Genoa 17July

Been doing the usual film/sound capture this morning in Genoa. Thought I would do some writing this evening going back to the origins of Futurism and its uneasy relationship with Modernist History.

But before that a new piece of music. The first one that is directly related to this Russolo project. Other pieces written whilst here in Italy have been either exploring found sounds and what ever instruments happen to be living in my temporary accommodation or have been collaborations with local musicians. The following piece was made with Paolo D'Emilio in Pescara and edited here in Genoa. It is an extract from Russolo's manifesto D'arte dei Rumori. The extract features Russolo recounting a letter sent to him by Marinetti - the founder of Futurism. It talks of the noises of war and battle. I choose this extract as it highlights the one of the elements of Futurism that have been seen as problematic by Modernist historians. Interpretations of Russolo's 'praise of the sounds of battle' have failed to look deeper into his motives I feel. More on this shortly.

In the picture above we have Marinetti alongside the other three original Futurists with Russolo on the right. Without Filippo Tommaso Marinetti there would be no Futurism at all. Marinetti was the undisputed leader of this movement. He published the Futurist Manifesto in 1909, it was on the front page of Europe's biggest newspaper Le Figuro and it caused the scandal he was hoping for. Marinetti financed many of his fellow Futurists projects and maintained a tight grip on how the group was publicity perceived. He was an early example of someone who new exactly how to 'brand' himself and his activities. Stunts, public provocation, advertising and alliance making where all part of the game - and the game was to make Futurism a movement of international significance.

In contrast we have Luigi Russolo, shy, introverted and focused on internal questions concerning the modern world and the spiritual need of people. Its an odd coupling and one that involved a common desire for revolution. Marinetti was seductive with words, he painted a brave new world where fear and the past held no power, where people would become the best they could be through abandoning history and embracing the future....

We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits, shining like them with the prisoned radiance of electric hearts. For hours we had trampled our atavistic ennui into rich oriental rugs, arguing up to the last confines of logic and blackening many reams of paper with our frenzied scribbling.

An immense pride was buoying us up, because we felt ourselves alone at that hour, alone, awake, and on our feet, like proud beacons or forward sentries against an army of hostile stars glaring down at us from their celestial encampments. Alone with stokers feeding the hellish fires of great ships, alone with the black spectres who grope in the red-hot bellies of locomotives launched on their crazy courses, alone with drunkards reeling like wounded birds along the city walls.

Suddenly we jumped, hearing the mighty noise of the huge double-decker trams that rumbled by outside, ablaze with colored lights, like villages on holiday suddenly struck and uprooted by the flooding Po and dragged over falls and through gourges to the sea.

Then the silence deepened. But, as we listened to the old canal muttering its feeble prayers and the creaking bones of sickly palaces above their damp green beards, under the windows we suddenly heard the famished roar of automobiles.

“Let’s go!” I said. “Friends, away! Let’s go! Mythology and the Mystic Ideal are defeated at last. We’re about to see the Centaur’s birth and, soon after, the first flight of Angels!... We must shake at the gates of life, test the bolts and hinges. Let’s go! Look there, on the earth, the very first dawn! There’s nothing to match the splendor of the sun’s red sword, slashing for the first time through our millennial gloom!”

We went up to the three snorting beasts, to lay amorous hands on their torrid breasts. I stretched out on my car like a corpse on its bier, but revived at once under the steering wheel, a guillotine blade that threatened my stomach.

The raging broom of madness swept us out of ourselves and drove us through streets as rough and deep as the beds of torrents. Here and there, sick lamplight through window glass taught us to distrust the deceitful mathematics of our perishing eyes.

I cried, “The scent, the scent alone is enough for our beasts.”

And like young lions we ran after Death, its dark pelt blotched with pale crosses as it escaped down the vast violet living and throbbing sky.

In these opening paragraphs we see a wildly utopian fantasy where people are untouchable and anything is possible. The modern world, full of speed and danger holds the key, death is of no consequence and madness is an ally. A brave new future can be grasped by not just fleeing from, but, aggressively destroying the past.

