Ruidos y susurros de las vanguardias - Medialab Prado

change it, according to new programmatic models expressed in their manifestos.
In fact, it is noteworthy that the first Futurist Manifesto by Marinetti was published
outside Italy, in an important newspaper like Le Figaro in Paris (20 February,
1909), art and politics capital at that moment. With this public and international
action in the mass media, it gives his manifesto a capacity beyond the merely
artistic circle. Therefore, later manifests were produced from art to all the spheres
of life: from the manifestos of artistic renovation of painting, sculpture, theater,
music, cinema…, to the manifestos of social change in politics, war, machines,
radio, clothing, food, etc. Their politics and artistic affiliations range from
anarchism to fascism, and their volunteer enlistment in war, though not justified,
has to be understood as a will to ally with the transforming agents of history, to
take to its ultimate accomplishment their avant-garde ideas, to be the first in the
fast destruction of the past (military and artistic vanguard tend to be confused).
Conflicting positions, like the Russian futurists in favor of the Bolshevik revolution
or the Dada artists who deserted from the war, are among their committed and
militant positions.
The inclusion of this movement in our project is essential, since they are the
initiators of many aspects that later on have been developed in Sound Art:
phonetic poetry (with Marinetti's parole in libertà and Depero's onomalingua ),
noise (concept and practice initiated in Russolo's "The Art of Noise"), public
actions (futurist performances and other shows before the audio-performance),
invented sound-producing machines (like Russolo's intonarumori,
rumoroarmonio and arco enarmonico or the motor-noise systems by Depero and
Balla), and also radio art (with Marinetti's radio syntheses or Depero's Liriche
radiofoniche (Radio Lyrics)
Some examples of these works have been preserved, but many of them have not
survived or we only have their reference from drawings and photographs. The
recovery of some lost works began after the 1970's, such as Luigi Russolo's
Intonarumori (noise instruments), which were destroyed during World War II and
in 1977 the Archivi delle Arti Contemporanee della Biennale di Venice organized
an exhibition on Russolo's work and for the occasion, the curator, Gian Franco
Maffina, had five out of the twenty-one intonarumori reconstructed according to
the author's original plans. This served to interpret some fragments of Russolo's
score Risveglio di una città (“Awakening of a City”). Regarding phonetic poetry,
Arrigo Lora-Totino most widely compiles and recites the poems left by futurists
(Marinetti, Balla, Depero and Farfa) in his anthology Futura/ poesia sonora
(Cramps Record, Milan, 1978). With respect to music, Daniele Lombardi has
mainly rescued the preserved scores and has interpreted them, although most of
them are piano compositions, not giving a clear idea of the innovations attempted;
however, the group Russolo Ensemble has tried to introduce in its concerts other
instruments like the intonarumori and the arco enarmonico, besides giving
character of futurist show, although not reaching the degree of provocation of
futurists. Plastic-sound assemblies have been reconstructed to a lesser extent,
except for the Complexo Plastico Colorato Motorumorista di scomposiczione a
Stratti (1915) by Depero made by the Atelier Guillaume di Parigi from a
photograph, but many other lost works are left and are only referenced in
drawings, texts and photographs.
For that reason, our research group believed appropriate to recover some of
- 143 -
these works, in order to understand and appreciate in its widest sense the
integration of its form, movement and sonority. We have carried out the
reproduction of several motor-noise arrangements by Fortunato Depero, upon
consulting the material preserved in the Archivio of ` 900 and Center
Internazionale Studi sul Futurismo of the Museo di Arte Moderna e
Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (MART, Italy), which has allowed us to
study the drawings and annotations made by Depero himself. We are very
grateful to Carlo Prosser of the Archivi Storici of the MART, who has lent us for this
exhibition two of the motor-noise reproductions made by him.
We have also carried out some reinterpretations of the work examples that Balla
and Depero refer to in their manifesto Futurist Ricostruzione dell'Universo (1915)
of which there are no pictures left, but that the members of the group have
considered as the result of "experienced emotions".
Other works reproduced correspond to the wardrobe used in ballets and futurist
theater, which integrated plastics, sound, body and movement. We have
collected drawings, paintings and in some cases photographs, of the ballet
Anihccam del 3000 (1924) with their onomalinguistic declamations, and the
sketches of some of Depero's motor-noise gloves for the dancers. We have also
scheduled the design of pajamas for the guests of a Fillià's tactile menu.
Another important aspect refers to the contributions of the new mass media used
by futurists, like the radio. We have performed some of the radio scripts written by
Depero in his Liriche Radiofoniche (1934) and in his pioneering work of the use of
the telephone in the onomalinguístic poem "Incroici Telefonici" (around 1916). We
have added the declamation of some postcards by Giacomo Balla, as precursor
of Mail Art and the concept of sound postcard. With these works we tried to
complement those already interpreted on the radio Cinque sintesi radiofoniche
(1933) by F.T. Marinetti.
Finally, we have recreated a Futurist Evening from the sound documents
preserved of Marinetti, Balla and Cangiullo's declamations, as well as from a
variety songs by Rodolfo de Angelis, all this with the current recording of the
sound ambience of the café Giubbe Rosse of Florence frequently visited by
futurists and of the insults they provoked.
We have believed suitable to include also the contribution of futurism in other
countries, such as Portugal with Jose Almada-Negreiros who made several
public manifestations in cafés and theaters with his manifestos, and incorporated
his original voice and recreated the atmosphere of where it was made.
Balla Depero
The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, 1915
Published for the first time in a loose leaf of the Direzione of the Futurist
Movement, Milan, 11 March 1915.
With the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting and the preface to the catalogue
of the Futurist Exhibition in Paris (signed by Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Balla,
Severini), with the Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture (signed by Boccioni), the
Manifesto of the Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells (signed by Carrà), with