marinetti, have lead or developed their own political movements.

History

Primero Futurismo

Violent Creation and Action

Futurism began as a wider Avant-Garde movement on February 5th, 1909 in Italy when Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti published "The Manifesto of Futurism" in the magazine La Gazzetta dell'Emilia, later republished in the French newspaper Le Figaro. Futurism was characterized from its inception as the fetishization of the new; violence, speed, technology, all recounted in the manifesto as essential forms of beauty.

Early exponents of Futurism were involved in many movements of nationalist character, Marinetti especially would actively support Italian nationalism and Italian entry to the war. Besides his eccentricities, most early Futurists would be interventionist, many such as Luigi Russolo, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà and Marinetti himself would fight for Italy. The biggest exception would be Gino Severini and Giacomo Balla, both who, regardless of war, would support fascism in some way later in their lives.

Artistic Movement Creates a Political Movement

In 1918, Marinetti, together with Emilio Settimelli and Mario Carli founded the Futurist Political Party, the party was designed to be what Marinetti called a "compact fusion of an artistic, political and military engagement." This militarism and already existent nationalistic sentiment would lead the party to ally and organize with Benito Mussolini's Fasci Italiani di Combattimento and Arditi movements, believing them to be representative of a progressive generation of Italian nationalism.

The party would expose wildly varying ideas, from staunch secularism, to Georgist economics, to adhocratic bureaucracy, and an extreme nationalistic sentiment, calling for military presence until the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire and a dogmatic souverainism. Carli would also form his own Arditi journal, exploring the philosophy in what many call Arditism; this would show strong resemblances to the Futurist program, leading to close cooperation between both circles in what developed Ardito-Futurism.

Even though the movement was nominally anti-Socialist, it actively sought for left-wing members in anarchist, left-syndicalist and communists. Instead their anti-Socialism came from opposing the Italian Socialist Party, which was believed to be cowardly and representative of conservative institutions, as opposed to the Bolsheviks and Communists alike, who had aesthetic and revolutionary fervor

Compared to the Arditi, the early Futurist relation with Mussolini was far less friendly. Marinetti and Mussolini would become personally close meeting frequently during the whole of 1919. From their earliest meetings in late 1918, Marinetti would show skepticism towards Mussolini, in what he saw a "Napoleonic elitism," although never public, these feelings would be essential for their later relationship.

Similarly Mussolini was also skeptic towards Arditi socialist-like ideals of revolution, something that would conflict with Fascist class collaborationist theory. However, either due to opportunism or genuine revolutionary ideals, Mussolini would still ally tightly with Futurist-Arditists. As Marinetti saw him as a "man of steel and the future," he sought to keep up this revolutionary figure to further develop a mass movement.

The Celebration City

The Fiume enterprise or Regency of Carnaro was a city-state cultural movement, lead by Gabriele D'Annunzio, this city experiment would come to aestheticization of the political form to protest League of Nations policy surrounding Rijeka/Fiume's legal status, asking for Italian annexation of the city, much to the dismay of Yugoslavist policy.

While the experiment was never explicitly futurist, in its search for an aesthetic un-dogmatic state it followed similar trends to Futurism. These trends range from a support of free love, corporatist economics, individualism, aestheticism and revolutionary ideals. As such, many prominent futurists would visit or even support the city during D'Annunzio's 3 year rule.

Out of these Futurist elements, Guido Keller and Alceste de Ambris might be the most pro active in their cooperation. Keller, founder of the Unione Yoga, would be praised by Marinetti, and lead the pirate wing of Fiume, riling many futurists under his Dyonisian Individualism. On the other hand, Ambris, a syndicalist theorist and co-founder of the Fascio d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, would help Marinetti develop his more political thoughts, and later co-authoring the Fascist manifesto with him. Both playing major roles in Fiume, would help establish the Futurists as a political force in Fiume.

