Drama 360 FALL & WINTER 2009/10/Thursday October 15: The European Avant-Garde: Futurism

'''1.	Readings: Readings: Goldberg, Roselee. (THE CHAPTER ON FUTURSIM) Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 1979.

'''2.	Martinetti, F T. "Destruction of Syntax/Imagination without Strings/ Words-in-Freedom, (1913)." Performed by. A.E. Stallings. moma.org, 2009. '''

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'''1.	Martinetti, F T. "The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism, 1908." Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. Ed. Herschel B. Chipp. Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1968. 284-89.

'''2.	Martinetti, F T. "Destruction of Syntax/Imagination without Strings/ Words-in-Freedom, (1913)." Performed by. A.E. Stallings. moma.org, 2009. ''' ''' In the first reading, the history of Futurism in theatre is introduced. After reading the article, the first few pages struck me the most. particularly the notions regarding how the "Theatre de I'Oeuvre" became famous simply because of the negative responses of their audiences. i found this interesting because logically, when something is disliked by a group of people it is disregarded and not encouraged. in this case however, it was represented that the population of Paris actually encouraged the theatre by attending its performances. I believe this was because the population of Paris was more interested in seeing something that pushes boundaries and makes the audience think. As mentioned below,as a society we are always being told to forget the old and move in with the new.Why would an individual or society want to see the same performance performed the exact same way over and over? Simply they would not, the society will force the performers or "creative class" to change and modify if they wish to have an audience. Martinetti is these articles shows that even though many people may be frightened by the new and shy away from it, eventually change will be forced and become necessity. This article and even the voice clip, helped me see that these ideas are nothing new and have been around since the "official" start of the futurism movement, 1909.

The reading and sound clip from Marinetti both had an emphasis on speed. The speed to obtain something new, not from desperation but to gain a freedom from rationality and the self as a whole. In order to find that inner necessity, so often talked about in relation to performance creation, we must forget the 'old and known' and continually search for the new, the unknown and possibly the feared and the glorified dangerous. This inner necessity, does it come from a need to express oneself? Passion? A need to change perspective? The reason is known only to each indiviudal, but to Marinetti it is to discover. Through pushing past what is accepted, by challenging the thoughts of women he finds poetry and story telling; he creates a text for performance creation. We push away from the conventional? Why? It is not that it is wrong, or broken, we need the conventional for our everyday lives, but it is limiting. To Marinetti poetry, truth, performance creation is an intensified reflection/version of our lives. Marinetti wrote in a different time. Some of his ideas are found grotesque in todays society; should war really be glorified as the 'only true hygiene of the world?' I refuse to believe that war is the only option, that we must be agressive to instigate change but these are the ideas and time we live in. So let us follow Marinetti's example and search for intuition but let us do it our way.

During the particular time period when the Manifesto for futurism was created by Marinetti, the future was different from what the future is for us now. Their vision of the future became, in a sense, our present and even our past. This raises the question that even though futurism is still a somewhat present art form today, are the same techniques still used that defined it? Probably not or not entirely because our world has changed, changed in what is now considered original and new. The view points of our world on society have also changed, for example going from glorifying war and violence and believing it to be the only true hygiene of the human race to viewing it as pollution on society and ultimately being inhumane.

Poetry, performance creation, and truth are not always a reflection of one’s individual life. These types of art forms should have no boundaries in which to be written in. There should not be guidelines or setlines as to how to convey art. I’m confused with a sentence in the above reading, “...we need the conventional for our everyday lives, but it is limited.” I don’t think one needs to be conventional to pursue everyday life, but rather practice these set standards only to keep their asses “out of trouble” or “within the norm of what’s accepted behavior”.

