The Neo-Futurists

Interest in the Russian Futurist poetry of the first two-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century was revived in Soviet literary circles in the mid-1950s. Initially focused on the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky, interest spread to other writers. At the turn of the fifties and sixties, this revival resulted in regular “unsanctioned” poetry readings at the Mayakovsky monument in Moscow, which were eventually banned by the authorities. Against this backdrop, several young poets tried to build on the creative strategies of the Futurists. Gennady Aigi, who debuted as a Chuvash-language poet, was the first of these poets to arrive on the literary scene. Vladimir Kazakov and Vadim Kozovoy, poets who came onto the literary scene in the sixties, consciously established their styles at the intersection of the Russian and international avant-gardes, trying to overcome the isolationism of Soviet poetry. In the seventies, poems by their elder contemporary, Elizaveta Mnatsakanova, claiming to complete the project of a revived Futurism, were published abroad. All four poets borrowed numerous formal features of their work from Russian Futurism and sought to see themselves as its successors, while setting aside the avant-garde’s socio-political agenda and its desire for a radical transformation of culture and society.

Between phenomenology and futurism: Roman Jakobson’s poetics before the WW 2

The article is based on a chapter from the author’s book Russian Formalism: A Metapo­etics (1984). It deals with the poetics of Roman Jakobson formulated during his stay in Prague from 1920 to 1938 and treats this subject from an epistemological perspective outlining three incompatible scholarly/artistic trends which informed it: Husserlian Phenomenology, Saus­surian linguistics and Russian Futurism. From Husserl, Jakobson borrowed the concept of “expression” (Ausdruck) — the sign whose self-sameness was absolute. But he departed from the German philosopher by conceiving of this semiotic identity in terms of a Saussurean “so­cial consciousness.” And he further relativized it through the modernist notion of “de-familiarization” — an incessant drive of poetic signs for an aesthetic rejuvenation. To miti­gate the tension between Phenomenological stability and Futurist instability, the essay con­cludes, Jakobson grounded his poetics in phonology: the universal system of distinctive fea­tures common to all languages that is impervious to any violations.

Psychomotor Aesthetics

In the late 19th century, neurophysiology introduced techniques for detecting somatic signs of psychological processes. Scientific modes of recording, representing, and interpreting body movement as “expressive” soon found use in multiple cultural domains. Based on archival materials, this study charts the avenues by which physiological psychology reached the arts and evaluates institutional practices and political trends that promoted interdisciplinary engagements in the first quarter of the 20th century. In mapping the emergence of a paradigm it calls “psychomotor aesthetics,” this book uncovers little-known sources of Russian Futurism, Formalist poetics, avant-garde film theories of Lev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein, and early Soviet programs for evaluating filmgoers’ reactions. Drawing attention to the intellectual exchange between Russian authors and their European and American counterparts, the book documents diverse cultural applications of laboratory methods for studying the psyche. Both a history and a critical project, the book attends to the ways in which artists and theorists dealt with the universalist fallacies inherited from biologically oriented psychology—at times, endorsing the positivist, deterministic outlook, and at times, resisting, reinterpreting, and defamiliarizing these scientific notions. In exposing the vastness of cross-disciplinary exchange at the juncture of neurophysiology and the arts at the turn of the 20th century, Psychomotor Aesthetics calls attention to the tremendous cultural resonance of theories foregrounding the somatic substrate of emotional and cognitive experience—theories, which anticipate the promises and limitations of today’s neuroaesthetics and neuromarketing.

La matrice espressiva nel livre d’artiste di Iliazd

Due to the involvement of Iliazd in a range of major artistic movements, from Russian Futurism to Dada during its Parisian period, his work may be considered within a range of different study frameworks. These experiences led to an interest in printed art and later to publishing. The ‘architecture’ of the books he produced was influenced by the character of the zaum poetry he practised in his early years. His contribution to the genre of modern artist’s book is unquestionable, although it has not enjoyed the attention of much scholarship. This paper seeks to analyse the expressive devices in Iliazd’s mature work in illustrated books and to trace their origins, showing how they led to the emergence of liberal and original correspondences between writing and visual forms.

