Specifically for Italy, author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was looking towards the idea of futurism for the coming decades. He envisioned Italy stepping out its comfort zone of looking at art in museums and dwelling over memories and instead turning that rage that art made them feel into new creations. He wanted new art to turn into a representation of rage, courage, and aggression. Marinetti states, “To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action” (Marinetti). And while Marinetti basket in the idea of futurism, constructivist Aleksandro Rodchenko did so in the idea of functionalism. When it came to new possibilities for art, Rodchenko hoped for artists to turn away from representational art and instead turn to utility. He wanted to see art in things such as a pair of boots, a mug or a magazine. For the future of the 20th century, Constructivist, El Lassitzky, on the other hand suggested one simple idea; books becoming international in language. He wanted both the representation of an image and the sound of a letter to mix in books and become something that transcends the language barriers. “The coming book must be both. The energetic task that art must accomplish is to transmute the emptiness into space, that is, into something that our minds can grasp as an organized unity”(Lissitzky 27). For all artists, you can say that the big question in looking into the future was, “Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?” (Marinetti).

A “Constructivist” is an artist embracing technology to become a constructor and an activist. In the first couple of lines in his manifesto, Rodchenko makes clear that his vision for the future of the artist is the embracing of technology, one of his statements being, “previously—Engineers relaxed with art now—Artists relax with technology”. Though technology would pose a threat for artists, it was something they rather embraced and worked with rather than shy away from. Rodchenko admits to technology being the enemy, but not something that will overcome him by stating “Technology is—the mortal enemy of art. technology. . . . We are your first fighting and punitive force. We are also your last slave-workers”. Artist El Lissitzky saw technology moving the arts forward in a way called “dematerialism”. Dematerialism is essentially the decrease of materials used to make a process simpler and more innovative. Like the example he uses of mail, “correspondence grows, the number of letters increases, the amount of paper written on and material used up swells, then the telephone call relieves the strain” (Lissitzky 26). And that’s what technology will continue to do for the future, one innovation relieving the strain of another which was taking more time, effort, and resources. 

Artists Marinetti and Lissitzky shared a common view in believing that the meaning of a piece of art doesn’t evolve with it. Lissitzky stated that “Every invention in art is a single event in time, has no evolution… this work of art becomes so automatic-mechanical in its performance that the mind ceases to respond to the exhausted theme; then the time is ripe for a new invention”. Like Marinetti stated at the beginning of his manifesto, both of these artists agree that the art seen in museums and places alike evoke a feeling, but don’t spark new emotions and creativity. They both believe that art has its time, but when it comes time to make new art, artists have to embrace that. While Marinetti put it in more poetic terms, Lissitzky put it in simpler terms; “The invention of easel pictures produced great works of art, but their effectiveness has been lost” (Lissitzky 29)

Rodchenko’s idea of turning to industrial and functional art is an element that proved a bit problematic. New artists soon began to use the label of constructivism to label themselves genius while still designing things that went against the foundation of what constructivism was. As Rochenko explains, ‘“new’ constructivists jumped on the bandwagon, wrote “constructive” poems, novels, paintings, and other such junk. Others, taken with our slogans, imagine themselves to be geniuses, designed elevators and radio posters, but they have forgotten that all attention should be concentrated on the experimental laboratories, which show us new elements, routes, things, experiments” (Rodchenko 24). While Rodchenko’s idea of constructivism is a bit problematic for artists in the present, Lissitzky’s ideas about dematerializing seems to be thriving and truer than ever. In the past, present, and future, new inventions of technology seem to continue to replace older versions of themselves.