A Post Modern Take on Futurism

Futurism was a style of art that grew in the early part of the 20th century and was centred on Italy, especially Northern Italy. It used techniques of abstraction in the same way as the earlier Cubists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had done, but it added a sense of motion. The way that it did this was by repeating the examples of a static object - usually some kind of machinery - to create the illusion of motion.

Here is an example of Futurist Art.

Tullio Crali  -  Bombardamento Aereo (1937)

You will see that in this picture there is another element of Futurism and that is the militaristic focus. The movement was very much a standard bearer for Power - both the power of machinery in all its forms and for the power of the state in a military conflict.

When studying this group's work in the 21st Century I wanted to created a form of Futurism that used the same stylistic components, but applying them to the very much changed new century. At first I concentrated on the way that current methods of creating images had changed what is possible in terms of the artworks created. For example how could the manipulation of images using Photoshop make a difference to what could be created ?

Futurist 1 by Peter Leech

This image used Photoshop to create what are now called Fractals - repeated patterns of an image to create a composite image that adds to the original basic shape. There is a lot more cynicism about the effects of War in this century and people are far more sceptical about the benefits of State Power. That element has now, therefore, been played down.

Here is a further example of this :-

Futurist 2  by Peter Leech

The second part of the development of this early 20th century style was to concentrate the focus more on the power of machinery. The most common and easily recognisable piece of machinery is probably the car. Whilst these were not unknown in the original Futurist period, applying modern digital techniques allows the artist to consider single elements in a vehicle rather than simply the overall shape. Individual panels can be selected and manipulated to form new shapes, still deriving from the original automobile part. Lights are probably the biggest single design feature of the differences between modern cars and these also can create a range of new dynamic shapes to build into a total piece of artwork.

Here are a few examples :-

Audi A1 Exhaust Pipe and rear Lights by Peter Leech

Futurist Mini Cooper S by Peter Leech

Mitsubishi Mirage Fish by Peter Leech

Mitsubishi Mirage  by Peter Leech

My plan is to extend this idea and build up a whole collection of Post Modern Futurist Images of the power of the modern automobile as a classic piece of technology. Watch out for more details.

Please feel free to write comments to the blog about the ideas and the images shown in the articles.