Founded in late 2007, the original Neo Futurist Collective brought together a group of highly accomplished artists to celebrate urban noise in all its visual and aural forms.

Inspired by the Milan Futurists and the Art of Noises manifesto (Luigi Russolo, 1913), as well the poetics of the Dada movement, the collective remain arch-modernists; united in the hope of a positive future where technology, art and humanity will unite to overcome pessimism, despondency and futile utopianism in all its spurious forms.

ReAwakenings

We asked “How can we respond to a pivotal artistic moment in 1914 – the first performance of the revolutionary noise symphony Awakening of a City by Luigi Russolo?” Created in the build-up to the First World War, this most modern of works was composed for Russolo’s intonarumori (or noise makers); but only the first seven bars of the printed score remain. In a series of ReAwakenings inspired by the original work, beginning with the launch of The Manifesto of Neo-Futurism (2008) and ending with CarTet for Vehicles of Italian Manufacture (2013) on the 100th anniversary of the Art of Noises manifesto, we attempted to transform the everyday language of urban sounds and visual noise into performances, exhibitions and interventions that questioned assumptions about the nature of beauty in a modern world of information overload.

The Future

Since those heady days of the “early noughties. With the economics of austerity steadily unpicking the social democratic contract across Europe, in 2012 we developed The Ballad of Skinny Lattes and Vintage Clothing, marking a shift towards a more overt artivism underpinned by political satire. Inspired by the “opportunities” of neo-liberalism, we have responded by exploring ways to make the avant garde more accessible and challenging at the same time, utilising the form and language of vaudeville and vintage pop culture – something of which the Milan Futurists would have surely approved.

Artistic Director and Founder, Giuseppe Marinetti “conceptual politician & radical crooner” and CEO of the fictional Skinny Vintage Investment Corporation curates and manages each project and delivers work in partnership with creative producers Surrealist Taxi AKA O’Neill Ross AKA Fruit for the Apocalypse. Artworks are realised online as well as in a physical space, often using dedicated project websites to archive each new work, as well as adding a significant measure of digital engagement to our practice.

In 2014-15, we created Revolution #10 – a public art participatory project about the importance of democracy, with the creation of A People’s Manifesto in response to the UK General Election in May 2015. We presented the work at the House of Commons in March 2015, hosted by Caroline Lucas MP.

In 2018, we unveiled our 10 year retrospective exhibition Make Futurism Great Again, accompanied by a programme of workshops, publications and events at Estorick Collection in London. On the 16th October 2018 at The Final Noise salon, the collective wilfully self-destructed!