Futurism in 9 Minutes: How to Rewrite Culture — Transcript

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1. 0:05[Music]
2. 0:10did you
3. 0:11ever sit in history class and think
4. 0:13what's the point in learning about
5. 0:15ancient dusty objects
6. 0:17events that have already happened and
7. 0:18the opinions of someone who's been dead
8. 0:20for hundreds of years
9. 0:22yawn you'd rather think about what our
10. 0:25next phone updates will let us do
11. 0:27robots we can build or ways to get
12. 0:29across the atlantic
13. 0:30in under an hour well you sound
14. 0:33just like a futurist
15. 0:36the futurists were a group of artists
16. 0:38who thought the world was stuck
17. 0:40in a boring old-fashioned rut and wanted
18. 0:44it to look forward by celebrating
19. 0:46innovation modernity and speed
20. 0:50they wanted to say goodbye tradition
21. 0:53hello technology
22. 0:56in 1908 charismatic italian poet
23. 1:00felipo tomaso marinetti was driving
24. 1:03along a road outside of milan
25. 1:05when he had to dramatically swerve into
26. 1:07a ditch to avoid hitting two
27. 1:10cyclists but surprisingly
28. 1:13he didn't emerge from the crash with an
29. 1:15aversion to engines and speed
30. 1:17and instead the face-off between old and
31. 1:19new transport
32. 1:20gave him the idea for a new philosophy
33. 1:24the futurism movement was born
34. 1:27marinetti became obsessed with
35. 1:30everything the future had to offer
36. 1:32things like factories urban landscapes
37. 1:35and yes
38. 1:36zooming trains planes and automobiles
39. 1:38and he wanted everyone else to be
40. 1:40too
41. 1:45in 1909 he laid out his idea to the
42. 1:47world in the manifesto of futurism
43. 1:50on the front page of the french
44. 1:51newspaper le figaro
45. 1:54the manifesto was passionate aggressive
46. 1:58and intended to stir controversy
47. 2:02marinetti wanted italy to become the
48. 2:04epicenter of progress
49. 2:06by embracing cutting-edge industry and
50. 2:08ridding itself
51. 2:09of archaic institutions like museums
52. 2:12libraries and academies
53. 2:14he wanted to re-write culture
54. 2:18his futurist vision could be applied to
55. 2:20everything from literature
56. 2:22theater architecture fashion and even to
57. 2:26cooking
58. 2:28but it particularly captured the
59. 2:31imagination
60. 2:32of a group of young like-minded italian
61. 2:35artists
62. 2:36inspired umberto boccioni carlo cara
63. 2:40and luigi rusolo banded together and
64. 2:43wrote the manifesto of futurist painters
65. 2:47they turned marinetti's call to arms
66. 2:49into a
67. 2:50call to paintbrushes by denouncing the
68. 2:52existing art scene
69. 2:54as stagnant academic and full of
70. 2:56copycats
71. 2:58they sent their new guidelines to their
72. 3:00contemporaries giacomo bala
73. 3:03and gino severini who happily jumped on
74. 3:06the high-speed bandwagon
75. 3:08together this core group of futurist
76. 3:11artists began to incorporate the vibrant
77. 3:14raw
78. 3:14energy promoted by marinetti into their
79. 3:17work
80. 3:18instead of painting the usual
81. 3:20mythological scenes chubby babies and
82. 3:23naked ladies rising out shells
83. 3:25they veered towards chaotic portrayals
84. 3:27of speed
85. 3:28movement and power they used their
86. 3:31canvases
87. 3:32to glorify industry workers
88. 3:35and even war the first major futurist
89. 3:39work to grasp the nation's attention
90. 3:41was bocciones the city rises
91. 3:44which depicted the construction of
92. 3:46milan's new electrical power plant
93. 3:48a large red horse rears up in the center
94. 3:51as the men around struggle to control it
95. 3:54it's an homage to hard work and
96. 3:56revolutionary change
97. 3:58not a fat cheeked cherub in sight
98. 4:03bocconi expresses a sense of strength
99. 4:05and dynamism by using blurred
100. 4:07repetitive brush strokes and merging
101. 4:10colours to animate the skittish animal
102. 4:13this technique is called divisionism and
103. 4:16was commonly used by futurist painters
104. 4:19in dynamism of a dog on a leash giacomo
105. 4:22bala throws off the shackles of artistic
106. 4:25tradition
