F.T. Marinetti, “Manifesto of Futurism”; Aleksandr Rodchenko, “Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group”; and El Lissitzky, “Our Book” are found in our main text Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field by Helen Armstrong on pages 19-31.

Questions/Prompts

Here are the questions to which you should respond in your reading response:

  • Consider if and how these manifestos addressed the concepts of authorship/ownership, universal systems of communication, and social/political engagement.
  • What common views do these artists/designers share, and where might they disagree?
  • Which elements of these texts remain relevant for the present, and which elements are problematic? 
  • How has the communication process changed since the early 20th Century, specifically with regard to “feedback” and “noise”?

Response

Manifestos was a turning point in artworks, they wanted to be different, break the usual rules in art, in order for their messages and impact in their artwork to change the world. Through many experiments they explored asymmetrical layout, activated white space, geometric typefaces, minimalism, hierarchy, and universality. It was because of this, that the movements like futurism, Dadaism, De Stijl, constructivism, and New Typography, that came to existence. They knew if they wanted to change or have an impact for their cause they couldn’t stick to the old rules anymore, they had to experiment, change into new art for the future, like F. T. Marinetti did, “He challenges us even now to embrace the future—in his words, to “exalt” in the “punch and the slap,” to believe that entirely new forms are not only possible but imminent” (Armstrong 20). 

Due to the influence of war and industrialization, many young artist abandoned their old works in order to become artists, even some inspired from fellow young artist to do the same. Someone like Aleksandr Rodchenko and his wife, Varvara Stepanova, utulized new technology and mass production for the soviet citizens and “repositioned artists as agents of social change standing at the center of a brave new world.” (Armstrong 22). New tools and different styles can help spread a message across better like what these two pulled.The more it reaches, the more it can even reach political engagement.

You can see similiar methods be preformed even in the present. “It is shortsighted to think that the machine alone, that is to say, the supplanting of manual processes by mechanical ones is fundamental to the changing of the appearance and form of things.” (Armstrong 25)

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