The enterprise would have many prominent futurist figures, with Marinetti himself being directly involved early on, however he would later leave the Fiumean-futurist wing to leader of the Arditi, Mario Carli. These figures being the previously mentioned Carli, Giuseppe Bottai, Ferruccio Vecchi and obviously Marinetti himself. Carli, Bottai and Vecchi being a part of the Arditi wing, the active militia of Fiume; Carli specially leading it and being a part of D'Annunzio's personal guard.

Olà-eh! Olà-ooh! Distrutto! Distrutto!

As the 1919 elections came near, Marinetti published his essay called "Futurist Democracy", gaining great attention from Italian circles. As Futurist popularity grew Mussolini agreed to a deeper ideological alliance in what became known as "Futur-Fascisti" ideology.

However, as electoral results proved to be underwhelming, Mussolini would split from the Fascio's revolutionary wing, in place of a less proletarian conservative worldview. The Ardito-Futurists would protest this, developing to also protest supposed monarchist sympathies and Mussolini's personality cult. These protests would be proven pointless, as the Ardito-Futurists were outvoted by the new conservative Fascio.

After this fiasco, much of the momentum for Marinettean politics had worn off, and the movement in Italy would see other wings of Futurism coming to prominence. Marinetti's legacy inside the movement would become far more complicated, as other Futurists sought politics many would see Marinetti on a sourer note.

The Horn of Time

Developing at a similar time, Russian Futurism was an artistic philosophical movement based on similar ideas to Italian Futurists of vulgarity and rejection of the past. The first explicitly Futurist society would be the Hylaea group, founded by Benedikt Livshits and David Burliuk, the movement would only start to call itself Futurist in 1912, when it published its manifesto "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste."

Their poetry would center around an anti-urbanist worldview, one originated in artistic primitivism leading to neo-folk thematic in great part of their work. This however, should not bring you to think they were in any form conservative, they extensively criticized past "tight" art.

Conversely, the Hylaea group would ask for bold grandeur behavior and art. Similarly leaning towards revolutionary ideas of violence, in a cynical and vulgar anti-traditional protest. This fervor would lead many of its main leaders, such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov and Burliuk himself to socialist-like ideals.

In the artistic realm, Russian Futurists would become famous by their experimentation with rhymes and structure, ranging from "front rhymes" to "reverse rhymes." Russian Futurists would also become famous for their use of neologisms, mixing archaisms, completely new terms and imported European terms to their poetry.

Thought Until Madness

Very distinct to the Hylaea group, Ego-Futurists would develop from Saint Petersburg urbanist societies as opposed to the Muscovite folk character of the Hylaea group. Lead by Igor Severyanin, the movement would be founded in 1911, being the first record of self-proclaimed Futurism in Russia.

Vastly different from Hylaean aversion to the West, Ego-Futurists would be strongly Europhilic. Being openly Futurist from the get-go, they sought to import Egoist, Theosophical and Futurist philosophy to Russian poetry. This Europhilia is reflected upon their use of neologisms, being mostly focused on introducing foreign words into Russian vocabulary.

Ego-Futurists would also diverge in philosophy, believing in a Pan-theist justification of Egoism and general individualism. This seemingly contradictory set of beliefs made Severyanin into a rather expansive figure, one that never denies the collective soul but embraces it, much to the dismay of other Ego-Futurists

As many Ego-Futurists began to be critical of Severyanin's ideas and supposed cult of personality, they would organize around Ivan Ignatyev, a much more conventional Egoist Individualist. And as pressure increased, and Severyanin distanced himself further from his own group, he would resign from Ego-Futurism, claiming that "[he was] the future."

After the split, Ignatyev would become the leading figure behind the movement, claiming "Ego-Futurism has renounced Severyanin." During this period Ego-Futurists would condemn all civilization and deny Severyanin's universalism, going in depth about what God and intuition actually means to an Ego-Futurist.