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Marinetti's words are certainly enchanting, they speak to a new generation, disenchanted with the status quo. The world is moving forward and we can be part of this. In Italy at the turn of the century these words carried a message of hope to a new generation of artists - Italian artists that were watching the rest of Europe blossom into modernity. Here lies the undercurrent of nationalistic pride in Marinetti's writings that would become more obvious later in the manifesto. Marinetti's vision was an Italian vision, a vision where once again people looked to Italy for inspiration and intellectual rigour, for cultural that was progressive and fearless. Marinetti's desire for a modern world is heavily linked for his desire for Italy to be at the forefront of modernity. The early 20th century was a time of soul searching for Italy as a country, now technically unified it was far behind other parts of Europe economically and culturally and was haunted by its past as the centre of Western European society and commerce. In typical authoritarian style Marinetti layed down his 11 point manifesto. It is here we see the privilege and ignorance that history has remembered Marinetti for. For all its hatred, misogyny and glorification of war it is NOT these things that resulted in Marinetti ( and by association Futurism) being written off as a minor and problematic art movement. In the end it was politics that the scholars really had a problem with.

1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.

1. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.

1. Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggresive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap.

1. We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

1. We want to hymn the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit.

1. The poet must spend himself with ardor, splendor, and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.

1. Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man.

1. We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!... Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.

1. We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.

1. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.

1. We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

The passion is obvious but so is the misogyny, the violent nihilism and the ignorance of the origins of the very freedom Marinetti championed. Laid out in full the manifesto is of course a product of its time and interestingly in the context of early 20th century society the things we would take issue with today are of little concern during his time- it is his desire to take down the establishment that put him at odds with his peers, and it is this that made him so attractive to other younger Italian artists, one of them of course being Russolo.

The early days of Futurism under Marinetti's tight control ( he edited all manifestos

produced by the members of the Futurist movement) were marked by an exploration

though poetry, painting, sculpture and performace of hoe best to express the modern

world. The artist strived to convey momentum, dynamism, sound urban progressive.

Russolo focused his efforts of painting, whilst having a background in music and

engineering he felt that the visual arts could best express the hopes of his generation

and the new sensations of the early 20th century. His works were predictably full of

movement and energy. they tried to express time, space and sound all at once, and most

importantly they tried to express what it is like to feel the pull of a multi- faceted world.

La Musica 1911 Russolo

Russolo developed a strong friendship fellow Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni, a fellow painter and deeply spiritual man, active in occult study as well as contemporary scientific study. He was a softer man than Marinetti and the two painters quickly established a lasting friendship forged over conversation concerning modern life, Italy. art and science. Marinetti during the pre-war years was often overseas, making his money as a war correspondent. he would return with tales of glory and heroism, organise Futurist events, write more manifestos then again return to reporting.

Futurists events, held in cities across Northern Italy involved poetry, prose,political statements, reading of manifestos and a general hostile approach to the attending audience. anyone who looked like they may come from the older generation was a target for abuse. It was said also that many people went to these events simply becaus it gave them a reason to hurl insults and objects at the performers. Each event needed to be bigger than the last and Marinetti worked hard ( and spent money) to ensure the face and brand of Futurism was a talking point in local society. the first big exhibition of Futurist art was held in 1911 in Milan at the Mostra d'arte libera. at thsi stage there was no distinct style with various painters working in a mixture of post-impressionist, divisionist and cubist influenced styles. Reaction at the time was mixed. French critics dismissed it quickly which Marinetti quickly took offense to, proclaiming its superiority over Cubism as Cubism was a static medium where as Futurism was about movement.

The City Rises Umberto Boccioni 1910

The next two years the Futurists continued their battle against the status quo with

Marinetti traveling all over Europe to promote the course. the artists experimented with

form in order to seek out a new aesthetic that reflected the movement of the new era.

Manifesto after manifesto were produced and public performance was relentless. Russolo

continued to paint both the city around him, self portraiture and increasingly mystical

images. The major change came for Russolo in 1913 when he abandoned painting and

began working on a project that would eventually become his most famous work L'arte dei

rumori - The art of noises.