This is the first interdisciplinary exploration of machine culture in Italian futurism after the First World War. The machine was a primary concern for the futuristi. As well as being a material tool in the factory it was a social and political agent, an aesthetic emblem, a metonymy of modernity and international circulation and a living symbol of past crafts and technologies. Exploring literature, the visual and performing arts, photography, music and film, the book uses the lens of European machine culture to elucidate the work of a broad set of artists and practitioners, including Censi, Depero, Marinetti, Munari and Prampolini. The machine emerges here as an archaeology of technology in modernity: the time machine of futurism.
Author(s): Katia Pizzi
Edition: 1
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 320
Fornt Matter
Dedication
Contents
List of figures and plates
Acknowledgments
Note on style and translations
Introduction: the rape of Europa
Futurismo and the machine
Mechanical mach(in)ismo: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Style of steel: Fortunato Depero in ‘dynamoland’
At the frontier of futurismo
Between technodialogism and cosmic idealism
From aerodancing technobodies to dysfunctional machines
Conclusion: Ex machina
Select bibliography
Index of names