One thing that I found incredibly fascinating about Martinetti’s work was the role that they put on the audience and how great of a response this kind of performance was able to create. In Goldberg’s article she talks about a time in Italy during a time of political unrest, when Marinetti "raged against the cult of tradition and commercialization of art, singing the praises of patriotic militarism and war" They referred to police as walking pissoirs (public urinals) which eventually got them a bad reputation. It apparently even got bad enough that "subsequent futurist evenings were closely watched by large battalions of police" as stated in the article.

I completely agree with the above statement that it is fascinating how futurism relies a lot on the audience and its ability to react, enabling a creation of performance. Futurism seems to depend a great deal on responses, seemingly overtly negative most of the time, probably due to it being so violent and war based. Almost everything about futurism screams hostility; from its use of red lighting, to the way it praised madness, speed, and war. I also agree with another of the above statements, saying that war should not be looked upon this way. One can still be original and creative and daring, without being violent and sadistic.

Indeed, it is quite intriguing that the audience was so important in the performances. I especially liked the encouragement of irritating the audience members (such as with a double booking, gluing the seats, etc). It's almost as if they're resorting back to childish aims when bullies and the like fed off of negative reactions. They kept annoying and disrupting because they knew they would get a reaction, and they loved it when it was negative (which it rarely wasn't). It's interesting to see that what looks like childish pranks are actually the stressed efforts of performers to get a reaction....or is it the other way around?

Piedigrotta written by Francesco Canguillo was a very innovative multi-media performance. They used red lighting which is extremely different and new for its time. They hung paintings in the gallery to create an interesting visual, along with having the performers wearing tissue paper hats. Canguillo played the piano, but they also used unconventional instruments that they made themselves. Through this they were able to “’liberate intellectual circles from the old, static, pacifist and nostalgic declamations.’” These types of performances created a sense of freedom for the artists, free speech through art.

The thing I found most interesting was in Goldberg's chapter on futurism about the "Futurist Ballets." It is mentioned that, Balla conducted a 'light ballet' in which he controlled not only all the stage lights but also including the auditorium lights with which he would alternately illuminate and darken. It was the lights giving the performance not actors, "the only 'performers' in Fireworks were moving the sets and lights." The use of lights doing the story telling kind of reminds me of how the Expressionist used like to portray moods and emotions but only the Futurist take it a step farther and make it a whole performance.

This reminded me particularly of the constant questions of art for art's sake or does art have to be political? I do not personally believe that there is always the intention of art being political but I do believe that one can always take a stance on a piece of art work. Goldberg's article talks about the unrest in Italy and I do believe that the artists put their pieces together with a political message in mind. I believe that often artists want the audience to reflect and gain a political viewpoint. However I also believe that art can just be art.

In Goldberg’s article they discuss how Martinetti gathered painters from across Milan to paint something based upon futurism I quite enjoyed this. But I also agree with the quote just mentioned. “Art can just be art”. It is so very true. I think its inspiring that these artists can gather together and express their feelings through various ways. The article also describes how the manifestos encouraged the artists to present more elaborate performances and the out come of course was more detailed manifestos. Its so fascinating to me how these experiments brought out different expressions of theatre. I loved the quote when Martinetti mentions how he admires variety theatre which says ‘ is lucky in have no tradition, no masters, no dogma’ Sometimes to perform without some of those walls, and restrictions it can be a beautiful thing.

The historic value of futurism is portrayed well in Goldberg's article. I think the simple ideas of Marinetti were brilliant, such as his synthesis 'Feet', "...consisted of the feet of the performers only...Seven unrelated scenes revolved around the 'feet' of objects, including two armchairs, a couch, a table, and a pedal operated sewing machine. The brief sequence ended with a foot kicking the shin of another disembodied figure." Goldberg also speaks of some of the earliest futurism productions in italy such as 'Ubu Roi' whereupon the first word in the play was "Merdre", these examples make me think that Marinetti, perhaps as she says, was exploiting futurism and his manifesto, however was also giving the conservative side of Italy the middle finger. Cheers to Marinetti for beginning the foundations of; "as artists, let's just take the piss out of the audience and make them feel extremely uncomfortable!" futurism at its best.

