Action! Futurism Projected and Performed

Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years
Presented by SFMOMA, the Italian Cultural Institute, and PERFORMA 09, in collaboration with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, UC Berkeley

Action! Futurism Projected & Performed
Curated by Lana Wilson (Performa), with theatrical installations curated by Raelle Myrick-Hodges

October 18, 2009

4:00pm $10 (films and plays, featuring Thais)*
6:00pm FREE Theatrical Performances Only - tickets not necessary for this performance
7:30pm $10 (films and plays, featuring Futurist Life Redux)*
*both shows available for $15

 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of F. T. Marinetti's legendary document, "Futurist Manifesto."  In commemoration of a movement obsessed with machines and mayhem, Brava joins in this week-long celebration to present Futurism's relationship to film, regressive politics and performance art.  In conjunction with the third iteration of RoseLee Goldberg's visual biennial in New York, Brava brings theatrical installations of Futurist short plays and rarely viewed film works FOR ONE DAY ONLY. Through this work, we re-examine how the Futurists envisioned the future and what that answer might entail for our own imagined future.  Futurist Week throughout the BayArea is October 15-18, 2009.

Photo (Above) Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Thais (still), 1916
Courtesy George Eastman House Motion Picture Department Collection.
Photo (Right):  Luigi Russolo and Ugo Piatti with the intonarumori
Rovereto, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Russolo

Buy Discounted Tickets for Both the 4:00 PM and 7:30 PM Show Here...

Tickets for other futurism events throughout the Bay Area are available at SFMOMA. More information about these events can be found toward the bottom of the page.

fu·tur·ism  (fych-rzm) n.

1. A belief that the meaning of life and one's personal fulfillment lie in the future and not in the present or past.
2. An artistic avant-garde movement that took technology and speed and incorporated every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy.
3. A complex movement of artists who were imperfect, at times very mean, but saw the importance using modernity as inspiration and making use of the characteristics of the machine age.

Programing:
Afternoon Films 4pm (there will be an intermission March of the Machines
Amor Pedestre, Marcel Fabre (1914), 10 min.
Thaïs, Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1917), 54 min.
The Mechanical Man, Andre Deed (1921), 46 min.
Railway Station Rhythms (Impressioni vita di 1, di stazioni ritmi), Corrado D'Errico (1933), 10 min.

6pm  - free one-time only full production of all the performance works (no films will be presented at this time. 

Evening Films 7:30pmpm (there will be an intermission March of the Machines
Speed (Vitesse), Tina Cordero, Guido Martina, and Pippo Oriana (1930), 13 min.
March of the Machines, Eugene Deslaw (1929), 9 min.
Excelsior, Luca Comerio (1914), 23 min.
Futurist Life Redux, 50 min.

Part of Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years.
Each program: $10 general; $7 SFMOMA and partner institution members, students, and seniors
Both programs: $15 general, $12 SFMOMA and partner institution members, students, and seniors. Tickets available at brava.org or 415.647.2822.

Synthetic Theater Live Artists
Khamara Pettus, Jayne Deely, Liz Anderson, Jeffrey L. Moore, Matthew Reiff, Michael Heriford, Christopher Borgzinner, Michaela Ngeruizian, Summer Shockahosee

Music compositions/collaborations
Luciano Cressa, Grant Goddard

More information about the films:
Film Selection Curated by Lana Wilson (Performa), with theatrical installations curated by Brava Artistic Director, Raelle Myrick-Hodges.

The Mechanical Man, Andre Deed (1921), 46 min. André Deed wrote, directed, and starred in this remarkable early science fiction film featuring a female criminal mastermind and a massive robot running amok. It survives only in fragmentary form, but what remains is enough to convey the fascination and terror of the mechanical monster, which Deed described as "a machine in human form built out of pure steel [possessing] a terrifying strength, an incalculable speed. . . . In short, a truly infernal invention."

