What is Dada?
Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland. It arose as a reaction to World War I. Many of the Dadaists believed that the reason and logic of capitalist society had led World War I. They expressed their rejection of that ideology by art that rejected logic but embraced chaos and irrationality. It rejected language in poetry, challenged media boundaries, and it rejected the boundary between artistic and non-artistic materials. It never really tried to be 'eye candy'. Sometimes used useless objects in irrelevant ways. In Dada, there are techniques like photomontage, collage, assemblage, and readymade. For me, the most interesting area of Dada was photo montage and collage. When I just have a glimpse of the photomontage, it looks like just randomly arranged photos. But when I look closer and try to see the detail, their's the artists' message like an encrypted secret message. |
What is Fluxus?
Fluxus was an avant-garde art movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The artists looked to Futurists and Dadaists for inspiration, focusing especially on performance aspects. There are 11 main characteristics of Fluxus that professor pointed out: internationalism, fluid state, collective network, emperimentation and playfulness, intermedia, the event', concentration, musicality, expectation, boredom, and indeterminacy. |
One thing I was not comfortable with Fluxus art examples was that I felt a bit offended since I have been playing piano and violin for 12 years and I have deep respect on music. I would never let anyone to make a single scratch on my piano or violin because I treasure them. However, in some artwork people were cutting piano, and Nam June Paik was dragging a violin. I didn't feel so good about it.
Although it can be not so pleasant to some people like me, this way of art performance on musical instrument can be appreciated as excellent art as it is totally new. It looks like they are destroying the piano and violin, but if we imagine the sound that the piano and violin would have made at that moment it is quite interesting. As the saw cuts the piano and as Nam June Paik drags the violin on the ground, it would definately vibrate the strings and make sounds.
Although it can be not so pleasant to some people like me, this way of art performance on musical instrument can be appreciated as excellent art as it is totally new. It looks like they are destroying the piano and violin, but if we imagine the sound that the piano and violin would have made at that moment it is quite interesting. As the saw cuts the piano and as Nam June Paik drags the violin on the ground, it would definately vibrate the strings and make sounds.
Nam June Paik's 'Listening to music through the mouth in exposition of music electronic television' is also expresses a very new perspective of listening to sound. I didn't know why he was listening to music through his mouth until the professor told us. He was listening to music through his mouth because mouth is originally the part that makes sound. It is amazing that someone can be so creative and have new perspective of seeing things. It was clearly a fine shift of paradigm. |