Shock & Awe Symposium – a review

RoseLee Goldberg, founder of PERFORMA, welcomed guests to the conference “Shock and Awe: The Troubling Legacy of the Futurist Cult of War” at Hunter on Wednesday, November 11, 2009, in the midst of several ongoing events she has organized around New York City for PERFORMA 09. Goldberg stressed the importance of this conference, aimed at a reassessment of Futurism, her longtime interest and objective, and has often been colored by notions regarding the movement’s complex relationship with Fascism.

The afternoon began with conference organizer Mimi Braun (Distinguished Professor, Hunter College) who discussed Futurist aeropainting, while bringing the discussion into the present moment with references to September 11th. Braun also introduced the topic of General Douhet and his “Command of the Air” treatise on Aerial war from 1921, while questioning the absence of depictions of the Army and Navy in Second Futurist art. Differing from other depictions of air power, the futurist art did not function merely as reportage, but rather was a modernist take on the subject. Braun concluded with images from archeological and military photographs, with their classical motifs – which she cleverly compared to Gerhard Richter’s Cityscape from 1970.

Next, Lynda Klich (Assistant Professor of Art History, Hunter College, CUNY) brought to our attention the topic of postcards as art and propaganda – focusing on those reflecting the Futurist and Fascist aesthetic – and how art and life converged in the postcard. The medium began in England in 1869 and would be used as propaganda in the 1890s as it grew in popularity only to experience a fall in popularity as factories were destroyed in the war and by the rise of the telephone. Klich used examples of Tato’s work in the 1920’s, created while politically supporting Mussolini, those depicting Mussolini as a heroic aviator, and those by Latini utilizing photomontage.

Lucia Re (Professor of Italian and Women’s Studies, UCLA) spoke of “The Futurist Cult of Speed Vs. Women’s Time and Space,” pointing out that Futurism replaced old symbols and rituals of Christianity and re-mapped space and time. Re also examined woman’s experience of time and it’s repositioning in light of industrial wartime jobs which women occupied.

In his discussion of Douhet, Marinetti, and “The Command of the Air,” David Lewis (The Graduate Center, CUNY) noted that it is possible that Marinetti and Douhet had met, as Marinetti had inscribed a book to Douhet. Lewis edified the audience about the military theory of Douhet and his premonition of air power as the sole means for military success while drawing comparisons based on the cultural framework of the time between the Futurist project and Douhet’s theories and works.

Maria Antonella Pelizzari (Associate Professor of Art History, Hunter College, CUNY) spoke about the art of Bruno Munari in relation to aviation and photomontage, looking at magazine imagery – sources included L’ala Italia and Campo Grafico – and advertising as a new language.

Ernest Ialongo (Assistant Professor of History, Hostos College, CUNY) posited “Marinetti’s Bombshell” as his declaration of war as the world’s sole hygiene.

This led nicely to Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s (Professor of Italian Studies and History, NYU) discussion of Roberto Rossellini’s Un Pilota Ritorna, of which she screened a few very interesting minutes demonstrating the repositioning of the human figure within the world of military flight.

On another note, Laura Beiles (Department of Education, The Museum of Modern Art) focused on “The Venice Biennale At War,” discussing the effects of Italian regionalism and war on the event. Her paper touched on Italo Balbo’s Royal Air Force as well as the military use of abandoned pavilions.

Next, Robert Lumley (Professor of Italian Cultural History, University College London) showed and discussed the films of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, whose “signature style often involves the manipulation of rare footage through re-photographing, selectively hand-tinting, and altering film speed to produce a final work of a distinctly otherworldly quality. The stunning visuals Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi create—and often enhance with original music—unravel ideologies and conflicts in a given moment in history.” (MoMA)

The energetic Elihu Rose (Adjunct Associate Professor of History, NYU) capped the day with his discussion “A Brief History of Strategic Bombing,” delving into precision bombing, industrial web theory, and total war.

Overall, the symposium “Shock and Awe: The Troubling Legacy of the Futurist Cult of War,” organized by Mimi Braun, was full of enlightening talks regarding the theory and history of the Italian military and aeronautics, definitely fulfilling its goal of shedding new light on Futurism Studies.

- Jessica Palmieri

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Hansen on MSNBC Dec. 18th

As readers know, I’m on the mailing list of climate scientist James Hansen (along with thousands of others). His most recent article on temperature, science procedure, the basic science of climate change data, and how we know the temperature across the planet is going up, is like starting from scratch.  It’s meant to counteract the infamous emails from the UK University that were illegally hacked into, and which ultimately expressed nothing that negated the climate science.

You can download the entire document here and an excerpt is printed below. You can also see a Hansen interview on MSNBC from December 18th here.

The Temperature of Science, is available here.  (PDF) Here is an excerpt:

“Is it possible to totally eliminate data flaws and disinformation? Of course not. The fact
that the absence of incriminating statements in pirated e-mails is taken as evidence of wrongdoing provides a measure of what would be required to quell all criticism. I believe that the steps that we now take to assure data integrity are as much as is reasonable from the standpoint of the use of our time and resources.”

The summary is below.

