The Dada Art Movement begin as a protest movement agaisnt WWI and the horrors that it entailed
The artists and writers involved, many of which whom were exiled at the time saw the concepts of Nationalism, Rationalism and Materialism as entirely repsonsible for the war. In repsonse these artists sought to breakaway from traiditional ‘establishment’ art and instead started to produce more contemporary and politically based pieces of art, known as ‘non- art by non-artists’
The art produced although serious in its intentions is witiful, comical and has a ‘ridiculus factor to it’. For example of famous piece of Dada Art is Marcel Duchamps sculpture ‘Fountain’, which literally is a public urinal with a signature scribbled on it
Tom uses the obseen nature of the Dada movement as a key influence of his own work, espacially the element of comedy within art
Situationism
The situationalist movement (1957-1971) was the artistic faction of the Socialist Internationalist (SI) Movement. This was a political movement which supported a democratic form of Marxism and rejected Capitalism as a result of the inequalities and suppression that resulted.
The art involved was very satirical, consisting mostly of posters, painting and photographs alongside a small message which subtly criticized and brought attention to major issues in society
Although Marxist the movement was heavily against the oppressive regime of the USSR, and the artists sought to actively condemn the regime through their messages.
A key concept of the situationalist theory is the idea of the ‘spectacle’. This term is used to describe how society is controlled by material possession.
Tom’s work uses situationalist concepts in his own work. For example his ‘Time Bound’ experiment explores how material possession (e.g. clocks) control people’s behaviors, in that case the measurement of time.
Physco-Geography
Another type of influence that Tom explores in his work is Phyco-Geography. In this method, the photographer will ‘drift’ spontaneously around the environment to wherever they choose either consciously or sub-consciously
Tom spoke of an observational project he did based on creating a paper areoplane and throwing it around an art gallery, and wherever the areoplane landed is where he would view the next image
Drifting is a way of the photographer guiding what they shoot based on instinct. It is a random process that means that if done properly, the photographer’s work will always remain original and exciting, because they are not influenced by any external guidance or pressure, only by thoughts which are spontaneous.
