Italian Futurism Study

 Practical Outcomes 

Futurism is becoming prevalent in the dissertation module. Their depictions of motion using force lines, and visualisation of multiple sensory modalities are exactly what I'm looking for in my studies into making experiential animation. As the research is an overarching the entire concept for how my film is developing it is appropriate to demonstrate this in the 703 blog. 

Example of force Lines in Italian Futurism: 

The Hand of the Violinist (The Rhythms of the Bow) - Giacomo Balla

Balla, G. (1912) The Hand of the Violinist (The Rhythms of the Bow). [Oil on Canvas]. Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

 Context  

'the recognition of the artist embracing modernity and acting as the creator of the future.'

If we leave aside their radically different literary form, both statements, full of youthfully buoyant spirits and distrustful of the past as an artistic source, stressed two chief points: the artist as creative seer and guide to the future, located at the heart of the most vital modern activity, and the necessity to recover a pure, untrammelled sensibility to express the novel values and experience of the changing world.'

These new realities manifested themselves in what he named "les unanimes," or vast collective sentiments, which created a flux of uncanny physical and spiritual relationships voiding classic concepts of space and time, thus overcoming the isolation of Leibnitz' monads. 

In Leibniz's system of metaphysics, monads are basic substances that make up the universe but lack spatial extension and hence are immaterial. Each monad is a unique, indestructible, dynamic, soullike entity whose properties are a function of its perceptions and appetites

 David Mather Essay 

'In early 1914, the Paris based Italian Futurist painter Gino Severini coined the term Plastic analogies to describe a method for representing modern perceptual experience.. He did not intend these analogies to correspond with everyday perception, or with its conventional representations. Rather, he meant that an artist's knowledge, particularly firsthand, sensory knowledge, could be translated into any of the so-called plastic arts, so the viewer interacting with works of art could access experiential content directly from its forms.' Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.57.

Plastic Analogies - key point for argument

Severini believed that plastic analogies worked through three fundamental elements; an experiential subject matter, a non-naturalistic method of transcribing the source through diverse modalities; and a viewer who would interpret the work for its complex interconnected cognitive meanings. 

Methodology for creating musical visuals for the film

The plastic manner was phrase Severini used prior to 1914 to describe phenomena which cannot be recognised by just one sense modality or symbolic form. The viewer needn't know the subject matter to recognise the subject or the sensory richness. The experience is still arguably translated in abstract form.

Severini, G (1914) Sea Dancer [Oil on Canvas]. Guggenheim, New York

'An analogy between a geographic feature and a moving human body. Yet these phenomena are not distinguishable in the work, and the artist even indicated that this particular composite accurately represented neither, but evoked both.' Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.57.

'While the majority of Futurist paintings portray images of machinery, Severini instead chose the dancer. It is fair to say that no other painter of the movement shared his enthusiasm for this type of subject.' 

Haidinger, M., 2014. "Gino Severini's Dancers and His Theatrical Milieu," Art Journal: Vol., pp.13

'Tonal modulations of semiopaque shapes which, for a spectator, should connote expenditures of kinetic force analogous to both.' Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.57.

Visual Kinetic Approach

'Western notions of subjectivity were in crisis at the turn of the 20th Century, in response to experiential conditions of modernity. This crisis was not the product of new technology per se, despite coinciding with rapid technological invention. Rather, it comprised a set of perceptual and philosophical conundrums that, in effect, rendered the boundaries of individuality itself problematic.' Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.58.

A question that could be raised in the end of the essay is whether, in the new context and knowledge of global preservation, plastic analogies can drive towards a sustainable future. Using the forces (visual, kinetic or otherwise) and some of the ideas of Futurism, could more humanitarian ideals be brought to the forefront to drive a better future rather than the technological advancement and industry of the early 20th Century?

'The moving object is unrecognisable within a field of superimposed glints and sonic reverberations that shudder across the frame'. Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.61.

'Visual patterns highlight the visual and auditory sensations associated with vehicles observed from the side of the road'. Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.61.

With ideas of Chronophotography, motion is brought into the Futurist paintings. Temporality is compressed into one abstract image. Time is taken out of the equation to make a sequential, but still, image.

'Apprehending the underlying truths of experience' Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.61.

Somatosensory

relating to or denoting a sensation (such as pressure, pain, or warmth) which can occur anywhere in the body, in contrast to one localised at a sense organ (such as sight, balance, or taste).

Sensorimotor
Sensory-motor coupling is the coupling or integration of the sensory system and motor system. Sensorimotor integration is not a static process. For a given stimulus, there is no one single motor command.

'The Futurists' visual systems shifted from external observable phenomena to internal conditions of perception, andm from there, to the psychophysical mediums that bridge external and internal processes'. Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.63.

'Implicit within the chromatic geometry is the play between straight and curved edges, as well as the adjacent pairing of complimentary hues: red-green, orange-blue, and violet-yellow'. Mather Uchill, J., 2016. Experience : Culture, Cognition and the Common Sense. MIT Press, p.63.