Summary
The nature of messages that I receive from the public, and the fact that NASA
Headquarters received more than 2500 inquiries in the past week about our possible
“manipulation” of global temperature data, suggest that the concerns are more political than
scientific. Perhaps the messages are intended as intimidation, expected to have a chilling effect
on researchers in climate change.

The recent “success” of climate contrarians in using the pirated East Anglia e-mails to
cast doubt on the reality of global warming* seems to have energized other deniers. I am now
inundated with broad FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests for my correspondence, with
substantial impact on my time and on others in my office. I believe these to be fishing
expeditions, aimed at finding some statement(s), likely to be taken out of context, which they
would attempt to use to discredit climate science.

There are lessons from our experience about care that must be taken with data before it is
made publicly available. But there is too much interesting science to be done to allow
intimidation tactics to reduce our scientific drive and output. We can take a lesson from my 5-
year-old grandson who boldly says “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit!”

There are other researchers who work more extensively on global temperature analyses
than we do – our main work concerns global satellite observations and global modeling – but
there are differences in perspectives, which, I suggest, make it useful to have more than one
analysis. Besides, it is useful to combine experience working with observed temperature
together with our work on satellite data and climate models. This combination of interests is
likely to help provide some insights into what is happening with global climate and information
on the data that are needed [...]

The Guardian feels there is a 50-50 chance there will be a binding deal signed on Friday in Copenhagen.  Temperaments and anxiety levels of diplomats and entire countries were analyzed.

Brown and Clinton yuk it up in Copenhagen

“So, deal or no deal? As 120 presidents and prime ministers sat down to eat at the Queen of Denmark’s palace in Copenhagen tonight, the chances of both appeared equally high. Or low.

Depending on your temperament, within 24 hours or so, the world will have a climate change agreement that should limit carbon emissions and restrict temperatures to a 2C rise; or the talks will fall apart and the chance of an agreement will be lost for ever.

Gordon Brown was upbeat, while the usually chipper climate secretary, Ed Miliband, was distinctly cooler. The Bangladeshi negotiators were optimistic, the Maldivians were anxious; China was saying nothing, and Poland was resisting the EU’s plans to increase its offer of emission cuts to 30%. Then European MEPs rode in to declare that the EU offer should be raised to 40% cuts.

Meanwhile, some people are anxiously and cautiously optimistic. Here is another person who sees a ray of light, the representative from the WWF. Just 24 hours to go and WWF’s Head of Delegation Kim Carstensen is feeling more optimistic than he did a day ago. (video after the break)

He feels we have all been removed from the Valley of Death. That’s quite a statement, and some of that removal was due to Hillary Clinton. After her statement (see post below this for video) that included a possible promise of $100 billion in 2020 for the world’s poor countries (contingent upon open and verifiable emissions cuts in other countries), China also moved a bit, which was good news. Friday is the last day of the summit, and there will either be a deal or not, but the world will go on turning either way.

Then maybe we can all work on eco-socialism instead of moving money around from rich to poor countries, who should not have to beg for this help. The poor countries are as firmly attached to the planet and under the same dome of our polluted atmosphere as the rich countries. We all have an equal stake in fixing the climate, we all breath the same air, and this is why ’smoking sections’ in restaurants never worked.

More good Copenhagen videos here.

The following video was apparently made on December 15th. Copenhagen is full of lots of “fed up” people with hugely unresolved issues on various topics in Copenhagen. Are they helping or getting in the way of climate negotiations?

No one has tried harder to keep the human toll of climate change at the forefront than DemocracyNow and people like Naomi Klein.  Unfortunately they are also the most cynical and pessimistic about the hundreds of conversations and negotiations that we are engaged in at Copenhagen and can’t see a single bright point anywhere.  At this point, it’s easy to vent frustration about it and throw in the towel completely but I can’t see how that helps anyone.  Even if all this convention does is to end deforestation in critical forests, it’s been worth something.  It will take months to decide just what it has all accomplished, but it’s obvious now that the Copenhagen summit was never designed to “save the world”.  I think it was overhyped.  Too-high expectations are no doubt contributing to its ultimate “failure”.  There will be future conferences and agreements on climate change.

The pessimistic cynicism reached a peak the other day when Klein said that  Obama should  “not bother” going to Copenhagen, mainly because the U.S. is harming the process, and wasting an opportunity.  I’m sure Hillary’s “extraordinarily manipulative” announcement about financing didn’t help her mood.  Here is Clinton’s announcement on possible $100 billion in financing, from Thursday morning.

Of course, everyone in government, and probably every single speech-giver at the conference is “manipulative”.  So is Klein herself.  So what?  It strikes me as juvenile and counter-productive to dwell on that at this point.   But then, Naomi Klein has disliked Clinton for a long time.  Now she is turning on Obama.  I’m still holding out some optimism that Obama will wake up and do the right thing just in the nick of time, but then, I have a belief in superheros that is quite unhealthy.  The point is, pessimism certainly doesn’t help.   It can even shorten your life.  Klein isn’t going to last long at this rate.

This morning on DemocracyNow, Klein, a DM favorite, was summed up like this:

“And here’s a second segment, in which Klein calls out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s extraordinarily manipulative announcement from Copenhagen today that the US will contribute to a $100 billion dollar fund only if all UN member states reach a US-approved consensus–and declares it “blackmail.”

See both segments at The Nation here.

