ARTIFICIAL HELLS

artificial hells
I. Provocation, Press and Participation
In the light of subsequent innovations in twentieth- century theatre, it is
commonplace to think of Futurism’s approach to performance as conventional,
based as it is on a proscenium division between performers and
audience, with roles clearly allocated between the two. However, it is
important to remember that what was being presented in this context were
not traditional plays but brief actions in a variety of media that anticipate
what we now call performance art: these serate (Italian for ‘evening party’
or soirée) usually included recitations of political statements and artistic
manifestos, musical compositions, poetry and painting. 1 The first serata
took place on 12 January 1910 at Politeama Rossetti in Trieste, but it was
not until the third serata (on 8 March 1910, at the Chiarella in Turin) that
visual artists were involved: Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà and Luigi
Russolo appeared onstage during this event, having met the poet Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti (1876– 1944) less than a month before. It is telling that
the literature on Futurist serate pays less attention to the individual
performances than to their overall effect on the audience: verbal descriptions
convey the impression of complete chaos, as do visual records – such
as Boccioni’s Caricature of a Futurist Serata (1910) and Gerardo Dottori’s
Futurist Serata in Perugia (1914), in which paintings are shown on stage
amid a flurry of projectiles from the audience. However, the evenings
were not without structure. The Grande Serata Futurista, held at the
Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 9 March 1913, was divided into three clear
Gerardo Dottori, Futurist Serata in Perugia, 1914. Ink on paper.
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