Futurism and The Technological Imagination Poised Between Machine Cult and Machine Angst

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Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult

and Machine Angst
Article · October 2009
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Günter Berghaus
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Contents
Editor’s Foreword vii
Günter Berghaus
Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between
Machine Cult and Machine Angst 1
Domenico Pietropaolo
Science and the Aesthetics of Geometric Splendour
in Italian Futurism 41
Serge Milan
The ‘Futurist Sensibility’: An Anti-philosophy for the
Age of Technology 63
Roger Griffin
The Multiplication of Man: Futurism’s Technolatry
Viewed Through the Lens of Modernism 77
Vera Castiglione
A Futurist before Futurism: Émile Verhaeren and the
Technological Epic 101
Patrizia Veroli
Loie Fuller’s Serpentine Dance and Futurism:
Electricity, Technological Imagination and the Myth
of the Machine 125
Maria Elena Versari

Futurist Machine Art, Constructivism and the Moder-
nity of Mechanization 149
vi Contents
Gerardo Regnani
Futurism and Photography: Between Scientific Inquiry
and Aesthetic Imagination
177
Wanda Strauven
Futurist Poetics and the Cinematic Imagination:
Marinetti’s Cinema without Films 201
Margaret Fisher
Futurism and Radio 229
Matteo D'Ambrosio
From Words-in-Freedom to Electronic Literature:
Futurism and the Neo-Avantgarde 263
Michelangelo Sabatino
Tabula rasa or Hybridity? Primitivism and the Vernac-
ular in Futurist and Rationalist Architecture 287
Pierpaolo Antonello
Beyond Futurism: Bruno Munari’s Useless Machines 315
Marja Härmänmaa
Futurism and Nature: The Death of the Great Pan? 337
Illustrations 361
Abstracts 367
Notes on Contributors 373
Index 379
Editor’s Foreword
This collection of essays results from a workshop held on 29 July

2008 in Helsinki under the auspices of the International Society for
the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI). It contains a number of re-
written conference contributions as well as several specially
commissioned essays to round off the volume. Together, they address
a variety of aspects of the Futurists’ relationship to technology both on
an ideological level and with regard to their artistic endeavours.
The rapid unfolding of science and technology in the wake of the

Industrial Revolution rang in the Age of Modernity, characterized not
only by an awe-inspiring transformation of our physical environment
but also by a whole range of apparatuses that allowed reality to be
perceived and experienced in a novel manner. This, in turn, led to the
birth of several artistic schools and movements that sought to interpret
and convey the essence of this new and rapidly changing world.
Some of the most remarkable examples of the technological

imagination in arts and literature were offered by the Futurist
movement. It was founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, a
man who ever since his first visit to Paris, in 1894, had been
fascinated by the dizzying pace of modern life. He therefore aspired to
renovate the form and content of arts and literature and turn them into
suitable vehicles of expression in the Era of the Machine. The
glorification of technology became a salient feature of many of his
manifestos and thus of Futurism as a cultural phenomenon. The artists
who joined the movement made use of the changed forms of
communication, incorporated the break-up of the conventional time-
space nexus in their works, and sought to express the spirit of
modernity by way of entirely new and experimental works of art.
However, during the First World War, the negative and threatening
features of technology became more and more apparent. In the 1920s,
this gave rise to a Futurist “machine angst” (angoscia delle macchine),
and a variety of attempts to merge organic and mechanical
technologies, culminating, in the 1930s, in a Futurist Naturist
movement and the proclamation of a specifically Futurist spirituality.
viii Editor’s Foreword
As many scholars in the past had focussed their attention on

Futurist’ technophilia and modernolatry, our Helsinki meeting sought
to broaden the picture by also examining the flipside of the coin. In
fact it was largely due to Marja Härmänmaa, who had analysed the
neglected features of secondo futurismo in her pioneering study, Un
patriota che sfidò la decadenza: F. T. Marinetti e l'idea dell'uomo
nuovo fascista, 1929-1944 (2000), that this workshop came about. I
had suggested to her in 2005 to organize a symposium on the later
phase of the Futurist movement. When, in 2007, she persuaded ISSEI
to hold their 2008 congress in Helsinki on the topic of “Language and
the Scientific Imagination”, an ideal framework had been set in place
for our workshop.
I should like to express my sincerest gratitude to Marja

Härmänmaa, Ezra Talmor and Rachel Ben-David for having made our
symposium possible. The Helsinki event will be remembered by all
participants for its intellectual stimulation, convivial gatherings and
culinary indulgences.
Unfortunately, not every presentation given at our conference

could be included in this volume. I extend my warmest thanks to all
delegates who participated in our debates with papers and improvised
interventions, and to all other colleagues who subsequently submitted
essays for this volume.
I hope that what has been selected here amounts to a balanced and
multifaceted account of the Futurist technological imagination, and
will be considered a useful contribution to the 2009 centenary of
Futurism.
Günter Berghaus
28 July 2009
Futurism and the Technological Imagination
Poised between Machine Cult and Machine Angst
Günter Berghaus
Abstract: This chapter deals with some of the great changes that affected Italy during
the ‘second Industrial revolution’, especially in the fields of transportation and
communication. It shows how Marinetti experienced the first stages of
industrialization in Italy, discusses some of his proto-Futurist visions of life and art in
the machine age, and surveys his theoretical writings on technology and on a Futurist
art and literature of the machine age. Marinetti repeatedly defined Futurism as a
movement that was committed to ‘the enthusiastic glorification of scientific
discoveries and modern machines’ (Marinetti 2005: 105). However, it would be
unwise to take it for granted that Marinetti’s attitude was identical with that of other
Futurists, as many of them possessed viewpoints that were different from those of the
movement’s leader. Similarly, it would be imprudent to assume that in the course of
thirty years Futurism remained a stable and unchanging entity. For this reason, I shall
outline in this chapter not only those trends that occupied a dominant position in
Futurism’s long history, but also some of the dissenting voices that came from within
the movement. I shall point out some contradictions in Marinetti’s own ideology of
the machine and discuss developments in the second and third phase of Futurism that
demonstrate that some of the sceptical views on modernity that were a mere
undercurrent in the years 1909-1915 became a major and significant aspect of
Futurism in its later years of its existence. Thus, this chapter will investigate to what
degree the Futurist machine cult was tempered by an underlying machine angst and
suggest that Futurist attitudes towards an industrialized society were more complex
and contradictory than appears at first sight.
‘The essence of technology is not itself something technological’

(Heidegger 1985: 13)
The advent of the Age of Mobility in Italy
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti had been brought up in Egypt in

accordance with religious and philosophical principles that belonged
to a pre-industrial age. When, as an adolescent, he came to Europe, he
discovered a new world. He marvelled at the wonders of technology
displayed in Paris and in the capitals of other industrialized countries.
However, when he visited the land of his forefathers he could not fail
2 Günter Berghaus
to notice that, in comparison, Italy lagged far behind the most

advanced nations and was still an under-developed, backward country.
It is ironic that the peninsula, which in the early modern period had
been economically at the forefront of European developments, had
fallen far behind in the era of the Industrial Revolution. It was only
after Unification (1861) that the industrialization of Italy began to take
off, especially in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and the Veneto, i.e.
those regions which had long been integrated into central Europe’s
economy and were therefore more able to adapt to the new realities of
the Industrial Age (Gerschenkron 1962; Caracciolo 1963; Clough
1964; Toniolo 1973; Federico 1994; Giannetti 1998). The years 1896-
1908 were a period of unprecedented economic growth and
development, especially in the new chemical, electrical, petrochemical
and steel industries, as well as in the production of mass consumer
goods and the new means of communication and transportation. It also
provided the population with hitherto unknown comforts and
amenities, such as spacious and well-heated dwellings provided with
gas and water supply, sewage systems, electrical power and telephone
connections. Expanding educational facilities improved literacy and
changed people’s perceptions of themselves and of the world around
them.
Italy, like the rest of Europe, entered into the Age of Mobility.
Railway networks, which had begun rather modestly in the late
1830s,1 grew by the time of Unification to 1,632 km (transporting over
1.2 mill. passengers), expanded to 16,053 km by 1896 and transported
more than 2.8 mill. passengers in 1903 (Crispo 1940; Clough 1964:
26-28, 66-71; Briano 1977). There were years, when half of the
State’s infrastructure budget was allocated to railway construction and
75 per cent of public-works funds were invested in vast transportation
schemes (Schram 1997:3).2 Magnificent railway stations were erected
in every city – described, again and again, as ‘modern cathedrals of
1
The first Italian railway line, between Naples and Portici, was inaugurated on 3
October 1839, nine years after the world's first inter-city railway between Liverpool
and Manchester.
2
However, recent research has suggested that the economic benefit of Italy’s railway
system was much less than generally assumed. Given the length of Italian coastlines,
shipping always remained a significant means of transportation. Even in the regions
with the most dynamic economies, the length of railways and the density of traffic
on them always remained way below those of the economically more advanced
nations in Europe. See Schram 1997: 70 and 152-164.
Futurism and the Technological Imagination 3
the industrial age’ – and huge swathes were cut through the fabric of
the urban centres to allow for the construction of thoroughfares in and
out of town. Given the prominent place accorded to these
developments in political discourse, it is not astonishing that in the
public mind the notion gained ground that Italy had become a mobile
society. And indeed, in every major city, monumental changes were
taking place that demonstrated that the modern technologies of
communication and transportation were conquering time and space.
Table 1: Growth of railway networks in selected European countries
England Germany France Italy

