Marinetti seems a little too riled up about The Futurist Manifesto.  His aggressive verbiage, and violent statements seem very immature for such an intelligent man.
Statements such as "Admiring and old picture is the same as pouring our sensibility into funerary urn instead of hurtling is far off, violent spasms of action and creation" seem too opinionated supported with out any reason or fact. I believe the style in which Marinetti voiced his desire towards the eradication of the artistic past is egregious and distasteful.

However art critics, such as Clement Greenberg, would support this contemporary view of art championing Marinetti's ideas as being "avant-garde" to that time frame.  Greenberg also believed in the movement away from old art forms and created new art labels such as post-painterly abstraction
and color field painting; both styles became popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Artists like Morris Louis and Jackson Pollock illustrated these new styles brilliantly by not incorporating subject matter or meaning behind their works, they were pure abstraction.  They did not see reason behind meaningful titles, subject matter, or kitsch paintings.  Instead they focused on brilliant color, action, and open composition allowing the viewer to create their own interpretations of the piece. Fifty years after the Futurist Manifesto, they too moved away from the past paralleling Marinetti's same ideas, "We want to part of it, the past, we the young and strong futurists!" - Marinetti

The Futurist Manifesto

After reading Marinetti's work, I found that this painting done by Vinn Wong is a great abstract representation of what Marinetti depicts. He discusses completely forgetting and disregarding the past, which in the painting, could be represented by the original canvas. At one point he states, "we hurl our defiance at the stars!" Which, to me could be represented by the chaotic paint splatters that seem to be reaching or "hurling" themselves upwards. In the first two lines of the Manifestos of Futurism they state: "1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness. 2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry." These can be illustrated by the conflict and contrast between the thrown on colors at the bottom of the painting; each color may represent and different trait, danger, energy, fearlessness, courage, revolt, etc. While I don't at all agree with the thought that we should forget the past and focus solely on the future, I did find it interesting to compare his thoughts with an abstract piece of art work and force myself to try to visualize what Marinetti is saying. 

Thoughts on The Futurist Manifesto

With all the political controversy and women’s protests, ect., this manifesto is oddly relevant and relatable to the times we are living in right now. I don’t particularly agree with a lot of what he has stated here, but I can see a reflection of our society today through his words.

There is a lot going on and it’s hard for me to fully wrap my head around everything, but I think there are a few major points Marinetti is trying to make. Although I’m not exactly sure what those points are, I believe they have to do with art, war and age.

Nothing about his words was casual. To me, I felt like the whole manifesto was about promoting violence, and it was really heavy for me. Dominant ideologies of fascism run clear throughout this piece. It seemed as though he was strongly against the arts, and wrote this glorifying war and aggression and hierarchy.

Marinetti’s use of metaphor when describing museums made me curious yet confused. I didn’t know what he was comparing the museums to. My impression was that he was speaking about the future of Italy and comparing the future of the country to the young people that are going to actively transform the future. And after your thirty and forty, one adds no value to society and where society is headed, as he says:

“Museums: public dormitories where one lies forever beside hated or unknown beings. Museums: absurd abattoirs of painters and sculptors ferociously slaughtering each other with color-blows and line-

blows, the length of the fought-over walls!”

“But I don’t admit that our sorrows, our fragile courage, our morbid restlessness should be given a daily conducted tour

through the museums. Why poison ourselves? Why rot?”

The statement below is also very interesting to me because I think there is actually some truth to it. As someone who paints and has studied art and is influenced by the arts, I believe that most of the art we see today stems from experiences and history, most of which is made up of violence and cruelty and injustice. So amongst everything, I do agree with that statement.

“Art, in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice.”

The Futurist Manifesto

Take a chill pill, Marinetti. I'm sure you have a few kernels of ideas worth considering, but between your hawkish polemic and puerile whining, you come off as a desperate and insecure artist starving for attention. And time has certainly not been kind to you.

I suppose I can't fault you for your manic prose as it adheres to your Futurist tenets (props to you there), but it does not aid in the coherence of your argument. Your ideas are frayed and under-explored: are y'all anti-art? iconoclasts? cult? The latter label is also commendable, considering how older members welcome violent deaths at the hands of fledging Futurists - that's dedication if I ever saw it.

I barely need mention the obvious anachronisms ("will fight moralism, feminism"), but will elect to examine the basis of Marinetti's manifesto. I suspect the foundation of his ideas derive from the Industrial Revolution and its pursuit of technological advancement. Perhaps, on the artistic front, Italy was falling behind its peers and Marinetti saw a need to catch up. He swung the pendulum far over at the expense of reason and decorum. Indeed, in a mere five years, Marinetti and his fellow Futurists would witness the culmination of humanity's relentless progression and the inevitable swing back to a period of heavy conservatism. Oh well.

"All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That one point is war." - Walter Benjamin

Upon reading The Futurist manifesto I felt a wide array of emotions towards much of what was being said. I initially seemed to be able to understand Marinetti's position on the museums and various institutes of academia, or at least where he was coming from. It seemed like this was a man calling for a change in focus. The concept of living in the past seems rather pointless to me personally. What has happened cannot be changed so the only use any recollection of the past is to modify and help alleviate the present. I agree with the ideology of always looking forward. Marinetti I felt uses such inflammatory language in his manifesto in order to incite a certain disdain for these past laurels that are so heralded in these places of academia in order to motivate the reader to snap out of their infatuation with what was and focus on what can be.

Where I feel Marinetti lost me in particular was when he coined the term futurist. There are 3 aspects to time. The future, past, and present. Living in the future is just as futile as living in the past because the future is directly correlated to action in the present. If you constantly dream about what could be or hope for something to come from your future, you wont be able to actually modify the one thing that is accessible for us to change, the present. Thus in my opinion this should actually be titled the Presentist Manifesto. 

Art is raw inspiration, but inspiration dissipates when you give it a timeline or direction. Some of the best art ever created was purely spontaneous. If the people Marinetti was hoping to reach took on all the tenants he laid forth for them in his manifesto these self-proclaimed futurists would be too attached to what could be and lose the valuable opportunity to change the present. As he continues you see that although he described this thought process as being futuristic, he misinterprets what the future is, in my opinion confusing it with the present;

Welcome to Introduction to Digital Hybrid Media (ASIM 1300) at SMU!

Welcome to the Intro to Digital Hybrid Media course blog for Spring 2017. This will be the area for posting responses to theoretical readings assigned in class. Please post substantive responses to what you read here in the form of text, pictures, links, videos, dank memes (contextually dank, please), etc.

We will discuss readings the week after they are assigned. Your response should be something that will add to this conversation. Please post these in enough time before class that we are able to read them in time to discuss.