Futurism essay references liat and information

Here is the same list of references on my second draft of my essay entitled "Futurism: The Art Movement that Looked to the Future and Never Looked Back". I'll add some information to each and other types of information that can be found in that source.

The Futurist Manifesto (http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html) - This is one of the most important sources of the essay as it reveals, by the words of the founder of Futurism, Marinetti, what the goals and plans for Futurism were. Here are the main 11 points the manifesto referenced on. They all relate to Futurisms relation to admiration of speed, dynamic movement, machinery and violence:

 

"MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9. We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds. "

Image of Manchester Civil Justice Centre used within the essay (http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/1manchester-civil-justice-centre-dcm3.jpg) - This building is an example of Futurist architechture. I chose it as it is actually very close to where I study Games Design, Futureworks. As soon as you leave the building you can see it and it is a very striking building and shows a lot of Futurisms ideas.

Information on Umberto Boccioni (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70885/Umberto-Boccioni) - Boccioni was a famous artist who joined Futurism after meating its creator, Marinetti.

Sea of Ghosts: Maskelyne

Maskelyne is a character from the novel titled "Sea of Ghosts" by Alan Campbell. The novel is set in the mid 1400's (15th century). Races of creatures which seem to use sorcery called the Unmer have spent the last few centuries at war with it, humans and psychics. Eventually they became imprisoned by the psychics who allowed humans to take over much of the world. The free Unmer then released millions of little bottles into the sea called 'sea bottles' which release toxic brine when opened from a seemingly infinite supply. Because of this, the world is slowly flooding with a dangerous sea which burns anyone who touches it, badly disfiguring them.

There is another race of people in this alternate universe, they are the drowned. As you can expect these are people who have drowned in the brine, but through a large chance they come back to life, to live under the brine disfigured, looking up out of the surface of the water to see the world they once lived. Research conducted seems to indicate that the drowned seemingly lose the essence of who they are over time, after a while to only repeat actions they had done before their mind had gone, unsure what they are actually doing or its purpose.

Moving on to Maskelyne; a character which is mentioned quite early in the book is seen as an antagonist. He has a real malicious and cruel side to him, which contrasts with his caring nature toward his son and (in his own opinion) his wife. He is one of the antagonists to Granger, the protagonist of the novel. Maskelyne took Granger's daughter Ianthe to hunt treasure, killed her mother by drowning and took advantage of Ianthe's unnatural skill to see and hear through other people.

He has an obsession with Unmer artifacts. He researches them with great interest, trying to understand how they work. He philosophizes possible ways they could work and in parts of the novel has mentioned scientific theories that are seen to be true in real life such as particles traveling all possible paths at once. This has left him with various weaponry and gadgets which are difficult to use, but are much more powerful than what any human could create. His favorite weapon is a gun which has a human skull around the barrel, which fires a creatures called void flies. These flies basically destroy matter they come into contact with so this is a very dangerous weapon. One hit sunk a full Emperor sized yacht.

Maskelyne has quite a lot of money, likely from the treasure hunting business he runs. When we first meet him in the novel he is introduced to Granger as a prisoner as a plan to trap Granger to get access to Ianthe and her mystical powers. His 'cell' has high ceilings and various things to help him in his interests. This was one component which helped Granger discover that he was Maskelyne which allowed him an attempt to escape. Unfortunately Maskelyne's men caught him later and imprisoned him.

I feel that Maskelyne is roughly middle-aged based on the fact he has a 2 year old son, but also has a lot of experience of the world and even seems to sometimes show his cynical side. Due to having wealth, he is likely well groomed.

Assignment 5: Working in 3D

To understand lighting and seeing our art in a more 3D way instead of 2D on photoshop.
Using Fimo clay I modelled a futuristic walker. I didn't paint it as I never came up with a good paint scheme for it. The surfaces aren't very smooth but I like how it turned out. Given the chance I would like to smooth the sides and add more detail. Possibly painting it too when I can think of a good colour scheme. As I made the model more ideas came to mind so it ended up being a futuristic mech walker with a tophat and a tail reminicent of Mewtwo from pokemon. It does lack detail, maybe in future I could practice some more and create a more detailed version, or even in 3DS Max.