1840 2,390 km 469 km 410 km 20 km
1850 9,797 km 5,856 km 2,915 km 620 km
1875 23,365 km 27,970 km 19,357 km 8,018 km
1900 30,079 km 51,678 km 38,109 km 16,479 km
(From Mitchell 1998: 673-677)
But this was not all. Everywhere, horse-driven cabs were giving
way to electrified trams and motorized omnibuses. Bicycles became a
common sight, especially after 1885, when the firm of Edoardo
Bianchi introduced the ‘safety bike’, i.e. a chain driven vehicle with
wheels of nearly identical size and furnished with pneumatic tires.
Furthermore, soon after the invention of the Diesel and Otto motors
and Carl Benz’s historical drive through the street of Mannheim in an
‘auto-mobile tricyle’ (1885), Italian engineers began to construct
motor vehicles powered by internal combustion engines: in 1894,
Enrico Bernardi presented a first Italian automobile with a petrol
motor and in 1895 Michele Lanza launched his Phaeton. In 1898, a
first Salone Internazionale dell'Automobile was held at the National
Exposition of Turin and featured, on 25 July, a car race (Concorso
internazionale di veicoli automobili) from Turin to Alessandria and
back. On 11 July 1899, the Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino
(FIAT) was founded and, within a few years, became the pride of the
country. But FIAT was not alone: Aquila, Bianchi, Bugatti, Ceirano,
Diatto, Flag, Isotta, Itala, Lancia, Scat, SPA, Temperino, Züst and
various other manufacturers laid the foundations for an Italian
automobile industry. However, in terms of actual production figures,
4 Günter Berghaus
the country trailed far behind other industrialized nations (see tables 2
and 3).
Table 2: FIAT production numbers
1900 1901 1903 1904 1906 1907 1908 1909 1911 1912 1913 1914
24 73 135 268 1,149 1,420 1,300 1,800 2,631 3,500 3,050 4,644
(Figures taken from Bardou 1977: 58-59, 106, and Pietra 1985: 34-41)
Table 3: Car production and ownership in selected countries
Manufacturers’ output Cars registered in Number of citizens

individual countries per automobile
1895 1900 1907 1907 1913 1907 1913
France 144 4,800 25,200 40,000 125,00 981 318
Germany 135 800 5,150 16,200 70,000 3,824 950
Britain 175 12,000 63,000 250,000 640 165
USA 4,000 44,000 143,000 1,258,000 608 77
Italy 2,500 6,080 17,000 5,554 2,070
(Figures based on Bardou 1977: 25-107)
Whereas railway travel is a

communal experience deter-
mined by factors the individual
cannot control, the driver of a
motorcar determines the
journey him- or herself and
feels a sense of personal
freedom combined with the
adrenaline rush caused by the
experience of speed. The
autonomy of movement in a
motorcar is fundamentally
different from a journey in a
train running on fixed tracks.
Illustr. 1: Michele Lanza in his Also, the car is (just about)
‘Victoria’ of 1898, Coll.
Bassignana, Turin
within reach of an individual’s
financial resources. Marinetti,
for example, could buy himself a car, but not a railway or an

aeroplane. A precondition for this was that car manufacturing shifted
from artisanal to industrial production methods.
As the output of cars increased, also the interest of the public in the
new form of locomotion stepped up. It should come as no surprise to
us to disover that much of this was channelled by the persuasive force
of advertising and the evocative power of the illustrated press. As
early as 1894, the first magazine entirely dedicated to automobiles
saw the world: La Locomotion automobile: Revue universelle des
voitures, vélocipèdes et véhicules mécaniques.3 Its appearance
coincided with the Deuxième Salon de la Bicyclette, which had also
nine car manufacturers presenting their products. In the next decade,
one salon after another presented the latest car models, and nearly
every country instituted car races. The consequence of this was that, in
1900, France possessed no less than 25 publications dedicated to
automobiles, although, taken altogether, only 5,386 cars were actually
on the streets of the country! (Bardou 1977: 32) This indicates that the
general curiosity that surrounded the motorcar was much higher than
the actually number of people who could experience the thrill and
excitement generated by a ride on this Modern Pegasus.
Table 4: Early Grand-Prix automobile races in Italy
12 September 1897 Arona-Stresa-Arona (34 km)

17 July 1898 Torino-Asti-Alessandria-Torino (192 km)
14 March 1899 Verona-Brescia-Mantova-Verona (161 km)
30 April 1899 Turin-Pinerolo-Avigliana-Turin (90 km)
8 May 1899 Reggio Emilia (85 km)
22 May 1899 Bologna-Poggio Renatico-Malalbergo-Bologna (80 km)
19 June 1899 Padua-Vincenza-Thiene-Bassano-Trevisio-Padua (175 km)
15 August 1899 Piacenza-Cremona-Borgo-Piacenza (100 km)
10 September 1899 Brescia Sprint: Torno della Città (6 km)
11 September 1899 Brescia-Cremona-Mantua-Verona-Brescia (223 km)
20 September 1899 Bergamo-Treviglio-Crema-Bergamo (92 km)
29 October 1899 Treviso Sprint in the city’s Hippodrome (3 km)
30 October 1899 Campionato Italiano di Resistenza: Treviso-Oderzo-
Codogné-Conegliano-Treviso (80 km)
3
Sixteen issues from December 1894 to September 1909 are preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
6 Günter Berghaus
In Italy, the situation was not much different. Motor-clubs sprang

up everywhere and organized car rallies. Newspapers and illustrated
magazines vied with each other to interview the winners of these races
and to report on the latest speed records. It is not surprising therefore
that, in the early years of the twentieth century, the motorcar turned
into an icon of technological progress and acquired quasi-
mythological significance. The automobile not only symbolized the
human desire to overcome the limits of time and space; it also became
the machine par excellence (and to this day, it is called ‘la macchina’
in Italy!)
However, the speedy motor vehicle eulogized by Marinetti in the
Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism was not a consumer but a
racing car: ‘We believe that this wonderful world has been further
enriched by a new beauty, the beauty of speed. A racing car, its bonnet
decked-out with exhaust pipes like serpents with galvanic breath... a
roaring motor car, which seems to race on like machine-gun fire, is
more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace.’ (Marinetti
1909a: 13) It was this insistence on speed and dynamism that became
a defining characteristic of Futurism and set it apart from its ‘static’
predecessors in literature (Symbolism) and painting (Cubism).
Illustr. 2: Marinetti at the wheel of his BN 30/40 HP FIAT Isotta Fraschini ‘Gran
Lusso’ in 1908.
Illustr. 3: Brescia car race in 1907. From a contemporary postcard.
Given this widespread enthusiasm for cars – which to this day has
not abated but rather increased – one must not forget, however, that, in
Marinetti’s time, the automobile was not a ‘Volkswagen’, a people’s
vehicle, but a luxury item for a small privileged élite. Marinetti’s four-
cylinder FIAT which, in 1908, he drove into a ditch was not a car for
the proverbial ‘man in the street’. The products of the FIAT plant
were, at least in comparison to Ford, expensive vehicles. In 1905, they
cost 17,000 Lire (Pietra 1985: 37). Even with rising production
Table 5: Annual wages in Italy in selected professions (in Lire)4
1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912

Textiles 347 357 360 368 405 418 434
Construction 476 516 635 688 714 781 820
Chemicals 542 569 611 622 698 754 561
Metalworking 781 820 860 876 928 1003 1040
Printing 873 900 952 979 1005 1058 1093
(Based on Zamagni 1984: 59-93)
4
The figures have been arrived at by multiplying the daily wage by 5.4 to arrive at
weekly figures and then by 49 to arrive at annual wages. See Zamagni 1984: 72.
8 Günter Berghaus
numbers and the introduction of American-style division of labour, in

1912, they still cost 7,500 Lire – nearly double that of a Ford Model T
(Pietra 1985: 41). When such a price is put in relation to the pay scales
of the period (see Table 5), it becomes apparent why, despite rapidly
increasing output capacities, Italy was still far away from entering the
age of mass-mobilization. (Zenone 2002)
Table 6: Some memorable speed records, 1894-1909
Date 22 July 25 Febr. 18 Dec. 29 April 31 March 26 Jan.