Ignatyev would also greatly attack Hylaeans, in similar manner to Severyanin. He would accuse the group of being barely Futurist by being undistinguishable from Impressionists, something they would also accuse Severyanin of being. Similarly they would accuse Hylaeans of being theoretically and philosophically inconsistent, also a pattern with Severyanin. After said scandals, Ego-Futurism would fade out of the avant-garde scene until the 1920s.

Free From Time, From Space

Succeeding the Hylaea group, Cubo-Futurism would be the full admission of Futurist ideas into the Hylaea movement, fully abandoning Symbolism as well, and as the name implies, Cubist principles would also be incorporated into the movement. As WW1 came, this period would be marked by stronger politicization of the movement in a general trend towards the revolutionary left.

Although with disputed origins, the most relevant development of Cubo-Futurists was Zaum, the language of Futurist poetry and the future itself. Developed primarily by Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh, Zaum was developed to create full expression, a new language that doesn't restrict the poet or artist in any way, pure phonetic harmonic sounds.

This period also saw the offensive nature of Cubo-Futurism at the forefront, as they gained far more traction, they were able to expose more of the populace to their unorthodox behavior to an audience. At points they would explicitly design their poetry to cause riots, among them, Mayakovsky was the most pro-active in that behavior.

The movement would see instability, when at its peak in early 1914, Marinetti surprisingly visited Russia. While he planned on meeting Russian Futurists, he would struggle to meet with its main figures, instead being praised by establishment art journals. This would create further skepticism in figures who already tended to dismiss Marinetti's theories, Livshits especially would argue Italian Futurism lived in the present while Russian Futurism lived in the beyond. This leads him to write the divisive manifesto "We and the West," one in which he argues for Russians to embrace Asiatic origins and reject any form of Europeanism.

Hylaea would effectively decentralize with the split. Khlebnikov would move away from Moscow to the Volga, Livshits would take on a more independent figure, Burliuk, Mayakovsky and Kamensky were touring all of Russia, Ego-Futurists were already underground, and even Severyanin was generally out of the public image.

Secondo Futurismo

Marinetti the corpse

[WIP]

Personality and Behaviour

Futurism is often written as a manic artist who is obsessed with things that are new and go fast. If he is angered (which is very easy to do), he will immediately resort to violence.

Stylistic Notes

Futurist is constantly obsessed with speed. This can result in him suddenly yelling in all-caps, all bolded or even having his words run into each other with no spaces.

How to Draw

Futurist Movement Design

Flag of Futurism
  1. Draw a ball
  2. Divide it on its 4/11th line with a Gold ray
  3. Color its left side White
  4. Add Black spiral lines on top of the White
  5. Color its right side Cyan
  6. Give the ray a Red outline on top of the Cyan
  7. Leaving only a triangle of Cyan add a middle gradient between Red and Cyan
  8. Divide the Gradient in two different tones
  9. Draw a White sword with Blue outline on top of everything
  10. Draw an awesome hat (Optional)
  11. Draw the eyes and you're done!
Color Name HEX RGB
Gold #FFC90E 255, 201, 14
White #FFFFFF 255, 255, 255
Black #272918 39, 41, 24
Cyan #00FFFF 0, 255, 255
Red #D92A31 217, 42, 49
Dark Cyan #5F8387 95, 131, 135
Dark Red #955968 149, 89, 104
Blue #0000A0 0, 0, 160
Slightly Lighter Black #353535 53, 53, 53
Dark Green #125C28 18, 92, 40


Relationships

Friends

  • Homofascism - Hey there, sexy ~.
  • Ardito-Fascism - Modernism as seen through nationalism, make Italy sovereign!
  • Socialism - Modernism as seen through internationalism, stand on the solid rock of "we"!
  • Industrialism - Sing the man at the wheel, and the factory will overtake him!
  • Social Darwinism - Art is to become a slap in the face of sloth!
  • Georgism - Nationalize the land for the people!
  • Republicanism - Abolition of the ceremonial patriotism!
  • Syndicalism - Means to a multi-colored surf of revolutions!
  • Vperedism - Bourgeois culture needs only a house on the river!
  • Accelerationism - FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER!!
  • National Bolshevism - Glad to see Limonov reintroducing futurism for the new generation.
  • Anarcho-Communism - Free Malatesta! New humanity shall rise with Anarchist gesture!
  • Noveltism - My Cocaine addicted son, who likes destroy and piss on old painting and statues Wait, you call me outdated!? And preach about Postmodernity? and Metamodernity, what are these?!

