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Futurism : a very short introduction
From the motorcar to the radio, modern technology radically transformed urban life by the first decade of the twentieth century. This 'Very Short Introduction' explores the ideas, works, key figures, and development of the Futurist movement in Italy and beyond, in the context of the turmoil and rapid change of the early 20th century.
BOOK
Afrofuturisms : ecology, humanity, and francophone cultural expressions
An exploration of Francophone African literary imaginations and expressions through the lens of Afrofuturism Generally attributed to the Western imagination, science fiction is a literary genre that has expressed projected technological progress since the Industrial Revolution. However, certain fantastical elements in African literary expressions lend themselves to science fiction interpretations, both utopian and dystopian. When the concept of science is divorced from its Western, rationalist, materialist, positivist underpinnings, science fiction represents a broad imaginative space that supersedes the limits of this world. Whether it be on the moon, under the sea, or elsewhere within the imaginative universe, Afrofuturist readings of select films, novels, short stories, plays, and poems reveal a similarly emancipatory African future that is firmly rooted in its own cultural mythologies, cosmologies, and philosophies.Isaac Joslin identifies the contours and modalities of a speculative, futurist science fiction rooted in the sociocultural and geopolitical context of continental African imaginaries. Constructing an arc that begins with gender identity and cultural plurality as the bases for an inherently multicultural society, this project traces the essential role of language and narrativity in processing traumas that stem from the violence of colonial and neocolonial interventions in African societies.Joslin then outlines the influential role of discursive media that construct divisions and create illusions about societal success, belonging, and exclusion, while also identifying alternative critical existential mythologies that promote commonality and social solidarity. The trajectory proceeds with a critical analysis of the role of education in affirming collective identity in the era of globalization; the book also assesses the market-driven violence that undermines efforts to instill and promote cultural and social autonomy.Last, this work proposes an egalitarian and ecological ethos of communal engagement with and respect for the diversity of the human and natural worlds.
eBook
Italian futurism and the machine
This is the first interdisciplinary exploration of machine culture in Italian futurism after the First World War. The machine was a primary concern for the futuristi. As well as being a material tool in the factory it was a social and political agent, an aesthetic emblem, a metonymy of modernity and international circulation and a living symbol of past crafts and technologies. Exploring literature, the visual and performing arts, photography, music and film, the book uses the lens of European machine culture to elucidate the work of a broad set of artists and practitioners, including Censi, Depero, Marinetti, Munari and Prampolini. The machine emerges here as an archaeology of technology in modernity: the time machine of futurism.
eBook
Afrofuturism and black sound studies : culture, technology, and things to come
This book interrogates the meeting point between Afrofuturism and Black Sound Studies. Whereas Afrofuturism is often understood primarily in relation to science fiction and speculative fiction, it can also be examined from a sonic perspective. The sounds of Afrofuturism are deeply embedded in the speculative demonstrated in mythmaking in frameworks for songs and compositions, in the personas of the artists, and in how the sounds are produced. In highlighting the place of music within the lived experiences of African Americans, the author analyses how the perspectives of Black Sound Studies complement and overlap with the discussion of sonic Afrofuturism. Focusing upon blackness, technology, and sound, this unique text offers key insights in how music partakes in imagining and constructing the future.
Book
Back to the Futurists
In 1909 the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Founding Manifesto of Futurism was published on the front page of Le Figaro. Between 1909 and 1912 the Futurists published over thirty manifestos, celebrating speed and danger, glorifying war and technology, and advocating political and artistic revolution. This collection of essays aims to reassess the activities of the Italian Futurist movement from an international and interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on its activities and legacies in the field of poetry, painting, sculpture, theatre, cinema, advertising and politics. The essays offer exciting new readings in gender politics, aesthetics, historiography, intermediality and interdisciplinarity. They explore the works of major players of the movement as well as its lesser-known figures, and the often critical impact of Futurism on contemporary or later avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada and Vorticism. The publication will be of interest to scholars and students of European art, literature and cultural history, as well as to the informed general public.
eBook
Muskian Futurism
Muskian futurism refers to a crosspollination of political perceptions, ideas and beliefs centred around the public persona of Elon Musk. In this paper, we explore these strands of thought – contemporary futurism, cyber-libertarianism, neo-reaction, white supremacism and personal self-interest – to situate Muskian futurism as a grouping of overlapping ideologies with a shared diagnosis of the world that runs parallel with other groups of similar influence over the second Trump administration. It is argued that this agglomeration of (pseudo)intellectual strands is distinct from nationalism due to its technological solutionism and indifference to Musk’s shameless pursuit of self-interest. Nonetheless, Muskian futurism represents a dangerous technocratic accelerationism committed to the absolute undermining of democratic institutions capable of enduring without Musk’s prominence.
Journal Article
Futurism & Europe : the aesthetics of a new world
\"Futurism & Europe: The Aesthetics of a New World examines for the first time the many interconnections between Futurism and other European avant-gardes as varied as the Bauhaus in Germany, De Stijl in the Netherlands, Omega Workshops in Britain, Constructivism in Russia and Esprit Nouveau in France. Featuring over twenty essays by an international team of experts, this expansive book covers a range of topics and mediums including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior and stage designs, graphic work, fashion, theatre and cinema, as well as a diverse variety of functional objects from furniture and carpets to ceramics and toys. Spanning various avant-gardes from 1912 to 1939, artists featured include Italian futurists such as Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Fortunato Depero, alongside other European artists including Sonia Delaunay, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Walter Gropius, Alexander Rodchenko, Fritz Lang, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky, Hans Arp, Duncan Grant, Natalia Goncharova and Vladimir Tatlin. Broad in scope, this pioneering book examines the intersections between Futurism and other European avant-garde movements in their shared quest for a new aesthetic, triggering a lively exchange of new ideas, friction and rivalry.\"-- Page 4 of cover.
Book
Techno-optimism: an Analysis, an Evaluation and a Modest Defence
What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key dimensions but each shares the view that technology plays a key role in ensuring that the good prevails over the bad. Whatever its strength, to defend this stance, one must flesh out an argument with four key premises. Each of these premises is highly controversial and can be subjected to a number of critiques. The paper discusses five such critiques in detail (the values critique, the treadmill critique, the sustainability critique, the irrationality critique and the insufficiency critique). The paper also considers possible responses from the techno-optimist. Finally, it is concluded that although strong forms of techno-optimism are not intellectually defensible, a modest, agency-based version of techno-optimism may be defensible.
Journal Article