Not quite pessimistic enough, she was heard telling Obama to stay home.

“The US has lowered the bar and set goals so low, it’s been destructive. I think it would be better if the US had continued to stay out of it. I don’t see any point in US politicians coming here.”

She said.

OK, but that also accomplishes nothing.  So what do pessimists suggest?  Ultimately — survival.

But if that is your “solution” then why go to Copenhagen in the first place, obviously [...]

PRESENATION

Rivista DADA (for children)

Friday, December 18, 2009
3:30pm – presentation of the magazine Dada “Futurismi”
4:30pm – “Il Futurismo raccontato ai bambini”
Fortezza del Priamar, Palazzo del Commisario – Savona

The special issue  “Futurismi” of the children’s magazine Dada will be presented on the occasion of the exhibit “Savona Futurista: esperienze d’avanguardia da Marinetti a Tullio d’Albisola”.

This issue was curated by Après la nuit Associazione Culturale e Artebambini in collaboration with the Comitato per le celebrazioni del Centenario Futurista, the Comune of Savona and the Comune of Altare.

Rivista DADA online

This totally reminds me of this children’s book I picked up at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Museum Shop (who by the way is having a winter sale I believe). It teaches kids about Futurism through various craft projects!

Il Futurismo: tutto corre rapido
by Giovanna Giaume, illustrated by Paolo Marabotto
Published by Lapis, 2000

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MULTIMEDIA ART FESTIVAL

Mémoire et Futurisme – Memory and Futurism

December 6-13, 2009
Alexandria

December 13-18, 2009
Cairo

*Workshops, video art, conferences, and installations

Memoria e Futurismo che ci riunisce in luoghi diversi d’Alessandria, oltre che del Cairo, che ci permette di incontrare un pubblico curioso, e’ nato da una certa filosofia di scambi e di incontri, dalla fedelta’ verso la citta’ di Alessandria e da un profondo desiderio di far conoscere le forme contemporanee dell’arte multimediale. Dal 2001, con progetti quali il Viaggiatore Alessandria-Marsiglia, poi le piattaforme ANIMANET e RAMI, artisti, addetti culturali, insegnanti, ricercatori, esperti di media, hanno creduto a questi progetti e a queste iniziative.

La video arte e’ stata inventata da Nam June Paik e Volf Wostell, all’inizio degli anni 60, da membri del Movimento artistico d’avanguardia Fluxus, promanazione di un altro movimento artistico fondamentale nella storia dell’arte: il Dadaismo. Questi due movimenti certamente non avrebbero avuto luce se non fossero stati preceduti dal Movimento futurista lanciato nel 1909 da Marinetti, tanto che i suoi principi hanno profondamente lasciato il segno in tutti i piu’ grandi movimenti d’avanguardia del XIX secolo. I Futuristi rinunciarono alla separazione tra l’arte e la vita (a loro l’invenzione della performance), propugnando la fine di tutti i classicismi, la rivoluzione formale permanente. Essi volevano essere in linea con la rivoluzione tecnologica d’allora che trasformava radicalmente i modi di vita e di relazione con l’ambiente.

Memoria e Futurismo propone lo studio delle basi della video arte all’interno dei manifesti futuristi e l’installazione Disposition, creazione numerica che fa riferimento ai supporti della memoria passando da Istanbul, Alessandria e Marsiglia. Alessandria, citta’ dellla memoria e’ anche citta’ dell’infanzia e della giovinezza di Marinetti, nato il 22 dicembre 1876 ad Alessandria e di altri importanti artisti degli inizi del 20° secolo. Parallelamente proiezioni, incontri sul tema « Cinema, video arte e futurismo » e due ateliers aperti a giovani artisti e realizzatori. L’atelier « Alla ricerca di Marinetti » e’ proposto da Marc Mercier, artista direttore di Instants Video con Giovanni Lista, storico del Futurismo. L’altro, centrato sull’edizione multimediale interattiva diretto da Renaud Vercey e Bruno Voillot, autori di Disposition, con Mohamed Youssef, artista plastico e multimediale.

Festival Blog

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It was a surprising day in Copenhagen as the climate change conference dissolved into protests and arguing. But the work goes on as heads of state started arriving.  Here are highlights from December 16th.   The podcast includes some of the more interesting talks given by various people there, including Bill McKibben.

COP15 – Highlights from Day 10

A compromise proposal to be presented by the Danish presidency Wednesday was held up as the negotiating process, according to UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, was subject to an “unexpected stop”. Significant amounts of money have been pledged. Some targets have been tabled, some targets have been increased. The Kyoto protocol group indicated optimism on their work also.

The president of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard, unexpectedly resigned this morning. She is to be replaced by the Danish premier.

“With so many heads of state and government having arrived it’s appropriate that the prime minister of Denmark presides,” Hedegaard told the 192-nation meeting. “However, the prime minister has appointed me as his special representative and I will thus continue to negotiate the … outcome with my colleagues,” she said.

Copenhagen summit veering towards farce, warns Ed Miliband

Climate talks at least 18 hours behind schedule as world leaders set to arrive in Copenhagen.

The climate change summit in Copenhagen was in jeopardy tonight with the complex negotiations falling far behind schedule as the climate secretary, Ed Miliband, warned of a “farce”.

