What does it mean to be a Dadaist? If you've taken art history in college, chances are you've heard of it. To most, it is A small blurb of a contemporary art movement that gets not more than a question or two on the final exam. Often truncated as some hair brained anarchistic ideology, What lies beneath the surface of Dadaism, may amaze you.
So is there a real significance to this movement? Does it represent some fundamental and universally natural return to chaos? Or does its' real mystery lie in its interconnected quality. Very few people seem to know about Dadaism, even amongst artists and scholars. Some know little more than that Dadaism represents a cultural shock display, with a definite attempt to repulse or confound the audience. There is so much more beneath the surface of Dada. An entire doctrine of philosophy that shares an affinity with Buddhism.
Dadaism ties into more archetypal or basic themes in your life, than you might ever have dreamed.
You may even come to find that you INDEED are a lost Dadaist, just waiting to join the movement.
you MAY NOT.
Dadaism shares many affinities with Daoism, holistic medicine, and shamanic ritual. By rejecting the moral values and cultural paradigms, Dadaism is most importantly, a return to the self. Dadaism is a rejection of consumerism, materialism , egoism and patriarchal male dominator cultural values, and a return to archaic felt presence and expressionism.
Marsden Hartley, a 1920's Dadaist proclaimed "I have no office, no obligation, no other "mission", dreadfullest of all words, than to find out the quality of humor that exists in experience"
So it goes...
What Hartley meant, is that you cant help but laugh at how pathetically and desperately, the ego tries to explain and control reality. It boggles the mind into an ecstatic laughter like state.
Dadaism even goes as far as to reject other forms of art as well as the ego. For a true dadaist in his mind possesses a knowing. A gnosis of divine experience. What the Dadaist inherently knows is that our ego controls the way we think, how we feel, gives rise to fear, insecurity, doubt, and blinds us with vanity, avarice, desire and loathing. Many forms of art in todays culture represents a collective sickness of the mind of man. This is what draws us to art, and comedy. For most forms of art are a reflection of the ego on our self. The reflection of bad habits, behaviors and pre conceived notions pollute art with senseless idiocy.
"I have felt, and now actually more than ever in my existence, the fatality of habit indulged in by the artist." what Hartley was saying is the artists ego manipulates art to reflect its own fears , habits, pathologies, and conditions. Dadaism is an escape from that. It is a return to self, every day of your waking life.
Dadaism is the catalyst for daily self expression. Dadaism is not quite art, it is not quite science. But pardoxically like both art and science, it is a witty, whimsical and satisfying hobby. It is an expression of the true self. The god mind. The way art intrinsically mimics the reality of life and the felt experience. life is a mystery that can never be solved while still alive. The only way to treat its peculiarity is with laughter and awareness.
Dadaism is crumbling the foundations of our modern society, denouncing Ego driven materialism, and madness, and replacing the house of cards with a house of brick and mortar. In this sense, we must never let go of the Dada spirit. Because Dada, is Divinity. Dada is Atonement. Dada is a reflection of the duality of reality. ( I hate to sound corny, but its too late for that now, pay attention)
Dada is..... EVERYTHING. And paradoxically NOTHING. NOTHING... NOTHING.
It's the reason why the 60's happened.
Its the reason why Pink Floyd's "THE WALL" sold more than 50 million albums worldwide
It's the reason why women take their bras off and proclaim "I AM WOMAN,"
Its the reason why we treasure things that last, over things that fade, and break with ease. For the true nature of reality really is forever. And while we learn to love, and forget how to hate, and reject the modern consumer culture, and dance voraciously and archaically amongst the counterculture, we still go on asking ourselves...."WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?"
It is at this point , in which we realize what is happening here. The Walls of Egoism are hotly being erected in plastic delusions to try and arrive at an answer. But the self destroys the wall with hearty laughter and apt amusement. For we can never know, what the secret of life is, confined within the medium of the ego mind. I am no psychologist, but I would venture to guess that their best guess as to why the ego exists is a natural defense mechanism. A survival instinct. A way to calm the fear of not knowing.
If im not getting through to you yet, then please sirs and madams, I do ask if you are not focusing your energy on this single pointed idea. There should be no complexity in understanding what I am trying to tell you. I am simply trying to tell you that we are forever. We are the god mind. The Self which lies trapped beneath the egoism of our culture, is set free, when we die. Because the only emotion that exists on the other side, is love. The only ideology, is understanding. And to use my ego for atleast one useful purpose, it would be to say
"...And we will live as kings forever flying through the cosmos."
This is not a dream.
LIFE... REALLY is just a fantasy. Eternity is truth. Truth, is FOREVER.
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