TRANSCENDINGTHE BOUNDARIES OF THE'ISMS': PURSUING MODERNITY THROUGH THE MACHINE IN 19205 AND 19305 IAPANESE AVANT-GARDE ART Chinghsin Wu In the 1920s and 1930s, the machine became a popularconcept that was widely discussed in relation to numerousgenres of art, including the fine arts, graphic design,architecture, film, literature, and photography. The machine, as a neutral, quintessentially modern subjectmatter that was not bound by a preexistingaesthetics inherited from traditional genres of arts, was able to transcend the boundaries betweenvarious artistic 'isms' and retain its popularity asthe subjectof both artistic representa- tion and art-theoretical discourse. From the middle 1920s, Mekanizumu (Mechanism), kikai bigaku (the aesthetics of the machine), or kikai- shugi(Machine-ism) became phrases that critics frequently usedto talk aboutart.t The concept of the machine was often connectedwith the idea of a bright and optimistic future or praised as a new fresh, and unconven- tional image.By applying themselves to this new subjectmatter, artists would be ableto escape the bonds of traditional modesof representa- tion and achieve a revolutionary expression. |apanese art critics and artists viewed the machine as an important element in the develop- ment of different 'isms' in the history of avant-garde art. To their dis- cussions of the application of mechanical elements in art, these critics often brought a sense of evolution and describeda narrative of prog- ress. In other words, they viewed the changing role of the machine in the history of avant-gardeart as a progressive processof constant improvement, in which later periods and new developments were more advanced and better than what had come before. On the other hand, the fraught and complicated relationshipbetween humans and machines,and a simultaneousembraceof and resistance againsta highly industrialized and mechanizedmodernity can also be I SeeOmuka Toshiharu, 'Mekanizumu no suimyaku [The Lineage of Mechanism]l Nihon no avangyarudo geijutsu: mavo to sono jidai [)apanese Avant-garde Art: The Era of Mavol (Tokyo, Seidosha, 2001), 285-318. A