1894 1895 1898 1899 1904 1906
18.66 24.54 63.15 105.88 152.53 205.44
Speed
km/h km/h km/h km/h km/h km/h
Gaston de
Jules de Emile Camille Louis Fred
Driver Chasseloup
Dion Levassor Jenatzy Rigolly Marriott
-Laubat
Stanley
De Dion- Panhard- Jeantaud La Jamais Gobron
Vehicle Rocket
Bouton Levassor Duc Contente Brillié
Racer
Paris- Paris-
Location Achères Achères Nice Arles
Rouen Bordeaux
With the new century approaching, another development in the

domain of transportation gathered pace: civil aviation. But just as in
the field of cars and railways, Italian aeronautics lagged far behind
Germany, France and the USA, which in the late-nineteenth century
had made great advances in developing practicable aircrafts. After the
first attempts by Enrico Forlanini to construct a viable flying
mechanism (his ‘helicopter’
was exhibited in the Giardini
Pubblici in Milan in July
1877), it took nearly thirty
years before the Italian
public was given another
chance to view, with their
own eyes, what newspaper
and popular magazines had
frequently reported on:
manned flights in an
Illustr. 4: Léon Delagrange on 24 May
1908 on piazza d’Armi in Rome. Coll.
aeroplane. In 1906, the Great
David Lam. International Exhibition was
held in Milan and had as one
Illustr. 5: Delagrange 's flight with sculptor Thérèse Peltier as the first woman on a
passenger seat in Turin on 8 July 1908; Coll. David Lam.
of its main attractions a Gallery of Aeronautics. The following year,

an Aviators’ Club was founded in Rome, who invited the famous
French aviator, Léon Delagrange, to demonstrate his flying skills. On
24 May 1908, a stunned audience could observe in Piazza d'Armi how
Delagrange’s Voisin aeroplane ploughed its way through the clouds
over Rome. A few months later, on 23 June, Delagrange set an
endurance record of 18 minutes, 30 seconds in Milan. And on 8 July
1908, he not only repeated his amazing flying feats, but also took the
sculptor Thérèse Peltier, as the first woman ever on the passenger seat
of an aeroplane, 656 feet off the ground in Turin5.
1909 was not only the founding year of Futurism but also a
significant chapter in the history of Italian aviation. On 13 January,
the engineer Aristide Faccioli took the first aeroplane entirely built in
5
David Lam kindly informed me that Thérèse Peltier may not, in fact, have been the
first woman passenger. It appears that Henri Farman carried a lady named Mlle P.
van Pottelsberghe de la Poterie during his flights at Ghent in May-June 1908. They
flew at least several short hops at low altitude during the Ghent show, according to
Le patriote illustré (Bruxelles), 7 June 1908: 353.
10 Günter Berghaus
Italy to the skies over Turin. On 1 April 1909, another pioneer, Wilbur
Wright, impressed the Roman public with an astounding airshow. As a
consequence of this, the military High Command asked Wright to give
a series of flying instructions to two Italian pilots, Mario Calderara
and Umberto Savoia. The first took place on 15 and 16 April, in
Centocelle near Rome, before the eyes of King Vittorio Emanuele III
and Queen Mother Margherita. The event, naturally, was widely
reported on in the Italian press and inspired Marinetti in his second
Futurist manifesto to proclaim a vision of himself and his brethren in
arms taking to the sky:
We cut out our Futurist airplanes from the buff-colored sailcloth of

boats. Some of them had stabilizing wings and, being fitted with
engines, soared like bloody vultures that took wriggling calves up into
the sky. Look at this, for example. My multicellular biplane with its
tail rudder: 100 horsepower, 8 cylinders, 80 kilograms... Between my
feet I have a small machine gun I can fire by pressing a steel button...
And we’re off, intoxicated by our skillful maneuvers, in exhilarating
flight, sputtering, weightless, and pitched like a song inviting drinking
and dancing. (Marinetti 1909b: 29-30)
This text of the manifesto was published in the August-October

issue of Poesia and may well reflect the fact that, on 9-20 September
1909, Marinetti had occasion to witness the first national airshow at
Brescia.6 The event made the headlines in all national newspapers
(Brescia 1909 a-d) and was followed up in November by an
impressive Prima Esposizione Italiana di Aviazione in Milan. This
aeronautics show exhibited not only the Voisin biplane that
Delagrange had flown two years before, but also the first Italian
constructions of AVIS (Aeroplans Voisin Italie Settentrionnelle) and
FIAM (Fabbrica Italiana Aeroplani Milano). The success was such
that only a few months later, on 8 April 1910, a second aeronautic
show was held in Turin. Its highlight was a flight over the Alps, which
ended on 27 September with the deadly crash of the Peruvian-born
pilot Jorge Chávez after having crossed the 2,000m high Simplon
Pass. (Milano 1910a-d)
6
Jeffrey Schnapp believes that Marinetti had his first flying experience at the airshow
in Brescia. (Schnapp 1994: 156) If this had been the case, Marinetti most certainly
would have exploited it to the full, not least because his ‘competitor’ D’Annunzio
undertook a well-publicized test flight in Brescia.
Illustr. 6: Airshow in Verona, 1910.

From Illustrazione italiana, vol.37, no. 26 (6 June 1910): 564-565.
Illustr. 7: Two posters for the International Airshow in Milan 1910.

12 Günter Berghaus
As numerous articles in the popular press suggest, Italy was seized

by was aeromania, fuelled in the following years by more airshows,
exhibitions, flying competitions and so on (see Table 7). Every week,
the newspapers and popular magazines reported on the latest flight
awards, new distance or altitude records, accidents or even deaths of
famous aviators. For most people, of course, it was a flying fever with
their feet firmly rooted on the ground. Flying was a spectacle, an
entertainment, a dream, a social event, and very soon the subject of
novels and films, such as D’Annunzio’s Forse che sì forse che no
(1910), Pathè’s Aviation Craze (1910) and a Gaumont film of the
same year only known by its German title, Ah! … da fliegt ein
Aeroplan! (McKernan 2004).
Naturally, the Futurists followed suit. Paolo Buzzi’s Aeroplani was
the first in a long series of Futurist publications on the theme of flying
(Salaris 1990), although, in this case, the title was rather misleading,
since the volume did not contain a single poem on the topic of flying.
Table 7: Some memorable early aviation shows in Italy
9 – 20 September 1909 First International Airshow held in Brescia

28 March – 5 April 1910 Aviation display on the Campo di Marte in Florence
1-7 May 1910 Settimana dell’Aviazione in Palermo
22 – 30 May 1910 Aviation display in Bologna
22 – 29 May 1910 International Airshow in Verona
31 July - 7 August 1910 Aviation show in the Pineta aerodrome of Pescara
First International Airshow in Milan on a terrain that has now
become Taliedo airport, including an air race from Briga to Milan
25 September – 1
and a raid across the Alps, ‘Gran Premio della Traversata delle
October 1910
Alpi’. On 23 September, Jorge Chávez was killed while landing in
Domodossola.
Flying competition in the Ippodromo di Mirafiori in Turin. On 13
5 – 13 November 1910 November, a crowd of 200,000 people is reported to have
observed the flights
19 February 1911 Aerial displays by Umberto Cagno and Giulio Gavotti in Venice
26 February 1911 Flying competition in Roma
Airshow in Piacenza on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of
25 – 27 March 1911
the unification of Italy
‘Settimana Aviatoria’ with flight competitions on the Campo di
7 –14 May 1911
Marte in Florence
‘Raid aviatorio Parigi - Roma - Torino’ with intermediate air
displays in Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Bologna, organized to
28 May – 12 June 1911 commemorate the Unification of Italy in 1861. André Beaumont
beats Roland Garros in the 1,465 km (910 mile) air race in 28
hours, 5 minutes.
29 – 31 October 1911 ‘Primo Raid nazionale aereo Milano - Torino - Milano’
Marinetti experienced his first flight with the Peruvian aviator

Bielovucic at the 1910 airshow in Milan. (Marinetti 2006: 257) It
inspired him to a long series of publications, starting with the Pope’s
Aeroplane (1912), and served as inspiration to the Technical
Manifesto of Literature (1912). It seems that the motorcar, which in
previous years had been Marinetti’s mechanical muse, was
successively being replaced by the aeroplane as the main metaphor of
the Futurist quest for speed and overcoming the limitations of time
and space. There is even reason to believe that the Futurist concern
with the fusion of man and machine received considerable impetus
from these early flight experiences. When Marinetti acquired his first
automobile, more than 25 years had already passed since the
pioneering days of Benz and Maybach, and motorcars had become
rather sophisticated and comfortable vehicles.7 Compared to a ride in a
Fiat or Mercedes, flying in an aeroplane was still a mind-blowing
experience (in more than one sense). Marinetti mentions in The New
Ethical Religion of Speed the ‘wild, cheek-coloring massage of a
frenzied wind’ that made his ‘breast opening up like a great hole’
(Marinetti 1916: 257). To this he could have added the deafening din
of the motor, the bone-shaking reverberations of the chassis, the
intoxicating fumes of the petrol, and so on. In those early days of
aviation, one did indeed feel at one with the amazing flying machine.
However, one should not forget that aviation was not only an
adventure and was not only put to civil use. Quite early on, the Italian
Ministry of Defence developed a strong interest in the new
technology. In 1909, they formed a military aviation unit and, in 1910,
placed a substantial order for ten airplanes and nine airships. It did not
take long and the strategic thinking behind those decisions became
apparent. Italian colonialist expansion in North Africa was contested
by Turkey and led to war. On 5 October 1911, the Italian army landed
at Tripoli and unleashed the first armed conflict in which aviation
played a significant role. A sizeable fleet of Blériot, Etrich and
Farman planes rendered the Italian army good service in their
reconnoitring missions. One thousand meters over the enemy
positions, the pilots could observe their manoeuvres in the theatre of
war and report them to the generals on the ground. On 22 October
7
This is, unless they were racing cars. It is therefore no wonder that when Marinetti
mentions automobiles in connection with speed and danger he always refers to a
racing car.
14 Günter Berghaus
1911, Captain Carlo Piazza flew in his Blériot monoplane from

