update: added new lora
A Brief History of Dadaism
Dadaism or Dada emerged onto the art scene in the early 20th century as a gloriously chaotic reaction to the horrors and absurdities of World War I. Originating in Zurich in 1916, this anti-art movement quickly spread across Europe and America, thumbing its nose at conventional aesthetics and the very notion of what is considered "art". Founded by a motley crew of artists and poets including Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp, Dadaists reveled in chaos, irrationality, and spontaneity as tools to break free from traditional artistic norms or rather, to kick those norms square in the nuts!
Influences and Characteristics
The Dadaists, disillusioned by the war and fed up with societal structures, used their art to scream “this is not art!” at the top of their lungs.
Key characteristics of Dada art include:
Anti-Art Sentiment: Dadaists rejected traditional standards, creating pieces that were intentionally nonsensical and provocative. If it looked like art, it was probably "not art";
Collage and Assemblage: Artists like Hannah Höch and Kurt Schwitters slapped together everyday objects and paper scraps, challenging the bourgeois notion of what materials could be called art.
Readymades: Marcel Duchamp's infamous "Fountain," a urinal signed "R. Mutt," epitomized Dadaist "art hate" and rejection of traditional craftsmanship and aesthetics.
Performance and Poetry: Dada also included performance art and literature, with events featuring spontaneous, often absurd performances and sound poems that made as much sense as a talking banana.
Mediums Used in Dadaism
Dadaists employed a wide array of mediums to stick two fingers up at traditional art. Some of the prominent mediums included:
Collage and Photo-montage: Combining cut-out photographs, newspaper clippings, and other random materials.
Assemblage: Using found objects to create three-dimensional artworks that were emphatically "not art."
Performance Art: Including live actions and spoken word poetry that left audiences wondering if they were in on a joke... or the butt of it!
Printmaking and Typography: Creating graphic art that often included nonsensical or deliberately provocative text.
AI Art - All Hail The New Medium
AI generative art, or as I call it Dadaism, is from my point of view a re-emergence of Dadaism in the digital era. This new form of art harnesses Artificial Intelligence machine code to create works that are part human creativity, part machine computation and entirely "not art" in the traditional sense. This new form of "not art" is the latest in the tradition of challenging norms and redefining creativity, it may well have the Dadaists of old laughing out loud in their graves!
"You all lead the way, by using neural networks and data sets to produce mesmerizing, thought-provoking pieces that challenge our perceptions of art and technology!"
The Parallels:
Challenging Traditional Norms: Just as Dadaists questioned what constitutes art, AI generative art questions the role of the artist, blurring the line between "artist & not artist".
Embracing Randomness and Chaos: Dadaists loved chance and randomness. AI generative art, often reliant on algorithmic randomness, creates results that are as unexpected and bewildering as a Dadaist performance!
Multidisciplinary Approaches: Dada was inherently multidisciplinary, and AI generative art blends coding, visual design aspects and video media in ways that would make the original Dadaists proclaim “this is not art!”
Key Aspects of Ai Dadaism:
Algorithmic Creativity: Using written text prompts to generate patterns, images and even sounds, in a process that is as much about not being the artist as it is about being the artist.
Data as a Medium: Just as Dadaists used everyday objects, Dadaists use visual imagery, textual data and videos as their raw material for "not art".
Adaptive Art: Many AI generative artworks are adaptive, evolving with user interaction over time, making the art a dynamic experience that is constantly reasserting its "not art" nature.
Conclusion
Dadaism revolutionized the art world by challenging traditional aesthetics and embracing absurdity with a hearty dose of "art hate". Today, AI generative art, carries this torch into the digital era, pushing the limitless boundaries of creativity and redefining the role of the artist or should we say the "not artist". As we continue to explore the possibilities of AI in art, we celebrate the enduring legacy of Dadaism a movement that dared to defy norms and opened the door to endless artistic innovation, all while proclaiming “This is not art!” and "Perfection is futile!"
Resources:
Loras:
DeconDaDa dada style portraits and other funky images
Facial Deconstruction collage style de-constructed faces
Recycle Forge make arts from waste materials
Surreal Collage create stunning surrealistic collages
Nuts & Bolts make arts with nuts and bolts
Wildcards:
Dada Artists curated list of dadaist artists
to be cuntinued!