Month: September 2020 (Page 3 of 7)

In the first article by Marinetti, they seem to envision that the future will and should be fill with many talented artist and designers from around the world. Many who will do what they please and how they please without having to rely on the past of art but instead make their own. Forging their own styles and ideas instead of building off of the old traditional ways of art and design. They seem to believe technology was going to play a big part in the future with how we move on with everything including art. Where it will be the start of something new to leave behind the old traditional styles and instead start a new.

Lissitsky seems to be on board with the idea of technology advancement. They understand that without it, there are plenty of things we wouldn’t have today and around us that wouldn’t exist without such advancements. That the future will constantly moving forward but that we will always learn techniques that are apart of the future but as well apart of the past. They don’t seem to be against technology at all but more for it. Believing that the teachings of both old and new traditions will bring artist and designers together more than the past did.

The Constructivists seem to also envision the future to be filled with technology advancement. They saw the future filled with it to the point where we start to rely on it more than relying on our own. They didn’t seem to be completely against it but instead that they’re against how we as humans are going to rely on it so much to create everything that we used to be able to make with our bare hands and our own skills. From my understanding from all three text they all believed in the same vision of the future and that it was going to be filled with technology and how we are going to use it how ever we wanted to the point that we make some work a lot easier for our lives. The only elements I found problematic is how the Constructivist is against the idea of technology. Even though it is true that it will make work for humans a lot easier in many different ways. It will still take a human mind, and humans skill in art, and the human hand to make those tools that make thing easy for us to make that happen. No matter how far we go into the future we will always have to use some sort of new tool to make art and design with what we were taught in the past and what we learn in the present day.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is a Italian poet and the founder of the futurist movement. He wanted people to break free from traditions and embrace the technological things. “We went up to the three snorting machines to caress their breasts.” This shows that Marinetti was fascinated and is obsessed with machinery. Marinetti believes that technology is the future.

Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, were members of The Constructivist Group. “Rodchenko utilized new technology and mass production in an attempt to give form not just to revolutionary concepts of functionalism and economy but to ideal Soviet citizens as well.” They had similar view with Marinetti, by encouraging artists to break free from tradition and embrace the future with technology.

El Lissitzky traveled around Europe and the US spreading constructivism. In “Our Book” Lissitzky talks about book design while dreaming about the future. Lissitzky was kinda disappointed with the book development. “Notwithstanding the crises that book production is suffering, in common with other areas of production, the book glacier is growing year by year.” “Then comes further growth of the communications network and increase in the volume of communications; then radio eases the burden.” But then at the same time, he is also looking forward to what the future will have. Each of these authors have similar views. They believe the technology would be a great addition to the future and will change the way of how creativity is used.

El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Filippo Marinetti all predicted that art and design would move in the direction of new and innovative. Straying away from what was already done. These three artist were innovators themselves. They all strayed away from the old way of creating art and design and created a new wave of thinking and design. I think they expected the next generation of new artists and designers not to imitate but to create a new way.

Throughout each reading you see that these three artist all expect that art and design will reach new limits and seek new ways of thinking. According to “Who We Are” written in 1922 that “… new constructivists jumped on the bandwagon, wrote constructive poems, novels, paintings, and other such junk… they have forgotten that all attention should be concentrated on the new experimental laboratories which show us New elements routes things experiments.” Or as stated in Marinetti’s “The Futurist Manifesto” “what is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible?”. And lastly by Lissitzky from “Our Book” he states “… epic revolution of our times is given shape”. Even though these writings came in the early decades of the 20th century I feel that the element of innovation and experimentation within art and design still remain true. Innovation and creating is healthy and needed for art and design to grow. Without new, fresh ideas and ways of thinking successful designs and art would not be capable.

Futurism was an artistic and social movement founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti In Italy in the early 20^thcentury. His Futurist Manifesto celebrates speed, youth, danger, violence and war. Love is expressed for objects like cars, airplanes and the latest in industrial technology. He wants to eradicate libraries, museums, history, and anything considered antique to be freed from the obsolete past and fully embrace the notion of Futurism. Women and feminism are looked down upon as impediments to Futurism. Although Futurism is quite progressive in terms and celebrating technology and futuristic ideas, I find that violence and hate towards history and women are regressive ideas and should not be such. History and feminism do not obstruct the progress of technology because they are part of how technological achievements came to be. 

In Russia, Aleksandr Rodchenko, alongside with Varvara Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, was a founding member of the Constructivist Group. Their manifesto calls for artists and designers to abandon the traditional representational arts and embrace new technologies to create work for functionalism and mass production. Art making is professional labor like any other and artists should use everyday materials like metal and wood to create objects for the mass. Artists are at the center of a new world dominated by technology. 

