Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy. Key figures of the movement include the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Tullio Crali and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Important works include its seminal piece of the literature, Marinetti's Manifesto of Futurism, as well as Boccioni's sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Balla's painting, Abstract Speed + Sound (pictured). Futurism influenced art movements such as Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, and to a greater degree, Rayonism and Vorticism.

Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but is most often understood to refer to painting, film, photography, sculpture, and other visual media. Music, theatre, dance, literature, and interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts are distinguished from acquired skills in general.

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

Luigi Russolo (30 April 1883 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of "noise concerts" in 1913–14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921.

Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist. His 1913 manifesto, L'Arte dei Rumori, translated as The Art of Noises, stated that the industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. Russolo found traditional melodic music confining and envisioned noise music as its future replacement.

The Art of Noises classified "noise-sound" into six groups:

He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori and assembled a noise orchestra to perform with them. A performance of his Gran Concerto Futuristico (1917) was met with strong disapproval and violence from the audience, as Russolo himself had predicted. None of his intoning devices have survived, though recently some have been reconstructed and used in performances. Although Russolo's works bear little resemblance to modern noise music, his pioneering creations cannot be overlooked as an essential stage in the evolution of the several genres in this category, and many artists are now familiar with his manifesto.

Giovanni Lista is an Italian art historian and art critic born in Italy on February 13, 1943 at Castiglione del Lago (Perugia) and now living in Paris. He is a specialist in the artistic cultural scene of the 1920s, particularly in Futurism.

His university studies took place in Italy and in France and he settled permanently in Paris in February 1970.

While teaching at the university, he became a researcher at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) in 1974. After being associated with the research laboratories directed by Denis Bablet and Louis Marin, he was appointed Director of Research in 1992.

He founded the review Ligeia, dossiers sur l'art (Ligeia, Art Dossiers), in 1988. Its name is taken from the myth of the Greek siren cited by Plato.

A member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and SGDL (Society of Men of Letters of France), in 1989 was rewarded the Georges Jamati Prize for the best essay on the theatre, arts and social science published in France; in 2002 the Filmcritica Prize for the best essay on cinema and photography published in Italy; in 2002 he also received the Giubbe Rosse Prize for the best literary biography essay published in Italy ; in 2010, he was awarded the Venetian Academy Silver Medal for the lectio magistralis (keynote speech) delivered at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In France, in April 2011, the Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand awarded him the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. In Italy, in June 2011, President Giorgio Napolitano awarded him the title of Chevalier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.