The emergence of the Futurist movement in art in 1909 grew out of a fascination with the new machine. The aesthetic core of this movement focused on the seductive beauty of speed, and the multifarious possibilities for the future resulting from the verile dynamism of technology. This new machine age, characterized by the motor car and revolutionary techniques in warfare, was not seen as disparate from an exaltation of the human potential. Contrarily, Futurists viewed the machine as an expression of a new dynamic humanism which would inspire the race to aggressively actualize new and radical realities of power. Set in the context of pre-World War One Europe, the early Futurists had not yet experienced the destruction and chaos which would become their world during and after the mass turmoil of the War.

Filippo Marinetti composed the 'Futurist Manifestio' in 1909. In it he revealed a passion for the future. Marinetti, and the early Futurists, desired the integration of the powerful new machine with the innate power of man (with the intentional exclusion of women). They believed that this integration would result not in the subordination of humanity to technology, but instead would result in man's exaltation. The aesthetics of Futurist art were the aesthetics of power. Through art and the machine man would be glorified in his dominance. In their aggression the Futurists believed they would create and control the eternal velocity of the impossible.