Our third reading assignment consists of three short manifestos written by avant-garde artists in the early decades of the 20th century. They are as follows:

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909): Marinetti_Manifesto_Futurista

Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Aleksei Gan, Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group (c. 1922): RodchenkoStepanovaGan_WhoWeAre

El Lissitzky, Our Book (1926): Lissitsky_OurBook

Here are some questions to consider as you read:
Writing in the first decades of the 20th century, what new possibilities did these authors envision for the coming decades? What role did they imagine technology would play in shaping the future? In what ways did these artists anticipate the art and design that would follow? What common views do these authors share and where might they disagree? Which elements of these texts remain true in the present, and which elements are problematic?