What Dick Higgins writes about in "Horizons" is what it takes to become avant garde and what the avant garde eventually becomes. The section entitled "The Erotic of Fusion" was my favorite as I found it interesting how Higgins related art to a religious experience and that the avant garde is a kind of new hope in that religion. The talk of fusing two forms together to make an art that is unrecognizable was very cool. I did however find the article a bit scholarly which made it somewhat difficult to read. It also felt to me that Higgins was a bit self aggrandizing. When he talks about the significance of his own work (see page 10) and when he asked Paul De Man about his work, I felt it was a little pompous.
Where as Higgins was into discussing, F.T. Marinetti was about doing. He basically said death to all that is old and gave a call to arms to all that is new. I liked this article much more as it had a very live fast and die young type of attitude. I may not agree with what Marinetti wrote but I like the way in which it was presented.
The question I thought of when reading both articles was that, do we really need to learn from the past, or can we just create from our surroundings?
I completely agree with you
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