ABSTRACT
Futurism is an Italian product, but its beginnings took place in France. Marinetti published the original Futurist manifesto in the Paris Figaro in 1909. The original movement included poetry (poets were called Paroliberi, a good porte-manteau word), politics, reclame, synthetic theatre measurements, architecture, painting, sculpture, music and the new Arte de Rumori, the Art of Noises. Luigi Russolo was the creator of the Inronarumori, instruments of Noise, among them buzzers, exploders, screechers, crashers, snorters and gurglers. Russolo’s book, “L’Arte dei Rumori,” published in 1916 by the Edizioni Futuriste in Milan, is a curiosity of great interest. It tells the story of the movement, glories in the physical encounters that the early futurists had to suffer at their concerts. “For the first time,” writes Marinetti in the Paris “Intransigeant,” “the artists were suddenly divided into two groups, one continuing to perform impassively on the stage, the other descending into the parterre to attack and crush the hostile hissing public. Our knowledge of boxing and our training in pugilism let us emerge safe and sound with but a scratch or two. The ‘passeistes’ had eleven wounded, who had to be conducted to the nearest firstaid station.”
