general inquiry into roots
barrett john erickson
questions to the group:
what is your perception of dada?
how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
what attracted you to "surrealism"?
under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
[now i'll have to come up with some answers -- trying not to read any
responses until i do]
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of
the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions."
...André Breton
Fascinan
>
into rote shortly. I perceive Dada as an utter (udder) polarity of
rationalism. After a world war, strife, destruction that accompanied the
hollowed promises of Western rationalism, there was a natural response to
"escape" the vice-like grip of the rational/logic.
The attack was not necessarily on logic itself, for there are times when one
needs to be clear, to be reasonable; but rather on the perverted, distorted
sense of rationality that creates damaging outcomes: scientists that create
killing machines, armies that trounce upon defenseless cultures taking their
land, massacres of beautiful, diverse, peoples, etc--the list is countless.
What attracted me to surrealism was the freedom of expression, the emphasis on
creativity, and the aesthetic appeal of radical juxtapostion.
I'm out of time....I'm no expert on the subject at all, just wanted to start
the sphere caterwauling.
If many of the corporate types and people in power seriously apprehend life as
a "game", then my game shall be to seriously consider being serious.
Please keep in mind that the maximum signature size is 254 characters.
~Fas
scot...@earthlink.net
> what is your perception of dada?
The desire to build a bonfire.
> how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
The desire to dance on coals.
> what attracted you to "surrealism"?
I want to touch the fire. dance on coals. sweat. let my body speak.
> under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
1970. sitting on the floor. watching the stories in the tile.
> who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
Tribes that danced to exhaustion and visions. Tribes that taught their
hunters to run until they died.
Tribes that knew how to paint their faces.
And Lyndon Johnson who originally made me want to burn things.
> what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
It needs nothing from me. It is the force that is recreating the
universe. It doesn't matter what people call it. And I am part of it
regardless of what I do or if I know it. I am recreating
the universe tiny bits at a time. so is a virus. I declare a virus to
be a marvelous living thing.
barrett john erickson
dada broke the chains of reason.
dada broke the sanity of war.
dada broke the window of quarantine between high culture and locomotives.
dada broke from the portrait of the artist as a young man with one ear.
but in just a few years dada was just broke.
and then dada broke down to the manure which fertilized the magnetic fields
of 1919.
> how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
surrealism pushed its invalid dada (by then confined to a wheelchair) over
the cliff on which it had balanced so long at the edge of the abyss so as
to collect its inheritance before it was totally squandered.
surrealism then grew stronger in the fields fertilized by its dead dada.
surrealism gave birth to the artist as fully integrated creative
revolutionary in service to the imagination (personal and collective).
surrealism brought light and vision to the blind darkness of dada.
surrealism launched a project to enhance our daily reality, dada was a
hobby horse.
> what attracted you to "surrealism"?
i was not "attracted" to surrealism, i discovered it in my DNA, embraced it
in my nightmares, ate it for breakfast...
one day i just realized i couldn't escape it.
> under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
"realization" please.
in an orgasm of laughter, a moment of adrenaline panic.
> who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
the marx brothers, boris karloff, bela lugosi, orson welles, fellini,
barbara steele; poe, kafka, freud; ron peterson, steve tilsen; laugh-in,
monty python; the yardbirds, the jefferson airplane, led zepplin, pink
floyd, miles davis; samuel beckett, eugene ionesco, abbie hoffman; above
all, neitzsche.
> what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
my main project is to reveal that "certain point of the mind", the
coordinates of which are becoming increasingly clearer through a process of
triangulation.
as a secondary project i do what i can to cultivate surrealist sprouts and
poison the weeds which threaten them.
Brandon J. Freels
Dada was a giant explosion (or maybe it was a collapse) of 19th century
thought in one big cataclysmic crash that left us with nothing, but rubble.
>how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
Dada can only be external. Surrealism is internal.
>what attracted you to "surrealism"?
I was attracted to Surrealism by the use of dreams, irrational thoughts, and
what I originally mislabelled as absurdism.
>under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
I really can't remember. It is possible that the attraction has always been
there, but I placed what I was attracted to somewhere else.
