The Futurist Myth of Accelerated Subjectivity

F. T. Marinetti’s “Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature” of 1912 opens with the scene of an airplane flight. Based upon Marinetti’s actual aircraft ride during the first international air meet at Brescia in 1909, ¹ the manifesto expresses the simultaneous crossing of two thresholds. During the intense sensorial experience of the flight, not only does Marinetti leave the earth behind for the sky, but he also ventures beyond the boundary “that separates our human flesh from the metal of motors.” ² For Marinetti, this adventure of becoming machine instigates an urgent need to redefine subjectivity by destroying the old syntax of literature along with the literary “I.” ³ Such a scene accords perfectly with “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”, in which Marinetti narrates a near-death experience after his speeding car crashed into a ditch—an experience from which he was reborn as a subject filled with the “white-hot iron of joy.” ⁴ The futurist myth of speed was indeed constructed around the possibility of a new subjectivity emanating from the altered sensations of a subject in motion. Like the majority of futurist myths, however, this subject “on-the-move” and his/her most typical experiences were constituted through a set of conflicting and ambiguous notions. This new subject, supposedly devoid of a hermetic identity, comprised multiple “beings”, each blurring into the new assemblages through which s/he travels. Yet the experience of speed and the intensified perception it entails empowered the very same subject by reconstituting a strong sense of self. With this in mind, in this essay, I aim to analyse two sculptures by Boccioni, focusing particularly on the theme of the deconstruction and reconstruction of subjectivity via speed and movement.