Futurism: An Anthology (2009)

In twentieth-century culture, Futurism is the litmus test for probing the relationship between art and power, aesthetics and politics—the birth scene of aesthetic modernity.

This book as a website is a rabbit-hole into the history of Futurism as an art movement at the start of the 20th century. The book has interesting prompts or perspectives for creativity as well as illuminating record of the problems within this movement. While for the most part we have moved past the precise content of these manifestos, many of the... See more

“In 1909, F.T. Marinetti published his incendiary Futurist Manifesto, proclaiming, “We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!!” and “There, on the earth, the earliest dawn!” Intent on delivering Italy from “its fetid cancer of professors, archaeologists, tour guides, and antiquarians,” the Futurists imagined that art, architecture, literatu... See more

Marinetti’s ambition was not merely to launch a new literary school. Rather he aspired to found a utopian, revolutionary movement of both national and global dimensions.

Thus “The Simultaneous City,” with texts spanning from about 1909 to 1915, explores the technological myths of the modern city that are archetypal to the Futurist imagination: new machines that abolish distance and modify our senses, new simultaneous perceptions of the street, the crowd, and nightlife, the dynamic clash of competing forces, and the... See more

What is finally at stake in Futurism’s explosive myth is thus, paradoxically, the power of presence—nostalgic and times, but also ironic and even grotesque— within chaos. For if the dark night of Futurism can be figured alternatively and all at once as anarchism (the destruction of political ideology and artistic convention), nihilism (the destruct... See more

Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of Futurism, this is the most complete anthology of Futurist manifestos, poems, plays, and images ever to be published in English, spanning from 1909 to 1944. Now, amidst another era of unprecedented technological change and cultural crisis, is a pivotal moment to reevaluate Futurism ... See more