Avant-garde Movements Research Articles

Modernity, Latinità and the Nation in Italian Modernist Magazines (1914-1922)

This article explores the intersection between Latinity, modernity and nationalism in Italian magazines between 1914 and 1922. It argues that these notions, which had been at the center of cultural debates since the post-Risorgimento years and were re-elaborated during the First Word War and in the immediate postwar period, challenge and complicate the common assumption that reformulations of Latinity and classicism should be interpreted primarily as a return to tradition, which sanctioned a separation of the spheres of art and politics that had been conflated by the pre-war avant-garde movements. This study contends that the intersection between classicism, modernity and nationalism in Italian modernist magazines resulted in a rethinking of the notion of Latinity. This rethinking, both artistic and political, encompassed reformulated ideas of Mediterranean Europe and a repositioning of Italy within it. In this sense, the politicization of classicism embedded art in the historical identity of the nation and was instrumental in the formation of the ideological basis of the relationship between art and the fascist regime.

The Urban Themes and Stylistic Features in Vladimir Mayakovsky's Poem and Dziga Vertov's Film Man with a Movie Camera

During the political and economic revolution of 1917 in Russia, artists of different art forms were undergoing a turmoil of modernism and Western avant-garde movements. Consequently, experiments with new creative ideas and techniques were stimulated to produce art that echoed the ever-rushing pace of urban life in the modernised society. In the midst of them all, day-to-day existence of the ordinary people in the grand metropolis were depicted with fragmented vision in both Vladimir Mayakovsky's poem "A Cloud in Trousers" and Dziga Vertov's film Man with a Movie Camera. The common features and themes in different art forms indicate the collective urban experience of the masses in Russia during that turbulent period, which were certainly fascinating and worth on-going studies.

Breton’s Hatchet: A Dream Simulation at the Confluence between Surrealism and AI

Many recent experiences done by AI in the fields of augmented creativity and computational art are full of unleashing the algorithms’ surrealist power. Surrealism, the avant-garde movement Breton launched in 1924 in Paris, combined his artistic needs with those of nascent psychoanalysis: so, dream stories, automatic writing and simulations of mental illnesses allowed historical surrealism to make a notable contribution to the development of psychoanalysis. Now that neuroscience and AI are joining both psychoanalysis and Surrealism, the absence of dream simulation in historical surrealism is even more striking. Dream Simulation is by now a new psychotherapeutic strategy, conceived in Italy by Dr. Francesca Vagnoni, which presents interesting points of contact with the experiments the French neurosurrealist group Obvious is carrying out by AI.

Avant-Garde Movement in Landscape Design

Avant-Garde Movement in Landscape Design

Guido Oldani’s poetics of terminal realism

Terminal Realism (TR) is an avant-garde movement founded in the literary-artistic field in 2010 by Guido Oldani, a contemporary Italian poet who aims to critically represent the globalised civilisation of the third millennium. In particular, TR presents itself as a movement of civil commitment. The Founding Manifesto is presented in 2010 and sets out the principles of poetics, the relationship of man with the object, the artificial versus the natural, the piling up of people and things, and pandemics. The poetry of the new millennium therefore expresses the artificial and the artefact using a new poetic language including: the stacking, the Inverted simile and the irony.

A Situationist Portrait of Power: Cybernetics, May ’68, and The Situationist International

Abstract This article presents the critique of cybernetics as central to the history of one of the twentieth century’s most infamous avant-garde movements: the Situationist International (SI). Bringing together and analysing a series of seemingly marginal events in the build-up to May ’68, this article shows how the SI’s portrait of cybernetics as an emerging form of social power and control foreshadows later developments in French radical thought. This little-noted trajectory in the situationist movement also highlights the ways in which aesthetics, theory, and politics are inextricably tied together in the events of May ’68.

