Dada Manifesto

One of the first things I noticed about the “Dada Manifesto” is its sheer and utter honesty. It reminds me of two free form styles of writing, one known as “Free Verse”, the other called “Stream of Consciousness”. The latter is more of a way of letting the words flow without trying to control them or their meaning. However, both styles are related to a sense of freeing one's self from poetic norms.

The tradition can be traced back to the Beat Generation, specifically in writers like Allen Ginsberg.

An excerpt from Allen Ginsberg's Howl:

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”

Ironically one of my favorite poets/songstresses employs this style (Patti Smith).

Patti Smith's Babelogue (From the album 'Easter'):

"I haven't fucked much with the past, but I've fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I've caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a lock of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I'd surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn't bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the Sun. I desire Him, and He is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; In heart I am Moslem, in heart I'm an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient letters. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God."

The quote I chose from the Dada Manifesto is:

“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.”~ Hugo Ball

In essence, this is the meaning of Dada. The word itself is nonsense. It is an “International word” whose meaning changes from country to country; And from person to person. Basically, “Dada” can mean anything you want it to. The artist is the creator.

The repression of art by the Nazi regime indubitably helped to create this sentiment. Those artists affected by World War I and II went on a quest to re-discover who they were. This time they didn't have the proverbial Big Brother breathing down their shoulder, telling them how they could feel and how they could express that feeling through their art. Creating their art and the philosophical foundations on which their movement stood was like learning to walk again. Learning to think again. Becoming human again.

Almost as a rebellious afterthought, the Dadaist sought to discombobulate the foundations of art in theory and practice and to piece it back together in a manner suiting the individual (As he or she wanted). Therefore, as no two people have the same fingerprint, the meaning of Dada literally changed from one person to another.

In fact, if there is one unifying theme that all of the Dada artists have in common, it is that they sought to convey a message; Very often a political one. Many Dada works are a scrapbook-like collection of cut-out words and images, rather than and in comparison to the expertly crafted and detailed works in the other artistic genres of their day, such as Expressionism, Realism, and New Objectivity.

This quote reminds me of why I admire non-carbon copy art, especially music. I love the idea of feeling another person's experiences through their words and music. If there is a lack of experimentation in music, such as in the oversexualized or watered down genres that are popular on a mainstream level, there is an almost a numbing effect. We listen to them but we don't feel them. Songs go in one ear and out of the other.

Nowadays, a lot of music is carbon copy because it can be easily marketed to the masses. Obviously there are many exceptions. This is just a generalization. But I also think it used to be more true a few decades ago than it is now. (Experimental music is more lucrative now).

I can't remember their name, but I remember hearing a story about a music executive that listened to a band, noted its Heavy Metal sound and wanted to bring them in for a record deal. But upon seeing that they were of African descent took back the decision because he didn't know how to market them.

The Music industry is still in some ways based on its own set of Classical notions; That there are certain types of people who listen to and make certain types of music and that music that sells can only be made in a prescriptive formulaic way (Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, etc).