“Let’s Murder the Moonlight!” Futurism, Anti-Humanism and Leisure

Abstract

This chapter traces the philosophical turn toward Anti-Humanism via the Futurists, an artistic and social movement that flared in the early-twentieth century as a radical response to Humanism. Brashly bombastic, the Futurists embraced speed, technology, machinery, cities, noise, pollution, youth and violence. Published in 1909, Marinetti’s “Manifesto of Futurism” was followed by a deluge of manifestos written by artist-intellectuals on art, technology, philosophy and more intended to shock and stir controversy. From music to painting to architecture, the Futurists imagined a techno-modernist world characterized by dramatic movement and change. In their embrace of technology, mechanical change was an exciting new kind of art in itself, with technological transformations catalyzing broader socio-cultural changes. Futurism had significant impacts on leisure through art, music, literature, poetry, cinema, cooking, urban design and architecture, and politics. Now nearly ubiquitous in “modern,” urban, mass-mediated leisure, in many ways we have all become Futurists.