Dada

A European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that flouted conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by nonsense, travesty, and incongruity.

1913 - Duchamp makes the first 'readymade' - a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool

1916 - Cabaret Voltaire opens in Zurich on 5 February. It soon takes the name 'Dada'

1917 - First issue of 'Dada' periodical published. Issues 1-4 of '391' periodical published by Picabia. Duchamp exhibits 'Fountain' in New York.

1918 - Tzara published his first manifesto, in 'Dada' issue 3. Club Dada in Berlin starts to use photomontage

1919 - 'Litterature' periodical edited by Breton published. Ernst and Baargeld found Cologne Dada. Kurt Schwitters makes the first Merz works.

1920 - Tzara arrives in Paris. Club Dada tour of Germany. Ernst and others stage the 'Spring Awakening' exhibition in Cologne.

1921 - 'New York Dada' periodical published, edited by Duchamp and Man Ray. Dada stages the trail of Barres and in doing so loses the support of Picabia.

1923 - Duchamp finally stops work on The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even

1924 - Breton publishes the first manifesto of Surealism.

Postmodernism as Neo-Dada

At the heart of postmodernism lies the assumption that most of the things that we take for granted are, in fact, simply illusions. Reality is not reflected within text, only text is reflected within text. There is no Truth beyond the experience of the text, and meaning is created every time the text is experienced. An author does not place meaning in the text, and his/her interpretation of the text is no more valid than any otherIn other words, meaning is arbitrary, relative, and subjective. Language is, in its own way, reality. What we refer to as reality is not knowable, and we live in the illusion that we are in touch with it. The age in which concepts have a relation to reality is over. Knowledge is only validated when it is referred to by second-level discourse .

With a slight variation in terminology, all of the above statements are exactly the same as the basic premises of Dadaism, a movement that took place in Europe over seventy years ago. Dada was an art movement that occurred primarily in Europe, beginning in Zurich. Although the endpoints are a bit fuzzy, it began around 1915 and lasted until about 1925, when many Dadaists joined the surrealist movement . Although primarily associated with visual art, Dada included writers, critics, and philosophers .

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