107. 4:26by presenting us with an abrupt random
108. 4:28view that you'd normally see shrunken in
109. 4:30the background of a peaceful
110. 4:31impressionist scene
111. 4:34while the subject of the painting is a
112. 4:36lot cuter than
113. 4:37other futurist paintings its true star
114. 4:39is the concept of movement
115. 4:42the repetition of the dog's legs leash
116. 4:44ears and floppy tail
117. 4:46creates a feeling of forward motion that
118. 4:48is almost
119. 4:49dizzying futurism also took inspiration
120. 4:54from cubist artists
121. 4:56like pablo picasso and george braca
122. 4:59by using fragmented intersecting views
123. 5:02of the same subject
124. 5:05in luigi rossolo's dynamism of a car
125. 5:08the vehicle is painted in multiple
126. 5:10angular forms that all converge to the
127. 5:12left
128. 5:13this creates what are known as force
129. 5:15lines which add pace and direction to a
130. 5:18painting
131. 5:20the futurist aesthetic was translated to
132. 5:233d
133. 5:24in bocchoni sculpture unique forms of
134. 5:26continuity in space
135. 5:28it depicts the form of a man striding
136. 5:31forward
137. 5:32almost machine-like in intensity its
138. 5:35geometric outline creates the sense of
139. 5:37air
140. 5:38rippling around him as he marches
141. 5:42as well as creating art the futurists
142. 5:44wanted to spread their aesthetic
143. 5:46political and social ideals as much as
144. 5:49possible
145. 5:51true to their roots they made the most
146. 5:53of new technologies like
147. 5:54mass media printing and transportation
148. 5:58and published yet more manifestos
149. 6:01hundreds of them in fact
150. 6:06parallel strands began to emerge in
151. 6:08russia england belgium
152. 6:10and elsewhere russian futurism in
153. 6:13particular grew into its own
154. 6:14separate movement which was largely
155. 6:16focused on literature
156. 6:19futurism was just a few years old when
157. 6:21world war one broke out across europe
158. 6:24marinetti considered war and violence as
159. 6:26a necessary step towards making a new
160. 6:29modern italy
161. 6:30and the artists who supported him were
162. 6:32encouraged to fight for their country
163. 6:35this led to the death of some of its
164. 6:37members
165. 6:38including bocconi which stopped the
166. 6:41movement in its tracks
167. 6:44but after the war was over marinetti
168. 6:46revived it again in a phase known as
169. 6:49second futurism
170. 6:52artists in the new wave like tullio
171. 6:55crowley
172. 6:56enrico prampolini and philia were
173. 6:59particularly fixated on
174. 7:01aviation creating an offshoot of
175. 7:03futurism
176. 7:04called aeropitura
177. 7:07meanwhile mussolini the future dictator
178. 7:10of italy was rising to power
179. 7:12and marinetti would soon play a major
180. 7:14role in mussolini's new fascist regime
181. 7:18marinetti already had his own futurist
182. 7:20political party
183. 7:22so he merged with mussolini's party and
184. 7:25you guessed it wrote its manifesto
185. 7:30futurism was never the official art
186. 7:32movement of fascism
187. 7:34the two ideologies had a lot in common
188. 7:38both were patriotic supported disruption
189. 7:41glorified workers and opposed
190. 7:43parliamentary democracy
191. 7:46while this bolstered futurism's image at
192. 7:48the time it tarnished its reputation
193. 7:51when fascism later fell out of fashion
194. 7:54and was
195. 7:54ultimately condemned by the end of the
196. 7:58second world war
197. 7:59new younger artists had different more
198. 8:02nostalgic ideals
199. 8:05after years of violence and unrest they
200. 8:07wanted to return to reassuring
201. 8:09traditional art styles
202. 8:11so when marinetti died in 1944
203. 8:14futurism became history
204. 8:18its influence can be seen today in art
205. 8:20deco constructivism
206. 8:22surrealism dada and the architectural
207. 8:25neo-futurism movement
208. 8:27and even though the futurists were all
209. 8:29about out with the old and in with the
210. 8:32new
211. 8:33they'd probably be secretly happy that
212. 8:35their influence has stuck around
213. 8:40[Music]
214. 8:48you