I read this journal on Dadadism as I was interested in what I had lightly read, the ideas of anti-art and freeform process. As well as the Fluxus movement being inspired by it. Here are some quotes.
The shift from the idea of art as a selection of attractive visual objects to art as a vehicle for ideas forced artists and aestheticians to reexamine and modify their thinking about the very concept of art, as well as its practice.
What I take from this into the audio realm, is the idea of art being something, either an object, an album or something. But Dadaism was more an idea that art was a vehicle for ideas and processes. Art was not something to own but something to do and experience.
the main Dadaists were the artists Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia,
Good to know, perhaps further research into these artists can occur.
Both Ball and Huelsenbeck were inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of bourgeois life and aesthetics. Their belief that reason is the enemy of new and vital forms of experience echoed Henri Bergson’s views in Creative Evolution
I think this idea that thinking and reason are the enemies of creativity is something I am on the fence about, perhaps I think that reason pushes art form, but Dadaism is all about overthinking.
From the Futurists, they inherited the manifesto as a means of expression, bruitisme or noise music, and the practice of altered typesetting in the design of their publications. The use of art as social protest was shared with the Expressionists in Germany, and the radical break with the past found in Cubist art was carried further in Dada art. In Munich, Ball had studied with Kandinsky, who experimented with sound poems lacking semantic elements. Such practices were adapted by Ball and others in the Dada performances at Cabaret Voltaire.
All of these practices helped influence the Dada movement and what they inspired to do with their manifesto. The idea of using art as social protest is something I’m interested in, something such as sampling and releasing it regardless is an act of it. The bourgeoisie owns major labels and copyrights of music. I think it’s important to reclaim these works.
Dada represented for Ball, Janco, and their colleagues a way to express their profound sense of rage and grief over the suffering and humiliation of humankind as exemplified in the evolving world war
I think despite the war not happening currently, I do see sampling in a similar light. As something that humiliates these larger musical labels.
They attacked art based on the aesthetics of beauty and art for art’s sake, as well as Futurism, Expressionism, and Cubism, representing modern art. Despite their assault on art, some of the Dadaists (Ball, Janco, Arp, and Schwitters) believed passionately in art as a meaningful instrument of life, and viewed their efforts as a means of social criticism and as a positive search for meaning and substance. Huelsenbeck placed a lesser value on art, as being only one expression of human creativity.
so the battle between art and beauty and importance. The idea of art as something meaningful in life, whereas Huelsenback thought it was not.
Dada embraces both anti-art and art. Anti-art, when applied to Dada, refers to the revolutionary art intended to debunk existing concepts and practices of making art. It represents a reaction to these concepts and practices, although it may incorporate them to achieve a different end. By its nature it entails an element of protest
I see this duality to be important, embracing both art and anti-art. It is a reaction to both things, to both anti-art and art. Or in doing so it becomes anti-art by embracing and entailing an element of the past.
The principal target of this anti-art was the “noble” and “beautiful” art derived from an aesthetic of “art for art’s sake” that was being used in bourgeois society to mask social ills. While aspects of the Dada performances and exhibitions in Cabaret Voltaire and elsewhere were considered anti-art, as were Duchamp’s shovel and urinal, they were at the same time experiments in advancing the future of art forms such as conceptual and abstract art.
When targeting art, and being anti-art. The anti was towards the “noble” or “beautiful” art that existed, and only appreciated for the aesthetic of the art, rather than what it does or can do. Something that was against Dada. Duchamp’s urinal and shovel were advancing the ideas of the conceptual and abstract art form.
An emphasis on the connections between art and life required that art function in relation to other value-related societal practices, including social criticism.
so art was not aesthetic but that art should relate to other things that society practices, such as social criticism or showing a lens to issues or critiquing.
Contemporary Fluxus performances such as Cage’s silent “performance” at the piano and the videocello performances of Paik and cellist Charlotte Moorman would have been quite at home in the era of Dada.
So cage and Fluxus were inspired by the Dada movement and you can tell why, cage and his ideas were coming from this mindset of changing and reflecting on the notions of art and art aesthetic.
Looking at art in its cultural context and linking art practices to political and economic issues, disregarding stringent boundaries among art media, and displacing the artist from the center of attention are common themes in Dada and postmodern art.
Something I feel and fit in, taking the artist away from the centre of attention. More art should be the focus, forgetting the boundaries of law and copyright. Postmodern hip-hop is the exact metaphor for this practice.
