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398 Pages·2009·32.31 MB·English
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Futurism and the technological imagination aVant-garde critical studies 24 editor Klaus Beekman associate editors sophie Berrebi, Ben rebel, Jan de Vries, Willem g. Weststeijn international advisory Board henri Béhar, hubert van den Berg, Peter Bürger, ralf grüttemeier, hilde heinen, leigh landy Founding editor Fernand drijkoningen† Futurism and the technological imagination edited by günter Berghaus amsterdam - new York, nY 2009 Cover illustration: Enrico Prampolini, “Il pilota dell’infinito”, 1932, olio su tavola, 116 x 90 cm. Courtesy of Massimo Prampolini and Collezione massimo carpi. cover design: aart Jan Bergshoeff All titles in the Avant-Garde Critical Studies series (from 1999 onwards) are available to download from the ingenta website http://www.ingenta.com the paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “iso 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2747-3 e-Book isBn: 978-90-420-2748-0 editions rodopi B.V., amsterdam - new York, nY 2009 Printed in the netherlands Contents Editor’s Foreword vii Günter Berghaus Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult and Machine Angst 1 Domenico Pietropaolo Science and the Aesthetics of Geometric Splendour in Italian Futurism 41 Serge Milan The ‘Futurist Sensibility’: An Anti-philosophy for the Age of Technology 63 Roger Griffin The Multiplication of Man: Futurism’s Technolatry Viewed Through the Lens of Modernism 77 Vera Castiglione A Futurist before Futurism: Émile Verhaeren and the Technological Epic 101 Patrizia Veroli Loie Fuller’s Serpentine Dance and Futurism: Electricity, Technological Imagination and the Myth of the Machine 125 Maria Elena Versari Futurist Machine Art, Constructivism and the Moder- nity of Mechanization 149 vi Contents Gerardo Regnani Futurism and Photography: Between Scientific Inquiry and Aesthetic Imagination 177 Wanda Strauven Futurist Poetics and the Cinematic Imagination: Marinetti’s Cinema without Films 201 Margaret Fisher Futurism and Radio 229 Matteo D'Ambrosio From Words-in-Freedom to Electronic Literature: Futurism and the Neo-Avantgarde 263 Michelangelo Sabatino Tabula rasa or Hybridity? Primitivism and the Vernac- ular in Futurist and Rationalist Architecture 287 Pierpaolo Antonello Beyond Futurism: Bruno Munari’s Useless Machines 315 Marja Härmänmaa Futurism and Nature: The Death of the Great Pan? 337 Illustrations 361 Abstracts 367 Notes on Contributors 373 Index 379 Editor’s Foreword This collection of essays results from a workshop held on 29 July 2008 in Helsinki under the auspices of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI). It contains a number of re- written conference contributions as well as several specially commissioned essays to round off the volume. Together, they address a variety of aspects of the Futurists’ relationship to technology both on an ideological level and with regard to their artistic endeavours. The rapid unfolding of science and technology in the wake of the Industrial Revolution rang in the Age of Modernity, characterized not only by an awe-inspiring transformation of our physical environment but also by a whole range of apparatuses that allowed reality to be perceived and experienced in a novel manner. This, in turn, led to the birth of several artistic schools and movements that sought to interpret and convey the essence of this new and rapidly changing world. Some of the most remarkable examples of the technological imagination in arts and literature were offered by the Futurist movement. It was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, a man who ever since his first visit to Paris, in 1894, had been fascinated by the dizzying pace of modern life. He therefore aspired to renovate the form and content of arts and literature and turn them into suitable vehicles of expression in the Era of the Machine. The glorification of technology became a salient feature of many of his manifestos and thus of Futurism as a cultural phenomenon. The artists who joined the movement made use of the changed forms of communication, incorporated the break-up of the conventional time- space nexus in their works, and sought to express the spirit of modernity by way of entirely new and experimental works of art. However, during the First World War, the negative and threatening features of technology became more and more apparent. In the 1920s, this gave rise to a Futurist “machine angst” (angoscia delle macchine), and a variety of attempts to merge organic and mechanical technologies, culminating, in the 1930s, in a Futurist Naturist movement and the proclamation of a specifically Futurist spirituality. viii Editor’s Foreword As many scholars in the past had focussed their attention on Futurist’ technophilia and modernolatry, our Helsinki meeting sought to broaden the picture by also examining the flipside of the coin. In fact it was largely due to Marja Härmänmaa, who had analysed the neglected features of secondo futurismo in her pioneering study, Un patriota che sfidò la decadenza: F. T. Marinetti e l'idea dell'uomo nuovo fascista, 1929-1944 (2000), that this workshop came about. I had suggested to her in 2005 to organize a symposium on the later phase of the Futurist movement. When, in 2007, she persuaded ISSEI to hold their 2008 congress in Helsinki on the topic of “Language and the Scientific Imagination”, an ideal framework had been set in place for our workshop. I should like to express my sincerest gratitude to Marja Härmänmaa, Ezra Talmor and Rachel Ben-David for having made our symposium possible. The Helsinki event will be remembered by all participants for its intellectual stimulation, convivial gatherings and culinary indulgences. Unfortunately, not every presentation given at our conference could be included in this volume. I extend my warmest