Definition –

Artistic movement in modern art that began around World War 1. It was meant to ridicule the meaninglessness of modern life and society. It was thought to start in Zürich, Switzerland, but it also flourished the most in Paris, France. Ultimately, this movement led to other artistic movements and styles such as surrealism, pop art and punk rock.

Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. It began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter. Originally, the movement began due to the negative reacions of WW2. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality, and intuition, sharing similar traits and themes to the latter movements it was a catalyst to.

In relation to society –

• Emphasized protest activities, despair regarding Great War
• Values, reason, logic had been responsible for the war
• Art purpose to enrage and engage audience
• Rebels against everything, anti-everything
• Total anarchists- work anti-art, defying reason
• Dadaism was nihilistic, anti-aesthetic, ran to rationalization, rules, and conventions of mainstream art
• Many DADA artist’s considered work “Anti-Art” or art that defied reason
• First to ask the question what is art? Who defines it?

Dadaism Artists/ influencers –

Although not directly associated with the dada movement, Marcel Duchamp was a prominent artist during the time of the movement and did have a massive impact on Dadaism. One reason why he is associated with the Dada movement would be his disregard for popular ‘art’ of the time, such as his rejection of many pieces of work by other artists such as Henri Matisse, claiming they are intended to only please the eye, whereas he used his pieces in order to explore, engage and serve the mind of its viewers. The most prominent example of Duchamp’s association with Dada was his submission of Fountain, a urinal, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917. Artworks in the Independent Artists shows were not selected by jury, and all pieces submitted were displayed. However, the show committee insisted that Fountain was not art, and rejected it from the show. This caused an uproar among the Dadaists, and led Duchamp to resign from the board of the Independent Artists.

In relation to my piece –

Dadaism focuses on the more abstract areas of photography and art, such as the challenging of nationalism, rationalism, materialism, and other threatening “isms”. As my film is going to focus on the rebellion against ‘sexism’ ‘genderism’, many ideas and artists related to dadaism and the movement would be able to influence my work, such as Marcel Duchamp. In addition to this, the abstract theme which is very common in ‘Dada’ pieces of work should be prominent in my film due to the (intentional) lack of colour and explanation, which should allow the audience to generate their own ideas and beliefs whilst also being influenced by mine via moving image photography.