Dadaism emerged in the early 20th century, an art movement fueled by the rejection of modern capitalist society, denying its logic and reason, in particular to violence and war hence the birth of a movement in retaliation to World War I. While the origins of the name remain unsubstantiated, a popular belief (and truly, my favorite) is that the keyword “dada” is meant to illicit a childlike nonsensical association, the way that absurdity seems to heighten at the prospect of attempting to morph a baby’s babble into categorical logic. Although, as a student of psychology, the prospect is unlikely to be portrayed as unfathomable in the world of hypotheses and repetitive madness of methods. If I’m sending you on a mind-trip, I want you to know that I am on one, too.
Applying Dadaism to the root of most abstract human thought, religion, it is interesting to gather that for a movement so insistent on proving no sense exists in their expression there appears to be a great deal of purpose which leads me to question the perspective of a religious person versus an atheist.
A religious person may use the art form, such as the video above, as proof of God. Words are not necessary to create meaning, the nonsense perceived through human experience may support the idea of an intangible God implementing purpose in every creation whether that be an abstract idea or a tangible form.
On the other end of the spectrum, an atheist may argue we imply meaning thus being in control of our perception in contrast to a neutral sensory stimuli. The video above is simply a construction of sounds and comparing the experience between two individuals of similar ability with various controls in place (i.e., hearing able, one individual does not have greater expertise in music or defining sounds than the other) will most likely conclude two different experiences. Our minds place bias on the auditory stimuli, and we begin to question the emotive tone of the sounds, whether a pattern existed and if the stress of certain sounds translated into an excited quality or one of anger, and we question the gender of the voice, and how that applies to the concept of the video. Case in point, a strong argument defying God’s existence relates to the human mind governing our perception rather than logic and greater purpose existing in external sensory stimuli.
Dadaism has inspired enough debates to outlast humanity, but another fascinating effect of Dadaism includes the development of art techniques. Ambiguity is a highlighted characteristic, both in technical application and interpretation.
There are arguments that suggest Dadaism triggered World War II, and it leads primarily to the idea of European ethnocentrism and its destruction of humanity. I have no idea if the argument holds any weight on either side.
confessions of a con artist 