Luigi Russolo, Futurist

by Luciano Chessa

  The man who is not “in phase” with the rest of society (because he has arrived either too soon or too late in the course of history) is destined as a consequence of his temporal impertinence to break with society itself. But the inattuale intellectual and artist must take up this challenge; he must accept this perpetually subversive function if he wants to force the clock hands of history and awaken the slumbering bourgeoisie from its sleep of mediocrity.

  In this Nietzschean view, the function of art is to elevate man to a level of eternity (and therefore of atemporality), suggest an alternative route to historicism’s absurd pretenses of rationality and truth, and to encourage him to promote his radical views with thoughtless lightheartedness.

  For the Hegelian idea of history as a sequence of events developing rationally in a temporal vector (which implies inexorable progress from one epoch to the next), Nietzsche substituted a model of history made up of cycles (including that of eternal return); the inattuale man (or artist) is not necessarily the standard-bearer of the “new.” He is the intellectual who imposes positions—either after or ahead of his time—that oppose the dominant morality and the too often invoked historical necessity. Working against the tide, he cares nothing for fashions, conventions, and other social practices of his time.

  In his passage about Russolo’s intonarumori, Marinetti seems to understand and appreciate Russolo’s contradictory position: he sees him as an outsider who has committed himself body and soul to the new, but who at the same time and with pedantic passion studies acoustic sciences of the past and the occult tradition—a Janus-like figure among the futurists, one face looking to the future, the other to the past.

  Marinetti’s reference to Nietzsche and his Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen (usually translated into English as Untimely Meditations but meaning, literally, asynchronous observations) is inscribed within an aesthetic of the irrational that futurism had made its own; behind this exaltation of the irrational can be read interest in the occult and a critical position against materialism.17 Along with active nihilism, the critique of rationalism and idealism offers yet another tool to understanding the futurists’ attraction to Nietzschean thought (or interpretations thereof), which is evident not only in their themes but also in the style they adopted—consider, for example, the messianic-allegorical-Zarathustrian tone of such early Marinetti manifestos as “Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna.”

  In Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, Nietzsche renewed his attack on Hegel and the philosophy of the Hegelian right. By critiquing the philosophy of David Strauss in the first of the “Asynchronous Observations,” Nietzsche is in fact criticizing Prussian military supremacy over France, which Strauss justified as historical, real, and therefore rational. In the second Observation, titled “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life,” Nietzsche declared that Hegel’s philosophy is responsible for the hyperrationalization of philosophical thought, and in particular for promoting the idea of history as a rational and linear development.

  Nietzsche attacked the cult of the past to expose the bourgeoisification of contemporary German culture, which he considers was unaware of the paralysis generated by this cult. Nietzsche is really railing not against the past but against what the futurists will subsequently define as “past-idolatry”—blind faith in the linear development of history as intrinsically rational: the only possible historiographical model. In deluding himself that he is a child of the past and the logical consequence of history, modern man deprives himself of the ability to choose and dare. Thus man relieves himself from responsibility and convinces himself that history justifies and legitimizes his actions. Nietzsche’s concern and criticism are at the foundation of Marinetti’s early manifestos, written more than thirty years later. By calling Russolo inattuale, Marinetti is acknowledging his sources.

  X-RAYS AND THE OSCILLOSCOPE

  The continuation of Marinetti’s text yields further meaning:

  Ecstatic and vibrating afternoons in his laboratory where I assist in the construction of the intonarumori and of the noise harmonium

  Certainly attentive to our dormer window of mechanical chemistry is the sun, setting while the tormented scientist Russolo bends his head over the immeasurable vacuum tube in the night and here are stars forerunners of electric discharges

  In the flooding fluorescence we free ourselves again and outside of ourselves we can contemplate exposed plates and calculate the irradiations

  In descending—to help the sun—the twisting slimy dark stairs Russolo shouts with his red goatee