Tripoli, to Azzia, with the mission of showering the Arabian soldiers
and civil population with propaganda leaflets exhorting them to
surrender. Those who did not heed the advice would soon experience
the consequences: on 1 and 2 November 1911, Lieutenant Giulio
Gavotti released several bombs on the Turkish troops. This was the
first time ever that bombs had been dropped from an aeroplane.
Marinetti who had travelled to Libya as a war correspondent,
observed at close quarters the Turkish-Italian battles. In a letter to
Palazzeschi, of January 1912, he described them as ‘the most beautiful
aesthetic spectacle of my life’. (Marinetti and Palazzeschi 1978: 61)
The use of aeroplanes in the conflict made a lasting impression on
him, but he also evoked other aspects of the ‘mechanical orchestra’
performing in the ‘theatre of war’ in a series of articles for
L’Intransigeant and recited them in various Italian theatres. They were
later issued in his book, La Bataille de Tripoli, 1912.
Proto-Futurism
Long before Futurism entered the scene, the subject-matter of modern

industry and life in the machine age had become a focus of attention
for artists and critics alike. (Grant 1927; Ginestier 1954; Francastel
1956; Klingender 1968; Le Bot 1973; Segeberg 1987; Beneke 2002;
Comité pour l'histoire économique 2002). As early as 1848, Théophile
Gautier had suggested that ‘the artistic formulas of the ancient régime
were totally unsuited to our new Republic’ and had demanded that ‘a
whole new vast system of symbols must be invented, answering the
needs of our times.’ (Gautier 1848: 9-11) A few years later, he had
added:
Initially one might have thought that the mechanical inventions would
deal a mortal blow to the arts. But on the contrary, they have rendered
them invaluable service. A new era of poetry has arisen from the
discovery of steam power. [...] The locomotive shall be the pegasus of
our time. (Gautier 1855/6: 309)
Another major proponent of an art and literature that reflected the

great upheavals of the modern era was Maxime du Camp. In the
preface to his collection of poems, Les Chants modernes (1855), he
described the art and literature of his time as being in a state of

decadence and totally out of touch with the great advances made by
science and technology:
Science produces wonders and industry accomplishes miracles. Yet

we remain impassive, indifferent or contemptuous, and go on plucking
the strained cords of our lyres [...] One discovers the force of steam,
and we sing in praise of Venus rising from the foam of the sea. One
discovers electricity, and we sing our songs to Bacchus, friend of the
ruby grapes. This is absurd! [...] The cult of the old in this country is a
lunacy, an illness, an epidemic. (Du Camp 1860: 9-10)
Du Camp attacked the Académie Française for belonging to ‘a

crusty old world’ (Du Camp 1860: 28) and for failing to support
‘works that can be considered modern and truly alive’ (Du Camp
1860: 25). He called for an art of the future and exhorted the young
generation: ‘Let’s leave the intellectual invalids grinding themselves
to a halt with their useless regrets and naïve attempts of finding
paradise in the past, when in reality it is waiting for us in the future.
So let us embrace, work towards and fecundate the eternally young
forces of progress.’ (Du Camp 1860: 35) In order to reach ‘the golden
age ahead of us’, he suggested that the pioneers join forces and ‘claim
new ground on which to build the road into the beautiful lands of the
future. This is not only our duty; it is our mission!’ (Du Camp 1860:
54)
Such proto-Futurist visions show that F.T. Marinetti’s project of
building a great railroad into the Future, described in his second
Futurist proclamation (Marinetti 1909b: 22-31), was not altogether a
novel undertaking. Utopian forecasts of an ultra-modern life in a fully
industrialized urban environment were quite common, particularly in
the science-fiction literature of the late-nineteenth century, ranging
from Jules Verne to H. G. Wells and including the home-grown Paolo
Mantegazza and Emilio Salgari.8 Marinetti himself acknowledged the
influence of some technophile predecessors such as Zola, Verhaeren,
Adam, Romains, etc. (Mariani 1970; Marinelli 1987; Berghaus 1995),
8
Jules Vernes’ works were appearing in Italy in large numbers from the 1860s
onwards, and the series of translations of H.G. Wells’ novels started in 1900. This
led to a growth of Italian science fiction, best represented by Paolo Mantegazza’s
L’anno 3000 - Sogno (Milan: Treves, 1897), and Emilio Salgari’s Le meraviglie del
duemila (Florence: Bemporad e Figlio, 1907).
16 Günter Berghaus
although he never mentioned Mario Morasso, whose writings

exercised considerable influence in Italy. In fact, Marinetti himself
published in his journal Poesia one of Morasso’s proto-Futurist
eulogies of the machine world, L’artigliere meccanico, whose
comparison of the Nike of Samothrace with a speeding motor car9
may have inspired Marinetti a few years later to his famous statement:
‘A roaring motorcar, which seems to race on like machine-gun fire, is
more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace.’ (Marinetti
1909a: 13)
When, in 1894, Marinetti settled in Milan, he discovered that,
despite the general backwardness of Italy, in the Northern provinces at
least a new civilization was beginning to take shape. The capital of
Lombardy was in the process of becoming a conurbation that could
stand comparison with other major cities – if not exactly with London,
Paris or Berlin, then at least with other regional centres in Europe. A
‘Haussmannization’ was under way that demolished the old popular
and medieval quarters and cut large new axes through the city. As part
of the new urban topography, huge industrial complexes were erected
in the suburbs, together with modern living quarters for the workforce
and large administrative buildings. In the centre, Milan became a city
of banks, department stores, theatres, cinemas, music-halls, hospitals,
schools, etc. The population lived with the comfort of sanitary
services unknown in other Italian cities: a supply of drinking water
was provided from central cisterns directly into apartment blocks, and
modern drains connected every house to an underground sewage
system. Milan was famed to be Italy’s ‘electric city’: streets were
illuminated with powerful arc lamps; more than 5,000 telephones had
been installed; ‘la posta elettrica’ had arrived; and transport was
speeded up with electric tramways (as well as motorized omnibuses),
which replaced the horse-drawn cart and coach.
9
‘Fu detto per l’alata e decapitata Vittoria di Samotracia, troneggiante in cima allo
scalone del Louvre, che ha nelle pieghe della sua veste racchiuso il vento, e che
nell’atteggiamento della sua persona rivela l’impeto della corsa facile e gioconda;
orbene, e non è irriverente il paragone, anche il ferreo mostro quando scuote e
scalpita per il battito concitato del motore offre nello stesso modo una magnifica
rivelazione di forza virtuale e dimostra palesemente la folle velocità di cui è capace.’
(Morasso 1906: 78) Marinetti’s debt to Morasso has been discussed by Cavallini
(2006: 157-164).
Illustr. 8: Piazza Duomo in Milan during an airshow in 1910. On the left we see the
entrance to the Victor Emanuel Gallery. From Illustrazione italiana vol. 37, no. 41 (9
Oct. 1910): 359.
Marinetti has left us a vivid description of how, as a young man, he

reacted to these innovative developments. In the first chapter of his
autobiography, entitled ‘An Italian Egypt in Lombardy’, he recalled
how his father took him to Milan and made him experience the
evolving metropolis as ‘a pleasing example of the commanding
aesthetics of the machine’ (Marinetti 1969: 11). He described how his
‘adolescent feet, habituated to the yielding sand of Africa’ (11) grew
accustomed to Milan’s marble pavements, how his eyes were fixed on
‘the gas jets high up in the vaults of the Victor Emanuel Gallery’ (11),
and how on Piazza Duomo his ears were reverberating from the
sounds of an ‘ultrafast and prolific traffic’ (12) (see illustr. 8). He was
greatly taken by the fact that ‘illuminated advertisement boards
insolently sweep away any artistic sense of modesty or clerical
prudence’ (5) and that the ‘clamour of real money derides the church
bells – moaning, swinging, shedding medieval tears’ (10). In his
account, pre-industrial lifestyles are yielding to the onslaught of
18 Günter Berghaus
Illustr. 9: International Exhibition of 1906. Illustr. 10: Main entrance to the Sempione
The figure on the cathedral is Meneghino, park, where the Expo 1906 was held. From
a figure from the Milanese popular theatre a contemporary guidebook.
and carnival tradition. From a contemp-
orary postcard.
modernity (‘Provincialism goat’s voice is bickering about the tram

drivers and gasmen that are switching from horses to motors’ [4]). The
proletariat is preparing for ‘the Strike, the prophet of a revolution’ (4),
whilst others are participating in a cult of diversion centred on the
caffè concerto, the Variety theatre and other forms of popular
entertainment. But the greatest attraction of all is ‘the uncouth and
uproarious poetry of the Great Steel Industry’ (10) and the
‘overpowering poetry of the Breda Foundries producing tractors
threshing machines trucks ploughs machine guns torpedoes aeroplanes
merchant ships rails’ (10).
Today, when assessing the industrialization of Italy, we tend to
look at statistics and production figures. However, we should not
forget how the average inhabitant of the time experienced the ‘Arrival
of the Future’. When Marinetti looked out of the window of his
apartment in via del Senato he could observe a hustle and bustle that
conjured up in his mind images of La grande Milano futurista,
metaphor of a city as a gigantic machine, symbol of la nuova Italia
rinascente:
Milan! Genoa!... This is where the new, revitalized Italy lies! Here are
the cities that we love! It is cities such as these that lift our Italian
pride! We have great centers which are aflame day and night,
breathing their huge fires all over the open countryside. We have
soaked with our sweat a whole forest of immense mill chimneys,
whose capitals of stretching smoke hold up our sky, which wishes to
be seen as nothing but a vast factory ceiling. (Marinetti 1910d: 170)10
10
The continuity between Marinetti’s Late-Symbolist poetry and his Futurist
mythography of the machine has been pointed out by Nazzaro 1987: 35-42.
In the following years, Marinetti became an ideologue of

