El Lissitsky, aka one of my art daddies besides Warhol and Bacon, starts his manifesto with “Every invention in art is a single event in time, has no evolution. With the passage of time different variations of the same theme are composed around the invention, sometimes more sharpened, sometimes more flattened, but seldom is the original power attained”, which I believe is super relevant and important to art, design, and the relationship we have to it. The meanings of certain pieces can get distorted over time by people who interpret the piece a different way. He also discusses hieroglyphs (ideas) and letters (sounds) which I thought was pretty interesting as well!

Rodchenko and pals took a different approach and decided to write their manifesto as a poem(?) which was really fun! They see technology as the enemy of art, which, while I see their point, I actually think Technology has improved art, and how we create art, with things like Photoshop. BUT I understand the context of what they were saying in their time period. They see themselves as the ones who started the creation in a world in technology but also regret the advances it has made.

Marinetti was on Flight 420 when writing his Manifesto. I know what Futurism is about and I appreciated the list that was given but the first page and a half was written like a bad Clockwork Orange sequel. Centaurs and breasts and mosques??? He was a little confused but he had the spirit. “We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness” is actually something I LOVE because I also take it to mean that they wanted to embrace rebellion and what the future had for them. I was a little bit on board with them before number 9, where they said they wanted to glorify war, and then they lost me. The idea of “When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts!” is great though (not because it’s profane but because it’s HILARIOUS). Marinetti is that drunk uncle you see for the holidays and you put up with the rambling just to get the $20 he’s going to give you at the end of the night.