in Art”. The “cult of the machine” became an increasingly utopic concept within Cubo-Futurist circles, with artists perceiving the idyllic phenomenon of machine production as the foremost “proletariat creation” due to its ability to help construct an equitable, collective life for all people regardless of class. This ideological conception of utopic perfection through machinery significantly impacted the stylistic elements of the Cubo-Futurist movement, influencing artists to experiment with pure abstraction, geometric shapes, harsh lines and planes, and the deconstruction of organic forms into powerful structures infused with machine symbolism. Impact of Russian art collectors At the top of early 20th century Russia’s deep social, political, and class divisions were a small group of elite aristocrats and businessmen. With considerable access to international art markets and dealers, they assembled significant number European masterpieces of the early 20th century for their own personal collections. Collectors and patrons, Sergei Shchukin (1854–1936) and Ivan Morozov (1871–1921), paid special attention to Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Fauvist, Cubist, and Futurist art from all over Europe amassing a large selection of momentous works, and consequently introducing local Russian artists to art movements, techniques, and styles popular around the continent. Shchukin’s collection included a considerable number of Picassos, Matisses, Cezannes, Monets, and Gauguins, thus allowing artists in St. Petersburg and Moscow access to Cubist and Futurist artworks that would later influence the development of the Cubo-Futurist movement. ==='Hylea' and the impact of F.T. Marinetti's 'Futurist Manifesto''' === While Cubo-Futurism was first named and identified in 1913, the movement can be traced back to a congregation of Russian artists who called themselves 'Soyuz Molodyozhi' ('Union of Youth’) in 1910. The group was brought together by the Ukrainian painter and poet David Burliuk (1882–1967) under the name ‘budetlyane' (a Russian interpretation of the western term ‘futurists’), inspired by Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's (1876–1944) 1909 Futurist Manifesto. Marinetti’s work espoused the need for creatives (e.g. artists and writers) to abandon the past by moving towards the utilisation of the aesthetic language of machinery, industrialisation, urban living, and utilitarian design. For Marinetti and those that followed him, the futurist movement stood for freedom, collectivity, perfection, and social rejuvenation. Influenced by the Futurist Manifesto, the aesthetics of dislocation and fragmentation became the vocabulary of the Cubo-Futurists in their attempt to interrogate the tireless and repetitive dynamism of technology, and highlight their fantasies of a utopic mechanical modernity. The Cubo-Futurists combined the modernist, cosmopolitan spirit of