Back to the Futurists: Avant-gardes 1909-2009

2-4 July 2009Queen Mary University of London, UK

Marja Härmänmaa, University of Helsinki, Finland

Marinetti’s ontology based on fight humans against nature nations against nations

Tools to win the battles: technology and language Adorno & Horkheimer: instruments of power

(Dialectic of Enlightenment 1944) Marinetti’s rhetoric and the art he did and

promoted are to be intended as propaganda of the ideology of Futurism socially engaged art – “arte – vita”

Marinetti in 5 wars (Libya, Balcan, WW1, Ethiopia, WW2)

In the 1930s he was a propagandist of the State in case of war

Fundamental theme in Marinetti’s works: “destruction”, “fight” in pre-futurist works War in Mafarka il futurista (1909) –

L’Aeropoema di Cozzarini primo eroe repubblicano (1944)

Nationalist dream to make Italy politically (and culturally) important country

Scepticism towards the international situation Social-darwinist fight between the nations –

impossibility of the enduring peace Glorification of war = propaganda in its

favour (De Maria: glorification of war for its own

sake)

Representation of the Italian soldier Representation of an enemy Representation of battle Representation of the death

Courageous and loyal Willing to die for the Fatherland Creative and elastic

“artisticamente improvvisando...” Generous and merciful towards the enemy

For instance, he gives food to the prisoner both in L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921) and in Il poema africano (1937)

No hate towards an enemy Especially in Originalità russa di masse distanze

radiocuori (op. post., WW2) Maxim Gorgij: “Who cannot hate, cannot love either.” In the USSR: hating the enemy was citizen’s duty

Marinetti was not racist nor xenophobic (“Africanism”, for instance)

No systematic or rationally motivated propaganda against an inimical nation: Carlo Carrà (1915) explains the reason to hate

the Germans: “Voi siete quasi sempre corpulenti come buoi...” [Guerrapittura (1915), 13-14]

Seldom present cruel and coward

On the representational level the true enemies: passéism and nature

“Come potremmo, senza elasticità, schiacciare il passatismo austro-ungarico, rinnovare integralmente l’Italia dopo la vittoria?” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 4]

“E se morisse [l’Italia] di chi la colpa / Colpa della numismatica monarchia del passato e della tradizione / Tradizione uguale tradimento gloria quindi a Cozzarini eroe dell’invenzione” [L’Aeropoema di Cozzarini primo eroe repubblicano” (1944)]

In Il Poema africano della divisione ‘28 ottobre’ (1935) the greatest enemies of the Italian soldier in Africa: Sun, the heath and thirst “C’è urgenza di bere necessità di bere fatalità

di bere per non morire.” [19] Antropomorphization of thirst: “figlia prodiga

del Sole col suo chilometrico corpo di zinco in forma di forbici a lame aperte...” [135-136]

See also Blum

Nature as a vehicle in analogies “Mentre ci vestiamo sentiamo crescere,

addensarsi e centuplicarsi i sibili delle granate austriache che fanno, passando sui roccioni e sul tetto di lamiera, l’illusione d’un’enorme corrente d’acqua col loro rumore di seta lacerata.” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 17]

Existential battle between human beings and nature

Cosmic battle between opposite forces Good and Bad Futurism and passéism

Existential battle of the human being against himself (the “metallization of man”)

Case study: technological war in L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921)

“Marinetti’s modernolatry has its psychothematic centre and its obsessive technical space in the marvels of the industrial war.” (Sanguineti, 1984)

Romantic night “La rabbia delle cannonate in rissa con tutti gli echi mugolanti accresce la fantasia e il mistero di questa notte ultra-romantica innamorata di morte e d’ilarità crudele.” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 19]

Description focalized on the technological weapon that becomes a woman: “La leggendaria Dama al balcone”

The enemy soldiers transform into admirers

“E la dama elegante in nero si curva giù sugli abissi dove fervono le serenate austriache e sputa, sputa i suoi innumerevoli fiori veementi che uccidono i romantici e audaci suoi serenatori.” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 19]

The presence of gas transforms the trench into “a chemical laboratory full of mad scientists” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 24]

Soldiers with the gas mask are ”colle sue tubature, dei profili originalissimi palombari immersi in un mare di gas asfissianti e lagrimogeni” [L’Alcova d’acciaio (1921), 24]

(diver = palombaro important motive in Prampolini in 1930s)

Transformation of the human into a “mechanical superman” in the “laboratory” of the trench

L’Alcova d’acciao (1921), an autobiographical novel about the WW1 has two themes: love and war

Marinetti goes to the war in order to “cure” himself of love (towards women)

Love (towards women) substituted by a romantic scene of a technological weapon

and by love towards Fatherland (transformed into a woman) that Marinetti “loves” with his vehicle

Marinetti: consciousness of the short life of humans: “La durata attuale della nostra esistenza è

spaventosamente breve in confronto alle possibilità intellettuali...” [“La simultaneità nella vita e nella letteratura” (1930)]

Futurism: exorcization of (linear) time and death Velocity (Einstein’s theory of relativity) Simultaneity (of space and time) Utopia of the immortal multiplied man

In the representation of war, soldiers are constantly dying on the battlefields

Banalization with 2 types of representation: Short (and objective) description in order to

make death meaningless With brutal analogies

“Quando dopo il bombardamento di Tripoli vicino a me un marinaio italiano cadde colpito mortalmente nella spugna rossa della sua povera faccia il suo compagno bersagliere lo legò traverso sull’asino pungiglionando come faccio io ogni cadavere del ricordo verso il mare della speranzaEd infatti l’appetito non manca fra noi a colazione serviti da camerieri...” [Il Poema non umano dei tecnicismi (1940), TIF 1176]

“Nella camera nautica sfondata da una bomba il piccolo timoniere decapitato è diventato un tascapane pieno di fragole primaverili sospeso ad un chiodo di osteria campestre” [Canto eroi e macchine della guerra mussoliniana (1942), 57]

Ideological roots in (or affinities with) Bergson, Romanticism, Nietzsche...

Enlightenment in Marinetti Glorification of science and technology as means of

power Substitution of the cyclical (romantic) time with linear

time (containing the idea of progress) Detachment from nature that becomes the Other to be

exploited (Il Poema non umano dei tecnicismi, 1940) Horkheimer & Adorno about the self-destruction

of Enlightenment: “blindly pragmatized thought loses its transcending quality and its relationship to Truth.”

In Marinetti the transcendence exists as salvation

Heroism according to Marinetti: “il massimo slancio spontaneo dell’umanità verso il divino.” [Canto eroi e macchine della guerra mussoliniana (1942), 24]

The importance of heroic death (Blum and Baldissone)

The death heroes are taken to paradise Similarities with Islam?

Thank you!