Discussion 2 This symposium explores the controversial status of Futurist movements in art history, and some of their ‘avant-garde’ practices. Speakers engage with various forms of Futurist art, performance and film, including the use of manifestos and demonstrations. Italian Futurism will be viewed in relation to other radical art practices across Europe. The Futurists’ disdain for traditional values and their pursuit of an ‘art of modern life’ will be explored in relation to prevailing concepts of modernity and ‘avant-garde’ utopias.

Tom McCarthy and Dominic Willsdon: These panels are our only models for the composition of poetry, or, How Marinetti taught me how to write  Marinetti's proclamations about literature—what it should and shouldn't be, the operations that it should attempt and tendencies that it should shun—outline a vision whose scope goes far beyond the boundaries of the middle-brow novel.

Mary-Ann Caws, Manifesting A look at a selection of visual manifestos, in their relation to verbal ones—what sorts of crossover features might we determine (or invent), with our post-event imaginations running high, as in the original big and loud futurist ones? A quick dada/surrealist spin will be put on the whole thing, with additional thoughts after the Venice Biennale sneaking in.Suggested Further Reading:Mary Ann Caws, ed.

Lutz Becker and Dominic Willsdon, Vita Futurista  A new version of Becker's acclaimed film Vita Futurista is being released on the occasion of the 2009 Centenary of Italian Futurism. It covers the story of Futurism from its beginnings in 1909 till the 1930s. The exhibition presented by Tate Modern concentrates on the first phase of Futurism which ended with the death of Boccioni in 1916. The film continues the history of Futurism through its second phase.

Discussion 1 This symposium explores the controversial status of Futurist movements in art history, and some of their ‘avant-garde’ practices. Speakers engage with various forms of Futurist art, performance and film, including the use of manifestos and demonstrations. Italian Futurism will be viewed in relation to other radical art practices across Europe. The Futurists’ disdain for traditional values and their pursuit of an ‘art of modern life’ will be explored in relation to prevailing concepts of modernity and ‘avant-garde’ utopias.

Gill Perry and Alex Danchev, Futurism: art and life and politics  The Futurist project was ambitious, not to say grandiose. It outran art to embrace life. It was also intensely political.

Matthew Gale and Gill Perry, ‘The raging broom of madness’: making an exhibition of Futurism  The presentation covers some of the ideas, issues and decisions that went into making Futurism at Tate Modern. It covers a range from conception to installation, including such concerns as how to present the manifestos and what happened to Balla's dog?

David Cottington, Futurism and The Avant-Garde  It is a commonplace of art history to observe that Italian futurism was among the first moveFuturism and The Avant-Gardements of the artistic avant-garde. But these terms, and the implications for understanding both futurist art and its significance for western modernism, are not often examined. What was ‘the avant-garde’, why did it emerge when it did, and what influence did it have on the sudden appearance of futurism on the European cultural stage?

Gill Perry and Dominic Willsdon​, Introduction This symposium explores the controversial status of Futurist movements in art history, and some of their 'avant-garde' practices.