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Futurism

05 May 1997 17:41

No, no, not mumbo-jumbo like Toffler; I mean the modernist artistic movement founded in 1909 by F. T. Marinetti in friends; the first artists to really, consciously and with immense self-promotion embrace technology and constant change and shock and all that good stuff. They were also, at least in the first wave before World War I, really good artists. It is sad, but not actually a coincidence, that those who survived the war went on to become some of the first Fascists.

Many years ago now, I wrote a fragment arguing that "we are all Futurists now" --- all of us on the Net, anyhow. That now seems clearly false, through sheer over-statement, though there might be something to it. (Re-reading stuff I wrote when I was 20, though, is like listening to a recording of my own voice: I'm too busy cringing to consider the performance with any critical distance.)


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