The Caffeine of Europa

רְשִׁימ֥וֹת־תֹּ֖הוּ | Black Metal & Futurism

By: Noa Kushnir Artzi

12-05-17

A riddle drawn in murals

If you ever travelled around Israel, I’m sure you bumped into one of these. I wonder how many people actually pay attention to them, but they sure managed to capture my eyes.

These are a few pieces of geometric murals. You can find the likes of these all around the country. I found most of them in collective agricultural communities otherwise known as Kibbutz, but I also spotted a few around my hometown, Haifa.

In retrospect, I think they fascinated me so much because they seemed to belong to a different Story. They seemed to allude to a whole different artistic philosophy linked to a whole world of now decrepit passions and ideals. As strange monuments to something I failed to define. My inability to point out and describe this difference only increased my interest. But I needed a lead…and a powerful incentive.

Album artworks and aesthetics played an important role in my musical journey. Unique album covers nearly almost led me to discover great music. My initial attraction to Metal actually happened through album covers. I literally couldn’t get my eyes and mind off that Iron Maiden album, once I saw it at a Tower Records franchise. I simply had to give it a spin. Even while writing my own music, I oftentimes wonder about the nature of the visual aesthetics that will adequately complement and represent it.

Thus I am not surprised that the very same powerful incentive eventually came from music, when the cover artwork on Frangar’s Bulloni Granati Bastoni caught my eyes. The striking similarity to the art that repeatedly spiked my interest rendered me determined to discover the story behind it.

These two sources obviously came from two different corners of the world, but I was correct to assume the existence of a common artistic denominator. The album cover was the ultimate lead and the keyword was Italian Futurism. The curious murals around my country were created by immigrants from Eastern Europe who were probably inspired by a socialist artistic movement called Constructivism, which in turn drew its aesthetic inspiration from Italian Futurism but mutated to a wholly different creature in terms of ideology.

A Steel Messiah

What is Futurism? In short, it’s an artistic philosophy conceived by the Italian poet F.T Marinetti. It was inspired by the changes brought forth by technological progress - but that’s only one aspect of the whole thing.

The gradual triumph of Mind upon Being[1] and the absurdly unrealistic illusion regarding man's capacity to control reality are a few of the things that characterizes modern life, where the inner world seems to overflow into the outer and vice versa.

Cubism made an attempt to capture this idea and combine the concept of this bilateral blurring of boundaries in its depictions of reality[2]. In its most superficial sense, Futurism was inspired by Cubism and intended to adapt the descriptive ability of art to modern day views, such as moving landscapes from car and train windows, and to expand its capability to capture dynamic multisensory experiences, as the incessant noise and movement which characterizes urban life.

And yet from what I have gathered it has evolved worlds apart from its source of aesthetic inspiration. While Cubism seems to obsess over form and its accurate depiction from all angles with an evidently classicist approach, Futurism can almost be seen as its romanticist counterpart in its emphasis on intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. It is a breed of romanticism that, through my eyes, may be described as "a romanticism of steel"[3] – a powerful vein of romanticism proper to an aesthetic of a revolution.

In a sense it is very much like Black Metal which draws musical inspiration from Death Metal but still feels worlds apart from its artistic origins. Think about Emperor’s Anthems to The Welkin at Dusk. It’s form-obsessed and technical as fuck but still has that power and emotional intensity that distinguishes it from Technical Death Metal.

Even its endorsement of traditionally “solar”[4] themes as heroism and its modern take on the spirituality behind war and violence as valid paths of action are not uncommon in Black Metal, along with its barefaced and honest “fuck you – I don’t care” attitude which sometimes borders with humor. It is not a narrative of tears and martyrdom. I’d almost like to see a hint of the old “narrative of the hero” trying to rear its head up with the aid of technology.

The Futurists pointed out the hypocrisy in a society which romanticizes a rustic past while steadily and wholeheartedly adopts every comfort offered by modern technology. Instead, they have chosen to openly celebrate and harness it as a means for ascent to greatness and power reminiscent of the Roman Empire.

Saint Vincent of the Industrial Black Metal act Blacklodge once described his art as a cult which celebrates the rising of the technological Empire. A celebration of a Luciferian scientific arrogance which leads to a Faustian passion to unleash nuclear energy, to transform all humanity to pure light and conclude history.

But all these hopes in a technological messiah as the founder of a new Empire are laughably futile. For he was initially convinced by man and thus he is virtually powerless. The reverence and worship are the reverence and worship of man, and as such they are ultimately bound to fail. In the age of the dead god, man and material are dead ends, emanations long detached from a great immaterial being which ages rendered it beyond their reach. It is no wonder that these artistic philosophies were so warmly embraced by anti-theistic, humanist movements in Italy and Russia[5].