Rhythm in Genre Cinema and Cinematic Avant-Garde

The article attempts to outline certain principles and prerequisites for the study of the role of rhythm as the fundamental moment of any film and various approaches (avant-garde and mass cinema) to overcoming, or vice versa, fixation in the film of a given rhythm of the social whole, often associated with and expressed through aspects of industrial production rhythm. General connections between Fordism and classic Hollywood cinema are outlined, as well as between post-Fordism as an economic expression of postmodernism (the cultural logic of late capitalism) and the “cinema of nostalgia” of the 1970s. A comparative study of the approach to the issue of rhythm in the field of the cinematic avant-garde (using the example of the German avant-garde movement of the 1920s (“absolute film”)) and classic genre American cinema is offered. An attempt was made to connect the approach to the rhythm of the cinematic narrative in the film La Palisiada (1923, directed by Philip Sotnychenko) with the above-mentioned moments of the history of cinema, understanding La Palisiada as, at the same time, a study of rhythm and a study of modes of perception of the 1990s years in the current Ukrainian society. It is argued that the research in the realm of rhythm and the nostalgic orientation of films (including La Palisiada) can be closely related manifestations of the same deeply-rooted process — nostalgia for a different rhythm of the social whole, given in this particular case as the 1990s of Ukrainian history

Composition Methods of the Soviet Architectural Avant-Garde

This paper explores the composition logic of the creativity of the Avant-garde masters and to identify the principles of the composition language of the architecture of modernism.To characterize the composition language of Avant-garde architecture, systemic, historical-genetic and semiotic methods of research are used. Architectural composition is interpreted as an activity that has its own semantic, morphological and syntactic features. In the example of Svoboda Square (the former Dzerzhinsky Square) in Kharkiv, the logical methods of artistic activity and thinking of the architects of the Soviet Avant-garde of the 1920-1930s are studied.At the beginning of the 20th century avant-garde movements were created artificially, consciously, by an act of will, and they strove to dictate their ideas, concepts and principles as universal and general. The architectural language of the Avant-garde is normative, ascetic and rigidly organized. Distinctive features of the artistic movements of the Avant-garde are the deep analyticity of thinking and the normativity of the declared requirements, abstract concepts and symbols. The logical principles of composition are often repeated thanks to stable semantic associations and are reflected in geometric structures and forms. Thus, the methods of compositional thinking of the Avant-garde form a monological system, i.e. they are internally holistic and normative, not allowing alternatives. It was possible to identify and show that the Avant-garde, as a monological language system, is characterized by the following features: internal integrity, self-sufficiency, normativity; stability of figurative language devices; restriction of freedom of artistic expression with the help of a concept, declaration, slogan, clear conceptual system.Researchers and designers should treat the phenomenon under study not as a “closed”, stylistically defined object, but see it as a complex historical process of structure formation based on an even more complex process of development of thinking and activity of architects and builders of a particular period.

Endeavor for Self-Realization

This paper focuses on the reactions of three professors and architects (Jan E. Koula, Vladimír Karfík, and Alfred Piffl) to how the totalitarian political regime restricted and interfered with creative and academic freedoms in the period starting with the introduction of architectural education at the Slovak University of Technology and ending with the so-called “normalization” period in the former Czechoslovakia. All three of them were already active in interwar Czechoslovakia and thus had rich experience with working under democratic conditions, and their early work was influenced by the interwar avant-garde movements. After World War II, in part thanks to their pioneering work at the Slovak University of Technology, they got caught up in the system of the authoritarian socialist state. The central question that this study asks is how the trio dealt with the totalitarian regime, which stood in contrast with the democratic period of interwar Czechoslovakia that formed them as architects, and brought further limits to their work. Based mostly on material from their personal estates and period publications, we reveal how each of them found his own way to deal with the totalitarian regime, and we argue that even its limitations did not make Koula, Karfík, and Piffl abandon their beliefs and creative credos completely.

