3 Boomerangs: Cop Cars On Fire

Futurism is a word that is used to such optimistic ends that we sometimes need reminding that its origins as an aesthetic movement are both anti-feminist and fascist. The futurism of the early 20th Century fetishized the image of the automobile as the pinnacle of human excellence, a thing so powerful and masculine that it would inevitably hurl us into a golden age of might, and efficiency. Though the goals of futurism remain largely the same the popular meaning of the word has become obscured as to become synonymous with “innovation” or “progress.” In the early 21st century the police, one could argue, have become the avatar for the traits once associated with the futurist movement: power, brutality, and speed. The fire merges these 20th and 21st Century signifiers, and collapses the time in between.