With just two days remaining, the inability to overcome disagreements about the shape of a deal to combat global warming led to hours of inaction today , while outside the negotiations police clashed with protesters who broke through a security cordon but failed in an attempt to storm the conference centre.

“We have made no progress” said a source close to the talks. “What people don’t realise is that we are now not really ready for the leaders. These talks are now 18 hours late.”  More than 115 world leaders arrive tomorrow and on Friday.    Read more here

De Boer: “Unexpected stop” in negotiations

The negotiating process at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen was subject to an “unexpected stop” on Wednesday, according to Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official. Read more

IPCC forecasts 9m sea-level rise if temperatures meet 2C threshold

Hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warns.

Global sea levels could rise by up to 9m in the next few hundred years, even if the world manages to stabilise average temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels, according to a new study.

In this scenario, hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated. New Orleans would be lost to the sea, much of southern Florida and Bangladesh and most of the Netherlands.

<p style="padding-left: [...]

Former Vice President Al Gore and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented their global report on melting ice at a side event of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15) on Monday,  December 14th.

Read the report “Melting snow and ice. A call for action”.
Press release on the report
The event will be available as webcast on the UNFCCCs website (United Nations Climate Change Conference)

Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller and Greenland Premier Kuupik Kleist also participated to present a report on the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

“The report shows that snow and ice are melting at an alarming rate, and that the cryosphere is very vulnerable to climate change. The most important new findings relate to Antarctica. Mighty Antarctica, which previously seemed immune to the loss of ice that has occurred in other areas, shows signs of a net reduction of ice on a similar scale to that of inland Greenland.

“This gives cause for concern. The overriding message is that we have to succeed in Copenhagen. The countries of the world must agree on measures that limit emissions of greenhouse gases, and restrict global warming to two degrees. Furthermore, we need an emergency plan for the crysosphere, with immediate measures to save as much of our ice and snow cover as possible. We should start by cutting emissions of short-lived drivers of climate change such as soot and ozone, which are not included in any climate agreement today, and we also need to pay more attention to short-lived greenhouse gases such as HFCs and methane. Measures to reduce these would have immediate effect and cost relatively little,” said Mr Støre.”  Read more of the press release here.

Findings also released this week included a report on the loss of glaciers in Tibet and what is causing it, from a group of scientists including NASA scientist James Hansen.  See the report findings below.

Both the Tibetan plateau and the glaciers are under threat from climate change and from China. China burns an immense amount of coal, and black soot from this coal burning is adding to the demise of the glaciers. China is also building walls and roads around the Tibetan plateau and altering the ecosystem of the grasslands there, according to a Tibetan delegation that spoke at the Copenhagen climate summit last week.  James Hansen and several other scientists released a paper on Monday, December 14th,  and found that reducing CO2 and black soot are necessary to save the glaciers and guarantee water for the people there in the coming years. The Tibetan plateau is a normally arid region to begin with and removing the glacier water would threaten all life there. Them scientists write:

“We find evidence that black soot aerosols deposited on Tibetan glaciers have been a significant contributing factor to observed rapid glacier retreat. Reduced black soot emissions, in addition to reduced greenhouse gases, may be required to avoid demise of Himalayan glaciers and retain the benefits of [...]

Sen. Cantwell

We have been waiting to read Senator Cantwell’s bill for a long time, and it’s finally been introduced.  A newly introduced climate change bill would cap planet-warming emissions,  but reduce the role of Wall Street in carbon markets. The bill would use a “cap and dividend” method to control emissions,  and is described as more streamlined than the House’s cap and trade scheme.

This bipartisan bill “provides businesses and investors with a simple, predictable mechanism that will open the way to clean energy expansion while achieving America’s goals of reducing carbon emissions,” Cantwell said in statement.

For information on the CLEAR Act and a copy of the report on the dividend economic impact, see Senator Cantwell’s web site and see the legislative descriptions:

- One Page Summary
– Detailed description
- Legislative Text

Unlike the Waxman-Markey (ACESA) bill passed by the House earlier this year, financial speculators would be shut out of carbon markets created under new legislation, called CLEAR, introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, and Susan Collins, a Republican. CLEAR stands for Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal.  According to Cantwell’s website,

“The CLEAR Act would set up a mechanism for selling “carbon shares” to fuel producers and would return most of the resulting revenue in checks to every American. The legislation will achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.

“Energy is a six-trillion dollar market opportunity, and green jobs can transform the U.S. economy,” Senator Cantwell said. “But we need a signal on carbon so that this can happen. This bill provides a simple approach to getting off of carbon and on to clean energy alternatives. The CLEAR Act provides businesses and investors with a simple, predictable mechanism that will open the way to clean energy expansion while achieving America’s goals of reducing carbon emission.”

Along with the legislation, Cantwell issued a report today detailing the positive economic impact of the dividends to be returned directly to consumers. According to the report, a typical family of four would receive tax-free monthly checks from the government averaging $1,100 per year, or $21,000 between 2012 and 2030.