  —Glory to your name Roentgen and glory to the futurist rumorismo

  Notwithstanding Marinetti’s writing technique—or perhaps, on the contrary, because of its rhetorical tone, resembling that of a sacred book—careful perusal of this text allows the reader to deduce the nature of Russolo’s investigations. I believe this passage to be a snapshot of Russolo’s experiments of 1912–13, a time when he was engaged in the study of acoustics that eventually led to the construction of the intonarumori.18

  If we abstract the keywords from their rhetorical context—a hermeneutic operation that is rash but not arbitrary—this is the result:

  vacuum tube / electric discharges / flooding fluorescence / exposed plates / irradiations / Roentgen

  The elements thereby laid bare, and above all the reference to Röntgen, lead to the plausible interpretation that the Russolo experiments described by Marinetti involved X-rays.

  What is needed to construct the X-ray machine that Röntgen had started developing in 1895 is: a power supply (note the textual reference to electric discharges), a Cathode Ray Tube or CRT (vacuum tube), and plates to be exposed to the X-rays (irradiations); these rays, if not contained by a thick lead plate, tend naturally to escape in all directions (flooding fluorescence).

  A range of evidence confirms that Russolo was an ingenious mechanic and that he would have been able to construct such a machine. Russolo built musical instruments, and later in life, at his house at Cerro di Laveno, he succeeded in assembling a telescope using “two lenses, a cardboard tube specially prepared and hardened, and a couple of wood beams that formed the tripod.”19

  Russolo was also a passionate reader of popularized science. From a letter he wrote to his wife upon arriving in Tarragona, Spain, on February 24, 1932, we know that during his Paris years he subscribed to a magazine for astronomy enthusiasts called Caelum, which published articles of popular astronomy and amateur microscopic science.20 Zanovello confirms that Russolo read various Hoepli manuals, publications that deal with such disparate topics as dairy art and spiritualism.21

  Giacomo Balla cited Hoepli manuals in his notebooks, in the same place where he annotates “Roentgen rays and their applications (Raggi Roentgen e loro applicazioni).”22 And sure enough, several among these popular scientific manuals were dedicated to X-rays and their applications.

  Although academic treatments of this subject were previously available, Hoepli was the first Italian publisher to publish manuals on the X-rays.23 One of the first titles was Elettricità medica: Elettroterapia, raggi Rontgen [sic], radioterapia, fototerapia, ozono, elettrodiagnostica, by Adolfo Dario Bocciardo, published in Milan by Ulrico Hoepli in 1904 as part of the popular series Manuali Hoepli. This was followed by Gian Alberto Blanc’s Radioattività del dott. G. A. Blanc con una prefazione del prof. A. Sella ed un’appendice di G. D’Ormea sulle azioni fisiche dei raggi Becquerel, also published as a Manuale Hoepli in 1907, but this time as part of the “scientific series.”

  Two other books, also published in Milan and readily available to Russolo, may likewise have been a source: a hands-on approach to X-rays titled Le correnti variabili e loro applicazioni: Auto-induzione, rocchetto di ruhmkorff, Raggi catodici, Raggi X, radiografia, telegrafia senza fili by Carlo Laguna, published by the Società Editoriale Milanese in 1909 in the series La biblioteca pratica (The practical library), and Ignazio Schincaglia’s Radiografia e radioscopia: Storia dei raggi Rontgen [sic] e loro applicazioni piu im
portanti, published by Vallardi in 1911; the last-named title may have served as a source for Balla.

  There were additional sources of information on X-rays; according to Linda Henderson, more than fifty books and pamphlets and over a thousand articles were published on X-rays in 1896 alone, and many of these were published with a large, popular audience in mind.24 These various publications made the details of Röntgen’s experiment, along with full instructional drawings for building the machine, available to amateurs all over Europe. Because X-rays could be produced relatively simply—with only CTR and a power supply—the experiment rapidly went all around the world.