Disillusion-Devolution

Maybe it’s this fatalist element, but there is something about old Futurist art and these old geometric murals that sometimes fills me with a nostalgic sense of melancholy. As specters absorbed when walking through an abandoned ghost town, among the remains of Great dreams and great hopes that are now all dead.

It is a longing for the time before our collective disillusionment, before many of us realized they were heading toward goalposts which disappear as soon as they are reached, and that their hopes in man were as lasting and effective as mere opiates. Too many of us now seem to prefer a cynical neutrality and a strange pride in their lack of conviction as if they were ultimate proofs of intellect. Any taking of sides expressed too bluntly, any abridgement of this "artificial silence" is oftentimes stretched to appear as an idea considered harshly offensive by the current Zeitgeist and (dis)taste.

If the “mainstream” academia in Italy thinks and acts like most of its kind in the west, maybe they’d rather bury any such tendencies for the sake of more liberal, more globalist ideas that do naught to threaten this strange status quo. And they’d rather dedicate meaningful parts of museums to relics - long dead and cold than to warm corpses that might reanimate at any moment.

I do not regret that. It is the Underground that should stand among the ruins, as everything else collapses under its own fallacy.

Milan for the aspiring Futurist

My brief visit to Milan and its art exhibitions did nothing to shake my hypothesis. I wasn't surprised by the extremely small scale of exposure that this seemingly national artistic philosophy got in their bigger museums. From what I figured, many prominent works were bought off by various art galleries and collectors in the US.

The meager remains I have witnessed during my visit were breathtakingly beautiful, but faceless and sad when detached from their historical context and arranged in sterile lines on big white art museum walls – not unlike animals in a zoo. "Here you see the famous 'states of mind' by Umberto Boccioni, together with his dynamic metal sculpture of the walking man" – two artworks meticulously dissected in the embarrassingly small number of chapters dedicated to Futurism in a textbook on the art of the 20th century from the OU. All seen but not looked at. Most museum guides and art students might probably approach it in a more or less similar, detached and over cerebral manner – plus minus the reluctant “these guys were proto-Fascists” attitude.

An unsuspecting audience might just pass by it without feeling anything. It’s a shame and it’s an absurd given all the historical background, all the strong emotions, ambitions and sociopolitical turmoil. Heck, the same ideas that among other things took shape in this art drove people to acts of barefaced heroism in WW1. These contemplations became actions, spirit has managed to sculpture matter. People died for this shit and people don’t care, or better yet: don't realize the astounding value of the spirit, perhaps numbingly giving up their own.

I took a day off from touring art galleries to visit Lago di Lecco. When I think of Lecco I think about the majestic Bergamo Alps and the equally towering and beautiful monument by the lake,

commemorating this very same and probably one of the final upsurges of true European heroism. That’s what I call Monumental! These were sights I won’t easily forget.

How many ideas nowadays get to take form as such elegant and tasteful art while having a strong historical impact? Internet memes in art galleries don’t count, nipple baring feminists don’t count, balloons full of the artist’s breath, painted empty cans of beans and actual canned shit don’t count – nobody died for that, it hasn't spewed any real human shift of the spirit, and that’s a bit too plebian. It’s not art and it shouldn’t be. Nobody will die and nobody should die for the ideas behind that, let alone pay a staggering amount of money. Forget it.

I'd rather escape from this reality for a quiet afternoon at an elegant 1930's apartment packed full of art by Mario Sironi and Arturo Martini, and beautiful furniture and décor from the early 1900s. Bye-bye distaste. At least for the following couple of hours.

A Flag upon a Faceless Grave

Back at the information bureau, I was a bit reluctant to ask where it was.

When I finally managed to communicate beyond the painful language barrier and walls of hesitation, I was almost sure that I noticed a strange spark in the man's eyes as he exclaimed “Oh, that’s the Futurismo guy”!

That trip was paved by these moments where I felt like I would have asked for the ability to speak any language on demand, were I was given the chance to grant a single wish in the world. I cannot help but wonder if that guy had any connection to that very same artistic movement. By then I managed to get the impression that it’s far from mainstream, reserved for true and fanatic intellectuals – of the rare and right kind. Sometimes you wonder things about people and places you pass by. Some questions remain unanswered. Maybe that’s one of the things that makes a traveler’s memories so magical.

The grave of F.T Marinetti gave no clear hint to his lifetime achievements – apart from the clear aversion from religious symbolism and the acknowledgement of his occupation as a poet, it favored a rather generic design. Was that some kind of an attempt to bury the past with his material remains? Was that because of his notorious friendship with a notorious[6] dictator?

