This possibility was not fully explored until the influence of Modernism had spread and produced a diversity of practitioners. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a master and later principal of the Bauhaus, was one such figure. As a Constructivist (see page11) Moholy-Nagy was naturally more receptive to the ethic of geometry, structure and function than was Johannes Itten, his predecessor on the Bauhaus foundation course. Itten had been dismissed by Gropius, who had grown dissatisfied with the former's mysticism and interest in Mazdaznan. To the increasingly machine-orientated Bauhaus Moholy-Nagy imparted his belief that the machine was inextricably linked with socialism because it was an absolute. He wrote: "Before the machine, everyone is equal - I can use it, so can you . . . There is no tradition in technology, no consciousness of class or standing. Everybody can be the machine"s master or slave.'19
This belief was widespread amongst Modernists, with Theo Van Doesburg being another notable exponent. Van Doesburg lauded the machine as a medium of social liberation, and denied that handicraft possessed this capability, since handicraft, "under the supremacy of materialism,"20 reduced men to the level of machines. But as Charles Jencks has observed, Van Doesburg's enthusiasm for the machine went beyond its labour-saving potential, it was also based upon its "universalising, abstract quality."21 In Jencks' synopsis, the machine's impersonality enforces equality between its users, which in art would lead to the universal and the abstract. The result would be the realisation of a collective style that was universally valid and comprehensible, based as it was upon the abstract forms of the machine.
Paul Greenhalgh suggests that such an internationalism was central to Modernists' theory and was an inevitable condition of their quest for a "universal human consciousness."22 In order to achieve this, national boundaries had to be disposed of, as well as those between disciplines (such as fine art and design) and political classes. Greenhalgh confirms that the abstract, geometrical aesthetic appealed to Modernists because it could be used as a common language through which different nationalities could arrive at uniform solutions, thereby dissolving national boundaries. 'In its exclusion per se of language, abstraction was the aesthetic which enabled the ethic, internationalism, to be realised.'23
Though he does not use the term, the aesthetic Greenhalgh refers to is that of the machine, since it is derived from and (theoretically) tailored for machine production. I would therefore argue that Modernists associated the aesthetic with internationalism, not only because of its abstract quality, but also because its origins in the machine imbued it with the universal quality that Moholy-Nagy and Van Doesburg recognised in this source.
The practical use of the machine aesthetic's political function is best illustrated by the Russian Constructivist movement. It is perhaps surprising that an aesthetic deriving from the machine - the foundation of capitalism - could flourish in the political climate following the Communist revolution. Loos' idea of the machine as labour-saving device was, of course, central in resolving this dilemma, as was the social liberation and classnessness revealed by Van Doesburg and Moholy-Nagy. Also instrumental, no doubt, was the fact that, in this era, Russia was still largely a rural, peasant country possessing no heavy industry. The negative aspects of the machine would therefore have been less obvious than the myths of its glorious effects.
In this climate of rural poverty and political fervour, the machine seemed capable of transforming society, and the aesthetic became the perfect metaphor for revolution and nation-wide progress. Since this made the aesthetic an invaluable resource for Communist propaganda, many of the leading designers were commissioned to create works that mythologised the revolution. For example, Kotscherguin contributed a Communist poster to an issue of The Red Worker in 1920. Here, an army of revolutionaries is matching with red banners held aloft. The skyline is composed entirely of the dynamic shapes of factories, while the vast sun is drawn as a whirring cog. Penny Sparke has observed the widespread use of the cog and wheel as "graphic icons to suggest how the machine would transform society."24 Further examples include Vavara Stepanova's dynamic textile and clothing designs, such as those completed for LEF magazine in 1923. In the same issue, her husband Rodchenko exhibited logo designs which invoked the iconography of airplanes.
The propagandistic function was soon recognised by the government, and agencies were set up to cultivate it. Proletkult, or the Organisation for Proletarian Culture, had been founded in 1906. Now, in the post-revolutionary era, Constructivists were recruited to create the Agit-Prop propaganda trains and boats that toured the country. These were adorned with Modernist graphic design that could spread the revolutionary message to Russia's largely illiterate population.
Significantly, this situation did not only involve the government manipulating design to its own ends; many of the artists and designers were equally committed to the idea that they could serve the new society. The Constructivist movement was so named because its members saw it as their task to "construct" the environment for a new society in the same way that engineers constructed bridges and so on.25 Proletkult promoted the unity of science, industry, and art: Vladimir Tatlin, for example, believed design was linked to engineering, and saw the designer as an anonymous worker building for society.26 Tatlin's Monument to the Third International (1919-20) reflects this ethos.
This projection for a 400m tall tower (only a scaled-down model was built) clearly represents the union of art and construction - its sculptural form of two intertwining spirals and a soaring diagonal component is rendered in a lattice construction suggestive of engineering. As well as resembling a machine, the tower actually functioned as one: it featured four transparent volumes that rotated at different speeds (yearly, monthly, daily and hourly). These were intended to house government offices for legislation, administration, information and cinematic projection.
It should be pointed out that none of these reasons for interest in the machine aesthetic were mutually exclusive, and individual Modernists did not adhere to it for any single reason. Each partook, to some extent, of most of them. The enthusiasm of the European Functionalists also involved the political interest observed in Constructivism. At the same time, an element of the Futurists' romantic fascination can be detected in the thinking of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus, and all those for whom mass production remained out of reach.
In conclusion, as case after case demonstrates, the Modernists' enthusiasm for the machine aesthetic continued to be of an ideological rather than a practical nature. The machine was embraced as an idea by designers who failed to grasp the realities of mass production. Since their aesthetic was therefore inspired by the machine but not adapted to it, in many cases this actually impeded its realisation. This is highlighted by the examples of Futurism, Constructivism and even aspects of the Bauhaus, where numerous schemes could not be put into practice.
However, the importance of the machine aesthetic within Modernism should not be underestimated; it was practised so widely, indeed constituted an International Style, precisely because it was deemed to be the ideal and most logical way of realising the central tenets upon which Modernism was founded. These included truth, internationalism, function, attunement with the age, and so on. The belief that the aesthetic was universally valid is reflected by the great variety of uses to which it was applied, such as Utopian, political, economic etc. For this reason it is no exaggeration to say that, for the Modernists, it was not a question of aesthetics at all, but of a Machine Ethic.