modernity and adopted the role of a bard who would sing the praises
of the città-fabbrica, of Milan’s ‘Great Steel Industry [...] and the hard
Breda Foundries’, home of humanized machines and mechanized
men. (Marinetti 1969: 10) But how were other Italian artists
responding to these developments? Marinetti judged that Italian poets
of his time were ‘unsophisticated, absolutely unaffected by the
modern spirit and contemptuous of the heaving research that animates
the soul of our century.’ (Marinetti 1899: 61) Also his friend Carrà
found that the artistic production of these years was ‘dominated by
works that had no other scope than that of satisfying the frivolous and
corrupt taste of society’. (Carrà 1978: 655) And indeed, the cultural
predilections of the Italian bourgeoisie were firmly rooted in a bygone
era. Cultural and political institutions continued to be ossified and to
pay servile respect to a glorious Italian past. For this reason, Marinetti
saw it as his mission to try and cure the romantic Italians of their fear
of the dynamic forces of modern life. His writings of the years 1898-
1908 document how he set about his task to replace the negative
image of industry and technology with a positive one of the
civilization of the Machine Age. And once the Futurist movement had
come into existence, he drew up a political and artistic programme
that promoted the great changes that had been brought about by the
Industrial Revolution.
Futurist machine cult
Marinetti and his fellow Futurists saw in the machine an ally in their
attempt to rid Italian society from the fetters of the past:
We renounce the obsessive splendors of the centuries that are gone

forever and we cooperate with triumphant machines, which keep the
earth enclosed in their net of speed. We connive with the Machine to
destroy the poetry of far-off times, of faraway places and of solitude
in the wild, the poignant nostalgia of parting, and in their place we set
the tragic lyricism of speed in all places, at all times. (Marinetti
1911b: 44)
In The New Ethical Religion of Speed, Marinetti described the

invention of the motor as a sign of human genius, power and
20 Günter Berghaus
authority, which comes close to giving humans divine status:
Human energies, increased a hundredfold by speed, will command

Time and Space. [...] Man gained mastery over horses, elephants, and
camels to reveal his divine power through an increase in speed. [...]
He extracted electricity and different fuels from the universe, so as to
create new allies in the guise of engines. Man made use of fire to
shape the metals he had won and made malleable so as to create an
ally for himself, in the shape of fuels and electricity. In this way, he
established an army of slaves who were hostile and dangerous, yet
sufficiently domesticated to carry him swiftly over the earth’s
horizons. (Marinetti 1916: 253)
During the first phase of the Futurist movement, Marinetti

presented the machine as a vehicle for overcoming the restrictions of
given nature and unleashing the emancipatory quality of created
nature. He poured all his positivist, optimistic thinking into this
ideological vessel. Science and technology were portrayed as tools for
abolishing nature’s domination over the human race. Whereas the
Romantics had fled from the contemporary world and taken refuge in
an arcadian Nature, Marinetti sought to direct people’s minds towards
a modified and improved reality. The machine symbolized in a most
succinct form his Futurist vision of an industrialized environment
forming a ‘second Nature’ working to the advantage of humankind.
Nothing in his long catalogue of rhetorical devices came closer to
representing the force of emancipation, for both men and women, than
the machine. It served as a vehicle for an ideological and aesthetic
programme. Through the machine, the human being became a
demiurge who creates a Nature that is superior to the one made by
God. The Futurist Machine Age was to bring about nothing less than a
complete ‘re-fashioning of the universe’, both in material terms and in
the social sphere. By overcoming the restrictions imposed by Nature
and society, and by harnessing the time-saving potential of fully
mechanized economy, men and women were to discover and unfold
their true creative potential:
We shall thus arrive at a real reduction in the cost of living and of

wages, with a corresponding reduction in the number of working
hours. Today, the production of 2,000 kilowatts requires only one
workman. Machines will soon constitute an obedient workforce of
iron, steel, and aluminum at the service of mankind, which will be

relieved, almost entirely, of manual labor. (Marinetti 2006: 396) 11
The end result was going to be a Futurist Arcadia, where ‘the earth is
at last giving up its entire yield. Squeezed by the vast electrical hand
of man, it dispenses the full substance of its riches [...]. Hunger and
need have disappeared. Bitter social problems have been obliterated.
[...] The need for tiring, humiliating labor is finished.’ (Marinetti
1911c: 223) For this reason, Marinetti felt a total commitment to the
advancement of science and technology: ‘Politicians, men of letters,
and artists must work unstintingly, with their books, their speeches,
their conferences, and their journals to [...] cultivate and glorify the
triumph of science and its everyday heroism.’ (Marinetti 1910c :101)
The Futurist belief in the ‘vivifying current of science’ (Boccioni et al.
1910b: 28) led to a machine cult with Marinetti acting as its high
priest. Just as Moses had brought the gospel inscribed on stone tablets
from the mountain, Marinetti took his manifestos to the People,
confronted their veneration of the Golden Calf of Passéism and
replaced it with the idol of the machine. Based on earlier sources, he
constructed a new mythology of technology, science, industrial
development, and a liturgy to celebrate and propagate the modernist
gospel.
The machine, which reigned supreme in the Futurist Olympus, also
provided the model for the Futurists’ artistic creations. Marinetti
wanted to develop an art that was in tune with the civilization of the
machine (see Fillìa, Curtoni, Caligaris 1926: 57). In a text of 1924 he
referred to the innate aesthetic quality of the machine: ‘The machine is
our great inspiration and will give us new rites, new laws [...] and
lessons in order, discipline, force, precision, optimism and continuity.’
(Marinetti 1924b: 29) Marinetti had intuited these new laws and
principles when he was standing on the bridge of a battleship and
11
In the 1920s, the Futurists linked technological progress to the emancipation of
woman. A good example is Luigi Alessio’s play Aeroplani, in which the female
aviator declares: ‘Flying makes you feel truly superior to the small world of women
who live enclosed in the kitchen and drawing room. It is like being turned into a
divine being.’ As a result, she leaves all social and sexual barriers behind and ends
up in bed with her mechanic. See also my interview with the aerodanzatrice
Giannina Cenzi in Berghaus 1990.
22 Günter Berghaus
heard the lyrical drive of electricity passing through the armor-plating

of its four turrets, descending by way of metal tubes to the powder
magazine, drawing its howitzers as far as the breech, as far as its
protruding barrels. Raise sights, point, up, flash, automatic recoil, a
very personal launching of the shell, impact, crash, stench of rotten
eggs, sewer gas, rust, ammonia, and so on. This new drama, which is
full of unforeseen Futurist possibilities and geometrical splendor, is
for us a hundred thousand times more interesting than human
psychology. (Marinetti 1914:136)
Again and again, Marinetti proclaimed that the laws of the machine
had become laws of aesthetic creativity. This did not mean that every
Futurist had to acquire a degree in physics or engineering. The
machine was a myth and a symbol. Its working principles were not an
exact science. Rather, one needs ‘great mechanical intuition’ and ‘a
nose for things metallic’ to comprehend it (Marinetti 1915b: 87). The
Futurists’ ability to intuit ‘the breathing, the sensibilities, and the
instincts of metals’ (Marinetti 1912: 111) was fundamentally different
from the ‘shackles imposed by academic strategy and Teutonic
science’. (Marinetti, 1919: 326) The Futurist artist, with his superior
intuition, instinct, sensibility and imaginative intelligence, was able to
grasp the ‘truly mysterious’ (Marinetti 1915b: 86) quality of the
machine, this ‘new, instinctive animal whose innate character we shall
only know when we are acquainted with the natural proclivities of the
different forces that compose it’. (Marinetti 1912: 111) It is from this
engaging embrace of the machine that Marinetti could develop a
Futurist ‘aesthetics of the machine’ and the Futurist ‘idea of
mechanical beauty’.12 In his view, these concepts were applicable to
all artistic genres and media: ‘We should imitate the movements of
machines’, he wrote in Futurist Dance (Marinetti 1917: 214); ‘Let us
imitate the train and the motorcar’ in The New Ethical Religion of
Speed (Marinetti 1916a: 257); ‘Listen to engines and reproduce their
conversations’ in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature
(Marinetti 1912: 111); and ‘Imitate engines and their rhythms’, in
Dynamic, Multichanneled Recitation (Marinetti 1916b: 196). In the
Manifesto of Futurist Playwrights he exhorted artists:
We have to introduce into the theater a sense of the rule of the

