Artistic Revolution - Can you say Dada?

Nudes Descending Staircase - Marcel Duchamp

In 1916 Europe was fraught with war and unrest and in the midst of this chaos there rose an artistic movement in Switzerland called Dada or Dadaism. In the years 1916-1922 the movement grew in Europe and captured the hearts and minds of artists and writers alike.

Hugo Ball was one of many who expressed disgust with the war and with the interests it inspired. On July 14, 1916 he delivered this Dada Manifesto:

Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse". In German it means "good-bye", "Get off my back", "Be seeing you sometime". In Romanian: "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right". And so forth.

An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza.

How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.

I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche. Dada m'dada. Dada mhm dada da. It's a question of connections, and of loosening them up a bit to start with. I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr Schulz's words are only two and a half centimetres long.

It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat meows . . . Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn't let too many words out. A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers' hands, hands worn smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words.

Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.

You have artists to thank for having a pot to piss in.

Watching a documentary the other evening on artists, from painters to writers to musicians, it is interesting to see that really freedom is what they are all about. Freedom to express themselves in their individual art forms. They don't want a bigger, better government - a government telling them what art to produce - they want freedom of expression.

Seldom do they want war, they have no vested interest in it. Their art is made with paint, words and music - not bullets. I look at all that is going on in the world today and wonder if in actuality that our saviors aren't in fact the artists themselves - perhaps it is time for us to say Dada, Dada - help me please!

This could be me and how I feel today, a bit disjointed, at odds with myself. Frustrated with my government that isn't making sense to me. "America, love it or leave it!" Come on, that's the easy way out. "America, love it and work to see it accepts basic human rights responsibility." That's the hard route - the bumpy road - but damn it, that's road I choose to travel!

And yes, I am very much appreciated that I live in a country that hasn't pulled my Internet plug - just so you know. But as I demand the best from my children, can I expect less from my government?