THE “CHAIR CANING”, “L'OMBRE DU SOLEIL” & MR. R. MUTT’S URINAL: THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE AVANTGARDISTS’ INTERART PRACTICES

Abstract

The hybrid art forms of the collage, visual poetry and the “found objects” are among the highest manifestation of what Peter Bürger saw as “revolutionizing of art” by the historical avant-garde and what Michael Webster termed the “hybridization and contamination of art forms”. Walter Benjamin posed the question of the impact that technological development has on artistic practices, suggesting that new inventions like photography, the phonograph, or the cinema changed the very notion of art itself. Critics notwithstanding, the present paper intends to illuminate the artists’ view on the issue. To do this, I discuss works by Picasso, Apollinaire and Duchamp, among others.