Milczenie – „antytradycja futurystyczna”

The article outlines the various roles that figures of silence play in texts by Italian futurists and the avant-garde responses by female futurists, conveyed in a horizon of linguistic, sonic, visual, and performative signs and figures. In futurist manifestos – full of urban noise and shouting – silence marks the field of a “futurist anti-tradition” (G. Apollinaire), becoming the negative starting point of programmatic texts concerning literature (F.T. Marinetti), music (L. Russolo), painting, sculpture, and architecture (C. Carrà, U. Boccioni, A. Sant’Elia). However, the matters looks different when we consider female futurists’ voices, in which “wordless states” are more than just a negative opposite to the scream and noise affirmed by futurism. In works by Mina Loy or Benedetta Cappa Marinetti the textual figures of silence often become an ironic critical response to the shout-filled texts by male futurists.