Dada Black Sheep: Have You Any Pull?

[Bu☆ns]

I think as far as art is concerned you could lay down the order in terms of gestalt principles.  What makes "sense" visually can be determined by the general rules of our perception.  To make visual non-sense would be to work the composition by varying the gestalt in such a way to make an abstract sense of similarity, continuation, closure proximity figure/ground..etc. 

My old design teacher used to say, "I don't give a shit if you like it or don't like it. The only thing that matters is whether or not it works!"

That is to say are all the elements and principles of the design used most effectively so as to communicate the message most clearly.  So, if one considers art as a form of communication or expression then one can measure it's effectiveness in terms of clarity of meaning.  Or, probably more appropriately, is the clarity of meaning as literal or as abstract as the artist intended? 

On the other hand, there is art as a form of play.  I think in this case the measure of effectiveness is determined on how good of a time the artist had while creating the piece.  I also think this is the difference between the Authentic Experience vs. the Establishment's simulation.

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

[Verbal Mike]

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

The world is full of adults scrambling around trying to learn how to play again.
They forgot.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

The world is full of adults scrambling around trying to learn how to play again.
They forgot.

This is the AWESOMELY CORRECT MOTORCYCLE

[Verbal Mike]

Please to be rating:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/memebombs/?template=default&action=show&id=3938

[Jenne]

I think as far as art is concerned you could lay down the order in terms of gestalt principles.  What makes "sense" visually can be determined by the general rules of our perception.  To make visual non-sense would be to work the composition by varying the gestalt in such a way to make an abstract sense of similarity, continuation, closure proximity figure/ground..etc. 

My old design teacher used to say, "I don't give a shit if you like it or don't like it. The only thing that matters is whether or not it works!"

That is to say are all the elements and principles of the design used most effectively so as to communicate the message most clearly.  So, if one considers art as a form of communication or expression then one can measure it's effectiveness in terms of clarity of meaning.  Or, probably more appropriately, is the clarity of meaning as literal or as abstract as the artist intended? 

On the other hand, there is art as a form of play.  I think in this case the measure of effectiveness is determined on how good of a time the artist had while creating the piece.  I also think this is the difference between the Authentic Experience vs. the Establishment's simulation.

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

Yeah, the mentioning of the Establishment is probably a big factor there.  I can imagine critics and their whining can really make or break an art movement/style/artist, etc.  And that's really a shame.  Although, if you look at a movement like Dadaism and most of the post-WWI genres that came out of that period, a lot of it just became the foundation for future endeavors.  So yesterday's bullshit became the compost for today's crop.

I like the idea that the experience of doing the art is just as integral if not more so than any message it may convey to anyone.  Since messages are so very much in the eye of the beholder and thus interpreted so differenly and separately, it would seem that art escapes a LOT of black-and-white limits when it comes to what it all means, what it's meant to symbolize and how effective it can be.

Am I off base here?  I just see art as a more flexible genre when it comes to co-called nonsense--and perhaps not as targeted or as fixed in its audience or its effectiveness--and not as subject to the constraints of culture, rules and fixtures that it might encompass.

[Jenne]

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

The world is full of adults scrambling around trying to learn how to play again.
They forgot.

Very much tr00f.  to you too.

[the last yatto]

I think this is a great thread and should be the basis of an Intermittens issue.

agreed but its missing something,
maybe a little FAQ and some unlimited donkey kong for 

[Bu☆ns]

I think as far as art is concerned you could lay down the order in terms of gestalt principles.  What makes "sense" visually can be determined by the general rules of our perception.  To make visual non-sense would be to work the composition by varying the gestalt in such a way to make an abstract sense of similarity, continuation, closure proximity figure/ground..etc. 

My old design teacher used to say, "I don't give a shit if you like it or don't like it. The only thing that matters is whether or not it works!"

That is to say are all the elements and principles of the design used most effectively so as to communicate the message most clearly.  So, if one considers art as a form of communication or expression then one can measure it's effectiveness in terms of clarity of meaning.  Or, probably more appropriately, is the clarity of meaning as literal or as abstract as the artist intended? 

On the other hand, there is art as a form of play.  I think in this case the measure of effectiveness is determined on how good of a time the artist had while creating the piece.  I also think this is the difference between the Authentic Experience vs. the Establishment's simulation.

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

Yeah, the mentioning of the Establishment is probably a big factor there.  I can imagine critics and their whining can really make or break an art movement/style/artist, etc.  And that's really a shame.  Although, if you look at a movement like Dadaism and most of the post-WWI genres that came out of that period, a lot of it just became the foundation for future endeavors.  So yesterday's bullshit became the compost for today's crop.

Yeah, look at the 80s.

