Let's talk about Futurism for a second. (A quick Wikipedia dive and discussion)

Most people hear that word and think it means something like "Predicting the future." or they think "Technology will save us 'kind of people'. " People often confuse Futurists in Futurology (which is trying to predict the future) with Futurists that are in Futurism. You could possibly say that they are distantly related in some ways, but, they are, in fact, separate and generally have nothing to do with each other.

In truth, Futurism its actually an art movement. It started in Italy in 1909 by a poet who wrote the "Manifesto of Futurism" In short, it was a rejection of old, traditional ways of the past. The poet, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, especially hated traditional art and politics. (I should also mention that there were similar movements elsewhere in the world, but we're focusing on Italy as the main place for this topic.)

So, if the movement rejected the old ways of looking at things, what exactly were they for? Being against the traditional is pretty much something anyone can be for. It's too broad to be cohesive. So now we enter into the meat of what the Futurism movement was all about. To quote the Wikipedia article on the subject:

The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism For your reference.)

Ah-ha! So there you have it. They were artists who basically had a hard-on for technology. They loved their shiny, fast, oh-so-modern things. They shunned the past for the modern and the present, reveling in originality and science as well.

The movement touched on pretty much everything art-related from painting to interior design and even cooking. The original manifesto that Marinetti wrote didn't have any artistic direction past "out with the old and in with the new" so in 1914 Futurists created the "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting" which set the art style. Very abstract. VERY acid-tripesc.

Gino Severini, 1912, Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin

Now that we have a more clear understanding of Futurism is lets move on and talk about Futurology just for a moment to clear up the misunderstanding between Futurists (The Futurology type) and Futurists (The artistic type).

Futurology (AKA Future Studies) is in short, trying to predict the future. (Not in the psychic kind of way.) Essentially it looks at science, technology, sociology and other factors to figure out possible futures. Or in Wikipedia's words:

futurology, is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies For reference again.)

It's sometimes described as a pseudo-science by scientists, but whatever your feelings on it are it is a whole different beast from Futurism. The fact that the both groups use the same name to describe themselves is what causes so much confusion. Thus causing people to mix up Futurology with Futurism.

So remember Futurology is trying to predict the future via a variety of factors and Futurism is artists with erections for technology making LSD like paintings. Best not to confuse the two.