Speed (Vitesse), Tina Cordero, Guido Martina, and Pippo Oriana (1930), 13 min. One of the only futurist films still in existence, Speed captures the dynamics of the city, with rotating views, whistling machines, articulated mannequins, and homages to twentieth-century artists such as Boccioni, Mondrian, Leger, and Kandinsky, all rhythmically collaged together by Futurist painter Oriani in collaboration with writers Cordero and Martina.

March of the Machines, Eugene Deslaw (1929), 9 min. Abstract mechanical symphony with score originally written by Luigi Russolo

Excelsior, Luca Comerio (1914), 23 min. A grand 1881 ballet that celebrates technology and progress through tableaux saluting turn-of-the-century technological innovations-electricity, the telegraph, and the Brooklyn Bridge, among them-Excelsior was made into a film over 30 years later, as the worldwide interest in Futurism was taking off.

Amor Pedestre, Marcel Fabre (1914), 10 min. The feet of three people act out an adulterous affair in Amor Pedestre, the only filmed record of Futurist reductionist performance.

Railway Station Rhythms (Impressioni vita di 1, di stazioni ritmi), Corrado D'Errico (1933), 10 min. Gorgeous documentary depicting a day in the "iron world"-a railway station-by intermingling the repetitive motions of machines with the mechanisms of human behavior. With music by George Gershwin.

Thaïs, Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1917), 54 min. A seemingly conventional Italian "diva" picture that builds to a wildly experimental ending, Thais is considered to be the only surviving full-length Futurist film. In it, the title character plots to seduce her best friend's crush, and the melodramatic chain of events that ensues leads to a Futuristic final sequence, shot against the visionary set designs of Futurist painter Enrico Prampolini.

Futurist Life Redux, 50 min. In 1916, the Italian Futurist artist Arnaldo Ginna directed, produced, and filmed Vita Futurista (Futurist Life), perhaps the only truly "Futurist" film ever made, now completely lost. Comprised of eleven independent segments conceived and written by different Futurist artists, Futurist Life contrasted the spirit and lifestyle of Futurists with that of the ordinary man, featuring experimental techniques such as split screens, double exposures, and hand-coloring, as well as a radical rejection of the theatricality of the stage dramas that accounted for much Italian cinema at the time. For the Performa 09 biennial, Performa and Anthology Film Archives will invite a dozen filmmakers to create their own versions of segments from Vita Futurista, reimagining this landmark film in relation to our own future. These shorts will then be compiled into one, all-new version of Futurist Life for the twenty-first century. Participating artists include George Kuchar, Michael Smith, Martha Colburn, Shannon Plumb, and Lynn Hershman among others.

Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years
October 14-18, 2009

A celebration of Futurism’s hundredth year with a series of performances, lectures, and events at locations throughout the Bay Area. In this first preview of RoseLee Goldberg’s visual art performance biennial outside of New York City, Performa and Live Art @ SFMOMA join with the Italian Cultural Institute and several community partners to weigh the legacies of Italian Futurism—one of the seminal and most controversial avant-garde art movements of the twentieth-century. This year marks the centennial of the movement's founding document, F. T. Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto,” and the programs in San Francisco reexamine Futurism’s relationship to innovative artistic form, radical and regressive politics, and performance work today. Coorganized by Performa 09 and SFMOMA with the Italian Cultural Institute. Copresented with Brava! for Women in the Arts, The San Francisco Center for the Book, UC Berkeley, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

EXHIBITION OPENING AND WEEKEND KICKOFF
Fortunato Depero 50
Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 p.m.
Italian Cultural Institute, 425 Washington Street
This exhibition, curated by Maurizio Scudiero, celebrates the work of Depero (1892–1960), the Italian futurist designer perhaps best known for his iconic 1932 Campari soda bottle (still in production today). Demonstrating Depero’s wide-ranging themes, styles, and techniques, the exhibition showcases his work in drawing, painting, advertising, and product design. Also on display is a model of the first combustion engine, an object of particular inspiration for the first generation of futurist artists like Depero.  Space is limited, for reservations, call 415.788.7142, ext. 18. Free and open to the public.

