Fashion. Technology. Community.

Pleasure with a shudder

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"In 1919 Futurist fashion reached its limit with Thayaht’s Tuta, a unisex and practical jumpsuit that encapsulated many of the aims stated in Thayaht’s 1930s manifestos and influenced the course of Italian fashion."

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Giacomo Balla, 1914: Anti-Neutral Suit.

"Every woman will be a walking synthesis of the universe." -Volt

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"Certainly most modern machines arouse in us that feeling that Kant regards as the criterion of 'beauty.' A good modern machine is thus an object of the highest aesthetic value - we are aware of that. In colloquial speech we may describe such a machine as 'beautiful' - the philosopher weighs up his concept more cautiously and calls in 'sublime,' for its appearance does not at all arouse a pleasant sensation as 'joyful and smiling'l; it evokes pleasure 'with a shudder,' How it actually makes its effect is something we can only appreciate with our emotions; we get our true view of objects whose outward appearance is displeasing when we accept that those features which account for the lack of harmony are nonetheless [145] aesthetically necessary. Observations of this kind lead to the following conclusions: the machine makes its effect on the beholder through its working as much as through its form. Its working is always 'sublime,' as its aesthetic effect can only be recognizably influenced by its styling. This alone can raise the product of iron and steel to become a thing of artistic worth, or on the other hand cancel out the aesthetic effect of a machine in motion."

- Kurt Ewald, The Beauty of Machines (1925-6)

Translated from German by Charlottes Benton, Tim Benton, et al. Architecture and Design, 1890-1939: An International Anthology of Original Articles. (Whitney Library of Design, New York, NY: 1975).

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Mayakovsky- 1910

Russian Futurism

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Russian Futurism: As might be surmised, the cultivated Russian art public was much more hospitable to the new and strange than the Italian. An avid vogue for avantgarde collecting had grown up, the collectors often vying with the artists in bohemian bravado. This was Diaghilev's original world. In October 1913, the Cubo-Futurist writers and painters took to the stage for the first time. Toilet-paper posters announced the event. Mayakovsky took five strolls through Moscow in a yellow shirt made by his mother, a wooden spoon in his buttonhole. To their chagrin the Futurists were rather blandly received, though in the course of later meetings they several times poured hot tea on the first rows and pleaded their thirst for catcalls. A vein of Slavophile conservatism made them less aggressively missionary then the Italians. Yet one of them performed with a urinated dog painting on his cheek "to show his sense of smell" Another had an airplane painted on his forehead "to symbolize universal dynamism." sometimes they read each other's work in concert, sometimes they suspended a piano upside down over the stage.

R.W. Flint, Marinetti (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971), 28.