World War 1 and the DaDa mindset

The following 13 pages are the introduction to this book:
The book was published in conjunction with a major exhibit of DaDa work in 2006 in Paris, Washington and New York. Leah Dickerman wrote this introduction. It communicates the DaDa mindset quite well. It will give a good context for future class discussions on DaDa, and also might put into context what we all experienced in class on Friday. The text refers to several photos (fig. 1, fig. 2...and so on), all of which are included in these scans except for fig. 9: a scan of Tristan Tzara's "Dada Manifesto, 1918". The scan in the book is in French and is a bit blurry too...so, you can find the translated text here (it is very much worth reading): http:www.391.org/manifestos/tristantzara_dadamanifesto.htm

So, when you come across "fig. 9" in the text, it is referring to that manifesto (linked above). Other references in the text are to the end notes which are all included in the last 2 pages. There are also some references to page numbers (that direct to other images in the book), I didn't include those here...you'll have to check out the book to see those...
Click each page to ENLARGE THEM to a readable size. Enjoy.
The two lines that got cut off there at the bottom between the two columns say: "...implicitly in its fragmented form-that there is nothing more macro, nothing more overarching about the idea of Dada. Dada's radical rethinking of art making is..."

The two lines that got cut off at the bottom of the second column say: "and the exis-tence of larger firms and new forms of transportation that increased distance between producers and consumers."

The two lines that got cut off of the bottom of the second column say: "...in a newspaper by Walter Serner. Baader disrupted a service in the Berlin Cathedral, an act that was widely reported in the press. In..."

What got cut off from the 2 lines of the left column is: "...maintain that novelty resembles life just as the latest appearance of some whore proves the essence of God. (footnote 47)."

And, what got cut off from the second column is: "...of the public. As a point of comparison, the Russian avant-garde, wholly contemporaneous with Dada, might be understood to mark the apogee of faith..."

The devil made him do it?

I mentioned this guy in class and made a tit of myself when i couldn't remember his name, but I found the link to the youtube site with the trailer for "The devil and Daniel Johnston."

Some hail him as a genius songwriter and others just label him as pretty mad. I looked up several other interviews with him and i'm inclined to side with the latter, but who knows. It's an interesting documentary for a really interesting individual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJZOe65eA4Y

Nietzsche and Madness

From Nietzsche's "Selected Letters," edited and translated by Christopher Middleton.

Hölderlin's poetry

This poem, written to the man caring for him, was written by the deeply incapacitated poet. There is a syntactical break in the second line which you'll see in my translation but which is glossed over by Mitchell. Note the ABBA rhyme scheme and the high-flown imagery.

What, readers of Hölderlin ask, is the difference between early, good, sane poetry, which is difficult and challenging and marked by very interesting syntactical breaks, and later stanzas written by the insane poet?

An Zimmern

Die Linien des Lebens sind verschieden,

Die Wege sind, und wie der Berge Grenzen.

Was hier wir sind, kann dort ein Gott ergänzen

Mit Harmonien und ewigem Lohn und Frieden.

To Zimmer

The lines of life are different,

The paths are, and like the mountain borders.

What we are here, a god can enhance there

With harmonies and eternal reward and peace.

(my translation)

For Zimmer

  
The lines of life are various, 
Like roads, and the borders of mountains. 
What we are here, a god can complete there, 
With harmonies, undying reward, and peace.

translation by James Mitchell

For an informative site containing more of Mitchell's translations, some contemporary images, notes, and a short biography, go to:

http://home.att.net/~holderlin/

Hölderlin's poetry and his insanity

Friedrich Hölderlin lived a brilliant and creative life as a poet, essayist, novelist, and private tutor until, after a violent and disconcerting event in France, he begin to lose his ability to function normally. He found a home, finally, in a round tower on the Neckar River in Tübingen, cared for by a family with the name of Zimmer (Zimmermann is the word for carpenter, and thus the references to the carpenter in the essay). He lived there for about three decades before his death.

Romantic poet Wilhelm Waiblinger was a friend of Hölderlin, and the following account is his.

From Wilhelm Waiblinger's essay:

"Friedrich Hölderlin's Life, Poetry and Madness" (1830)

Translated from the German by Scott J. Thompson.

---

 

. . . Now if one were to step into this unfortunate man's house, he certainly would not expect to meet a poet who had merrily wandered along the Ilyssus with Plato; but the house is not ugly, it is the dwelling of a prosperous carpenter; a man who has an uncommon degree of culture for a man of his standing, and who speaks about Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Novalis, Tieck and others. One inquires after the room of Herr Librarian - for Hölderlin still enjoys being addressed by title - and then comes to a small door. Talking can already be heard inside, and one assumes that Hölderlin already has company, but is then told by the honest carpenter that H. is completely alone and talks to himself day and night.

[the rest of the essay can be read here:

http://www.wbenjamin.org/holderlin.html

Madness and Art

I would like to write a lot about Foucault and Madness and Art, but I have a midterm to write...I think there are many connections between those works and ideas that are those that form the framework of an episteme are almost always created by "madness" or at least those typified as being "mad". There's a unique change, as I see it, in our readiness to ascribe "mental illness" on to people in contemporary society, lumping together people who are sad, or anxious, or those who talk to ourselves, or who have multiple personalities as all "suffering" from the same affliction. Additionally, we medicate away pain that possibly, in an earlier era, could have created great art. Now we numb and hide and diffuse all of these strong emotions. Having been heavily medicated at different times in my life for such "ailments" I wonder whether I would have been better off letting madness run through me, letting whatever came of that experience be the end, ultimately or not.

Recently a study at Stanford tried to get at this question, whether or not madness and art are interconnected, and the results are pretty interesting. Read about it here.