Senator Collins said: “This bill addresses the most significant energy and environmental challenges facing our country.  It would help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, promote alternative energy and energy conservation, and advance the goal of energy independence for our nation.  Climate change legislation must protect consumers and industries that could be hit with higher energy prices.  Such legislation also must provide predictability so that businesses can plan, invest, and create jobs.  Finally, climate change legislation should encourage adoption of energy efficiency measures and the further development of renewable energy, which would spur our economy and job creation.  The CLEAR Act achieves all of these goals.”

Cantwell and Collins highlighted the findings of a recent report by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law that concluded: “carbon [...]

On the weekend of December 12th, there was a world-wide weekend of rallies and vigils to call for a real climate deal in Copenhagen. See 350.org for more information. 350ppm is the amount of carbon dioxide that scientists tell us we need to return to in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous temperature rises.  As of today, 350 was no longer officially on the negotiating table in Copenhagen.  As the delegation from Stanford said, there is an idea at the summit that we can survive with 450ppm in the atmosphere but there is no science that tells us that will be a survivable level, especially at the rate we are losing trees.  To get back to 350ppm with reforestation and other natural methods, and just leveling off of emissions, would take over 200 years, they said.  REDD was also discussed earlier today by several panels which you can find at the COP15 webcast site.

Deforestation is a big priority at Copenhagen and countries are struggling to save the last remaining segments of rainforest they have left.  Nigeria is desperate to save their last rainforest and losing the battle unless they have help from richer countries.  Unfortunately it’s a situation that has boiled down to countries needing money to not cut them down.

At this point, cutting down trees should probably be an act that is fined, per tree cut down. Our planet’s lungs (the rainforest) cannot be considered  optional.  Today, UN head climate negotiator Todd Stern said the U.S. is in favor of a global climate fund for poorer countries, for mitigation and re-forestration, etc.  That’s good news.  And more on deforestation:

“Over the weekend, environmentalists howled as short-term targets were stripped from a forest plan at the U.N. climate talks over complaints that rich nations weren’t offering developing countries financing.

In the latest draft of the forest plan, the short-term targets are back, with the caveat that any bold action would have to be backed up by financing.

In the latest text, delegates are given two options: either they can go for general language calling on all parties to reduce emissions and halt deforestation or language calling for reducing deforestation 50 percent by 2020 and ending it by 2030 as long as financing is provided.

The text also includes tougher environmental and social safeguards, including language lessening the chance that forests would be converted into plantations and protections for indigenous groups who fear their land would be stolen under the program which will be known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).

Destruction of forests, the burning or cutting of trees to clear land for plantations or cattle ranches, is thought to account for about 20 percent of all global emissions. That’s as much carbon dioxide as all the world’s cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined.
[So let's put a cost on the cutting down of trees!]

REDD would be financed either by richer nations’ taxpayers or by [...]

At the moment it is offered with 30% discount until January 15th^*. *Please note that this offer is not valid in combination with any other offer

More information at info@rodopi.nl <mailto:info@rodopi.nl>

Futurism and the Technological Imagination

Edited by Günter Berghaus

Amsterdam/New York, NY 2009. VIII, 390 pp. (Avant-Garde Critical Studies 24)
ISBN: 978-90-420-2747-3         Bound
ISBN: 978-90-420-2748-0         E-Book
Online info

This volume, Futurism and the Technological Imagination, results from a conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas in Helsinki. It contains a number of re-written conference contributions as well as several specially commissioned essays that address various aspects of the Futurists’ relationship to technology both on an ideological level and with regard to their artistic languages.

In the early twentieth century, many art movements vied with each other to overhaul the aesthetic and ideological foundations of arts and literature and to make them suitable vehicles of expression in the new Era of the Machine. Some of the most remarkable examples came from the Futurist movement, founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

By addressing the full spectrum of Futurist attitudes to science and the machine world, this collection of 14 essays offers a multifaceted account of the complex and often contradictory features of the Futurist technological imagination. The volume will appeal to anybody interested in the history of modern culture, art and literature.

Contents

Editor’s Foreword

Günter Berghaus: Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult and Machine Angst

Domenico Pietropaolo: Science and the Aesthetics of Geometric Splendour in Italian Futurism

Serge Milan: The ‘Futurist Sensibility’: An Anti-philosophy for the Age of Technology

Roger Griffin: The Multiplication of Man: Futurism’s Technolatry Viewed Through the Lens of Modernism

Vera Castiglione: A Futurist before Futurism: Émile Verhaeren and the Technological Epic

Patrizia Veroli: Loie Fuller’s Serpentine Dance and Futurism: Electricity, Technological Imagination and the Myth of the Machine

Maria Elena Versari: Futurist Machine Art, Constructivism and the Modernity of Mechanization

Gerardo Regnani: Futurism and Photography: Between Scientific Inquiry and Aesthetic Imagination

Wanda Strauven: Futurist Poetics and the Cinematic Imagination: Marinetti’s Cinema without Films

Margaret Fisher: Futurism and Radio

Matteo D’Ambrosio: From Words-in-Freedom to Electronic Literature: Futurism and the Neo-Avantgarde

Michelangelo Sabatino: Tabula rasa or Hybridity? Primitivism and the Vernacular in Futurist and Rationalist Architecture

Pierpaolo Antonello: Beyond Futurism: Bruno Munari’s Useless Machines

Marja Härmänmaa: Futurism and Nature: The Death of the Great Pan?

