We’re living in Post-Humanist times.
Hybrid representations of human bodies, deliberately centered on metamorphosis, ambiguity and fragmentation, have become a focal theme of the recent contemporary arts productions and related debates at the crossroads of science, politics and philosophy.
At Fondazione Cirulli of San Lazzaro di Savena (Bologna), Architetture del Corpo - Body Architectures - a new section from the Archivio Animato, exhibition format conceived by Jeffrey Schnapp of Harvard University on the idea that collections and archives are forever in process, offer us a glimpse on the revolutionary approach operated by Futurism during the first half of the Twentieth Century in the representation of the human figure.
Recent studies have pointed out that, strongly attracted by the aesthetic experience that comes from the relationship with machines and technology, Futurists developed a forerunner Post-Human and mechanomorphic universe in which man is exalted by virtue of his technical skills and transfigured by artificial forms.
Through their intuition of the impact new technologies have on the shape of body and mind, they inaugurated an age, to quote Jeffrey Schnapp: “where the life of machines is part of the life of society, but also where machines have agency, machines are actors.”
Thayaht (Ernesto Michaelles), Ballerina volante 1928, sculpture
Thayaht (Ernesto Michaelles), Progetto per scultura - Ballerina volante 1920, pencil and pastel on paper
Thayaht (Ernesto Michaelles), Bagnante o Fosco 1922, pencil and red pastel on paper
Thayaht (Ernesto Michaelles), Studi per profilo 1930 c., pencil on paper