Johannes Semper hobusega. Avangard, takerduja tehnika ja looduse vahel / Johannes Semper with a horse: Avant-garde between technology and nature

Artikkel annab ülevaate 20. sajandi alguse kirjandusliku avangardi suhetest tehnikaga. Avangardi (eriti futurismi) jaoks pidi tehnika saama loomise eeskujuks ja masinate seadused esteetilise loovuse seadusteks. Artikkel väidab, et paljud avangardi tekstiuuenduslikud ideaalid on vastuolus tehnika ideaalidega ja iseloomustavad ennekõike loodust. Tehnika väärtustas tulemust, avangard protsessi. Tehnika väärtustas süsteemsust, ennustatavust, koopialisust, avangard vabarütme, ennustamatust ja originaalsust. Tehnika nõudis ratsionaalsust ja eesmärgipärast tegutsemist, avangard kuulutas intuitsiooni ja prohvetlikku kujutlust. Tehnika tõi odavad masstooted, avangard hindas haruldust. Tehnika väärtustas funktsionaalsust, avangard ebafunktsionaalsust. Tehnika väärtustas puhtust ja hügieeni, avangard järgis inetuse esteetikat. Tehnika nõudis tootmises vigade ja häirete vältimist, avangard tõstis vea loovaks ideeks. The article examines the relationship between the early twentieth century international and Estonian literary avant-garde and new technology, which radically changed life and interpersonal relationships in Europe and America (trains, airplanes, metro, telephone, telegraph, skyscrapers, fast food, etc.). At first, I highlight general features connecting the new technology and its products, which emerged in distinct opposition to nature. The central activity in the world of technology appeared to be efficient, planned, and purposeful production, in which the main agents were engineer, designer, and worker. The new technology emphasized the value of the product, which rapidly became standardized and cheaply made mass-produced perfect copies of each other. The beauty of the new era was to be a technological, functionalist beauty. Production as a process had to operate without failures and the ideal product had to be without any defects. Therefore, the technological process had to be clean, even hygienic. The new technology established its own rhythm in modern cities, characterized by repeatability and predictability. At the same time, the technology covered cities by the voices that made up the noise of technology. It could be said, even, that the new technology exceeded the limits of time and space. The result was a world of simultaneity. At the same time, relationships and links between people became increasingly loose and the world and man’s worldview was characterized by increasing fragmentation. The early European avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century greeted the new world of technology and speed with great enthusiasm (Italian futurism, constructivism, etc.). Perhaps only early expressionism and Russian futurism had even more ambivalent attitude to the technology. The First World War significantly decreased the pre-war fascination with technology. The war destroyed the faith in the machines; the machine now became a destroyer, and the new mechanical man (a fusion of man and machine) came into view as a killer with killed soul. At the same time, modern technology became more and more common in the everyday life, and, hence, the attitude towards technology changed. The technology became a harrowing phenomenon. For early European avant-garde, the new technology was supposed to become a model for the creation and laws of machines laws of aesthetic creativity (Marinetti). We can find several features in the texts of avant-garde (especially in poetry), which are in accordance with the new world of speed and technology. Simultaneous and fragmented text represented simultaneity and fragmentarity of the world. The speed was intermediated by the telegram style, parataxis, glossolalia, onomatopoeia, mathematical symbols, etc. The artist’s ideal was engineer and machine had to become a model for making the text. I present examples of such new texts in Estonian avant-garde poetry and prose. However, much of the avant-garde ideas and ideals for textual innovation contradicted the ideals of technology. Whilst technology predominantly esteemed the result, the avant-garde valued the process of making the text. In addition, the world of technology expected systematics, predictability, repetitive rhythms, and copies while avant-garde proclaimed free rhythms, free verse, unpredictability, and originality. Technology insisted on rational and purposeful acting; avant-garde proclaimed intuition and prophetic imagination. Technology brought cheap mass products; avant-garde appreciated the rarity and expensiveness. Technology promoted utilitarianism and functionality; avant-garde non-functionality. Technology put stress on the cleanliness and hygiene of the products; avant-garde often followed the aesthetics of ugliness. Technology required efficiency and economy of production, avoiding mistakes and disturbances; avant-garde regarded error as a creative idea. I argue that many of these avant-garde ideas are very similar to nature. For example, chaos, illogicality, glossolalia, words-in-freedom, and zaum truly characterize nature. Originality, variability, unpredictable rhythms, non-systematicity are also the qualities of nature. Lack of purpose, irrationality, and lack of thought are features of nature. An error or a shift as the basis of creation and inefficiency characterizes nature, too. The aesthetics of ugliness parallels the ugliness of nature. Thus, the observance of the avant-garde ideals results in a text that, on the one hand, craves the world of technology and machines, but on the other hand goes back to the ideas and ideals of nature and seeks solutions largely in the same way as nature.

INNER LOGIC OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF REVOLUTIONARY FUTURIST POETRY

The goal of this paper is to trace the dynamics and inner logic of the development of revolutionary futurism in Armenian literature and particularly in Yeghishe Charents’s poetry. Since it was closely connected with Russian futurism, its affinities, relations and influences are studied in the context of the Russian experience.