Illustrations

Abstracts

Notes on Contributors

Index

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Futurismi a Ravenna
Libri e carte d’avanguardia 1909-1921

December 20, 2009 – April 18, 2010
*Vernissage, Saturday December 19, 5pm
Biblioteca Classense di Ravenna
Curated by di Antonio Castronuovo, Donatino Domini, Claudia Giuliani

Nell’occasione delle celebrazioni del Futurismo legate al centenario della nascita del movimento, la Biblioteca Classense espone un cospicuo numero di libri, manifesti e documenti legati al futurismo di marca più propriamente ravennate. Noto è il ruolo che, accanto a Francesco Balilla Pratella, i fratelli ravennati Ginanni Corradini, Arnaldo e Bruno, poi noti come Ginna e Corra, ebbero nello sviluppo del movimento a partire dai suoi esordi. Di entrambi, intimamente legati al più autentico milieu artistico delle antichità ravennati ed insieme aperti alle correnti di cultura europea, è nota l’attività artistica e letteraria. Nella sede di questa esposizione libraria verrà dato conto di un loro futurismo letterario, e di quelle manifestazioni artistiche che maggiormente si svilupparono attorno al libro – ne sono esempio le copertine editoriali illustrate da Ginna. I Futurismi ravennati, poiché varie furono le ondate e diversificati i raggruppamenti di intellettuali che vi parteciparono, saranno proposti dunque attraverso i libri prodotti, le copertine, le illustrazioni, le caricature così care al gusto del movimento, i manifesti negli esemplari posseduti dalla Biblioteca Classense, e da importanti collezioni private. Contestualmente, saranno esposti alcuni dei più importanti capolavori librari del movimento futurista, come il “Libro bullonato” di Depero, dando conto del felice spirito di innovazione tipografica e in generale visiva che fu uno dei maggiori risultati raggiunti dal Futurismo.

Per informazioni e prenotazioni: segreteriaclas@classense.ra.it

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A Greenpeace ship flies a banner demanding "Stop climate change here" as it welcomes flights into nearby Copenhagen airport. Monday Dec. 7. 2009. (AP Photo/Nanna Kreutzmann/POLFOTO)

“Jeremy Brown, a fisherman from the Pacific Northwest, is pulling things from the ocean he says are so disturbing that he came to Washington to warn U.S. lawmakers about it.  “This is not overfishing, this is something far larger,” said Brown, one of 10 people who met with lawmakers and legislative aides this week on behalf of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, a San Francisco-based group that advises seafood producers on fishing practices.

The group said the ocean is becoming more acidic because of carbon-dioxide emissions that are damaging coral reefs, decimating populations of tiny animals at the base of the food chain and eating away at the shells of clams, mussels and oysters.

“Every so often we snag a piece of coral on the gear,” Brown, of Bellingham, Washington, said in an interview. “It doesn’t look healthy, the color has gone out of it. The evidence is that we have instabilities in the system, and this last year was really scary.”

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of a United Nations scientific advisory panel on climate change, highlighted ocean acidification this week in remarks at the global conference on greenhouse gases in Copenhagen.

World trade in seafood products is valued at $100 billion and feeds 3 billion people, according to the fisheries partnership. That production is threatened by rising acidity, caused by the ocean absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere, and by the effects of agricultural runoff, said Mark Green, a professor of oceanography at St. Joseph’s College of Maine in Portland, who accompanied the fishermen on the trip.

The group met with Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and aides to other coastal senators during a three-day visit.

Small snails and other tiny animals at the base of the food chain are disappearing at alarming rates, jeopardizing the health of pink salmon and other fish that feed on them, said Green, who lives on Maine’s Peaks Island.

“What we see with ocean acidification, we are seeing on time scales that are far more rapid than any sort of changes we are seeing on terrestrial systems,” said Green. “People who weren’t able to agree with climate-change science will have an easier time accepting the science on acidification.”

The U.K.-based Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership reported in April that acidification has increased 30 percent since the start of the industrial revolution, a rate faster than at any time in the last 65 million years

More acidic water eats away at clam, oyster and mussel shells, said Mark Wiegardt, who raises shellfish larvae in Tillamook, Oregon, and sells them to commercial harvesters.

“The shells stop growing and the acidic water literally dissolves the calcium of the shells,” Wiegardt said.

Wiegardt said he has seen an 80 percent cut in production in [...]

Umbria Veloce: ritratti e autoritratti futuristi

December 12, 2009 – February 7, 2010
*Vernissage, Dec. 12th – 5:30pm
Palazzo della Penna – Perugia

Related events include Futurist Cooking Lessons on Feb. 5. 2010!

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Climate change migrants-- Sculptures in Copenhagen

Sea level is rising along US Atlantic coast, say Penn environmental scientists

An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States was 2 millimetres faster in the 20th century than at any time in the past 4,000 years.

Sea-level rise prior to the 20th century is attributed to coastal subsidence. Put simply, land is being lost to subsidence as the earth continues to rise in response to the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period. Using sediment cores from the U.S. Atlantic coast, researchers found significant spatial variations in land movement, with the mid-Atlantic coastlines of New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland subsiding twice as much as areas to the north and south. Coastal subsidence enhances sea-level rise, which leads to shoreline erosion and loss of wetlands and threatens coastal populations.