  A close cousin to the X-ray machine, a device that utilized CRT technology to analyze the shape of sound waves, was the CRT oscilloscope. First invented by Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897, when he was experimenting with the 1875 Crookes’ tubes (ancestor to both the X-ray machine and the CTR oscilloscope), this device quite quickly became an indispensable tool for acousticians.

  Russolo’s references to the frequencies and shapes of different sound waves, suggests a familiarity with the CRT oscilloscope beyond that of second-hand information. In chapter 3 of The Art of Noises, “Principi fisici e possibilità pratiche,” a comparison of the shape of various sound waves (that of a pitch pipe, a violin, and a metal plate) becomes the central argument for one of Russolo’s most fundamental claims: that, from a physical standpoint, there is no difference between sound and noise.25

  Since there is no specific point where sound and noise join, there can be no point where the former stops and the latter begins; rather, the shape (or frequency) of the sound wave merely becomes progressively more irregular. Because Russolo understood sound to be a continuum, he shared the notion that the difference between what is called sound and what is called noise is cultural.

  As the basic components of the X-ray machine and the CRT oscilloscope are the same, and given the close ties between Russolo’s visual and aural investigations, it is plausible that he may have built first Röntgen’s X-ray machine and then Braun’s oscilloscope. Scientific inquiry would not have been Russolo’s only motivation. Marinetti’s text appears to confirm that Russolo was theoretically and practically equipped to build the two machines, but Marinetti’s writing style also implies that Russolo was artistically and spiritually motivated to do so.

  FUTURIST GOOD VIBRATIONS: X-RAYS, LIGHT, SOUND, AND THE OCCULT

  Between 1912 and 1913, Russolo decided to experiment with X-rays in his laboratory in via Stoppani, at first likely animated by his intention to apply the result of his X-ray study to painting. In those same years X-rays and their properties excited avant-garde artists (above all, Duchamp) and, as is evident from their technical manifesto of futurist painting of 1910, futurist painters as well.26

  X-rays, which penetrate to the hearts of objects, revealed the same profound reality that futurists aimed to paint.27 Although Russolo arrived at his X-ray investigations directly from his experience on such works as La musica, he was from the beginning guided by a general interest in the synesthetical interconnection among the perceptive senses that is implied by the theory of vibrations. These studies occupied Russolo on the many afternoons that Marinetti called “ecstatic and vibrating.”

  Confirmation of the link between his pictorial investigations and the X-ray experiments that led Russolo to explore sonic waves with the CRT oscilloscope is found in the following passage from the technical manifesto on futurist painting: “Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies, while our acuity and multiplied sensitivity makes us intuit the obscure manifestations of mediumistic phenomena? Why must one continue to create without taking account of our visual power that can give results analogous to those of X-rays?”28 A similar declaration of intent appeared in Russolo’s manifesto on the art of noises from 1913: “Our multiplied sensitivity, having conquered futurist eyes, will finally be endowed with futurist ears.”29 Russolo transferred the multiplied sensitivity that first allowed for the perception of the imperceptible ghostly vibrations—and had previously granted the spiritual amplification of the sense of sight—to the equally spiritual empowering of the sense of hearing, something that the CRT oscilloscope made visible and thus tangible.

  Following the thread of the theosophical doctrine of vibrations, we can observe that Russolo’s engagement with acoustics and vibrations of sound waves deepened once he encountered Röntgen’s theories on the vibration of waves in the ether. By juxtaposing the name of Röntgen with the art of noises, Marinetti’s last sentence, shouted by a possessed Russolo—“Glory to your name Roentgen and glory to the futurist rumorismo”—factually sanctioned the synesthetic interconnection of light waves, X-rays, and sound waves. These, according to what Russolo knew about physics, were manifestations of the same phenomenon, differentiated only by frequency and wavelength.

