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War as Spectacle. AI art Introduction In the early twentieth century, the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti founded Futurism, a movement that exalted speed, machinery, and violence as sources of artistic inspiration. A fervent nationalist and later an open supporter of Mussolini, Marinetti gave cultural expression to fascist ideology by fusing aesthetics with warfare. His Manifesto of the Colonial War in Ethiopia (1935) exemplifies this tendency: it glorified Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia as both a civilizing mission and a technological adventure. Around the same time, Walter Benjamin was formulating his critique of modern art and politics. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (1935–36), he warned that fascism transforms political life into spectacle, channeling collective energies into the destructive theater of war. These texts, though written from opposing standpoints, share a common concern with the relation between art, technology, and human d...

AI generated image     “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves… The logical outcome of Fascism is an aestheticizing of political life. Communism responds by politicizing art .”  Walter Benjamin Introduction In the closing lines of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935), Walter Benjamin delivers his most cited political opposition: “The logical outcome of Fascism is an aestheticizing of political life. Communism responds by politicizing art” (Benjamin, 1969, p. 242). For Benjamin, fascism’s strategy was to mesmerize the masses through spectacle while preserving existing property relations; communism’s alternative was to redirect artistic production toward political struggle. Brilliant as this opposition appeared in its own day, hinds...