IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 13 lines At 08:15 PM 4/9/2002 -0700, you wrote:

> At 08:15 PM 4/9/2002 -0700, you wrote: > >Above all else, the Dada Movement was a nihilistic one - denying meaning. > >That is the antithesis of making a statement. > > "Don't worry Donny, they're only nihilists." > > Of course, isn't a statement saying that there is no statement or > meaning a > statement? > > Wheee!!!!! > > derek

I doubt that any Dadaists would have copped even to that. Those crazy Dadaists would never have called themselves anything twice (so, okay, they were nihilists...once :), more likely they would (and they often did) do something completely nonsensical or accidental (like rolling dice to create something, ala Kurt Schwitters, or calling the crack in the Large Glass the final touch, heheh) and then do something completely overwrought with symbolism, such as, well, the Large Glass. Even calling it Dada is kind of weird. It's like calling a group of artists that have nothing (and everything) in common "blaudyblooblee". It's completely meaningless until it starts to become framed in an historical context. And you'd have to be a die-hard Hegelian to say that there was a cause (WWI) and effect (Dada), and they don't exist anymore, do they? Duchamp was practicing whatever "Dadaist" really means right up until his death (the permanent installation in the Philadelphia Art Museum installation several months *after* his death, in fact). At any rate, the work is so lovingly open to multiple interpretations...that's why art historians love it so much. They'll end up with more writing about the Dadaists than there is actual Dada work. And that's really Dada! And if there are any so-called IDM artists out there creating Dada-like IDM, my vote would be for the Tigerbeat crew. Well, okay, perhaps they're more Fluxus, I don't know. Take your pick. __________________________________________ Christopher Sorg Multimedia Artist and Instructor The School of the Art Institute of Chicago http://csorg.cjb.net csorg@artic.edu --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/02 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/02 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Christopher Sorg wrote:

quoted 3 lines And if there are any so-called IDM artists out there creating Dada-like IDM,

> And if there are any so-called IDM artists out there creating Dada-like IDM, > my vote would be for the Tigerbeat crew. Well, okay, perhaps they're more > Fluxus, I don't know. Take your pick.

I disagree, because there's no conceptual or intellectual depth to 606's work. I doubt he'd even know what you're referring to. :-) And there's a variety of acts within the Tigerbeat6 crew. I don't think there's an equivalent to Dada in IDM. There never really was such a thing as Dada music even while the Dadaist movement was active, so it's difficult to draw comparisons. I think there are IDM related acts like perhaps V/Vm who make allusions to Dada in their image, but musically ? There's a certain Dadaist absurdism to the way Aphex presents himself I suppose, but that's not really present in his music. Andrei --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

I do think there is a strong connection to Dada and "IDM". The photomontage, a Dada medium in my opinion, is all about taking pieces of culture, some pop (K606) and some political (Ultra Red) and re-contextualizing them into something new that created another level of dialogue and meaning, if not multiple. Though there may not be a war which "IDM" hinges upon, but there is the same fascination for the bizarre, arguably more juvenile and adolescent, in this music. Dadaists wanted to screw with the European bourgeois notions of taste and class and I think certain "IDM" like the Tigerbeat camp intends to do the same to a mainstream, middle-class American pop culture system. And in regards to your statement about a lack of a Dada music, I think you can count the sound/tone poetry that Hugo Ball and co. performed at their Cabaret Voltaire happenings as such. The layering of nonsense words and sounds annoyed audiences the way that groups like Blechtum from Blechdom would do today if they had a larger, more conservative audience. We should be happy for camps like Tigerbeat6 and I think they will go down in the electronic music canon for their continued disdain for good taste and normalcy. People want to always label them and their peers as laptop "punks" but looking across different media, I think they are more Dada in their group mentality then anything else when compared historically. Sam Valenti IV Ghostly International

quoted 5 lines I don't think there's an equivalent to Dada in IDM. There never really

>I don't think there's an equivalent to Dada in IDM. There never really >was such a thing as Dada music even while the Dadaist movement was active, >so it's difficult to draw comparisons. I think there are IDM related acts >like perhaps V/Vm who make allusions to Dada in their image, but musically >?

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