Researchers corrected relative sea-level data from tide gauges using the coastal-subsidence values. Results clearly show that the 20th-century rate of sea-level rise is 2 millimetres higher than the background rate of the past 4,000 years. Furthermore, the magnitude of the sea-level rise increases in a southerly direction from Maine to South Carolina. This is the first demonstrated evidence of this phenomenon from observational data alone. Researchers believe this may be related to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and ocean thermal expansion.

‘There is universal agreement that sea level will rise as a result of global warming but by how much, when and where it will have the most effect is unclear,’ said Ben Horton, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Penn. ‘Such information is vital to governments, commerce and the general public. An essential prerequisite for accurate prediction is understanding how sea level has responded to past climate changes and how these were influenced by geological events such as land movements.’

The study provides the first accurate dataset for sea-level rise for the U.S. Atlantic coast, identifying regional differences that arise from variations in subsidence and demonstrate the possible effects of ice-sheet melting and thermal expansion for sea level rise.

Source:
Science Centric | 12 December 2009

The Copenhagen climate summit got off to a big start on December 7th with many meetings and opening statements. Here is the COP 15 opening press briefing:

“COP 15 President Connie Hedegaard and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer held a joint press conference on the opening day of the meeting.

Ms. Hedegaard spoke of an unprecedented political will to reach an agreement. With 110 Heads of State confirmed as attending the conference, she said there is a huge pressure on everyone to deliver not just a deal, but an ambitious deal in Copenhagen.  She emphasized the urgent need for such a deal to be reached here in Copenhagen, saying that we cannot send 110 Heads of State home to tell their populations that we couldnt make it.

Yvo de Boer stated that countries in the conference room this morning made clear their desire to deliver a strong and ambitious outcome in Copenhagen. I believe the conference will write history, but we must make sure it writes the right history, he said.  He underlined the need for ambitious commitments to cut and limit emissions, for immediate funding and for prompt action on the ground.”

See below for a strong message on the agreement NASA Scientist James Hansen is expecting from Copenhagen and how it needs to be improved.

A message from climate scientist James Hansen on December 7th:

“I published an op-ed in today’s New York Times on the deadly cap-and-trade fiasco (”Cap and Fade“) that conniving governments are attempting to foist on us to the detriment of our children and grandchildren. Their scheme, hatched in collaboration with Wall Street big banks, is a reprise of the Kyoto Protocol. Global emissions after Kyoto actually increased more rapidly (in real terms, percentage terms, and exponential rate of growth) than before. Even those few countries that reduced their emissions (and few did after “offsets” are eliminated) did so by exporting their emissions (and jobs) to developing countries (to make products exported to the developed countries). “

Sack Goldman Sachs Cap-and-Trade

The revolving door between Washington and Wall Street has produced a new scheme to fleece the public. “Cap-and-trade” is the heart of the Obama Administration’s plan to slow global warming and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Permits to emit a “capped” amount of carbon dioxide will be traded on Wall Street by big-time players like Goldman Sachs.

Cap-and-trade was anointed hero status for helping reduce pollution from power plants, specifically acid rain from the sulfur in coal. Seldom have accolades been less deserved. Indeed, this “success” story is a case of calling black white.

Here, in essence, is how it worked. Congress passed a law, Title IV of the Clean Air Act, capping sulfur emissions from power plants at 50 percent of 1990 amounts. Utilities reducing emissions more than half could sell excess reductions to other utilities, which then did not need to reduce pollution. Physical changes were simple. Many power plants switched to [...]

The message: Time is up. This is how important the Copenhagen conference is.  From the Age of Stupid people:  “Congratulations to 10:10’s biggest fan, Ian Katz at the Guardian, who has pulled off a genuinely historic coup by persuading 56 newspapers in 45 countries to print the same editorial this morning, marking the start of Copenhagen. First time the world’s media has ever spoken with one voice. Almost… you’ve gotta love one US paper’s response to the suggestion that they join: “This is an outrageous attempt to orchestrate media pressure. Go to hell.” Hmmm, all the world comes together to agree climate text, except the US – where did we hear that before?”

Only two U.S. newspapers will publish the editorial, (that they know of) and one is Spanish-language: The Miami Herald, USA , and the El Nuevo Herald, USA in Spanish. What is wrong with American newspapers? American newspapers have become so politicized they are frightened to even print an editorial stating an opinion about a planetary problem that will affect us all. Pathetic.

Here is the Editorial in full. Pass it on and help make up for the awful state of American newspapers.

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species [...]

Decade of 2000s Will Be Warmest Ever, Scientists Say

It dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this New Year’s Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts.

‘CLIMATE INACTION COSTS LIVES’ — Using fire ladders, firemen and police attempt to arrest Greenpeace protesters who scaled the walls and draped a banner on the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Monday December 7, 2009. (Photo/The Canadian Press/Fred Chartrand)

Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead.

Through 10 years of global boom and bust, of breakneck change around the planet, of terrorism, war and division, all people everywhere under that warming sun faced one threat together: the buildup of greenhouse gases, the rise in temperatures, the danger of a shifting climate, of drought, weather extremes and encroaching seas, of untold damage to the world humanity has created for itself over millennia.

