Tough one... were they ever comprehensively connected in a philosophical sense? I'm certainly no expert, but one seems to be more of a philosophically led movement, while Punk was more a youth driven culture focussed more on image than actual action. I see similarities, but does it follow that one actually led, or directly influenced the other?

One can find a connection in punk rock to any artistic movement. The only official qualification: outsider. There was a sad moment around 1979 when the "sound" and the "scene" became codified.

Perhaps Nervous Gender were futurists without knowing it, as well as Kraftwerk, Eno, The Screamers, etc. We were punks, not Italian postwar drug addicts. Certain traditions were honored…

pbc

All ideas, theories and statements are subject to change without notice.

I guess what Irene is trying to achieve is the aesthetic and stylistic connections between art movements like futurism/early XX century avant-garde and the so-called "punk rock" era of the late Seventies. That reminds me of a book by Greil Marcus, "Lipstick Traces", which deals exactly with this matter (Irene, an Italian translation of the book was published in 1991 but is now out of stock: "Tracce di rossetto. Percorsi segreti nella cultura del 900 dal Dada ai Sex-pistols"). In many ways, the early (English) punk philosophy has its roots in XX century movements like french Situationism (though a more proletarian side was certainly central in it), which I believe Malcolm McLaren knew well.

Regarding Peter Saville, his graphical and aesthetical minimalistic approach should be considered more as belonging to the the post punk/new wave era than the punk movement itslef, which to me is fully and gloriously represented by the "do it yourself" approach of Jaime Reid.

"Only when the design fails does it draw attention to itself; when it succeeds, it's invisible." (John D. Berry)

It's not an original connection -- Futurism: Proto Punk?.

I got this via this Futurism links page -- although I'm a little upset by the line "Too bad they were all Fascists." (Which may be factually true, but hopefully unrelated to the art. Hey, wasn't everybody at that time?)

OTOH perhaps that's the connection: Punk -> Vyvyan -> Rick -> "Fascists!"