>who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
My precursors seem to be: Richard Brautigan's novel "In Watermelon Sugar,"
Terry Gilliam's films, the strange short fictions of Donald Bathelme, the
insanity of Mark Leyner, nightmares and sleepwalking episodes I had as a
child, daydreams, Rene Magritte, the poems of Benjamin Peret, love, hate,
uncontrollable emotions ...
>what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
I am not sure I hope to contribute anything to Surrealism. I only hope to
reach an awareness of myself.
---BJF
Fascinan
Barrett answered:
>the marx brothers, boris karloff, bela lugosi, orson welles, fellini,
>barbara steele; poe, kafka, freud; ron peterson, steve tilsen; laugh-in,
>monty python; the yardbirds, the jefferson airplane, led zepplin, pink
>floyd, miles davis; samuel beckett, eugene ionesco, abbie hoffman; above
>all, neitzsche.
Interesting selections.
I too have been "influenced" by many of the above. I would also like to add:
The tightness of Bergman flicks, Tarkvosky's use of water, silences and space,
Fusion (Miles, John Mclaughlin, Michael Shrieve, etc), lattes, telescopes,
quirks in the mundane, and the electric guitar.
'It's incredibly difficult for me to come to terms with the agonizing
conclusion that I will most likely never achieve the cultural level of
importance as WWF wrestler Brett "the hitman" Hart.'
xister
Some I just didn't know how to answer, so I didn't.
barrett john erickson wrote:
> thought it might provoke some interesting discussion if i asked the same
> questions to the group:
>
> what is your perception of dada?
Fun.. Enjoyment of life.
> what attracted you to "surrealism"?
The art/life/ways generally deemed as surrealistic in pop culture- by way of
the "Outsider". Also little things, like the "occult" paperback books in Miss
Ewig's class in 7th grade, because of the pictures within. They were always
filled with images of radical juxtapositions (plates hovering in mid air
etc.). To me, I guess they represented something I wanted: another world.
Perhaps that seems a form of escapism, and I guess that it is, but for good
reasons I think. And, at some point I said to myself (tho more subconsciously
than consciously): Well, you can accept this world that other people are
changing (or stagnating, as the case may be in the culture of sheep) or you
can try to do something about changing it. So I devoted my life to art to try
to tell the world about art/life/surrealism, and for what it might be worth,
what I think about it..
> under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
When I realized that I was different, and started to hate the world I was born
into. About fourth grade when my teacher told me that I disgusted him (in
front of the whole class of course) because I had snot in my nose. (I got very
bad colds in the winter) That I think was the root of the attraction. In
later years I finally said: You know what- there's got to be a better way, and
started systematically trying to subvert the world around me, while
simultaneously searching for a way to get what I perceived that I wanted so
badly: Liberation of my mind and body from the tyranny of the hatred and
ignorance around me. The subversion part was subconscious- the liberation part
was not. Uncontrolled subconscious subversion of your immediate surroundings
seem to backfire often... Then I took acid for the first time and soon
thereafter, found a picture book on Dali..... The rest you can probably
guess...
Looking back on my life, that one moment sticks out as my earliest memory of
hatred and disgust of the world around me, and want of change for myself and
others.
>
>
> what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
The only thing that I think that I really can contribute, and that is imagery.
Abstract treatises with symbols by me, about me. By being an artist, and
letting the world know my art, I would hope to attract someone to surrealism
(the image style or the life) as I was attracted to it... Through my eyes.
--
Reply (sans hyphen) to the x-i...@earthlink.net
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothin' you can measure anymore
The Blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
and it's overturned the order of the soul...
When they said, "Repent!" I wondered what they meant.
I've seen the future brother, it is murder...
-LEONARD FELSPAR-
xister
admire for various reasons and/or stuff they've done : Perry Farrell, Frank Zappa,
Art of Noise, Beck, Jan Svenkmeyer (sp?), Hermann Nitsch, Umberto Eco, Herman
Hesse, Colin Wilson, Woody Allen (Zelig in particular), Harlan Ellison, Carlos
Castenada, Roger Waters, H.R. Giger (tho I think he's pretty much a one trick
pony), Milos Forman, Rimbaud, Tim Burton, Ed Wood, Oliver Stone, Peter Greenaway,
Edvard Munch...and the list goes on...........