PRINTMAKING EVENT
“Let Me Have My Fun”: Aldo Palazzeschi on the Press 
Thursday and Friday, October 15 and 16, 2–5 p.m. (drop-in hours)
The San FranciscoCenter for the Book, 300 De Haro Street
Kathleen Burch, cofounder, The San Francisco Center for the Book; John McBride, editor Invisible City; Paul Vangelisti, translator and poet
The San Francisco Center for the Book will host an open house printing of Aldo Palazzeschi's "Let me have my fun", a choice piece of early Futurism (1910) not published here until a 1972 issue of McBride’s and Vangelisti’s Invisible City. In recognizing the tremendous impact of Futurism on the graphic art of the 20th century, "Let me have my fun" also celebrates a simultaneous centenary: that of the Vandercook Proofing Press, an important technology that has been crucial to the development of contemporary book arts. During this performance, the public may pronounce and place (on the bed of the press) syllables & words drawn from the poem, and print what text results. The clack of the press compliments Paul Vangelisti's recitation in Italian and in English. Free and open to the public.

PHYLLIS WATTIS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Marjorie Perloff on the Futurist Moment
Thursday, October 15, 7 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA, 151 Third Street
Marjorie Perloff, literary critic
Founded in 1995 through the generosity of Phyllis Wattis, this lecture series brings innovative thinkers to SFMOMA. Known for her seminal text, The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant-Guerre, and the Language of Rupture, Perloff works across modernist and contemporary poetics to explore innovative form and its reception. In this talk she considers futurist aesthetics and their legacies in contemporary art, performance, and poetics. Tickets available at the museum or sfmoma.org/futurism. $10 general; $7 members of partner institutions, students, and seniors.

Performa 09 PREVIEW: PERFORMANCE
Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners
Friday, October 16, 8 p.m.
Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena  Center for the Arts, 700 Howard Street
Original scores by Luigi Russolo and Paolo Buzzi; new compositions by an all-star cast of experimental composers; ensemble players from Magik*Magik Orchestra
Futurist composer Russolo constructed special hand-cranked instruments to realize an expanded field of orchestral sound. Called intonarumori (noise intoners), these instruments produced noises—howls, buzzes, hisses—not usually employed in Western music. Composer and Russolo scholar Luciano Chessa has overseen the recreation of 16 intonarumori and has curated a concert of original and newly commissioned scores.  Tickets available at sfmoma.org/futurism or 415.978.2787. $20 general; $15 members of partner institutions, students, and seniors.

SYMPOSIUM
Poetry + Painting +Politics x Professors = Futurism Past
Saturday, October 17, 1 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA, 151 Third Street
Luigi Ballerini, UCLA; Claudio Fogu, UC Santa Barbara; Laura Wittman, Stanford University; Benjamin Martin, San Francisco State University; Jennifer Bethke and Barbara Spackman, UC BerkeleyFuturism’s 1909 “Founding Manifesto” called for the destruction of museums and libraries. The 1915 manifesto “Against Professors” deplored the “professorial passion for the past.” The Futurists gleefully tarred professors as “pedantic passéist pachyderms.” So how does one address the irony of organizing a symposium about an anti-symposium movement? In this anything-but-lumbering panel discussion, Futurism scholars will assess the movement’s contributions to the modernist avant-garde; its controversial political affiliations and relations to fascism and anarchism; and its violent reshaping of bodies and subjectivities. Free and open to the public; seats available on a first-come, first-served basis.

BANQUET
OPENfuture: Spinning Marinetti's Wheels
Saturday, October 17, 8 p.m.
Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Atrium, SFMOMA, 151 Third Street
OPENrestaurant, artist group; Luciano Chessa and other musicians
Feeding on the Futurist’s appetite for destruction, OPENrestaurant reopens F. T. Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook to release the enthusiastic fervor of its primordial elements. Look for cyclists, locally sourced beef, a women-only kitchen, performances, interruptions, stadium seating, and dessert bombs. Expect to be exalted with sounds, smells and constant motion and delighted with, among other things, beef ice cream cones, avocado cocktails, and Manifesto-printed Paneforte. Tickets available at the museum or sfmoma.org/futurism. $65 general; $50 partner members, students, and seniors.