El Lissitzky was an ambassador of Constructivism. He traveled across Europe and the U.S.A. in the early 1920s and spread the ideologies of Constructivism. In the essay “Our Book” he complains about how the technology of art books has not and can’t be developed any further than it already has. A book is a cover with a spine and pages and nothing else can be done about it. Artists are like books; they are limited to creating artwork to please the eyes with no real function. With the advancement and continuous development of digital technology, Lissitzky sees the internet as the solution to freeing artists to create for purposes other than a painting for someone’s viewing pleasure. 

  After reading Marinetti’s article I got the sense that he seems really open minded and is very confident in the future, I researched him and found out he is the founder of the Futurist movement of the early 1900s. Marinetti envisioned what may happen in the upcoming future is that people are to create their own paths and live their lives the way they see fit and no longer live life by tradition. El Lissitzky envisioned what may happen in the upcoming future is that people will learn about the ways of how art was done in the past and in the future, it will be done with the same process. The Constructivist Group envisioned what may happen in the upcoming future is that humans will enhance their way of life with the help of technology, make life easier, and become reliant on technology advancements.

Marinetti had thought technology would help the world advance to high levels it’s never reached before and to erase how things were done traditionally. Lissitzky had thought technology in the future would help bring communication in art and design to ring people in other nations more together. The Constructivist Group thought technology was something that would strip the true meaning of what art really is. After reading their article, I came to understand that the authors just don’t see technology is a bad thing, but it may cause artists to rely on it too much in which technology will do more of the artwork than the artist itself. On page 2, a line that says “Technology is—the mortal enemy of art.”, stunned me because I am a person that uses today’s technology to create some art pieces, and as I continue to read I see the authors express how us humans are not going to become “slaves” to technology so that we can continue on building skyscrapers and other contraptions that aren’t really necessary.

     What I find common about these authors is that they all seem to believe that technology will be a part of the future in people’s everyday life as it continues to be studied and enhanced in different ways it can be used, and it can either have positive or negative effects depending on the way on how people use it. I think the whole text that seems true in the present-day is from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti as he seems to praise new technologies that are discovered and were used to create automobiles for and because of their creation, they help transportation become easier and better for people to get to one place to another quicker, and today technology is a huge hit and is still being used to help create new and develop contraptions. What I think shows elements that are problematic are from The Constructivist Group text, to be honest, I can’t point out in a specific one spot on where a problem may be here but I choose this text because it seems the authors were not against the achievement of advance technology but that it shouldn’t be added to certain fields of work and it seemed the authors preferred that art should be done the traditional way, like canvas and paint with no need of help of technology because it’s not something a human had made its something a computer is programmed to do.

Marineetti’s manifesto of Futurism is mainly about rebelling against tradition and praising the sense of speed and movement brought by mechanical civilization. In his manifesto, he demanded that Futurist artists abandon all the frameworks and become free and improvised. It is obvious that Futurism in Marineetti’s Manifesto was an international phenomenon at the time in the world. At the same time, a wind of futurism blew in Russia as well. Similar to other historical trends, this futurism seems to have different directions and textures in different countries.

From Rodcheko’s manifesto, Russian constructivism seems to have pursued various ‘experiments’ in the art, industrial machine, aesthetic and utility by accepting the optimism of European technology at that time. Constructivism is no longer limited to fine art such as painting and sculpture, but based on experiments in various fields of art such as design and literature. As such, it seemed that it was positive for the intervention of art in reality, and tried to achieve a new reform of politics beyond art for mere expression. It is believed that a close relationship between people’s lives and art was established.

El lissitzky’s writing is similar to Rodchenko. By developing a new painting style, graphic design was used as means of expressing the ideals of socialism. Constructivists considered and rejected works of art as products of the old age for the bourgeoisie, armed with a new way of expression, abstraction, and tried to eliminate the distinction between art and labor. In that respect, it can be said that the production method of machinery, especially photographic technology, fits the constructivist ideals.

As such, constructivism is characterized by geometric and abstract forms in the trend of avant-garde, which was the mainstream of Russian art. Constructivism, characterized by geometric and abstract forms, pursued ‘space and time(speed)’, and industrial materials and practicality. Art is no longer made only of canvases and paints, but has become a story of the times we live in with various materials. In a radically changing society, the perceptions of artists changed, and constructivism was seen as one of art experiments. It is clear that geometrical and mechanically praised works began in this period and have influenced the present day.