Even though I found Marinetti's article to be shocking, especially for his time, I feel he overlooked the causality of his plans. Firstly, he spoke of museums and libraries as graveyards, where people waste too much time looking at the past. Here I agree with him where he shows that parts of the past can be a hinderance in moving forward. But he later speaks of destroying these places and more (like morality, destroying people once they reach 40, etc.) But it seems he forgets his ideals sprung out of the past and what we may have been doing wrong, and overlooks the idea that his actions will also eventually fall into the past. There needs to be an awareness as to the outcome of these futurist actions. When all these things are destroyed, who will continue to carry on his vendetta? Who will teach the ideals? What will they have left and how will it matter? Will we learn no new lessons from the past, or will this destruction span over everything eventually? I understand the theory, but the practicality needs to be reassessed. Maybe I am just too classical.--Cody.thompson 18:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

“There is no more beauty except in struggle.” These words resonated with me, carrying a weight I don’t think I fully understand yet. But I do know that in the whole of this article, it was this concept that stood out above the others. This year, and this class especially, has me struggling with the ideas and concepts that make up art, that make up theatre. I struggle to understand the concepts, the articles and the array of questions that keep swirling within in my mind. But each day, I’m presented with yet another set of notions to ponder and struggle with anew. Nothing is becoming solved. Is this a road to art? Is this my road to beauty? Is this actually fuel for my desire to create something, something worth while, something... just something. Or is it, like my inability to articulate my desires, just standing in the way? And what of the end result? What if I do create ‘something’? Martinetti says “What can one see in an old picture except the artist’s laborious contortions, struggling to overcome the insuperable barriers ever resisting his desire to express his real dreams.” Is that all art is? The struggle to express our real dreams but failing in the attempt? And he seems to suggest that once attempted, that art then becomes useless. It didn’t achieve what the artist wanted it to be, for all the efforts and failures. But is that not a struggle? Would that not make the creation of that art a struggle and therefore beautiful in his eyes? Is struggle beautiful? What defines this struggle? Or beauty? And what of those that suffer within their struggle? Are they not the most beautiful of all? And why? Why is suffering within a struggle necessary for some creators? Perhaps, it is the need for the artist to be forever more looking forward, to the future of their art, to create a new convention to try something new and then discard instead of perfect and move forward to something else new, to be open to learning and accepting the new, the unknown and, essentially, the future of their art? [Well, I seem to have tangled myself up with that one. My apologies for a confusing array of questions that really didn’t answer anything at all]

The part of Martinettis work that I was most intrigued with was his declaration of intentions to all living men on earth. This declaration basically outlines his intention to glorify and exalt speed, danger, strength, energy, courage etc... He declares he will struggle for his art and rejoice in conflict, and that he will seek to destroy moralism and other hindrances of the past. His vows are loaded! The whole narrative sounds like the last words of a desperate and self-destructive person. I appreciate his views on the necessity of change; I also appreciate the emphasis he puts on the importance of struggle. Despite the respect I have with some of his intentions, his disregard for the past, and the art that has brought him to where he is, makes him sound like a chauvinist. I choose to regard this whole narrative as the story of a crazy man who needs some Prozac.

People support what they hate as much as they support what they love. We see this in our world as much as in the Futurist movement. Despite the negative response to the theatre the people of Paris still went to see it. Morbid curiosity perhaps. The same knee jerk reaction that causes people to stare as they go back a horrific accident. Or gives us the deep desire to go see that film that made a friend of our almost throw up. We want to see what bothered the other people, we want to prove that somehow we are better than they are, more advanced, with a stronger stomach and a more open mind. Emotional snobbery if you will. So when you tell a friend "it was terrible, really, really awful, I hated it so much" you might as well be saying, "go see it, I double-dog-dare you". Any passionate response is better than indifference. Nothing people are indifferent to will last. What people hate will thrive, because hatred creates controversy.