In our last lecture, we talked about the roots of futurism, which has been called the first historical avant-garde movement. It was largely an Italian movement, which was started in the early 1900s. One of the biggest leaders was named Fillippo Marinetti, who was often called “Effeti” for his effusive nature. Marinetti published a Futurist Manifesto that called for a change from the old towards a new world order with Italy at the forefront. Futurists in general very much enjoyed printing manifestos, calling for changes, technology, and a change from the slow ways of the present. The futurism movement espoused youth, technology, and especially violence. This movement believed that the way for mankind to progress the quickest was to become involved in a major war. They referred to war as the “sole cleanser of the world” War would slim the population and bring new innovations along. As discussed in the STS intro class- “Necessity is the mother of invention”. An interesting part of the movement was seen in Marinetti’s war against pasta. He urged his people to stop eating the Italian staple, because he noted that it made people fat, slow, and lethargic. Ironically, he was later seen eating pasta himself, which eroded his argument significantly. A less humorous part of the futurists plan was to glorify contempt for women and to fight against feminist objectives. They saw women as the weaker sex by far, and thought that women would not fit well into their plan of having a grand war to “trim the fat” of sorts. The main artistic style of the movement was cubism. The futurists saw technology and robots as the ideal form, so they loved the mathematical symmetry and rigidity that cubism brought. Their movement influenced future art movements through their preferences, including art deco and surrealism.