Machine, [...] and the great discoveries of science, which have totally
12
See Marinetti 2006: 85, 167, 394, and 413.
transformed our sensibilities and mentalities as men of the twentieth

century. (Marinetti 1910a:182)
Marinetti declared that Futurist art in all its manifestations was the
result of ‘the enthusiastic emulation of electricity and machines; an
essential conciseness and compactness; the sweet precision of
machinery and of well-oiled thought; the harmony of energies
converging in one victorious path. (Marinetti 1913a: 135) Key Futurist
principles such as dynamism, interpenetration and simultaneity were
directly derived from scientific discoveries. Marinetti’s literary
programme of 1912 with its use of Words-in-Freedom and Synoptic
Tables of Lyrical Values, its Multi-Linear Lyricism and Strings of
Sensation was based on modern technologies of communication –
hence his characterization of this new style as ‘telegraphic’ and
‘radiophonic’. According to his own testimony, it was during one of
his first flights over Milan that he experienced time and space in an
entirely new manner13 and felt compelled to institute a literary reform
that went far beyond his early attempts based on the late-Symbolist
vers libre style:
Futurism is based on the complete renewal of human sensibility

brought about by the great discoveries made by science. Anyone who
today uses the telegraph, the telephone, and the gramophone, the train,
the bicycle, the motorcycle, the automobile, the ocean liner, the
airship, the airplane, the film theater, the great daily newspaper (which
synthesizes the daily events of the whole world), fails to recognize
that these different forms of communication, of transport and
information, have a far-reaching effect on their psyche. (Marinetti
1913a: 120)
And it was exactly this ‘far-reaching effect on their psyche’ that

Marinetti and his fellow Futurists explored for the next decade or two.
This is the reason why Futurism amounted to more than a glorification
of ‘the victories of science, and man’s increasing dominion over the
dark forces of nature.’ (Marinetti 1910b: 70) Rather, it involved a
development of an ‘artistic sensibility for machines and speed’
(Marinetti 1921a: 370), which for Marinetti, at that time, meant a
13
See the description of his first flight with Juan Bielovucic in ‘The New Ethical
Religion of Speed’ in Marinetti 2006: 257 and La grande Milano (Marinetti 1969:
66 + 110), referred to in his introduction to the ‘Technical Manifesto of Futurist
Literature’ in Marinetti 2006: 107.
24 Günter Berghaus
plunging into the ‘mysterious ocean of matter’. (Marinetti 1912: 110)

Again and again he wrote about his ‘lyrical obsession for matter’
(Marinetti 1912: 111) and how one could ‘penetrate the essence of
matter’ (Marinetti 1912: 112). From a profound understanding of the
‘mysterious life of matter’ (Marinetti 1912: 112) he wished to develop
an ‘intuitive psychology of matter’ (Marinetti 1912: 112) that could
serve as a foundation to his artistic programme.
Whereas in the nineteenth century, artists restricted themselves to a
description or evocation of the new realities of the industrial age,
Marinetti proposed an interaction with the machine world that would
have effects on both the machine and the human being. On the one
hand, he agreed with the architect Marchi that they needed to ‘go
down to the bottom of raw matter and remould it according to our
will’ (Marchi 1924: 47); on the other hand he considered the machine
to be the ‘source and master of the new artistic sensibility’. (Marinetti
1925: 15) The long-term consequences of these ideas were immense.
The whole concept of Materialästhetik (the aesthetics of the
material14), which was so fundamental to twentieth-century art and
design, was already contained in these statements. The Futurists laid
the foundations of a functionalist aesthetics of the Machine Age. The
architecture of the Bauhaus would have been unthinkable without it,
as would the industrial and interior design of the De Stijl group,15 or
the Constructivists’ principles of tektonika (ideological and formal
conception of the work), faktura (the choice and handling of the
14
The concept was particularly important to Constructivist artists, but can also be
found in the writings of Enrico Prampolini. Whereas conventional idealist aesthetics
in the Kantian or Hegelian mould saw a work of art as being dependent on the
artist’s creativity rather than the material from which it was produced, the
Constructivists regarded the material as playing a significant role in the creative
process and the quality of the resulting work See Rübel et al. 2005.
15
In a fundamental article of De Stijl aesthetics, Oud quotes the Futurist ‘nouveau
réalisme’ derived from ‘la précision, le rythme, la brutalité des machines et leurs
mouvements’ to establish the principle of letting the material and the manner of
production speak for themselves. See Oud 1918. The previous issue of De Stijl (no.
2 of December 1917, pp. 26-29) contained Severini’s essay ‘Le Machinisme et l’art’,
which proclaimed: ‘Le procédé de construction d’une machine est analogue au
procédé de construction d’une œuvre d’art.’
material), and konstruktsiya (the process of giving form, structure,

unity and organic coherence to it).16
In the first phase of the Futurist movement, Marinetti believed that
the ‘re-fashioning of the Universe’ could only be achieved through an
identification with the machine world. He maintained that ‘a fusion of
the instincts with what the engine gives us’ (Marinetti 1913a: 122)
would provide human beings with the necessary power of
introspection and an ability to ‘overcome the seeming hostility that
separates our human flesh from the metal of engines’. (Marinetti
1912: 113) From this he concluded:
With the knowledge and friendship of matter, of which the scientists

can know only the physicochemical reactions, we are preparing for the
creation of mechanical man, one who will have parts that can be
changed. We shall liberate him from the idea of death, and therefore
from death itself. (Marinetti 1912: 113-14)
This idea of going beyond death ‘with the metallization of the human
body and seizing hold of the spirit of life as a driving force’ (Marinetti
1933: 411) formed the basic motivation behind Marinetti’s dream of
‘the formation of the nonhuman, mechanical species of extended
man’:
The day when it will be possible for man to externalize his will so
that, like a huge invisible arm, it can beyond him, then his Dream and
his Desire, which today are merely idle words, will rule supreme over
conquered Space and Time. This nonhuman, mechanical species, built
for constant speed, will [...] possess the most unusual organs; organs
adapted to the needs of an environment in which there are continuous
clashes. (Marinetti 1915b: 87)
As these quotations show, Futurism was much more than an artistic

reflection of the emerging industrial world in Northern Italy. The
Futurist artist was at the same time an engineer, a scientist, a
philosopher and a politician. Furnished with the new principles of
aesthetic organization based on a lyrical introspection into the laws of
the machine, a new world could be shaped and moulded like a social
sculpture: ‘We must invent and rebuild the Futurist city like an
16
Futurist contacts with the Bauhaus, the Purists around Le Corbusier and De Stijl
and the Russian Constructivists are well-documented in the journals of these
movements. See also Maria Elena Versari’s contribution in this volume.
26 Günter Berghaus
immense and tumultuous shipyard, agile, mobile and dynamic in

every detail; and the Futurist house must be like a gigantic machine.’
(Sant’Elia 1914: 170) The Futurists were universalist theoreticians
who sought nothing less than to revolutionize life and society in all
their diverse aspects: moral, artistic, cultural, social, economic and
political. The Futurists were convinced ‘that the triumphant progress
of science makes profound changes in humanity inevitable’ (Boccioni
et al. 1910a: 24) and suggested a remodelling of both the human mind
and body.
The Utopian concepts expressed in the manifesto Extended Man
and the Kingdom of the Machine (Marinetti 1915b) were not entirely
science fiction, but based on Lamarck’s theories of evolution (which
suggested the mutation of species through the formation and
modification of organs according to need; see Marinetti 1915b: 86)
and Alexis Carrel (who in 1912 won the Nobel Prize in recognition of
his revolutionary methods of transplanting organs17). The idea of the
human being functioning like a machine was certainly not a Futurist
invention; however, their anthropomorphic view of the machine
produced a concept of a New Humanity of the Machine Age, where
people were not only friends, masters and allies of the machine, but
fused with it in a symbiotic relationship. Humanizing the machine and
mechanizing human beings meant more than portraying the machine
like a man with character, will-power, sensibility and emotions, or
emphasizing the mechanical functioning of the human body. It was to
give expression to a world in which ‘everything has become
mechanical and life itself is like a whirlwind in a paroxism of speed.
Here, humans turn into machines and the machine tends to become
human.’ (Alessio 192618)
The ultimate aim of the Futurist programme of renewal was the
fusion of humans and machines, of the social and industrial world, of
art and life. Human existence was going to be like ‘an automated
dream’ (Cavacchioli 1912: 210-21119) lived with a ‘steel-toned frame
17
He is quoted by Marinetti 1913a: 120 and Boccioni 1914: 24.
18
Alessio contrasts in his play the world of an old-fashioned professor and decadent
poet with that of an emancipated aviatrix. The more ‘philosophical’ passages are
spoken by two aeroplanes.
19
‘If you want to live, you must create a beautiful mechanical heart, open the red-hot
outflow of the furnace, and electrify yourself with millions of volts like a dynamo!
You have to turn life into an automated dream’ preached Cavacchioli 1912: 210-11.
of mind’. (Marinetti 1915b: 87) Dreams, of course, are not the stuff of
sober, calculated reform plans, but the result of libidinal desires. Our
interpretation of the Futurist Man-Machine or Artificial Living Being
should therefore take into account not only the history of automation
and mechanization in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, but also
the mental constitution of its creators.
From macchinolatria to angoscia della macchina
I leave it to more competent experts to submit the biographies of some