thanks to all delegates who participated in our debates with papers and improvised interventions, and to all other colleagues who subsequently submitted essays for this volume. I hope that what has been selected here amounts to a balanced and multifaceted account of the Futurist technological imagination, and will be considered a useful contribution to the 2009 centenary of Futurism. Günter Berghaus 28 July 2009 Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult and Machine Angst Günter Berghaus Abstract: This chapter deals with some of the great changes that affected Italy during the ‘second Industrial revolution’, especially in the fields of transportation and communication. It shows how Marinetti experienced the first stages of industrialization in Italy, discusses some of his proto-Futurist visions of life and art in the machine age, and surveys his theoretical writings on technology and on a Futurist art and literature of the machine age. Marinetti repeatedly defined Futurism as a movement that was committed to ‘the enthusiastic glorification of scientific discoveries and modern machines’ (Marinetti 2005: 105). However, it would be unwise to take it for granted that Marinetti’s attitude was identical with that of other Futurists, as many of them possessed viewpoints that were different from those of the movement’s leader. Similarly, it would be imprudent to assume that in the course of thirty years Futurism remained a stable and unchanging entity. For this reason, I shall outline in this chapter not only those trends that occupied a dominant position in Futurism’s long history, but also some of the dissenting voices that came from within the movement. I shall point out some contradictions in Marinetti’s own ideology of the machine and discuss developments in the second and third phase of Futurism that demonstrate that some of the sceptical views on modernity that were a mere undercurrent in the years 1909-1915 became a major and significant aspect of Futurism in its later years of its existence. Thus, this chapter will investigate to what degree the Futurist machine cult was tempered by an underlying machine angst and suggest that Futurist attitudes towards an industrialized society were more complex and contradictory than appears at first sight. ‘The essence of technology is not itself something technological’ (Heidegger 1985: 13) The advent of the Age of Mobility in Italy Filippo Tommaso Marinetti had been brought up in Egypt in accordance with religious and philosophical principles that belonged to a pre-industrial age. When, as an adolescent, he came to Europe, he discovered a new world. He marvelled at the wonders of technology displayed in Paris and in the capitals of other industrialized countries. However, when he visited the land of his forefathers he could not fail 2 Günter Berghaus to notice that, in comparison, Italy lagged far behind the most advanced nations and was still an under-developed, backward country. It is ironic that the peninsula, which in the early modern period had been economically at the forefront of European developments, had fallen far behind in the era of the Industrial Revolution. It was only after Unification (1861) that the industrialization of Italy began to take off, especially in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and the Veneto, i.e. those regions which had long been integrated into central Europe’s economy and were therefore more able to adapt to the new realities of the Industrial Age (Gerschenkron 1962; Caracciolo 1963; Clough 1964; Toniolo 1973; Federico 1994; Giannetti 1998). The years 1896- 1908 were a period of unprecedented economic growth and development, especially in the new chemical, electrical, petrochemical and steel industries, as well as in the production of mass consumer goods and the new means of communication and transportation. It also provided the population with hitherto unknown comforts and amenities, such as spacious and well-heated dwellings provided with gas and water supply, sewage systems, electrical power and telephone connections. Expanding educational facilities improved literacy and changed people’s perceptions of themselves and of the world around them. Italy, like the rest of Europe, entered into the Age of Mobility. Railway networks, which had begun rather modestly in the late 1830s,1 grew by the time of Unification to 1,632 km (transporting over 1.2 mill. passengers), expanded to 16,053 km by 1896 and transported more than 2.8 mill. passengers in 1903 (Crispo 1940; Clough 1964: 26-28, 66-71; Briano 1977). There were years, when half of the State’s infrastructure budget was allocated to railway construction and 75 per cent of public-works funds were invested in vast transportation schemes (Schram 1997:3).2 Magnificent railway stations were erected in every city – described, again and again, as ‘modern cathedrals of 1 The first Italian railway line, between Naples and Portici, was inaugurated on 3 October 1839, nine years after the world's first inter-city railway between Liverpool and Manchester. 2 However, recent research has suggested that the economic benefit of Italy’s railway system was much less than generally assumed. Given the length of Italian coastlines, shipping always remained a significant means of transportation. Even in the regions with the most dynamic economies, the length of railways and the density of traffic on them always remained way below those of the economically more advanced nations in Europe. See Schram 1997: 70 and 152-164.

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This volume, Futurism and the Technological Imagination, results from a conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas in Helsinki. It contains a number of re-written conference contributions as well as several specially commissioned essays that address various aspects of th
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