I like the idea that the experience of doing the art is just as integral if not more so than any message it may convey to anyone.  Since messages are so very much in the eye of the beholder and thus interpreted so differenly and separately, it would seem that art escapes a LOT of black-and-white limits when it comes to what it all means, what it's meant to symbolize and how effective it can be.

Sometimes I like to think of art as a form communication because the art form itself becomes a conveyance of something shared between the artist and the audience.  Somewhere in the middle of: 'What does it mean to the artist?' and 'What does it mean to me?' is an emotion or reaction of some sort that enables me to somewhat share an experience.  I think that might be why it appears to go beyond the black-and-white limits of meaning.

In that speech, Alan Watts was referring to those photographs you see of chipped paint that somehow have a sense of 'significance'.  It's almost as if the photographer was framing an experience we all seem to have.  I mean when I look at those photos I just think "yeah, chipped paint." I'd guess most of us probably 'know' chipped paint.  Then one day someone liked what was happening to that paint and gave it enough significance to put a frame around it. Sometimes, it seems, the best art can just be significant of itself.

Am I off base here?  I just see art as a more flexible genre when it comes to co-called nonsense--and perhaps not as targeted or as fixed in its audience or its effectiveness--and not as subject to the constraints of culture, rules and fixtures that it might encompass.

I think the problem comes when the transmission of the message of nonsense isn't clear (because it is nonsense, after all) and the cognitive dissonance that occurs makes the message more prone to rejection.  Unless, of course, if the artist is overly pretentious about it being nonsense then the meaning is clear.  Although, for some reason I can't seem to put my finger on, when I know something is 'supposed' to be random, it sometimes loses it's novelty.  It becomes .

Interestingly, when the same absurdity happens over and over and over again and again in certain internet forums it becomes  .

[Bu☆ns]

This makes me want to argue that the Authentic Experience isn't found through play but is play itself.

The world is full of adults scrambling around trying to learn how to play again.
They forgot.

I wonder where they think to go when they finally figure it out for the first time all over again. 

[N E T]

A big part of Dada's pull was on the carpet of "art status."

How is it that we come to call something art? I think most people need it to fit with their assumptions about "what art IS." Assumptions learned largely out of awareness and perpetually thereafter kept out of awareness. By flipping over a urinal, signing it, titling it "Fountain" and submitting it to an art show which promised to show all work submitted, Duchamp revealed what George Dickie calls "the institutional essence of art." What makes this relevant to social movements is clarified by Dickie:

"[Philosophers of art] entirely ignored the nonexhibited property of status. When, however, the objects are bizarre, as those of the Dadaists are, our attention is forced away from the objects' obvious properties to a consideration of the objects in their social context."

Linguistic nonsense, even such that goes as far as being anti-communicative seems to be running along a parallel intention. As the anti-art of the Dadaists aims at your definition of art, anti-communicative "language" aims at your sense of communication and linguistically constructed reality, but also helps define it. The white space around the letters you're reading is just as important as the black lines that form the letters and separate the words.

As an intentional utterance anti-communication still communicates just like anti-art is still art. It just says something like, "I don't want you or myself to understand me in a rational or conventional way, if at all right now. Perhaps I'm just curious as to what it will be like to do this around other people. Perhaps I'm more curious as to how this demographic will respond. Perhaps, I'm just interested in what will come out of my mouth."

By inspecting nonsense's context it unfailingly can be observed as non-arbitrary, defining, and utterly meaningful. Nonsense could be done anywhere in any way with any medium—the fact that it was chosen to be done THERE, AT THAT TIME, with THAT MEDIUM, THAT WAY, means something. Though all efforts may be made for True nonsense to be created, unconsciously many choices get made that were not as purely arbitrary, irrational or chaotic as the intention may have been. It's just not possible for people to completely escape their intentionality, unconscious drives and socially created idea of "sense." The most sincere efforts to do so still leave behind traces. It seems the nature of these traces are what the Dadaists, Situationists, and Pinealists are most interested in.

[BabylonHoruv]

I think I can go with that, with a few exceptions, e.g. Carroll/Burroughs/Joyce et al, who use semantics and language in extremely non-traditional ways for a specific intended effect.

In what sense though?  I would have to disagree with Joyce - the level of multiple meanings and associations interwoven into his works (also the fact he wrote books) suggests exactly the sort of ambiguity I would consider belonging to the holistic side of things.  Burroughs too, since when while you consider something like Naked Lunch as non-linear, there are segments which alone do make sense, just not necessarily as part of a larger whole.

Of course, I came up with this classification off the top of my head, so take from that what you will.

If naked lunch didn;t make sense to you as a whole I'd suggest reading it again.  It made sense to me the third time.  It might be me doing a starbuck's pebbles, but it made a hell of a lot of sense.