leading Futurists to a psychoanalytical examination. But reading their
Utopian proposals I get a sense that behind their emphatic and often
affected optimism lies hidden an unease or, borrowing from Freud’s
famous phrase, a subconscious Unbehagen an der (Maschinen-)
Kultur. The Futurist machine god had a Janus face, one side divine
and positive, the other obscure and frightening, and too painful to be
admitted to the conscious mind. The experience of chaos and
alienation led to the incorporation of the external threat into the
internal world and a transformation of the enemy into a friendly
object. The Futurist mythicization of the machine may belong to this
well-known psychic process. It might also explain the erotically
charged embrace of technology and the attempt to use machine
aesthetics as a means of imposing order and control on anxiety-
producing energies.
The Futurist cult of the machine may have been a way of
exorcizing the ‘shadow’ side of modernity. Jung dealt with this
problem extensively in his analysis of the Fascist mind, and many of
his explanations seem relevant to an understanding of Futurism, too.20
The crisis of modernity, which Marinetti was so painfully aware of,
led him on the one hand to a violent rejection of any romantic
hankering after a pre-industrial past, but on the other hand to no less
illusionary fantasies of integrity and belonging. His Utopian dream of
fusion with the machine (in Extended Man and the Reign of the
Machine), or of the redemption of the Ego through a return to
primeval matter (in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature)
20
For a more detailed discussion of the Fascist reaction to the crisis of modernity see
Berghaus 1996.
28 Günter Berghaus
can be read as infantile regressive fantasies and a subconscious urge

towards establishing unity with Magna Mater. But for him the return
to the womb did not lead to Mother Nature, but into the ‘Alcove of
Steel’!21
Any experience of alienation and fragmentation in the social world
re-evokes the early infantile experience of separation from the mother
and generates desires of belonging and undifferentiated Being. Such a
return to a foetal state in the corporate womb of human society was
promised by Fascist organizations, and in a slightly different way by
the Futurist movement, as well. (Berghaus 1996) To us, this may
appear like wishful thinking or escapism, but to them it was a formula
to effect transcendence and salvation in a new and ideal order.
The spectrum of Futurist attitudes towards the machine
As I noted above in my introductory remarks, the heterogeneity of

concepts promoted by various Futurist artists must be borne in mind
when dealing with Futurist machine aesthetics. Some scholars have
tended to ignore this complexity and diversity of the Futurist machine
cult and have offered rather one-dimensional interpretations of the
phenomenon. In my opinion, their readings of certain statements
Marinetti made on the subject (the other thousand Futurists do not
seem to matter!) can hardly provide a satisfactory explanation of the
vast range of phenomena documented, for example, in the Turin
exhibition Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo of 1980.22
Although the first phase of the Futurist movement was
undoubtedly characterized by a great deal of technophilia and
macchinolatria, one should not ignore or underestimate the dissenting,
critical voices coming from within the movement (for example from
Buzzi, Cavacchioli, Lucini etc.) The eschatological features of the
Futurist machine cult may have been less obvious in the first phase,
but as the movement was emerging after the First World War with a
21
L’alcòva d’acciaio was the title of a collection of autobiographical essays dealing
with his adventures in love and war, published in 1921.
22
See the 625-page catalogue edited by Enrico Crispolti. This publication was
preceded by the magisterial studies, Il secondo futurismo (Crispolti 1964) and Il mito
della macchina e altri temi del futurismo (Crispolti 1969). A useful summary of
these works was presented in Storia e critica del futurismo (Crispolti 1986).
significantly changed membership, the critical voices came more and

more to the fore. One of the most emblematic signs of this new trend
was the play Angoscia delle macchine (Anguish of the Machines) by
the Sicilian playwright Ruggero Vasari. Vasari’s critical assessment of
the technological developments of past decades would not seem too
much of a surprise had it been formulated in the late 1920s, when the
world economic crisis set an end to the machine cult which had left its
mark on both European and North-American art. But Anguish of the
Machines was conceived in 1921, written in 1923, published in 1925,
and performed in 1927. Its evolution ran parallel to the development
of a Futurist machine aesthetic and mirrored it like a negative foil.
Vasari’s play is an astonishing inversion of contemporary Futurist
eulogies of the mechanized civilization. It did not present any
Promethean supermen performing feats of ingenuity and propagating
concepts of human progress and conquest. Rather, it postulated that
women, whom Marinetti had characterized as personifications of
passéism, were catalysts of emancipation from the yoke of
technology. Vasari’s play acted as a dialectic counterweight to the
naïve adulation of a brave new world, which prevailed amongst the
Futurist membership. He responded to their modernolatria by
projecting a far more complex and contradictory image of modernity,
which also tied in with the more advanced concepts of modernism in
northern Europe:
The spiritual climate surrounding the modernist artist is ambivalent: it

is above all exhilarating and exalting, because of the momentum that
mankind seems to be gaining and because of the endless prospects that
seemed to open up. But at the same time it is also frustrating,
frightening and alienating, because of the discrepancy which is more
and more acutely felt to exist between (spiritual) man and
(technological) civilization. This dualistic view of the world
continually alternates optimism with pessimism, reckless confidence
with gloomy feelings of doom, and these moods may even manifest
themselves simultaneously. (Gobbers 1995: 9)
When surveying the wide spectrum of artists belonging to the

second Futurist movement, it immediately becomes apparent that the
new recruits belonged to a different generation from that of Marinetti
or Boccioni. They were not mere epigones, but men (and some
women) of the twentieth century with attitudes to technology that
could be very different from those of the old leadership. They took
30 Günter Berghaus
stock of new historical developments in Italy and abroad and modified

the early Futurist models according to their own sentiments and
insights. Causes for these changes in Futurist ideology and machine
aesthetics might be disillusionment with the Fascist project of
modernization, or observation of alternative developments in the
Soviet Union, or the discovery of American models of modernity in
economics and culture. Furthermore, the new generation of Futurists
was influenced by the works and theories of other European artists,
many of whom had originally been inspired by the Futurists (e.g.
Loos, Léger, Tatlin, Le Corbusier, Mallet-Stevens or Gropius).
Even a brief examination of the manifestos and essays on the
subject of science and technology in the 1920s reveals that secondo
futurismo overcame the often narrow ideological constraints of
Marinetti’s machine cult. Whereas the world-view expounded in the
first Futurist manifestos had been rather schematic (the world was
basically divided into an old and decrepit past and a pure and healthy
future), real-life experience in the advanced technological society of
the 1920s and 1930s brought about the realization that things were not
quite so simple. But it took a while before the harmful aspects were
openly addressed in Futurist works and manifestos.
During its first phase, the Futurist movement had been marching
under the banner of the great technological advances of the Industrial
Era. Italy had received only a first taste of it, but even that had
provoked considerable anxieties. Consequently, the Futurists had seen
it as their foremost task to sketch out an optimistic vision of the future.
During this period of primo futurismo, there had been some attempts
at applying the new concept of the machine to poetry, painting,
sculpture, music, theatre and architecture. But it was only during the
secondo futurismo that these experiments turned into a systematic
exploration in all fields of the applied arts, giving birth to functionalist
aesthetics in industrial design, architecture, town planning, interior
design, and so on.
The idealistic views expressed in many of these works were partly
due to the fact that there existed a dominant trend in both conservative
and Fascist aesthetics that aimed at bridging the gap that had arisen
between humankind and Nature by harking back to a pre-industrial,
rural idyll. The Futurists were vehemently opposed to this. In their
view, human integration into the Second Nature of industry was an
irreversible fact of history. However, the more technology was
changing society (and under the Fascist régime Italy was moving very
fast in that direction), the more they could discern that this
development differed from what Marinetti had anticipated in 1909 or
even 1918/19. The dangerous and destructive aspects of Mussolini’s
version of modernity became apparent even to the most starry-eyed
macchinolatrist. The idealized images of the Mechanical Age, which
had been presented in the manifestos of the 1910s and which, to some
extent, were still propagated by Marinetti to counterbalance the
influence of the retrograde Novecento movement, became mitigated
by a far more complex and contradictory attitude other Futurists had
adopted towards technology.
Consequently, a basically positive attitude towards the Machine
Age went hand in hand with an increasing awareness of the flipside of
the coin. Macchinolatria was tempered by machine angst (angoscia
della macchina), technophilia was complemented by introspection and
quasi-surrealist subjectivism (see, for example, Pino Masnata’s
Visionic aesthetics). The First Nature entered again into the Futurists’
radius of attention and was recognized as a complementary factor to
the technological environment. Nowhere does this become more
apparent than in the journal La forza: Mensile della Federazione
Nazionale dei Gruppi Naturisti-Futuristi presieduta da S.E. Marinetti.
Direttore responsabile: Luigi Colombo. Prampolini contributed an
essay on ‘La macchina naturista’, Fillìa one on ‘Naturismo e arte’.
Other articles dealt with questions of health, medicine, food, rural
architecture, heliotherapy, herbal remedies, health farms, etc. In
today’s terminology one would probably call this journal an
ecological magazine, yet this facet of Futurist activity is out of line
with pre-established concepts of the movement and hence has been
almost completely ignored by scholars.23
Marinetti was not indifferent to the machine angst that came to be
diffused amongst fellow Futurists in the late 1920s. Technology, he
realized, was not only a motor of progress, but could also be a
destructive force or ‘a monster that wants to squash me, to burn me, to
23
I have seen copies of the journal in several Italian libraries and archives and it is
listed in Salaris’ Bibliografia del futurismo, p. 96 and the regesto of Evangelisti’s
Fillìa e l’avanguardia futurista negli anni del fascismo, p. 173. But I have not found
it mentioned, let alone analysed, in the scholarly literature on Futurism. A rare
exception is Marja Härmänmaa’s book, Un patriota che sfidò la decadenza, and her
essay in this volume
32 Günter Berghaus
chew me’ (Marinetti 1935: 1003). Hence, it needed to be tamed, to be