Dreamlike Worlds of the Subconscious in Strindberg’s A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata

: Modern drama is characterized by the emergence of many revolutionary and avant-garde movements which attempted to resonate the dilemmas of the ‘Modern Man’. August Strindberg who is acknowledged to be the father of Expressionism, in his plays; A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata uses distorted images and disjointed plots in order to project a dreamlike arena in which the images from the realm of subconscious maneuver freely. In this manner he creates worlds in which personages become character types who commentate on the question of human condition. This paper studies these plays in order to shed light on the Expressionist techniques that are employed by the author. It studies the techniques that are employed by the author to make the images that originate from his subconscious accessible to the audience. Moreover, in addition to associating the play’s thematic structure to the playwright’s personal life, it examines it from a philosophical standpoint, as it questions the paradoxical nature of Man’s existence.

Epilepsy in Art: A Historical Exploration of Representations Across Eras

This narrative review explores the diverse representations of epilepsy in art across different historical periods, examining the intersection of artistic expression with evolving cultural, medical, and societal perceptions. Beginning with ancient and medieval depictions intertwined with religious symbolism, the paper progresses through the Renaissance, and Baroque, and transitions into modern and avant-garde movements. Each period reflects changing attitudes towards epilepsy, from divine interpretations, and religious concerns to anatomical realism and, later, explorations of psychological themes. The contemporary lens focuses on inclusive and empathetic portrayals, utilizing digital media to challenge stigmas and foster understanding.

Theatre dialogues with machines

This article highlights artistic strategies that deal with algorithms, machines, and the interplay between humans and machines in the context of theatre. It is written from the perspective of a theatre practitioner and researcher, and focuses on the question of what artistic strategies can be used to express the interplay of humans and machines at this specific point in history and technological progress. The article draws on two historical references, the concept of a rule-based theatre in pre-modern theatre and strategies to address the android in the avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century. It identifies features of a ‘cyborg art’ and counterposes them to more traditional humanistic approaches, in order to identify modern artistic strategies in theatre, that deal with human–machine interaction. It then raises the question of whether these strategies need to be expanded or reinvented to accommodate the latest developments in AI, identifying three new qualities of concurrent machines, their ability to ‘hallucinate‘, their ‘softness’ and their implicit message ‘meaning is improbable‘. In the last section I will describe own approaches to stage artificial intelligence using improvisational theatre ‘Almost Human‘ (2019) and ‘The Answering Machine’ (ongoing) and address basic problems of how we can represent digital machines on a stage.

Constructing a Hellenic modernism: Aeschylus at the ancient theatre of Syracuse (1914–30)

Abstract This article examines the aesthetic means employed in classical performances produced by the Institute of Ancient Drama (INDA) in Syracuse between 1914 and 1930, with a particular focus on performances of Aeschylus’ tragedies. The first part of this study traces the influences of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modernist and avant-garde movements on the Syracusan project, including the experiments pioneered by the radical French gauche, the German productions directed by Hans Oberländer with Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorf in the role of dramaturg and translator, as well as Max Reinhardt’s early engagements with ancient Greek drama and his vision of theatre (particularly his Theatre of the Five Thousand). It then discusses the aesthetic trajectory that productions of ancient Greek drama, and more specifically those of Aeschylus’ plays, underwent from INDA’s beginnings in 1914–30, when an all-fascist governing body was installed at its helm.

Художні експерименти як стимули культуротвірних процесів: на перехресті "позитивної" і "негативної" психології