Someone placed a new Italian flag instead of the one I saw on Wikipedia. Someone still cares. I’d love to get to know this person. I’d love to know when and why he still does that. I felt sorry I didn’t bring some flowers, or a flag of my own. I just removed the dry leaves and dirt that accumulated among the stone flowers. What would he have thought were he there by his grave?

I bet too many people just unassumingly pass by this rectangular slab of metal, unsuspecting the identity of the man in honor of which it was placed. It has become nothing but material - as faceless as the old pieces of art – which the ages and sociopolitical changes blurred their features.

Futurism had the potential to live on as a cultural export, celebrating an ethos similar to the one found in Black Metal. But its first two waves seemed to have miserably failed. Let us hope Black Metal will not meet a similar fate. They were dubbed The Caffeine of Europa. Now, fellow Black Metal artists, it’s our turn to become a Cultural Caffeine ourselves.

I respect this guy so much, because he managed to initiate a beautiful artistic movement that aspired to reignite a defiant fire against stagnation within the comfortable yet ultimately crippling arms of mediocrity. I admire him because he pointed out the hypocrites. Because he managed to wake people up and get them thinking without letting these intents damp out the artistic value of the creations which he inspired.

It is much like the direction to which Black Metal has managed to evolve over the years. Powerful soundtracks and elegant aesthetics for a revolution. As energizing and tasteful as a properly prepared espresso. Some have compared Futurism to Punk but I think the comparison to certain styles of Black Metal is equally valid – an artistic inspiration to action, as opposed to pure contemplation.

I’d gladly host these Futurist artists and writers as honorary guest contributors on this zine, were they all still alive. There are simply too many ways we could have collaborated, and they’re all gone decades ago. Most of them pretty much in a bang. Many amid battle. And the ways in which many of them have passed seems to embody their high-octane aspirations. Too bad we’re left with too few interesting, real people with real, honest emotions and potent ideas on this rather numbed out planet.

Come say hi if you think you’re interesting enough. There’s enough espresso for everyone.

In the meantime, we have our few but faithful modern third wave Futurists. One of them even happens to be a visual artist and a Metal musician who runs a small label. Among his many works he has also designed some artworks for Metal albums. I had the honor to talk to Mr. Antonio Corso, the man behind Unita Sangiovanni, Impaler DistroList, Traschicidio and the Frangar album cover that started it all…(interview will follow sequentially to this piece).

Appendix

Music for the aspiring Futurist

Each of the works I have carefully hand-picked and listed below deserve many great words of praise. For now I will limit myself to short but hopefully spot on introductions. I'll leave the rest to you.

·         Frangar (ITA) – Bulloni Granate Bastoni – Dynamite on tape. Enough has been already said on the cover artwork.

·         Thrashicidio (ITA) – Dawn of Nuclear Deathrash – Thrashing war-noises and Futurist cover artwork by Antonio Corso.

·         Spite Extreme Wing (ITA) – Vltra – Solar, heroic BlackN'Roll. Features an original Futurist painting as an album cover.

·         Artditi (SE)/Toroidh (SE) – United in Blood – The unholy matrimony between Futurist Industrial music pioneer Luigi Russolo and Richard Wagner.

·         And last but not least… here you go. I hate the language barrier so much.

The Futurist Manifesto

https://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html

Works Cited

Cleary, C. (2011). Summoning The Gods. (G. Johnson, Ed.) San Francisco: Counter-Currents Publishing Ltd.

אריאלי-הורוביץ, ד. (2008). אמנות ורודנות: אוואנגרד ואמנות מגוייסת בין שתי מלחמות העולם. ההוצאה לאור של אוניברסיטת תל אביב.

נועה פריצקי, נ. ו. (n.d.). האמנות בעידן הטכנולוגי: פוטוריזם, לז'ה ומונדריאן; קונסטרוקטיביזם רוסי; דה סטיל ובאוהאוז; יח' 4-3. האוניברסיטה הפתוחה.

[1] As defined in (Cleary, 2011)

[2] As defined in (נועה פריצקי)

[3] As defined in (אריאלי-הורוביץ, 2008)

[4] It is interesting to note that the traditionalist thinker and Dada artist Julius Evola was acquainted with Marinetti and even created a few Futurist paintings.

[5] At least during their initial revolutionary stages. As described in the chapters dealing with Italian Futurism and Russian Constructivism in (אריאלי-הורוביץ, 2008)

[6] A dark part of this person remains rough to digest. Still, even the greatest poets of the Israeli nation were influenced by no other than Ezra Pound, despite his warm relation to the Nazi regime (just to give an example)