A collaboration between Decorating Dissidence X Media Arts Technology,
exploring dada’s digital legacy.
The Dadaists were disgusted by the destruction technological advancements ravaged across Europe during the first World War, Hugo Ball wrote in his diary in 1915 “Men have been mistaken for machines.” It was not only war that provoked the members of Dada but modern media and the age of mass production. Levers, pulleys, wheels and gears are populated across Dada collages and photomontages adding to their visual manifestations of the absurd modern world.
The Digital Dada Salon invites artists and makers to similarly utilise technology and multimedia as a means to understand the complexities of contemporary society in the post-internet age. On Thursday 18th June 2020, the MAT student’s work will be featured below for the public to view, interact with and respond to. You can submit your responses to decomodsubmit@gmail.com and we will add your work to the salon as ongoing dialogue.
Dada techniques for the digital age:
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Watch the documentary From Dada To Java, which plunges us into the creative vs. computer debate. Can generative texts and poet bots make art?
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Listen to tactile, textile pieces by Antonella Nonnis. Splitting sound from moving image, you’re invited to listen to the sounds before seeing how they were created.
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See Ryan Peter French’s digital collages . Exploring queer identity and issues of body dysmorphia the work is at once frivolous and humorous, with a serious message beneath its surface.
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Read Dr Kai Syng Tan’s series of works that place the neurodiverse experience front and centre. The #MagicCarpet and accompanying texts provide space where we can sit, play, laugh, cry and think.
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Cast a spell using Anna Nolda Nagele’s magical generator , which takes randomness as a starting point to enact personal reflection.
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Explore Jack Ratcliffe’s alternative version of the website, which translates a 2D experience into a 360° experience. Avatars populate a landscape that shows us who we’re sharing our digital spaces with without ever saying a word.
From Dada to Java
A documentary by Betül Aksu + Victor Loux + Sophie Skach + Zhou Tang.
Watch below:
Is the Twitterbot a new literary form? It’s a question that has been floating around for a while. In From Dada to Java: conversations about generative poetry & Twitter bots Sophie Skach, Betul Aksu, Victor Loux, and Zhou Tang speak to artists and theorists about how generative works can sit side by side with literature’s greats. Coming as a continuation from avant-garde practices such as Dada and Oulipo, the bot lives comfortably in randomness and offers a chance to value the computer’s art as a product in and of itself.
Antonella Nonnis
Antonella’s work aims to go beyond the limitation of the WIMP archetype “windows, icons, menus, pointer” and aspire to break down the barriers between high fine art practices and everyday life and to provoke pleasant emotional reactions. Antonella uses a combination of experimental media incorporating craft practices into her multidisciplinary approach such as needle felting, sewing and most recently weaving. These are often used in combination with found objects such as pillows, bouncing balls, balance pods, wool fibers, lycra fabrics etc.. She regularly makes use of found objects and recycled materials and is particularly fond of exploiting the tactile and soothing aspects of soft textiles and the immateriality of musical experiences.
Ryan Peter French
Ryan’s practice involves digital collages used as form of artistic expression and social commentary, particularly concerning the subjective experience of the artist as a queer person. Heavily influenced by the Dada movement, the work owes itself to the political and satirical photo-montages of Hannah Höch. In the spirit of Dada, the body of work is intended to be at once frivolous and humorous, with a serious message and more sinister undertones.This series in particular focuses on body image; its intent is to express the paradoxical ideals of our society in relation to male body image and gender politics. A particular inspiration came from studies on patients with Body Dysmorphic Disorder that suggest abnormalities in visual information processing.
Dr Kai Syng Tan
Kai has shared with us a series of writings and a video on her work #MagicCarpet, which is a tapestry that was developed on an iPad before being spun into a rug in Flanders. Mixing technology to produce craft, the threads are densely packed together, representing the inner workings of the mind. The carpet provides a space to play and discuss “mind wandering [to] unlearn some of these negative presuppositions and promote new ways of thinking about ADHD”. The accompanying texts below think through our current experiences of COVID-19, centring a neurodiverse experience and offering us both solace and action.
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