Post on 28-Mar-2015
The plot so far …
Marshall Bermann
‘All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity’ 1983
Modernisation:
The processes of scientific,
technological, industrial, economic
and political innovation that also
become urban, social and artistic in
their impact
Marshall Bermann
‘All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity’ 1983
Modernity:
The way that modernisation infiltrates
everyday life and permeates
sensibilities
Marshall Bermann
‘All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity’ 1983
Modernism:
The wave of artistic movements that, from
the early twentieth century onwards, in
some way responded to, or presented, these
changes
Lecture 2
Modernity and the Machine Age
Theo van Doesburg
Since it is correct to say that culture [modernity] in its widest sense means independence of Nature, then we must not wonder that the machine stands in the forefront of our cultural will-to-style…
The new possibilities of the machine have created an aesthetic expressive of our time, that I once called the Machine Aesthetic.
Simultaneous Counter Composition 1929/30
The Machine Aesthetic 1910s/1920s:
Purism in France
DeStijl in Holland
Suprematism / Productivism in Russia
Constructivism at the Bauhaus (Germany)
Precisionism in North America
Futurism in Italy
Non-Geometrical abstract art ……versus
Geometrical abstract art
Expressionism
Wassily Kandinsky, Two Ovals, 1919 Constructivism
Piet Mondrian, Two Composition, 1929
Fernand Léger
The Machine Aesthetic
I have more faith in it
[the machine] than the
longhaired gentleman
with a floppy cravat
intoxicated with his
own personality and his
own imagination
Fernand Léger, Propellers, 1918
International Dada Fair, Berlin, 1920
Art is deadLong live Tatlin’s new machine art
Jacques Henri Lartigue Grand Prix France, 1912
Giacomo BallaSpeed of an Automobile, 1913
Aleksandr Rodchenko
Russia 1923-30
‘Mess Mend’ book series 1924
‘Kingi’ (books)Window Poster, 1925
Gino Severini, Machinery 1922
The method used for constructing
a machine is similar to that for
constructing a work of art
Charles Sheeler, Ballet Mechanic, 1931
Machine Art exhibition at Museum of Modern Art in New York 1934
‘The beauty of machine art is in part the abstract beauty of straight lines and circles made into actual tangible surfaces and solids by means of lathes, rulers and squares’
Lewis W Hine
Mechanic and
Steam Pump
1921
The Bauhaus
Dessau 1925
Hans Roericht, Stacking service, 1959
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Light Space Modulator
1923-30
Mechanthropomorphism
(hybrid of machine and human)
Oskar Schlemmer - Triadic Ballet 1926
Mechanthropomorphism
Francis Picabia,
Parade Amoureuse, 1917
‘No age, I believe, has been more imbecile than ours’
Mechanthropomorph as
Mechanoid Monster?
Jacob Epstein, Rock Drill, 1913-14
Le Corbusier
Cook House, Paris, 1926
A house has to fulfill two
purposes. First it is a
machine for living in, that
is, a machine to provide us
with efficient help for speed
and accuracy in our work, a
diligent and helpful machine
which should satisfy all our
physical needs: comfort. But
it should also be a place
conducive to meditation, and
lastly, a beautiful place,
bringing much needed
tranquility to the mind.
1923
Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye
1928-31
Le Corbusier Unité d’Habitation,
Marseilles, 1947-52
Utopia / DystopiaThings to Come 1936Things to Come William CameronMenzies
1936
Fritz Lang
Metropolis 1927
Fritz Lang
Metropolis 1927
Utopia / DystopiaCharlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 1936
Mechanthropomorph to Cyborg
Stanley Kubrick 2001 A Space Odyssey, 1969
The Machine Aesthetic
The machine is as old as the
wheel, the wings of Icarus or
the Trojan horse. But it is only
in our century that it has
transcended its utilitarian
functions and acquired a variety
of meanings, esthetic and
philosophical, which are only
distantly related to its
practical use.John Baur 1963