Frenemies

Enemies

  • Marxism–Leninism - Socialist realism is as close to reality as the USSR today.
  • Anarcho-Primitivism - NO! NOT THIS TYPE OF PRIMITIVISM!
  • Feminism - Fight against moralism, feminism, and every utilitarian opportunistic cowardice!
    • Wait. What? You can't be serious.
    • Yes, I am.

Further Information

Literature

Wikipedia

Videos

Notes

  1. ↑ While Marinetti famously said futurists have a "scorn for women," he and other futurists supported equal voting rights, divorce and marriage liberalization, women becoming politicians, and the abolition of the traditional family. What the original futurists despised was femininity, believing the revolutionary spirit was inherently masculine. They wanted to make females more masculine, turning them into "men."
  2. ↑ The Manifesto of the Italian Futurist Party: 'The Futurist political party which we are founding today, and which we will organize after the war, will be clearly distinct from the Futurist art movement. This will continue in his work of rejuvenating and strengthening the Italian creative genius. The futurist art movement, the avant-garde of the Italian artistic sensibility, is necessarily always ahead of the slow sensibility of the people. It therefore remains an avant-garde often misunderstood and often opposed by the majority who cannot understand its astonishing discoveries, the brutality of its polemical expressions and the reckless impulses of its intuitions. The Futurist political party, on the other hand, senses the present needs and interprets the conscience of the whole race exactly in its hygienic revolutionary impulse. All Italians, men and women of all classes and ages, will be able to join the Futurist political party, even if they are denied any artistic and literary concept. This political program marks the birth of the futurist political party invoked by all Italians who are fighting today for a younger Italy freed from the burden of the past and from the foreigner. We will support this political program with the violence and futurist courage that have characterized our movement in theatres and squares up to now. Everyone in Italy and abroad knows what we mean by violence and courage.'
  3. ↑ The Futurist Manifesto: '11.We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.'
  4. ↑ The Manifesto of the Italian Futurist Party: '10. Industrialization and modernization of dead cities that still live on their past. Devaluation of the dangerous and uncertain industry of the stranger. Development of the merchant marine and river navigation. Canalization of waters and reclamation of malarious lands. Valuing all the strengths and wealth of the country. Stopping emigration. Nationalize and use all waters and mines. Granting its exploitation to local public bodies. Concessions to cooperative industry and agriculture. Consumer defense.'
  5. ↑ The Manifesto of the Italian Futurist Party: '5. To replace the current rhetorical and quietist anti-clericalism with an anti-clericalism of action, violent and cut, to free Italy and Rome from its theocratic Middle Ages which will be able to choose a suitable land where to die slowly. Our very uncompromising and integral anti-clericalism constitutes the basis of our political program, does not admit half terms or transactions, clearly demands expulsion.'
  6. ↑ Manifesto of Fascist Struggle: 'WE WANT: [...] b) - The seizure of all the goods of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishops' canteens, which constitute an enormous liability for the nation, and a privilege of a few.
  7. ↑ The Futurist Manifesto:'9. We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill'

Gallery

Portraits

Alternative designs

  • Old design

    Old design

  • Old design

    Old design

  • European flag

    European flag

  • Futurist Democracy flag design

    Futurist Democracy flag design

  • Futurist Democracy logo design

    Futurist Democracy logo design

Comics and Artwork

Navigation

Retrieved from "https://polcompball.wiki/wiki/Futurism?oldid=513371"