  The study of X-rays was a natural point for science and occultism to converge.30 Russolo’s study, then, fit perfectly within the theosophical doctrine of vibrations. X-rays, as both a scientific and cultural phenomenon, pointed to the imperfection of human senses in the act of perceiving the world; thus X-rays served to confute the philosophical positions of materialism. Moreover, they served indirectly to validate the photography of ghosts and phenomena such as exteriorization of sensitivity and materialization of ectoplasms. A photographic plate could register ghostly manifestations and spiritual emanations from the human body because those were also composed of vibrations of different wavelengths, vibrations that leave incontrovertible traces.

  These phenomena prompted scholars such as Crookes, Flammarion, Lombroso, and Zollner to adopt Röntgen’s experiments for the analysis of mediumistic condensation.31 In particular, as Celant wrote in his “Futurismo esoterico,” X-rays served to “demonstrate how the action of the thought is often accompanied by certain molecular movements that act upon internal and external molecules,” which in turn justified “the formation and visualization of ectoplasms.”32

  Russolo’s interest in X-rays during the time he was working on the intonarumori was not the result of mere scientific curiosity but had, rather, deeper and occult motivations. The whole of his intonarumori adventure—from the time he first conceived it—must therefore be fully and radically reinterpreted in the light of his occult motivations.

  CHAPTER 6

  Russolo’s Metaphysics

  Futurism is concerned with the essence of reality, because all that exists is essentially composed of vibrations of different intensities in the ether. Like Boccioni and Carrà, Russolo was convinced that an artist’s true objective was to penetrate bodies and discover this essence. Futurists believed that investigation, analysis, and comprehension of the real ought to be guided by an epistemology founded on a solid metaphysical basis that would allow them to look into the depths.

  To those who have recontextualized it in these terms, art can no longer be mere imitation of the surface of the real but instead becomes (re)creation ex novo of the spirit of reality, achieved by infusing matter with the spirituality of the artist—or, better yet, with the creative, spiritualistic forces the artist can evoke. In Russolo’s own words, the spirit of the artist has “the insatiable desire to raise matter up to its own level, to see it spiritualized in the work of art.”1

  Within that proposition lay the crux of the futurists’ polemic against the impressionists, for it defined the fundamental difference between impressionist art and their own. Although they believed that impressionist painting deserved praise for having anticipated avenues of investigation (such as the treatment of light) that were later pursued by divisionists and thereupon by some of their own, impressionism, in their opinion, was based on the reproduction of sensory illusoriness and concerned with superficial levels of reality. Therefore it lacked spirituality.2

  Similarly, Russolo never understood his the art of noises as a simple imitation of superficial sensation. In his 1913 manifesto of the art of noises, Russolo, to avoid misunderstanding, emphasized this point in boldface type
: “Although the characteristic of noise is that of reminding us brutally of life, the Art of Noises should not limit itself to an imitative reproduction.”3 In point 6 of his manifesto, Russolo writes that that art of noises cannot limit itself to a “succession of noises imitative of life” but must be based upon “a fantastic association of the different timbres.”4

  Russolo’s deviation from impressionist imitation is captured by a French press release of September 1913: “Les quatre réseaux des bruits ne sont pas de simples reproductions impressionists de la vie qui nous entoure mais d’émouvantes syntheses bruitistes. Par une savante variation de tons, les bruites perdent en effet leur caractère épisodique accidentel et imitatif, pour devenir des elements abstraits d’art.”5

  Later, in his L’arte dei rumori of 1916, Russolo repeated this concept, asserting that his art of noises does not have “a simple-minded imitative [or] impressionistic aim, reminiscent [merely] of the noises of life.”6 Russolo confirmed the concept many years later, when he was defending his aesthetics from the charge of being no more than superficial reproduction of reality: “Mais le nome même, la superficialité de la critique et l’ignorance du public aidant, a crée un malentendu qui a fait croire que dans mes bruiteurs il y avaint une intention imitative et espressionniste des bruits de la nature et de la vie. Mon but a été différent. Dans une livre qui j’ai publié en 1916 j’ai dit très clairement que les timbre nouveaux des mes instruments sont seulement une matière abstraite devant servir au musicien.”7