Fascinan wrote:
--
Reply (sans hyphen) to the x-i...@earthlink.net
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothin' you can measure anymore
The Blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
and it's overturned the order of the soul...
When they said, "Repent!" I wondered what they meant.
I've seen the future brother, it is murder...
-LEONARD COHEN-
Aisys
Randomness, meaninglessness, anarchy, etc.
* how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
They overlap in my opinion and I enjoy some dada work, but I tend to have an urge
to call dada activities primitive. Dada lacks the spirit of surrealism that I
hold so dear.
* what attracted you to "surrealism"?
My childhood.
* under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
I have G.A.D. (generalized anxiety disorder) and it used to be terribly bad when
I was very young. Since, I have fought it back quite a bit but as a child it made
me shy and almost entirely internal. I can remember spending 8/10ths of my
childhood alone in the woods or in my playroom enveloped in one long continuous
dream where reality and fantasy where one and the same. Still today, my mind is
never completely in 'reality' because I am constantly surrounded by mirages and
apparitions which I find myself often physically reacting to. (and I'm sane and I
don't even do drugs...) My 'childhood' is still going on now I suppose for I can
never really leave it, which is fine with me. I took part in surrealist
activities before I knew the term 'surrealism'. The concepts of things like
automatic writing were already known to me before I had a term to describe them.
Once I discovered the existance of thought similar to mine, I plunged into it
with a desire to learn what others like me did and thought and ever since I have
learned to harness the way my mind has evolved and have endeavored to apply it to
almost everything I do in life...and shall always continue doing as such.
* who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
As my life has taught me, surrealism didn't begin at any point. It simply got
labeled at one. People have always possessed some degree of surrealism in them
even before they knew what it was, or before it was described by someone for the
first time.
* what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
I hope to simply add fuel to the fire, spread understanding of it to those who
call it nonsense and ignore it, and offer up my writing/photography/and film to
anyone who wants to share in my surreal experiences.
iNTERNETTeD
dada was a very nihilistic form of early modernism, developing many of the
chance techniques later recontextualized in surrealism
dada required the same bourgeois support structure that surrealism requires
(in many respects a theatrical one)
paris dada died when the theater owner refused to let it continue to show
there (after disrupting a futurist performance)
paris dada was not the only dada, but it was the most aesthetic of them
(berlin was more political and new york was more philosophical)
dada translated into surrealism very easily in paris
> how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
surrealism established a program which (initially) did not require the kind of
theatrical supports that dada did (this is in large respect why fluxus was
very like dada)
surrealism claims to be a philosophical stance to reality, not an art movement
surrealism claims to universal (and revolutionary) status, but repeats many of
the sexist, fetishistic stances of bourgeois culture
surrealism claims liberation for the desiring mind, prividing that it is a
heterosexual, male desiring mind and not anything else
(remember that after going to NYC Breton returned a convert to christian
mysticism and was known for rejecting as inadmissable work which questioned
this sexual/religious bias in surrealism. consider the case of Molinier)
> what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
nothing. surrealism is a failed project due to its internal inconsistencies
and replications of bourgeois culture
surrealism claims to be a revolution for all, but cannot accomodate those who
fail to meet its sexual, racial, class-based criteria for inclusion
surrealism replicates the dominant bourgeois culture while claiming not to
iNTERNETTeD
qagi
<bar...@MagneticFields.org> adds the following to the body of human
wisdom,
>thought it might provoke some interesting discussion if i asked the same
>questions to the group:
>
>
>
The Doctor never comes
>how does dada differ from "surrealism"?
>
The Morning Star is The Morning Star
>what attracted you to "surrealism"?
>
homotopic love song- 1978
>under what circumstances did you first feel that attraction?
>
weakest link in the chain
>who were the "precursors to 'surrealism'" in you?
>
this could break a man's leg in three hundred places ie. in close earth
orbit.
>what do you hope to contribute to "surrealism"?
>
One day, when all the questions have been eaten.
--
qagi
a human being on a small blue planet