As the decade neared its close, the U.N. gathered presidents and premiers of almost 100 nations for a “climate summit” to take united action, to sharply cut back the burning of coal and other fossil fuels.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told them they had “a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history” at a year-ending climate conference in Copenhagen.

Once again, however, disunity might keep the world’s nations on this side of making historic decisions.

“Deep down, we know that you are not really listening,” the Maldives’ Mohamed Nasheed told fellow presidents at September’s summit.   Read more here.

I feel sorry for the Maldives and every other beautiful island nation, but it’s too late for them already, even if we stop all CO2 emissions tomorrow.  There is a temperature build-up already in the atmosphere that will be there for a long time whether we continue to pollute any more or not and it will make the ice continue to melt and the oceans continue to warm. The Maldives need to relocate their people.

By the way, it’s now completely accurate to call CO2 pollution. Yesterday the EPA carried through on its endangerment finding on CO2 and other GHGs and said they are nasty stuff in high concentrations and have to be regulated. Watch out, Big Coal. The EPA is coming for you and millions of people are cheering them on.

Determined to bring down the climate summit, the most important world meeting in history, the agents of dissolution and dissent are hard at work.   We suspect we know who they are, but we don’t know for sure. They might be politicians, they might be Big Oil, they might be oil exporters.  Real dissenters are welcome and necessary, but not the corporate ones. They are  trying to spread stories designed to break up the summit in Copenhagen and destroy the hard work already done so no climate deal is reached. It’s much bigger than “hackergate” (the illegally obtained and blown-way-out-of-proportion emails) now.  The dissension campaign is working on mainstream media, including the UK newspaper the Guardian.  It has fallen prey nearly completely to the dismal cynicism that a leaked plan by the US and the UK called the Danish Text is undermining the climate conference and on the brink of destroying it, already. Who leaked the text? Is it even real?  Andrew Revkin of the New York Times calls the Danish text a floating “trial balloon” and now it’s causing serious dissension in the ranks.

True, the text says the U.S. wants to basically ditch the Kyoto Protocol. But like the Tora Bora story, we knew this a long time ago.  The Kyoto Protocol has not worked as advertised, either. We do need a replacement for it.

The Guardian — Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak – has the whole story and they have made it as pessimistic as possible.

Repeat after me:  “All is not lost, and there is no reason to be completely depressed about this yet.”  Of course, we can all choose to be cynics and choose to think the worst.  It’s a hard habit to break. Maybe James Hansen will parachute in (with Al Gore?) and save the day.

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol — so says the depressing Guardian. They have taken the leaked information at face value and obviously have not been suspicious of this or its timing at all.  (I have read part of it, too. Where is the horrible part?  I can’t find it.)

How does anyone who reads this newspaper (and other similar news sources) prevent themselves from jumping off a bridge every day?  There is something (small) to be said for braindead, Tiger-Woods-obsessed media — it’s less likely to result in people committing suicide.

The media needs to remember, we can handle the truth. Just don’t make it sound far worse than it actually is.

• Read the ‘Danish text’
• In pictures: Copenhagen day two

Nigerian Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey at Copenhagen: The Global North Owes a Climate Debt to Africa

Leave the oil in the soil. Leave the coal in the hole. Leave the tar sands in the land.

There are some great activist environmental speakers at Copenhagen, many I’ve never heard of until now.  One of Nigeria’s best-known environmental leaders, Nnimmo Bassey, is the founder of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, and he serves as the international chair of Friends of the Earth. He has campaigned against Shell Oil’s presence in the Niger Delta for nearly two decades. Last night he spoke at the opening of Klimaforum09. His forthcoming book is titled To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa. See DemocracyNow’s interview with him here.

“Offsetting is upsetting.”  To paraphrase some of what he said:  Resist, Mobilize, Transform — these three key words that capture what we are looking for. Do you care about land grabs?  Now we are seeing sky grabs. All this grabbing is enough. This grabbing has to stop.  The issues of climate change and climate justice are important.

Also at issue according to Bassey:  REDD is bringing misery.  All the deforestation must be stopped.  You cannot buy a forest somewhere and manage it.  We need to change the way we behave, change the way we consume things, and begin to realize we have just one planet.

Why are countries such as the United States so resistant to the idea of paying poorer countries for the effects of climate change, since they are obviously suffering the most and not to blame?

Because then we would be in debt for all the wars for oil and resources and land we have waged around the world.  When powerful and hugely polluting countries like the U.S. take things by force, things like oil, things like land for pipelines, and then use that stolen oil and land to further pollute the world, is the most massive and expensive of wrongs.

This is obvious to people from most other countries.  It’s obvious that developed highly-polluting countries have to make this right, both by ending our own pollution and then helping developing countries continue to develop without pollution.   That’s it in a nutshell, and why certain dishonest and frantic political factions in the U.S. are terribly resistant to action on climate change. It’s why dishonest politicians such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann continue to deceive the American public about climate change in every way they can.

Imagine what is being said in meetings at Exxon this week.

We have to fight back.  Climate change is going to be worse tomorrow than today.   “We need a real climate deal, and we need it now, not tomorrow.”

More on Nnimmo Bassey here and here (an interview).