humanized. For this reason, Marinetti became a key figure in the
Futurist trend towards a spiritualization of the machine and its
portrayal as a cosmic force.
There had always been a tendency in Marinetti to see in the
machine a metaphysical force and not just as a symbol of
technological progress. This trend became dominant in the Aero-
Futurism of the 1930s, when a transcendental machine cult with
spiritual and cosmological overtones took shape: ‘Aereo = the most
perfect vision of the mechanical nature, expression of the spirit of our
times and [...] indication of the new spirituality’. (Fillìa 1930)
Aeropittura, in its first phase, combined the older tradition of
macchinolatria with the more recent trend towards spiritualism.24 The
retreat from political and social realities into the still virginal space of
the cosmos was in many ways an equivalent to the escape of
Novecento artists into the harmonic ideals of a rural lifestyle or an
historical past. To Futurist artists disenchanted with the ugly reality of
Fascist Italy, aeropittura offered metaphysical consolation and
escapist thrill.25 The Utopian desire for a New Man leading a New
Life in the New City directed many Futurists into the ‘airy-fairy’ land
of aeropittura / -poesia / -musica etc. ‘Flying’ was a metaphor for this
evasion of reality. The sky became the unlimited realm of cosmic
fantasies and offered a reprieve from a marginalized existence in the
niches of the Fascist art market. Aerovita was an expression of this
Futurist dream of the ‘dominî infiniti della pura fantasia’, which
Marinetti spoke about when he contrasted his movement with the
Fascist engagement in political realities. (Marinetti 1924a: 432, 537)
24
‘La creazione di una NUOVA MORALE dove la macchina è azione e fine:
interpretare questa spiritualizzazione meccanica è segnare l’inizio di un’ ARTE
SACRA moderna’. (Fillìa 1926) Fillìa indicates here an inner link between the two
dominant trends in Futurist painting of the 1930s, aeropittura and arte sacra
futurista.
25
See, for example, the following remarks: ‘L’uomo ha bisogno di staccarsi dalla
terra, ha bisogno di sognare, di desiderare eterne felicità, di dimenticare
continuamente la realtà quotidiana.’ (Fillìa 1931); ‘Per giungere alle alte mète di una
nuova spiritualità extra-terrestre, dobbiamo superare la trasfigurazione della realtà
apparente, [...] e lanciarci verso l’equilibrio assoluto dell’infinito ed in esso dare vita
alle immagini latenti di un nuovo mondo di realtà cosmiche.’ (Prampolini 1931);
‘Questi quadri cioè rompono nettamente il cerchio della realtà per indicare i misteri
di una nuova spiritualità.’ (Fillìa 1930).
This is not to deny that there were genuinely innovative elements to be

found in spiritualist Futurism, at least in the works of Fillìa and
Prampolini. Their research tied in with international trends which
certainly do not qualify to be interpreted as ‘escapist’. But a great deal
of aeropaintings was just that26 and as such enjoyed considerable
popularity, not only in Italy, but also in other countries, where the
peaceful use of aeronautics captured people’s imagination.
The Futurist reform of lifestyles was an integral element of a
political programme propagated in many manifestos, such as Against
Sentimentalized Love and Parliamentarianism; The New Ethical
Religion of Speed; Against Marriage; Against the Papacy and the
Catholic Mentality, Repositories of Every Kind of Traditionalism; and
Beyond Communism. Marinetti composed various manuals that
promoted new modes of starting and conducting relationships (Come
si seducono le donne, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1933; Gli amori
futuristi, 1922; Il novissimo segretario galante, 1928; Novelle colle
labbra tinte, 1930) and a reform of Italian eating habits (La cucina
futurista, 1932). Health and hygiene were not only Marinettian
metaphors for the purging of the body politic (‘la guerra – sola igiene
del mondo’) but also a reflection of his interest in sport, body culture
and nutrition (Marinetti 2006: 70, 76, 92, 236, 241, 271, 367). It is
therefore not astonishing that the German Naturist movement came to
be a significant force in Italian Futurism. In 1934, Marinetti founded a
federation of Futurist Naturists, organized three national conferences
and played an active role in the editorial business of the journal, La
forza. This engagement did in no way contradict but rather
complement his interest in machine culture. After all, there is a long
philosophical tradition of interpreting Nature and the human body as a
machine. Marinetti was opposed to any fetishization of the muscular
body and was highly critical of the Fascist adoption of sporting
spectacles for the purpose of indoctrination. He was interested in
healthy bodies with agile minds. Modern physical culture was an ally
in his battle against decadence, materialism and outdated values.
Therefore, it was an integral element of his concept of aerovita, which
was explored in a whole variety of artistic genres (aeropittura,
aeropoesia, aeromusica, etc.).
26
I am primarily referring here to the many minor artists who made up the bulk of the
Futurist movement in its last phase. For these links between Italian Futurism and the
Esprit nouveau in European avant-garde art see Crispolti 1986.
34 Günter Berghaus
The most important of these new trends, from a social viewpoint,

were architecture and urbanism, as they provided a physical
environment for the new ‘air-borne life’. It is interesting to note that
Futurist architects such as Virgilio Marchi developed a concept of an
organicist architecture and that nearly every issue of La forza
contained articles on a Futurist architecture based on the constructive
principles of Nature. Marinetti repeatedly intervened in these debates
of architects and urbanists. He was very stand-offish with regard to the
ruralist movement of Strapaese and the Fascist campaign against
unhealthy city lifestyles. For him, the modern-designed city was a
‘power plant of energy and optimism’ (Marinetti 1969: 3) whereas
villages were akin to cemeteries, in which the forces of the past crush
the dynamism of youth. Therefore, when he engaged himself in the
debates about rationalist architecture he became an active supporter of
an urbanism that combined ecology with technology.
As Marja Härmänmaa has shown in her detailed examination of
Marinetti’s late œuvre, the writer increasingly relinquished his dream
of a Futurist superman fusing with the machine and living in a
metallic environment of the industrial age.27 The Metallic Man turned
out to be an unrealizable concept, but this did not mean that the ideal
heroic citizen had to be completely relinquished. But he was now a
man with feelings and spiritual concerns. Love, friendship and
religion played an increasingly significant role in Marinetti’s creative
writings and sat quite comfortably next to other characteristics such as
patriotism, individualism, anti-conformism etc. Marinetti’s
technological imagination should therefore be seen as a complex and
often contradictory tool. His creative writings were far from being
monolithic and demonstrate a considerable degree of development
over a trajectory of more than 40 years.
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Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult

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Editor’s Foreword vii

Maria Elena Versari

This collection of essays results from a workshop held on 29 July

The rapid unfolding of science and technology in the wake of the

Some of the most remarkable examples of the technological

As many scholars in the past had focussed their attention on

I should like to express my sincerest gratitude to Marja

Unfortunately, not every presentation given at our conference

‘The essence of technology is not itself something technological’

The advent of the Age of Mobility in Italy

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti had been brought up in Egypt in

to notice that, in comparison, Italy lagged far behind the most

Table 1: Growth of railway networks in selected European countries

England Germany France Italy

(From Mitchell 1998: 673-677)

Table 2: FIAT production numbers

Table 3: Car production and ownership in selected countries

Manufacturers’ output Cars registered in Number of citizens

(Figures based on Bardou 1977: 25-107)

Whereas railway travel is a

for example, could buy himself a car, but not a railway or an

12 September 1897 Arona-Stresa-Arona (34 km)

In Italy, the situation was not much different. Motor-clubs sprang

Illustr. 3: Brescia car race in 1907. From a contemporary postcard.

Table 5: Annual wages in Italy in selected professions (in Lire)4

1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912

(Based on Zamagni 1984: 59-93)

numbers and the introduction of American-style division of labour, in

Table 6: Some memorable speed records, 1894-1909

Date 22 July 25 Febr. 18 Dec. 29 April 31 March 26 Jan.

With the new century approaching, another development in the

of its main attractions a Gallery of Aeronautics. The following year,

We cut out our Futurist airplanes from the buff-colored sailcloth of

This text of the manifesto was published in the August-October

Illustr. 6: Airshow in Verona, 1910.

Illustr. 7: Two posters for the International Airshow in Milan 1910.

As numerous articles in the popular press suggest, Italy was seized

Table 7: Some memorable early aviation shows in Italy

9 – 20 September 1909 First International Airshow held in Brescia

Marinetti experienced his first flight with the Peruvian aviator

1911, Captain Carlo Piazza flew in his Blériot monoplane from

Long before Futurism entered the scene, the subject-matter of modern

Another major proponent of an art and literature that reflected the

described the art and literature of his time as being in a state of

Science produces wonders and industry accomplishes miracles. Yet

Du Camp attacked the Académie Française for belonging to ‘a

although he never mentioned Mario Morasso, whose writings

Marinetti has left us a vivid description of how, as a young man, he

modernity (‘Provincialism goat’s voice is bickering about the tram

In the following years, Marinetti became an ideologue of

Futurist machine cult

We renounce the obsessive splendors of the centuries that are gone

In The New Ethical Religion of Speed, Marinetti described the

authority, which comes close to giving humans divine status:

Human energies, increased a hundredfold by speed, will command

During the first phase of the Futurist movement, Marinetti

We shall thus arrive at a real reduction in the cost of living and of