Futurism

The Futurist movement began at the turn of the 20th Century. It was a result of Industrialism being introduced at the end of the 1800s, and it prompted not only artists but non-artistic people to think about design differently to all previous ideas and rules of what makes art.

Futurists were usually young people in as early as their twenties, and were referred to as 'avant-garde', sexists and even Fascists. They were classed as aarchistic, determined to push the boundaries of design and reinvent both themselves and the world around them.

The acclaimed 'founding father' of this movement was Filippo Tommaso Marianetti. He labelled the movement and created works that really challenged the idea of what art is defined by. He created 'sound poems' - pages of text that claimed to be phonetic descriptions of sounds - not necessarily music, but the sounds of car engines and other industrial equipment and machines.
His more well-known work was 'SCRABrrRrraaNNG' (above), a typographical piece created in 1919 using print, containing the text itself as well as other pieces of text and image, laid out in a dynamic and seemingly disorganised composition.

The futurists welcomed the industrial world and its innovation. They were surrounded by technological upheaval and war, and wanted nothing more than to fully challenge their environments and push design forward, leaving the past behind.

In this movement the art of 'chronophotography' occurred - the ability to capture motion in seperate still images, as if viewing its individual frames. Giacomo Balla created a piece based on this media technique named 'Dynamism of a dog on a leash' in 1909.


















The Futurists broke symmetry, hated the past and lived for the future. Some wanted to destroy libraries and museums, some glorified war, violence, pollution and sexism. The movement and its participants were rebellious, indulgent and pretentious, rejecting the idea of classic, conventional art and going as far as defacing classic art to make their point. They strived to conquer design through innovation in their arrogance.

While I personally don't agree with or support most political ideology within Futurism, the idea of following innovation and looking forward in terms of design is inspiring, and helped in the development and use of modern technology.

I plan to look more intently at the Futurists' use of varied and borderline chaotic composition. To apply this to my own work will be challenging, but could give my use of composition a much-needed boost in order to bring it to a professional and aesthetically original and pleasing body of work.

The Beautiful Losers

The Beautiful Losers were a group of young people in America who created art in a modernist/futurist style, creating art for the sake of art, or with a loose message in rebellion or direct deliberate contrast to politics, current affairs or current art.
They really belonged to the Post-Modernist movement, using a mix of varied media in one image, which was a surprisingly new concept in the 20th century, especially in comparison to early movements that solely used paint on canvas. The designs were somewhat graphics-directed and tried to convey a message that was communal or personal, even if it was in the form of basic, non-artistic text graffiti.
Most members of the group were young rebellious teens, growing up in the 80s/90s, when drug use, rebellion against authority, and free expression were very common in this era, after surfacing in the 70s.

The group members explained that their form of art meant that they could do what they couldn't do before, and always attempted to challenge authority and conformity. Their inspiration and drive was purely emotional, and their years after childhood felt more like life to them than the 'fake' world they grew up in.

The group would hold gallery shows of their work in buildings that were disused and imperfect, and some members would sleep in the gallery as they has no other place to stay. The galleries were relaxed and allowed for free arrangement and installations to make the gallery more accessible by young people with similar ideals and opinions.
Personally, I find this aspect of their ideology quite inspiring, the freedom of arrangement and composition in a gallery is more appealing to me - a relaxed environment in which artists can show their work would be more comforting and reassuring to visitors and varying audiences, and this could mean that they will enjoy the gallery and its art more.

Their canvases were unlimited, ranging from train carriages to bilboards, to gallery and studio walls. Their aim was not to show off their artistic talent, but to express themselves visually and produce a piece with a casual message that was highly accessible.

The group travelled to Tokyo to promote their artwork in quite radical ways that Japan hadn't really seen. They graffiti'd over taxi cabs and cars no longer in commercial use, and held tournaments similar to monster truck rallies in a small, confined area in the middle of Tokyo. This drew in a lot of attention from passers-by, who participated in cheering at the sidelines after a short while.
This demonstrated how perception of art varies between cultures and societies, and tha an idea of method of working and thinking can be transferred or changed so very easily, especially visually.

For the Beautiful Losers, there was no right or wrong, or good or bad when it came to their work. Emotional expression meant that the images didn't necessarily have any particular or specific meaning to convery to a particular audience; anyone of any age, gender, belief and intellect could look at their creations and see something different, a meaning more personal to them than the artist. This process is known as the 'Death of the Author', whereby the audience will look at a piece of art without looking at its artist, applying theory without the author's personal context - if the reader is without history, biography or psychology of the author, the author themself is practically not needed, hence the 'death' of the author.

Personally, I only agree wth certain aspects of the group's ideals and ethics. The idea of creating emotion-inspired artwork is very compelling, but I wouldn't create my work in the same way. Challenging authority and refusing to conform is bold and encouraging to artists everywhere, but to do so in such a direct way by creating graffiti is not something I could see myself doing.
In addition to this, their collective styles weren't the sort of thing I am interested in or inspired by, but I commend their idea of creating art that doesn't follow any guidelines or rules in order to be considered 'art'.

The Beautiful Losers are an interesting group of individuals who are not afraid to throw their thoughts and feelings straight down onto the canvas of their choice, but, even though I will try to apply the ideologies I agree with to my own work, I don't really consider myself similar to the group as a whole, and probably would not often refer to their actual work in relation to my own as I am not personally fond of the styles.

Contextualising Design - 15/10/11

As part of a critcal studies brief, I'll be posting up my notes from the Contextualising Design lectures, run primarily by Adam Cooke. We'll be looking at topics such as manifestos, how we as current students fit into the design world, and art in society.

We're required to gain and maintain a critical understanding and awareness of the interrelationship and concepts, debates and creative practices between different domains and specialisms of design. We must then apply this knowledge to our own work in order to improve our way of thinking and working, which in turn will assist us in the creative world post-education.

Our first lecture introduced us to the radical art group, 'The Beautiful Losers'. A post about this will be up shortly.