Background. The problem of the article is related to the beginning of the 20th century, when the concept of "artistic experiment" became a part of theoretical discourse. It was stimulated by a change of the art paradigm, caused by avant-garde. Such a transformation was based on the exhaustion of romanticism and naturalism and the powerful entry of the aesthetic and artistic principles of symbolism into the European cultural space. The gradual detachment of a part of artists from romanticism and naturalism led to the start of fundamentally new trends that formed the avant-garde movement. The article aims to apply a comparative analysis of "positive" and "negative" types of psychology to reveal the specifics of artistic experiments in the formation and development of the avant-garde movement. Methods. the article uses the potential of such methods as chronological (historicism), analytical (outlining of the components of the research process), historical retrospection (capability to operate with the concept of "negative" psychology), comparative (comparison of "positive – negative psychology"), typological (definition of psychological /mental state of the artist). Results. it is argued that the Franco-Italian-German artists who formed the core of avant-garde did not share the principles of classical arts, absolutizing both the freedom of creativity and its permissiveness. The article emphasizes that representatives of specific aesthetic and artistic trends of avant-garde – cubists, futurists, abstractionists, dadaists, surrealists – supported the spontaneity of the creative process. It was indicated that from the second half of the 19th century, the process of radical transformations can be traced both in the space of European humanities and in the literary and artistic fields. First, a kind of reorientation of the humanities takes place, it activates the interdisciplinary links and the situation of theoretical and practical parity. Second, cinematography emerges as a new kind of art that, relying on scientific and technical progress achievements, confidently "fits" into the cultural context. Third, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, such new professions as film director, film producer, screenwriter, cameraman, sound engineer, etc. emerged and vastly affected a person's worldview by their work. Conclusions. In outlined conditions the role of psychology and psycho-physiology became significantly strengthened. It began to "cooperate" actively with other domains of humanities, in particular, aesthetics and art history.

Bergson’s Legacy among the Avant-Garde: Intuition, Aesthetics, and Political Ideology

In this article I will examine more closely why exactly Bergson’s philosophy of time and intuition proved so compelling to proponents of anarchist ideology, as interpreted by a key group of artists and activists affiliated with the London-based avant-garde movement known as Vorticism (1914-1918). As I demonstrate Bergson’s thought had special appeal among anarchists more generally because his process-oriented philosophy affirmed that movements’ ideological allegiance to notions of immediacy, affinity and prefigurative politics. Bergson’s philosophy enabled these radicals to reconceptualize ideology in terms of human psychology and social interactions, which in turn empowered the Vorticists’ to integrate art and aesthetics into their multivalent critique of the State. More broadly, this recasting of Bergson’s philosophy from an ideological perspective not only serves to distinguished the avant-gardes’ aesthetics from that of Bergson himself, it marks the crucial difference separating the era of the historical avant-garde from our own day, when Bergson’s thought no longer holds sway among contemporary political movements.

On the Hidden Potential of Public Solitude, Part I: Ivan Vyskočil’s Theatre as Encounter

ABSTRACT In this essay, we introduce Ivan Vyskočil (1929–2023), a Czech theatre maker, author, psychologist, and pedagogue – a case study par excellence for current studies on hybridization and transdisciplinarity as fosterers of creativity. Since Stanislavsky’s public solitude has played a key role for Vyskočil’s concept of authorial acting and its pedagogy, we track down ways Vyskočil elaborated on it as well as other resources that influenced his work (e. g. Brecht’s V-effekt, or the Czech avant-garde movement). Our study comes in a two-part series. In this Essay I, we identify major shifts through which Vyskočil transposed Stanislavsky’s small circle of attention – originally a tool for actors to escape the audience’s intimidating gaze – into the constitutive condition for theatre as encounter, in which the audience co-creates the play while it is emerging. Despite their origins on the big stage of the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios, it is argued here that Stanislavsky’s public solitude and creative state reveal their full potential through small stage forms of authorial creativity – as Vyskočil has shown via “Non-Theatre” productions and in journal articles. Essay II of this series then presents Vyskočil’s concept of dialogical and embodied education, especially when they cultivate the actor’s inner positions of spectatorship and authorship. This approach characterizes studies at the Department of Authorial Creativity and Pedagogy, which Vyskočil founded at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU) in 1994.

