Having been led to make for himself too poor a belief of amends, in 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti generated the “Manifesto of Futurism,” a revolutionary affirmation that all previous traditions, concepts, and aesthetics of art-making must be relinquished and ignored from its predecessors in order to produce new, superior forms and tactics of expressive art, by means of conceivable hostility and injustices for the establishment of a “new world.” Marinetti’s enthusiasm towards this new world, with a “new doctrine,” is exemplified in his poetic and passionate declaration, “Let’s go! Look there, on the earth, the very first dawn! There’s nothing to match the splendor of the sun’s red sword, slashing for the first time through our millennial gloom!” His manifesto aggressively announces the beginning of what he believes to be the start of a new era—an era for the young, the new, the adventurous. Marinetti argues for an almost eugenic undertaking to demolish all existing relics, with admiration for those he believes will continue the evolutionary progress of the world with what is new, directed by a deliberate ignorance of the past. Continuing with his sounding decree, he writes, “Let’s break out of the horrible shell of wisdom and throw ourselves like pride-ripened fruit into the wild, contorted mouth of the wind! Let’s give ourselves utterly to the Unknown, not in desperation but only to replenish the deep wells of the Absurd!” Marinetti bares an unrepressed desire for a new era, unrestricted by one’s need for previous knowledge of all genres and topics of the world. It is a time for exploration—a time to let oneself run free. Marinetti manifesto asserts a new philosophy, in which one need not worry about how or why something exists, but only that it does, and that he or she must accept this and let it be. His manifesto aspires to compel a nation of young individuals to continue without a plan, accusing with a discourse that laments our studies and actions for having become too literal, probing the alleged wrong aspects of the objects and genres of our world. Marinetti conflictingly demands that every aspect must be explored, from the genuine to the fantasy, for it is better to not know than to know too much.
– Matthew Plaia
