In his sculpture, shown above, 'Unique Forms of Continuity' (1913), the futurist sculptor Umberto Boccioni attempted to illustrate the interaction of a moving object with the space that surrounded which, he believed, “is achieved through the intuitive search for the one single form which produces continuity in space”. He coined the term Plastic dynamism, describing it as “the simultaneous action of the motion characteristic of an object (its absolute motion), mixed with the transformation which the object undergoes in relation to its mobile and immobile environment (its relative motion).”

Instead of the concept of a sharp differentiation of bodies, Boccioni substituted a “concept of dynamic continuity as the only form… since dynamic form is a species of fourth dimension, both in painting and sculpture, which cannot exist perfectly without the complete concurrence of those three dimensions which determine volume: height, width, depth.”

Text by Richard Bright.