the techno-futurist century (part a)
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Produced for the Bachelor of New Media Arts core subject: NM1000 Introduction to New Media. The course provides an overview of communication technologies and art proTRANSCRIPT
Introduc)on to New Media NM1000 | Townsville
1909 -‐ 2009 A Techno-‐Futurist Century
Filippo Marine4 | The Manifesto of Futurism | 1909
To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of cas?ng it forward with violent spurts of crea?on and ac?on. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admira?on of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on? Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for ar?sts what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambi?on. For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!”
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1909 -‐ 2009 The Techno-‐Futurist Century
Just Imagine | Twen?eth Century Fox | David Butler | 1930
Futurism The Manifesto of Speed & Technology
“My Italian blood raced faster when my lips coined out loud the word futurism. It was the new formula of Ac?on-‐Art and a code of mental health It was youthful and innova?ve banner, an?-‐tradi?onal, op?mis?c, heroic and dynamic, that had to be hoisted over the ruins of all aUachment to the past. MarineD | Milan | 1915
The Future The Manifesto of Speed & Technology
Futurism | Tate Modern | London | BBC | 2009
• It was indeed a wild and exci?ng ?me; as Marine4 spoke of over turning his expensive automobile in a ditch in Italy the modern world of 1909 was shrinking.
• Speed and technology were working together to change the Victorian era into the mechanised world we know today.
• The future looked bright, exci?ng, palpable: wide urban streets flush with cars, ci?es awash in electric light, the squawk of familiar voices down telephone lines, radio, cinema and sound recording technology, trams, trains and aeroplanes in the sky.
• This had all happened in a maUer of 20 years – anything was possible.
The Future The Manifesto of Speed & Technology
Edward Wadsworth | Dazzle-‐ships in Dry Dock at Liverpool | 1919
Filippo Marine4 | The Manifesto of Futurism | 1909
The Future The Manifesto of Speed & Technology
We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the mul?-‐colored and polyphonic surf of revolu?ons in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibra?on of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluUonous railway sta)ons 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 locomo)ves, 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 enthusias?c crowds.”
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• Futurism represented a cultural transforma?on of modern life; such as it was at the dawn of the 20th century.
• Marine4’s words -‐ and the ac?ons of his contemporary provocateurs who helped him fashion the movement and spread the word – permeated throughout European culture.
• What followed were manifestos on theatre, cinema, prose, lust, poli?cs, sculpture, noise, even weights and measures.
• All the ?me, swimming with movement, speed agility … and an unwavering lust for the poli?cs of anarchy and technology of speed which were fast tumbling Europe towards Fascism and World War.
Felix Del Marie | The Port | 1913
The Future The Manifesto of Speed & Technology
Russolo | Carra | Marine4 | Boccioni | Severini | Paris | 1912
Shape & Percep)on Cubism & the Human Form
Gino Severini Yellow Dancers (1912)
Francis Picabia Dancers & the Spring I (1912)
Fernand Lerger Nudes In the Forest (1909)
The Street Woman, Convergence & Light
Umberto Boccioni The Street Enters the House (1911)
Umberto Boccioni Simultaneous Visions (1911)
Umberto Boccioni The Laugh (1911)
Umberto Boccioni Modern Idol (1910-‐1911)
Electricity Light and the Carnival of Technology
Carlo Cara Nocturne in Piazza Becarria (1911)
Umberto Boccioni The Forces of the Street (1911)
Giacomo Balla Luna Park In Paris (1900)
Carlo Carra Leaving the Theatre (1910)
Joseph Stella BaZle of Lights, Coney Island Mardi Gras (1913-‐1914)
Colour The Future is Now
Robert Delaunay Circular Forms, Sun No. 2 (1912-‐1913)
Morgan Russell Cosmic Synchromy (1914)
Umberto Boccioni Dynamism of a Human Body (1913)
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Une Cite Industrielle France (1904) Tony Granier was the first architect to establish the idea that architects should plan ci?es as a whole rather than concentrate on single dwellings and grand isolated structures. He divided his imaginary city into categories: industrial, residen?al, transport, sport and health.
La Ville Radieuse, France (1930) Le Corbusier’s design for a ‘modern’ city was configured to give maximum benefit to its inhabitants. The pedestrian streets were placed above the traffic; zones were created like ribbons which extended out from the city; and large green zones existed beneath and around buildings. His ideas were however seen as segrega?ng society and inhumane.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Metropolis, Germany (1926) Fritz Lang’s cinema?c masterpiece envisioned a city of suspended walkways, flying cars and towering skyscrapers. The spiritual life of the ci?zens were forever under the threat of technology. Society is split into the above ground individuals who are free to pursue intellectual and physical well being, while the subterranean crowd who enjoy no individuality or personal fulfilment.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Perisphere & Trylon Structures, USA (1939) Designed by Henry Dreyfuss for the 1939 World’s Fair, the two structures would form the centrepiece of the exhibit -‐ “Democracity”. A nod to America’s new found posi?on as the world’s most powerful industrialised na?on. From road transporta?on systems, space flight and electrical appliances, the structure was the symbol and the sign of the new American century.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
City of the Future, USA (1946) Frank R. Paul’s illustra?on of the ‘future city” is a well used archetype for sci-‐fi books and film. This style of futurism has also been borrowed ?me and again for “the visual landscape of mainstream design”. It was through these visual representa?ons of sci-‐fi books that the wider public imagina?on was given a tangible glimpse of what the future may look like.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Wichita House, USA (1946) Buckminster Fuller was a unique voice in architecture and design, who never completed any formal training. He built his design, the Wichita House as a response to the machine aesthe?c of the mid 20thC. His key values were dynamism and efficiency, and having moved his designs from the drawing board to reality he inspired the futurist explora?ons of the 1960s.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Plug-‐In City, UK (1964) Archigram was an architect’s collec?ve who produced stunningly imagina?ve designs for futuris?c ci?es and urban enclaves. Their inspira?on was drawn from pop culture, the space age, rampant consumerism and the throw away culture of Bri?sh society. They envisioned expandable ci?es which could evolve above exis?ng infrastructure such as water and power.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Architecture here could be referred to “add on architecture” as skyscrapers extend upon exis?ng structures, crea?ve a dark and oppressive cityscape.
Again we see flying cars and towering skyscrapers, yet we are also confronted by the dazzling electrifica?on of 21st century and the heavy satura?on of adver?sing and urban chaos..
Bladerunner, UK/USA (1982)
Ridley ScoU’s sci-‐fi masterpiece was based on the novel Why Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Phillip K. Dick..
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Final Fantasy, Europe (1997) The aim of original game designers Sony were and s?ll are the key ambi?ons of the video game design trade: “immersive experiences” and “unique worlds”. Here steams, pipes, mechanic zed environments, sulphuric atmospheres add to the claustrophobia and chaos of classic sci-‐fi TV and film moments. The city becomes a navigable character.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Bioshock, US/Australia (2006) The city of Rapture. Set in the 1960s, the past is compromised by the future in the ar?st’s representa?on of a collapsed society inhabi?ng an underwater city. This is one of many dystopian visions of the contemporary “near future” designs of the urban experience. Inspired by Orwell’s 1984 and the 1976 film Logan’s Run.
Futurism Designing the Built Environment
Microsod, US (2009) The urban environment and the society of the future. Data replaces architecture. Informa?on is ambient. Reality is augmented. Microsoo’s vision for 2019 as designed in 2009. Also see 2012 version and Nokia’s version.