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The ABC's of DADA (3 of 3)

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Uploaded by on May 22, 2007

EXCERPTS FROM DADA TEXTS:

I know that you have come here today to hear explanations. Well, don't expect to hear any explanations about Dada. You explain to me why you exist. You haven't the faintest idea. You will say: I exist to make my children happy. But in your hearts you know that isn't so. You will say: I exist to guard my country, against barbarian invasions. That's a fine reason. You will say: I exist because God wills. That's a fairy tale for children. You will never be able to tell me why you exist but you will always be ready to maintain a serious attitude about life. You will never understand that life is a pun, for you will never be alone enough to reject hatred, judgments, all these things that require such an effort, in favor of a calm level state of mind that makes everything equal and without importance.

Dada is not at all modern. It is more in the nature of a return to an almost Buddhist religion of indifference. Dada covers things with an artificial gentleness, a snow of butterflies released from the head of a prestidigitator. Dada is immobility and does not comprehend the passions. You will call this a paradox, since Dada is manifested only in violent acts. Yes, the reactions of individuals contaminated by destruction are rather violent, but when these reactions are exhausted, annihilated by the Satanic insistence of a continuous and progressive "What for?" what remains, what dominates is indifference. But with the same note of conviction I might maintain the contrary.

Dada is here, there and a little everywhere, such as it is, with its faults, with its personal differences and distinctions which it accepts and views with indifference. We are often told that we are incoherent, but into this word people try to put an insult that it is rather hard for me to fathom. Everything is incoherent.

Dada is a state of mind. That is why it transforms itself according to races and events. Dada applies itself to everything, and yet it is nothing, it is the point where the yes and the no and all the opposites meet, not solemnly in the castles of human philosophies, but very simply at street corners, like dogs and grasshoppers.

Like everything in life, Dada is useless.

Dada is without pretension, as life should be.

Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates with the insistence of air into all the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions.

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Uploader Comments (OttOmOlOtOv)

  • Marcel Duchamp?

  • Surrealism?

    ...but yeah he had some interests and roots in Dada.

  • failure.

  • and...the seeds of Success!

Top Comments

  • unintentionally

  • E 5:45 D A D A M-IT

    MAILLIWILLIAME D W A R D C O A K L E Y

    The ABC's of DADAB I L L Y WH OA

    AMind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

    The ABC's of DADA B I L L Y WHOA

    MAILLIWILLIAME D W A R DC O A K L E Y E 5:45 D A D AM-IT

    yE am Heaven Andada 8:51

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All Comments (70)

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  • In case anyone wants to cite this for a paper, it was originally called: The Alphabet of German Dadaism. Directed by Helmut Herbst. Animation by Franz Winzensten. 1968.

  • Interesting documentary concept. I like the DADA auction before the END... Very significant. At least, for historical dada.

  • I wish i lived in a time when men could still be outraged.

  • love it

  • Some times it's good to kick the apple cart over just to see which way the apples roll.

  • Hello. I would like to have seen some orange peel resting on top of a cigarette packet at some point in this film, but you can't have everything I suppose. I enjoyed it very much, anyway, nonethelessly. Incidentally, if you enjoy watching hedgehogs juggling Lima beans, you may also enjoy a site called icrappoetry (.com). Best wishes!

  • @OttOmOlOtOv you could say the same about Ernst.

  • @screwmath Contribute to who? Nobody ever contributes to me so fuck them.

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