Fine art as an integral part of architecture: Political and social aspects of the formation of this synthesis in the 20th century

Abstract The theme of the connection of visual arts with architecture, or the cooperation of visual artists with architects in post-war Europe, basically follows two lines: a theoretical line and a political-institutional line. Just as knowledge of the history of art and the history of architecture is necessary in the analysis of this period, knowledge of the political-economic circumstances is necessary in the field of realisations in architecture, because by definition, this public art is a political affair and is not an independent creation. Art in architecture was promoted not only in communist countries (for ideological reasons), but also in Western Europe as an aesthetic cultivation of contemporary architecture. From the mid-1950s onwards, visual art in architectural space appeared more and more frequently, which led to the adoption of legislative measures that regulated and supported this practice. A gradual transformation in the understanding of the task can be observed over the period under review, or the position of public art, presented as part of architecture or public space. This is naturally due to social development. If at the beginning of the 1950s it was a mission to convey ideology and indoctrinate it, in the next stage the focus shifts more towards design with the task of cultivating the environment and creating a certain atmosphere. The study also peripherally explores forms of arts support in the context of other European countries. The idea of integration between art and architecture dates back to the very origins of both disciplines. During the avant-garde movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, it acquired a new meaning and social purpose and became one of the most defining characteristics of modernism. Modernism arose from the expectation of moral and material reconstruction of the world devastated by war, which served as a tool to strengthen collective identity and, consequently, to forge the bond between the city and its inhabitants. Our study traces the development and contexts of the relationship and funding of visual arts in architecture in the Slovak and European context in the 20th century.

Parada Erika Satiego w perspektywie intermedialnej według teorii Wernera Wolfa

Erik Satie’s Parade in the Perspective of Intermediality as per Werner Wolf’s Theory: Parade by Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso created in 1917 was pro- claimed the first surrealistic ballet, the cubist manifesto and succès de scandale. The article aims to examine the intermedial relations between the media that constitute the oeuvre regarding Werner Wolf’s typology of intermediality. The context of the analysis is provided by avant-garde movements that emerged in arts at the turn of the 20th century and determined the phenomena occurring within particular media. As a result, in the transmedial dimension, the impact of metalepsis can be observed. It leads to the disturbance in the narrative structure arising from the assumptions in a ballet scenario.

The Dialogue of the Russian Realistic Tradition and Avant-Garde Trends in Painting in the “Studio of Konstantin Yuon”

The article examines the period of training of young Russian artists in the Moscow “Studio of Konstantin Yuon” in 1900–1917, who later became bright representatives of avant-garde trends in painting from the point of view of the mutual infl uence of the teacher’s creative manner and the artistic pursuits of novice painters who gravitated to the study of current trends in the European artistic process. The purpose of the study is to determine the nature of the relationship between the artistic principles of the Russian realist school and the creative attitudes of the representatives of future avant-garde trends in painting during their training in the studio of K. Yuon in the early 20th century. The results of the work show that despite the fact that K. Yuon was a representative of the Russian realist tradition, in his work of that period, as well as in the works of the students of his studio, there is not so much opposition between the aesthetic and artistic methods of Russian realism and the emerging avant-garde movements, but rather a dialog and mutual enrichment of plastic methods, which had a signifi cant infl uence on the formation of the creative manner of the artists.

The Awakening of Female Vorticism in Jessica Dismorr’s Textual and Visual Representations

Vorticism was a London-based avant-garde movement of art and literature in the early 20th century. Launched by Wyndham Lewis with “The Vorticist Manifesto” in 1914, Vorticism employed the depiction of an image’s movement and exalted the dynamism of the wartime machine age. Inspired by Futurism and Cubism, Vorticism is often considered masculinist, excluding women from the textual and visual canons. The British avant-garde poet and artist Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939) was one of the two female members of Vorticism. She contributed to the movement with her textual and artistic representations from its commencement to its demise; however, she was long overlooked by literary and aesthetic critics. This article, from intertextual, aesthetic and feminist perspectives, investigates how the textual and visual narrators in Dismorr’s prose-poems “June Night” (1915) and “London Notes” (1915) and her painting, Abstract Composition (c.1915) problematize the exclusion of women in London’s male-dominated city and public spaces and argues the relationship between urbanization and “Female Vorticism.”